There was something off in the smile, too knowing, too sure.
“I see,” Mary-Ann said, her tone carefully neutral. “And I assume you’re familiar with my schedule?”
“As much as is proper, miss. Mr. Wilkinson was very clear.”
“I’m sure he was.”
Lydia tilted her head, clearly expecting agreement or gratitude.
Mary-Ann offered neither. Instead, she smiled softly. “Well, Miss Finch, I thank you for your eagerness. However, I will require some time this morning to review the correspondence. It’s a quiet task, and I’ve no need for assistance.”
“Very good, miss. I’ll be just in the next room, should you need anything.”
Mary-Ann offered a nod but did not retreat into the study at once. Instead, she turned down the corridor toward her father’s study, not the sitting room Lydia had likely expected. If the maid noted the change in direction, she said nothing. Mary-Ann stepped into her father’s study and waited until the door clicked shut behind her.
The study still carried a faint scent of pipe smoke and lavender wax polish, underscored by the quiet imprint of her father’s order and quiet diligence, everything knew its place. Mary-Ann stood by the hearth, the same place she had stood so many evenings when she was younger, watching him leaf through ledgers with ink-stained fingers and a furrowed brow. But now the fire was unlit, and the room seemed to echo with everything that had changed.
She crossed to the desk, absently touching the blotter, then glanced toward the door. She paused. Her gaze shifted to the far wall instead. She stared at it for several seconds, the corners of her mouth lifting just slightly. Of course.
There had always been another way.
She moved to the panel near the hearth, where the paint had warped ever so slightly over the years. With a soft press, the jibdoor gave way. She didn’t linger. Whatever comfort the room once held had turned hollow. As she stepped through the narrow passage, she paused just shy of the anteroom that opened behind the study.
From within, she paused at the antechamber jib door, catching the faint sound of light snoring. Lydia, it seemed, was less alert than she liked to appear.
A slow smile curved her lips. So, the woman made a habit of napping on duty. That was… useful.
She moved silently past, not disturbing a single floorboard, and followed the narrow path she had known well since childhood all the way upstairs and into her bed chamber.
She crossed her bedroom, her heart steady, her movements careful. The old ledger was still tucked on her shelf, disguised behind a row of dull, untouched volumes. She lifted it with care and turned to the wall beside the fireplace, the one with the faint seam in the wainscoting, just behind the dressing screen, a space she had discovered as a child, and which had kept its secret all these years.
With a firm press near the edge, the small compartment gave way.
For a moment, she feared it would be gone, that someone had discovered the hollow, and that when she opened the panel, she would find only dust. But the booklet was still there, plain and unassuming, yet pulsing with secrets. Relief and dread tangled in her chest.
She eased it out and settled at the desk, pulling the heavy drapes just enough to filter the morning light. She opened her private list of weight discrepancies, compiled weeks ago in neat, exacting columns, and began to cross-reference it with the entries marked by strange symbols in the back of the ledger.
Not all the symbols matched. Some were dots, slashes, or triangles, meaningless on their own. But then she saw it again.
The raven.
Drawn in hurried lines, wings outstretched over a diamond shape. Her breath caught for just a moment. The mark wasn’t random. It wasn’t decorative. It appeared beside three entries, each one tied to a shipment she had already flagged in her private notes. Two had passed through ships not listed in the official manifests.
This wasn’t theory anymore. It was proof.
Her fingers rested lightly on the page, as though any sudden motion might break the thread she’d just uncovered.
She flipped to another page. There it was again. This time, next to a name she didn’t recognize. Below it, another line: Percival Trent, in small, impersonal script.
She frowned, not because the name meant anything, but because so few of the entries had names at all. This one seemed oddly… tidy. She made no note of it and turned the page.
Beneath the entry, faintly, she saw another set of initials.
The handwriting had changed. It wasn’t her father’s, nor the loopy script Hamish had used. But it was familiar.
Wren.
She remembered the carved whalebone in her father’s desk. Wren had given it to Hamish years ago, and she now kept it tucked away on the mantel. A quiet token. She had never given it much thought until now.
