Georgina took a breath, held it, then let it go slowly. “And now?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached across the small table and took her hand. Her fingers curled against his. He brushed a smear of coal-dust from her knuckle with his thumb, an idle, tender motion that steadied her more than any words could.
“Now,” he said, “we wait for them to make their next mistake. And we finish this.”
She reached up and brushed her thumb along the small cut nearhis temple, a touch light enough to seem accidental but steady enough to make him still. For a heartbeat, the war outside the room ceased to exist.
The first time they’d stood together in conspiracy, she had feared what it might cost. Now, sitting across from him in the quiet morning light, she feared nothing at all.
She didn’t speak. But she didn’t let go either. For a moment, the house seemed to exhale with them, and in that shared stillness, she let herself picture mornings like this, small, ordinary, and utterly theirs.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Simms returned justpast midmorning, his coat damp from mist and travel, his boots stained with red earth.
Barrington and Alex met him in the front hall. Georgina stood halfway down the stairs, one hand resting on the banister.
“I found it,” Simms said, breath tight. “A farmhouse west of the ridge. Locked from the outside. No sign of recent occupation.”
“Anyone there?” Barrington asked.
“No. But someone wanted us to find it.” Simms handed over a small leather pouch. “Letters. Ledgers. Payment records. All organized. All very… neat.”
Alex opened the pouch and skimmed the top sheet. “It’s too clean.”
Georgina descended another step. “Clean?”
“Nothing here condemns anyone above Everly,” Alex said. “In fact, it paints him as the architect of the whole operation.”
Barrington’s jaw tightened. “They’re sealing the breach. Feeding us a narrative.”
“They want the story to end here,” Georgina said softly.
Simms gave a short nod. “There’s more. A second set of prints made by heavy boots. But no carriage tracks. They walked in. And out.”
“Someone watching?” Barrington asked.
“Not that I could see.”
Georgina crossed the hall, took the pouch from Alex’s hands, andstudied the papers inside. Her eyes scanned the entries, one after another.
“They left just enough truth to satisfy Edward,” she murmured. “And just enough fiction to protect the one who gave the orders.”
She looked up at them. “This isn’t a conclusion. It’s a warning. They’re telling us to stop.”
Alex met her gaze. “And if we don’t?”
Her fingers curled around the pouch. “Then we begin a war.”
Georgina, Barrington, Alex, and Mrs. Bainbridge gathered in the study an hour later. The documents were spread across the long walnut table, sorted by Simms with practiced efficiency.
Names. Dates. Codes. And silence.
“This looks exhaustive,” Mrs. Bainbridge said. “But it isn’t.”
“It’s smoke,” Barrington said. “Everything pointing inward toward Everly, toward those we’ve already taken down.”
Alex leaned over the table. “And none of it explains how they survived for so long, how they stayed funded. How did they remain hidden?”
