None of them were innocent. All of them were plausible. She folded the list with steady hands. There was no question anymore, only direction. Sommer Chase was waiting.
She folded the paper again and slipped it into her sleeve, close to the pulse point beneath her wrist. As she turned toward the door, movement in the corner of her eye made her glance toward the hallway.
Mrs. Hemsley stood at the threshold, holding a tray with untouched tea. “You’ll be going out again, my lady?”
Georgina gave a single nod. “Soon.”
“Shall I have your coat brushed?”
She almost said no, then reconsidered. “Yes, thank you.” She handed the coat off, and watched as Mrs. Hemsley vanished down the hall, then collected the folio and the list of names. She did not linger.
When the door closed behind her moments later, it was with the same soft hush that had greeted her upon entry. The house did not press her to stay. It understood.
By the time she returned to Sommer Chase, the mist had thinned to ribbons along the hedgerows, and the path was drier beneath thecarriage’s wheels. She didn’t stop to greet anyone this time. The folio was in her hand, and the name on the list was no longer speculation. It was a place to start.
Georgina stepped through the study doorway at Sommer Chase just as the clock chimed once on the quarter hour. She carried the list and the folio in one hand, but her presence announced itself long before she spoke.
Alex looked up the moment she entered. His expression didn’t change much, but something eased behind his eyes. The tension that had lived in her chest since morning loosened in answer, the unspoken recognition passing between them like a shared breath. He straightened slowly, as though her return had restored something unspoken.
Her presence didn’t fill the room. It was rooted in it. Quiet, focused, unmistakable. It was not that she made others smaller. It was what made the work matter more.
“I found this,” Georgina said, crossing the carpet and extending the page. “It was among Rowland’s notes. Tucked between ledger entries. It matches the abbreviation Rowland flagged,R.T.S., and again, only a single initial,D.”
Alex took the page without hesitation, his fingers brushing hers briefly. The contact wasn’t prolonged, but it steadied something between them.
He unfolded the sheet and studied it in silence. Barrington leaned over his shoulder.
Georgina watched the line of his profile in the lamplight, the stillness of a man listening as much with instinct as intellect.
“Only the one initial,” Alex said. “No context?”
Georgina shook her head. “But I cross-referenced the names. There are three possibilities, Michael Dane, Charles Denholm, and Jonathan Drexler. All of them have surfaced in trade conversations before.”
Barrington gave a low whistle and stepped to the map. “That listnarrows the pool, but not enough to draw blood. We need confirmation.”
“And caution,” Alex added. “If Rowland didn’t name the man directly, he must’ve had reason to hold back.”
Georgina crossed to the desk and laid the folio beside the manifest. “It’s not proof. But it’s pressure. Someone wanted this trail hidden. Rowland tried to preserve it.”
Barrington looked at her, something softer in his gaze. “And you’ve uncovered it.”
Alex’s voice was quiet, steady. “You always knew how to read what wasn’t said.”
No one said anything after that. They didn’t need to.
The fire cracked once in the hearth, and the warmth of the study wrapped around them not like comfort, but clarity.
Barrington picked up the list. Georgina reached for the folio. And Alex stepped toward the window, watching as the last of the low clouds rolled back toward the sea.
Georgina let the quiet settle around her. She didn’t need a declaration or a plan. Still, some part of her wished the stillness would break not with words, but with the sound of his voice saying her name, low and certain, a promise shaped in air. This moment, standing shoulder to shoulder with men who respected her mind, was its own kind of reckoning. She hadn’t just followed the silence. She’d broken it. And in that breaking, the room breathed with her.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was nearlynoon by the time Georgina stepped back into the study at Sommer Chase. The sun had burned off most of the lingering mist, and the household had already settled into its steady rhythm. Fire crackled. Ink dried. And no one seemed particularly surprised to see her again.
Alex stood at the desk, sleeves rolled to the forearm, eyes sharp with thought. The folio lay open in front of him, a neat ring of annotations in his hand. Georgina joined him without fanfare, slipping her gloves into her pocket as she scanned the open manifest beside him.
The quiet between them had evolved. It had become a kind of language between them, fluent in pauses and glances, where meaning lived not in words but in the steadiness of being seen. It was no longer the silence of strangers working toward the same goal. It was familiar, undistracted, fluid, and unspoken.
