Outside, the sea breeze stirred the curtains, and the world beyond the window carried on as though nothing had changed.
But Mary-Ann knew better.
Everything had changed.
Chapter Four
The same morning,across town, the sun barely pierced the lingering mist. Quinton stood motionless, on the narrow gravel path outside Barrington’s house, Sommer Chase, not far from the stables. A fine dew coated everything in silver, quieting the world. The smell of the sea drifted on the breeze, briny and cool.
He took a breath, slow and deliberate, and let it burn its way down into his chest. He wasn’t sure what unsettled him more, that he’d survived or that he sometimes wished he hadn’t.
Sommer-by-the-Sea. It looked just as he remembered. But he was not the same man.
The door behind him creaked, and Barrington’s voice followed. “You’ll catch a chill standing out here like that.”
“I’ve been colder,” Quinton said without turning.
Barrington joined him on the path and offered him a mug of coffee. “Kenworth tells me you didn’t sleep.”
“I’m not used to beds.” He took a sip of the hot brew.
Barrington raised a brow. “Luxury clearly doesn’t suit you.”
Quinton shrugged. “Turns out, civilian linens are more cunning than French scouts.”
Barrington didn’t smile, though the corners of his mouth twitched. “You don’t have to talk about it, you know.”
“I know,” Quinton said quietly. “But I probably should.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes, the gravel crunching underfoot. Barrington didn’t press. Quinton could feel the man’s patience, honed like a blade over years ofcommand. It should’ve grated, but instead, it settled like a cloak across his shoulders. The kind of silence only a friend could offer.
“The gravel’s too tidy,” Quinton muttered. “Makes a man uneasy.”
Barrington arched a brow. “Kenworth considers it a matter of honor.”
“That explains the perfectly aligned rosebushes. My prison was more forgiving.” The smile on Quinton’s face faded.
Quinton’s coat was too thin, but he welcomed the bite of the morning air.
“I was scouting with a small unit of six men. We were to observe a suspected supply line east of Badajoz,” he began, his voice low and steady. “But someone was waiting for us. They knew our route. Our timing. Everything.”
Barrington’s brow furrowed. “An informant?”
“I thought so. Still do. We walked right into it. Three men were slain where they stood. Two more died later from their wounds.” He paused. “They took me alive. Bound, gagged, blindfolded. And then… nothing for days.”
Barrington was silent.
“They didn’t wear uniforms. They spoke French sometimes. English more often. One of them even had a London accent. They weren’t regular soldiers. I never saw a flag or heard an official name.”
“That’s not a French prison,” Barrington said.
“No. It was a house, secluded, rural, like something forgotten. The windows were shuttered, and the rooms were dim. I saw trees once. And a hedge maze, overgrown and still, as though no one had walked its paths in years.”
“No guards. No interrogations. Just silence.”
He didn’t say the rest aloud. No sounds of life. No bells, no footsteps outside, not even birdsong. Only the creak of thefloorboards and the sound of his own breath. The hedge maze he glimpsed once through a cracked shutter had looked overgrown, like something forgotten. Like him.
He could remember watching the leaves turn brown, wondering how many seasons had passed. The image still haunted him, tangled vines, narrowing paths, no clear exit, just like the feeling that hadn’t yet left him.
