Page 37 of A Vow for the Viscount
“Rodney stopped by the office again yesterday,” her father said, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “Went over the shipment receipts from last quarter. He took quite an interest in the reweigh totals. Thought they were off.”
Mary-Ann’s spine straightened. “Rodney?”
“Mm,” her father said, pouring another cup of coffee. “Smart man, that one. He reminds me of your uncle in his younger years. Curious about the right things.”
She managed a smile, but it felt thin. “Has he been helping with the books long?”
“Oh, on and off,” her father said. “Only when he asks. I’ve given him leave to familiarize himself with the business. Once you’re married, it’ll be part his, too.”
He took another sip of coffee, then added, “In fact, it might be a good time for you to step back from the ledgers and the office work.” Rodney mentioned you’ve been looking a touch worn. He says you’re always scribbling in margins, always with ink on your hands.”
Mary-Ann blinked. “Did he.”
Her father chuckled, clearly amused. “He meant it kindly. You’ll have other duties soon enough. The wife of Rodney Wilkinson will be managing invitations and estates, not shipping weights and dock figures. You’ve done your share already. No one could say otherwise.”
Mary-Ann looked down at her toast. She wasn’t hungry. Not for food. Not for assumptions disguised as certainties. The toast had gone cold. Her fingers brushed her palm absently, and she noticed a faint trace of ink smudged near her thumb, left from her notes the night before, no doubt. She rubbed it with her napkin, but the mark only faded. It didn’t disappear. Like the life she’d built, it clung. She wasn’t ashamed of it. She had never been. But suddenly, she saw it for what it was: the thing Rodney wanted erased.
She remembered the first time Rodney had offered to help with the books. He’d come into the office with a bouquet of roses and a quick smile, claiming he wanted to understand her world. She’d welcomed the gesture then. She was even grateful for his interest. But what followed hadn’t been help. It had been an oversight. He’d asked questions, yes, but offered unsolicited advice just as quickly. One afternoon, he’d reached for her ledger with a freshly gloved hand and laughed when she pulled it back. “Careful, love,” he’d said. “You’ll get ink on the upholstery.”
At the time, she’d forced a laugh and let the moment pass. But it came back to her now, sharp and unwelcome.
She excused herself quietly, pressing a kiss to her father’s cheek before retreating from the room. But as she reached the door, she hesitated. Her father had once sat with her at this same table, guiding her through invoices and balance sheets, explaining how to double-check reweigh records and where to look for losses. She had earned his trust through diligence, not inheritance. And yet here he sat, handing the reins to someone else. Not because he no longer believed in her but because he no longer saw her. Not fully. She wondered if he noticed how little she came to the office these days. Or how often Rodney spoke for her without asking.
She glanced back once. He was buttering another slice of toast, humming softly under his breath. Content. Unworried. It was the most ordinary thing in the world, and it made her chest ache.
Her footsteps echoed too crisply against the floorboards. Upstairs, in the quiet of her room, she unpinned her hair with trembling fingers and crossed to the window seat. The view stretched out toward the sea, distant and still. A glint of sun touched the water, indifferent to the ache behind her ribs.
The kiss was still with her. Not just the sensation but the meaning. It hadn’t been a mistake. And yet, her father’s voice echoed in her mind, “Once you’re married, it’ll be part his, too.” The words sat like a stone in her chest. Rodney was not unkind. He was clever and capable. But the way her father spoke, it was as if her life were already sorted into ledgers and forecasts, promises drafted on her behalf.
And Quinton… he hadn’t asked for promises. He hadn’t asked for anything. He had simply stood there, steady and sure, and kissed her as if it were the only truth they had left.
Her gaze drifted to the wall just beside her wardrobe. Slowly, she rose, crossed the room, and knelt before the small seam in the wainscoting. Her fingers found the loosened panel easily now. Behind it, the booklet waited, its cloth cover frayed and colorless in the dim morning light. She hesitated for a breath. The first time she’d found it, she’d nearly dismissed it as just another forgotten receipt log. It wasn’t until she noticed the unfamiliar hand and the strange notations that she realized this wasn’t meant for anyone else’s eyes.
The cloth was rough beneath her fingers, worn soft at the corners like an old handkerchief. She pulled it out and returned to the window seat, placing the worn folio across her knees like a secret only she had earned the right to carry. The booklet felt heavier today. As though it knew it was being seen differently.
She opened to the torn message, her thumb brushing lightly over the faded ink. The edges were still jagged, as though whatever truth it carried had been yanked out too quickly.
Don’t trust the man with clean hands.
Each time she read it, the words took on a new shape. Today, they echoed differently because Rodney had always had clean hands. Immaculate boots. A pristine cravat. And now he was reviewing shipments. Alone. Without her knowledge.
She turned the paper over as if the back might suddenly yield more. But there was nothing. Just the pulse behind her temples and the slow, steady realization that she could no longer pretend not to see what she had always been too careful to name.
A knock came at the front door, measured and familiar. Moments later, Hollis’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. A quiet rap, then his voice through the door: “A note for you, miss. From Lord Barrington.”
She rose to take it, smoothing the paper between her fingers. Hollis bowed slightly before he left, and she returned to the window. The note was folded precisely, its seal intact,and the handwriting firm, clean, unmistakably deliberate, and unmistakably Barrington’s. She broke the seal and read the line once, then again, each word sharpening the air around her.
Had Quinton asked him to write it? Or had Barrington acted on his own, sensing her hesitation, her need to be brought into the fold? She didn’t know. But she was grateful either way. Barrington, for all his dry reserve and formality, had never looked at her like she didn’t belong. And that, today, felt like something close to loyalty.
Mary-Ann folded the note with care. The ache in her chest hadn’t eased, but her purpose had sharpened. She crossed to her writing desk, tucked the message into a drawer, and rested her palm briefly on its smooth wooden edge. For a moment, she let herself look at the small drawer beneath where she still kept old manifests and the odd receipt written in Hamish’s familiar looping hand. A torn corner of paper peeked out, and she tucked it gently back into place.
Her fingers lingered there. How many hours had she spent here, doing the work no one else bothered with? Sorting figures, deciphering notes, and building the quiet foundation that had kept her father’s business from slipping into confusion, especially now that Hamish had passed away? She wasn’t a girl with ink-stained hands. She was a woman who had held the seams of a legacy together.
She straightened slowly, her shawl falling back into place across her shoulders. The ache was still there, but she didn’t flinch from it. Not now. She crossed to the window once more and let her gaze drift across the town below. From here, it all looked unchanged, chimneys rising, smoke curling, roofs glinting in the sun. But something in her had shifted. She wasn’t waiting anymore. Not for her father to see her, not for Rodney to step aside, not even for Quinton to speak first. This was her life.Her family. Her legacy. And she would not be written out of it quietly.
And perhaps she’d ask Mrs. Bainbridge about Professor Tresham’s latest visit…
She thought of her mother then, strong-willed, soft-voiced. “Don’t ever let anyone marry you out of your name,” she’d once said while pinning up her hair. “If you lose your name, you’d better gain something stronger.”
