The silence that followed was unbearable.
Finally, she stepped to the door and opened it, her voice was a low ache. “Please go.”
“Mary-Ann—”
She looked at him, one last time. “You made me feel like I was too much to loveandtoo fragile to trust. That’s not love. That’s control.”
She hesitated, then added, more quietly, “That’s what Rodney does. He makes choices for me, then calls it care. Are you really any different?”
Quinton’s eyes darkened. “You can’t marry him.”
Mary-Ann didn’t flinch. “No? Then who else is left to choose me?”
He stepped forward, but she stopped him with a look that was clear, wounded, and resolute.
“Good-bye, Captain,” she said.
And when the latch clicked closed behind him, she didn’t move. Not right away. The silence was hers now, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like peace. It felt like an absence echoing through the room like the final click of a door left open too long.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sunday afternoon, thewind had shifted, bringing with it a strange urgency. The tea tray was perfect. Too perfect. The china gleamed, polished to a shine so fine it caught the firelight. The biscuits were still warm. Mary-Ann poured with steady hands, her movements graceful, practiced, like a woman untouched by grief or betrayal.
Mrs. Bainbridge noticed. She noticed everything.
“You’ve gone quiet,” she said, accepting the cup Mary-Ann handed her. “That always used to worry me.”
Mary-Ann smiled faintly. “No need to worry. It’s just tea.”
“Darling, if I believed that, I’d be wearing my yellow bonnet and not my walking boots.”
Mary-Ann took her own seat, her back straight. “I’m fine.”
“Of course you are,” Mrs. Bainbridge said lightly. “Because the man you grieved for three years came back, and instead of holding you, he handed you silence. That would make anyone feel whole again.”
The cup in Mary-Ann’s hand trembled.
She set it down. Slowly. Deliberately. And then she said, voice barely above a whisper, “He knew.”
Mrs. Bainbridge blinked. “Quinton?”
Mary-Ann nodded. “About everything. About the shipments. The symbol. The Order.”
Mrs. Bainbridge’s teacup clinked against its saucer as her hand trembled. “Oh my God.”
“I showed him the mark I found. I asked him what it meant.” Her voice was calm. Detached.Toodetached. “He told me it wasn’t safe to share. That Barrington had said—”
Mrs. Bainbridge didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
“He said it wasn’t about trust,” Mary-Ann continued, “but that’s all it has ever been about. And he failed it. I let myself believe I was safe with him,” she whispered. “Even after everything. Even after he looked right through me that first day, I told myself he’d come back to me. That he’d remember who we were. But he never did.”
Her eyes filled with tears, sudden and sharp, and she pressed her lips together tightly.
“I’ve had my privacy stripped away. My mail tampered with. My room searched. Every time I think I’ve clawed my way back to control, someone takes it from me.”
She turned her face away for a moment, blinking furiously, but a tear slipped free despite her will. She caught it with the back of her hand and took a breath so shallow it barely stirred her chest.
Mrs. Bainbridge’s voice was soft now. “My dear girl…”
