He leaned back in his chair, eyes closing briefly. There had been no books, no flowers, no comfort. Only silence and what he could summon from within. The soft lilt of Mary-Ann’s voice. The curve of her smile. He remembered one summer evening. Mary-Ann was reading aloud by lamplight, stumbling over a word only to laugh and make up a new one entirely. That laugh had stayed with him longer than any scripture or sermon.
They had come to him not as ghosts but as lifelines. He didn’t need relics to remember her. He didn’t need pages or portraits. She was there, stitched into his memory with a thread no time could fray. He had remembered despite everything.
If she had waited, if the letter had come, would they already be married? Would he have avoided the long nights filled with nothing but stone and silence?
He shook the thought away. The truth was, they were both changed. But perhaps the pieces still fit, just differently than before.
He stood and crossed to the small washstand, splashing cool water on his face. The simple ritual helped him shake loose the weight of reflection, though it didn’t lighten the pressure in his chest. As he reached for a towel, he caught sight of his own face in the mirror, a face that bore shadows deeper than time could smooth. There was a pale streak near his temple that hadn’t been there before. A ghost of the years he’d lived but not lived through.
There were moments in the prison camp when he hadn’t expected to see his own reflection again. He’d prepared himself for death more than once, and when hope faded, it was the memory of Mary-Ann’s laughter, bright, sudden, impossible to bottle, that had called him back.
He no longer looked like the man who’d left for war. There was steel in his jaw now and quiet defiance in his eyes. He had faced silence, starvation, and solitude and survived. This wasn’ta return. It was a reckoning. And if the world expected him to pick up his old life as though nothing had changed, they would be mistaken. He would not simply drift back into place.
There were questions to ask and truths to uncover. And somewhere, woven between every silence, every unanswered letter, every breath he’d fought to hold, was Mary-Ann.
He returned to the desk and picked up the pen again, holding it above the blank page. Not yet. But soon. Because he wasn’t about to let the silence that had once swallowed him do it again.
Not while there were still words to speak. Not while Mary-Ann remained part of the story that was unfinished.
Chapter Thirteen
That evening, astwilight softly draped the land, they approached the castle. Sommer Castle, with its towering arched windows and weathered stone walls, had stood vacant for generations until the town of Sommer-by-the-Sea reclaimed it for public gatherings. The soft golden light poured from its many windows as footmen flanked the arched entry, guiding guests into the great hall beyond. The castle’s cavernous interior had been transformed. Heavy floral arrangements perfumed the air, tables were set with polished silver and crystal, and musicians from Brighton played in the gallery above the stairs.
Quinton stood just inside the main entrance, adjusting the cuffs of his coat. He hadn’t attended a proper dinner in years, and the formality of the setting felt almost foreign. He took in the high, vaulted ceiling and the sheen of hundreds of candles. Against the backdrop of laughter and music, he felt oddly removed, as though he watched from the edge of someone else’s memory.
He was deliberately early. He had learned, during his years away, that control was often found in the quiet moments before chaos began. He scanned the crowd, searching for nothing and everything. His pulse quickened despite himself.
A pair of officers passed near the entrance, pausing to greet a cluster of older gentlemen by the brandy station. One of them, tall and silver-haired at the temples, with an easy manner anda distinct military posture, shook hands with the mayor and clapped a steward on the back.
“Colonel Gideon Rathbone,” Barrington said beside him, noting Quinton’s glance. “Retired now. Served with distinction in the Channel squadrons. One of the few Ordnance men people still trust.”
Quinton nodded faintly, unable to place the name, though the voice stirred something distant. “Seems well liked.”
“He is,” Barrington said. “And loyal to the last. I wish we had more like him. They’ve done well with the castle,” he said as he glanced around. “I remember when this place was home to nothing but bats.”
Quinton gave a faint smile. “It still feels more suited to armor and ghosts.”
Barrington chuckled. “And yet here we are, drinking claret and supporting lifeboats.”
“All this for lifeboats,” Quinton murmured, scanning the floral arrangements and polished silver.
Barrington huffed a quiet laugh. “The Lifeboat Trust was the matrons’ doing. A trio of sharp-eyed women with a gift for stirring hearts and emptying pockets. Don’t let their lace gloves fool you. They could fund a fleet if they chose.”
“Is it working?”
“Tonight’s meant to restore the rescue skiffs and train more volunteers. After the last storm, they decided Sommer-by-the-Sea needed better protection.” He gestured at the crowded room. “Judging by the attendance, they were right. The castle isn’t used often, but when it is, the attendance proves them right.”
“You’ll see Professor Tresham tonight,” Barrington added. “The mathematician from Oxford. He’s here to support the trust’s academic scholarship fund.”
Quinton glanced at the crowd. “Will Mrs. Bainbridge be here tonight?”
Barrington gave a resigned nod. “Most definitely. The matrons placed her at the center of their seating chart. Something about honoring ‘local academic heroines.’”
“And Mary-Ann?”
“Honoria mentioned that she accepted the invitation. That’s all I know.”
Quinton looked toward the grand staircase, where new arrivals were being announced. The press of movement stirred something tense in his chest. It was one thing to think of her. it was another to see her again.
