Page 33 of A Vow for the Viscount
Crews were only just beginning to stir. Voices drifted across the moored ships, threaded through the creak of timber and the sharp clang of a dropped chain.
He paused near a stack of crates labeled forMontrose & Co., scanning the activity. The rhythm of the port hadn’t changed. But something beneath it had. A ship he once knew,The Redwake, sat moored in the far berth, sails furled like resting wings. He didn’t recognize the crew. A younger man stood where Old Thatch used to smoke his pipe, and the deck boards had been replaced. They were newer and brighter but stripped of memory. He could feel it, the way certain men fell quiet when he passed, how foremen stood a little straighter, how glances darted and turned away too quickly.
Barrington had mentioned a name: Lyle Merton. A dockhand, formerly under Wilkinson’s clerk, now worked odd hours and showed up on manifests without clear assignments. Quinton had marked the name and the habit. Men didn’t wander into extra labor without a reason, not when hours were tallied with precision and pay was tight.
He spotted a figure near the edge of the quay, sorting lengths of rope into loops far too tidy for the hour. Broad-shouldered, close-cropped hair, a faded blue cap.
Quinton approached slowly, keeping his hands visible and his voice low. “Merton?”
The man glanced up. “Aye.”
“Captain Hollingsworth,” she said evenly “Just quiet inquiries today.”
Merton looked him over, then returned to his ropes. His hands moved more slowly now, the loops less precise. He didn’t meet Quinton’s gaze. There was wariness in the tightness of his jaw, the careful way he chose each motion as if he were buying himself time. “Ain’t much to say.”
“You worked under a man named Crowley?”
A pause. Just long enough.
“For a bit. He left.”
“And Wilkinson?”
Another pause. The rope slipped slightly in his grip. “Still around. Big plans.”
Quinton raised a brow. “Barrington said he rarely shows his face down here.”
Merton shrugged. “Now and then. Mostly keeps to the ledgers. Not much use for wet boots.”
Quinton let the silence stretch, then nodded once and stepped back. “Thank you.”
As he turned to go, Merton added, almost too quietly: “Some things don’t get written down, sir.”
Quinton didn’t reply, but the words stuck. It was the kind of thing a man only said when the truth was more dangerous than silence. Quinton didn’t press. Not here. Not with eyes watching and boots echoing off wet planks. But the knot behind his ribs tightened. This wasn’t misfiled cargo or ledger mistakes. This was something people were afraid of. Something someone had worked hard to bury.
*
Mary-Ann lifted thelid on a tin of oat biscuits and peered inside with something close to dread.
Empty.
Bainbridge’s arrival had been sudden and, as always, noisy. The front door had barely shut before her voice filled the hall, followed by the unmistakable rustle of paper patterns, clinking buttons in a tin, and an exasperated rustle of fabric that sounded like a battle standard being unfurled. She now occupied the best chair by the fire, arms draped in swaths of ivory and pale green fabric.
“It’s a disaster,” Bainbridge said mournfully. “I wanted the green for the ribbons, not the sleeves. And now I have a dozen yards of the wrong fabric, and none of the right, and the modiste insists I agreed to this shade,this shade, Mary. Look at it. It’s like over-steeped tea.”
Mary-Ann set the tin down and leaned against the sideboard, a smile tugging at the edge of her mouth despite the hollowness still lingering in her chest.
“Can’t you repurpose it for bows? Or table runners?”
Bainbridge sighed. “Perhaps. If I don’t burn it first.”
She tossed one bolt of fabric onto the settee and reached for her tea. “You’re distracted.”
Mary-Ann blinked. “Am I?”
“You haven’t said a word about my dramatic reversal of fortune. Usually, you at least pretend to be impressed.”
Mary-Ann smoothed the fabric between her fingers, watching the way the light caught the dull sheen. “I’m sorry. I didn’t sleep well.”
