She didn’t go far. At the base of the stairs, Mary-Ann paused beside the tall front window. Sunlight spilled across the polished floor, gilding the quiet edges of the morning. She touched the windowsill, absently tracing the grain of the wood.
The boys had gone searching for dragons, but someone had been there first. Someone connected to the Redwake. And Quinton…
He had warned her to be careful. Not out of habit, not protectively, but because he knew something he hadn’t yet said. She pressed her hand to the cool glass.Not yet,he’d told her.
He hadn’t told her everything. That much was clear. But he hadn’t lied either. Not with his eyes. Not with his silence.
He’d tried to protect her. She didn’t doubt that. But what he hadn’t said might matter more than what he had.
And the trouble was… she believed him.
But belief was not the same as surrender. She didn’t need reassurance. She needed proof.
She could feel the shape of something forming, subtle as a bruise beneath the surface. It was in the letters, the ships, the stories no one finished. A shadow pulling at every thread.
She would find the next piece. Quietly. Just long enough to get close.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tuesday morning, sunlightstreamed through the parlor windows as Mrs. Bainbridge declared war on the guest list “I simply cannot send invitations to a wedding that doesn’t exist yet.” Mrs. Bainbridge dropped a folio of pressed writing paper onto the table like a general slamming down a campaign map. Cream and ivory sheets, each bearing a different hand-pressed border or embossed crest. None of it would matter until a date and venue were decided.
“I have a cousin who was married in the rain,” she added. She had planned for sunshine and roses, but ended up with mud and mildew.Do you know what saved it?”
Mary-Ann smiled faintly. “Love?”
“Cloaks and parasols,” Mrs. Bainbridge declared. “The footmen dashed out with anything they could find, shawls, rugs, parasols from the drawing room. The guests were half-drowned and laughing like sailors. But the poor girl never forgave the weather, or her mother.”
Mary-Ann stifled a laugh. “You sound prepared for anything.”
“I was,” she said. “Until I met him. Barrington rearranged every plan I’d ever made just by standing still long enough to be admired.”
There was a pause, not quite tender but close enough. Then Mrs. Bainbridge sniffed and resumed flipping through the paper as if nothing at all had been confessed.
Mary-Ann, seated near the window, offered a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure the delay is only temporary.”
“Temporary,” Mrs. Bainbridge echoed. She tossed the word into the air like a handkerchief with a tear in it. “You say that as if it means anything. As if Barrington isn’t dodging my questions with the same skill he once used to avoid his mother’s pianoforte recitals.”
Mary-Ann tried for a soothing tone. “I’m sure he’s not dodging.”
“He’s strategizing,” Lydia added sweetly, gliding in with a small tray of tea as if summoned by gossip. “It’s a sign of a thoughtful man.”
Mrs. Bainbridge blinked, her brows lifting. “Is it?”
Mary-Ann bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.
“I have two homes in London,” Mrs. Bainbridge declared, gesturing broadly, though she ignored the tea tray entirely. “His lordship has one. Perfectly suitable, and yet he says he’s considering something else.”
“What else?” Mary-Ann asked, leaning forward slightly.
Mrs. Bainbridge sighed, the kind of sigh that summoned storms. “Rosalynde Bay.”
That caught Mary-Ann off guard. She blinked. “Truly?”
“Where we met, he says.Where it all began.”
“That’s… rather romantic.” Lydia offered.
“It is also,” Mrs. Bainbridge said, slicing the air with one hand, “miles from anywhere, and entirely unsuitable for a guest list that includes no fewer than two duchesses and one very inconvenient baroness who is allergic to sea air.”
