Elizabeth’s blood turned to ice… just slightly.
His gaze flickered over her, and he smiled. “Yes,” he said softly. “I thought so. You really…trulyknow… nothing. Is that right? Found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, did you not?”
The scarred man shifted beside him, but Elizabeth barely noticed. Her heart pounded, not in fear, but in cold, sharp calculation.
At least they knew now that she was not who they thought she was. They would stop demanding that she do heaven-knew-what with things she did not have anymore. That was something.
But the relief was fleeting. A breath, half-formed, before the weight of realization crashed down like a stone in her stomach.
Now, she had no value to them at all. No use. No leverage.
Just a loose end.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Darcy stepped off thecarriage before it had fully stopped, his boots striking the cobbled street outside Gardiner’s Cheapside office with impatience. The street smelled of damp wool and horse, the air thick with the mingling sounds of market traders and the distant clang of the docks. He barely noticed. His mind was singular in its focus.
There was no escaping the conclusion that Elizabeth had been taken.
His gut twisted with the thought. Was she harmed? Afraid? Beaten, perhaps, or even… Heaven forbid worse!
He shoved the fears aside. This was not a moment for panic, nor for wild speculation. None of those would help her now. He needed information. He needed action.
Gardiner’s office was modest but well-ordered, positioned near the heart of London’s trade district. As Darcy strode through the entrance, he noted the clerks glancing up from their ledgers, their quills hesitating over the pages. They knew something was amiss.
Richard was a step behind him, sweeping his gaze over every corner of the room, and probably noticing things Darcy would have missed. Gardiner was already inside, bent over his desk, rifling through stacks of paperwork with increasing frustration.
“Nothing!” Gardiner muttered, running a hand through his thinning hair. “Not a single notation that should not be here.”
Darcy did not answer immediately. His gaze swept over the office, the shelves lined with neat ledgers, the blotter on Gardiner’s desk pristine except for the scattering of pages now in disarray.
Richard looked around. “It is unlikely you would find something so blatant, Gardiner. If someone in your employ has been moving prisoners under your name, they are not fool enough to leave an invoice for it.”
Gardiner’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “I run an honest business, Colonel. I have never—” He stopped, exhaling through his nose before looking back at the ledger. “I have never so much as miscounted a barrel. I only purchased theEleanorabout twoyears ago, and theMercyabout three months later, but I hired honest men. I wouldknowif my ships were being used for such things.”
Richard held up his hands in a placating gesture. “No one is accusing you, sir. But someone is using your name, and we must find out who.”
Darcy, meanwhile, had crossed to the desk. He tapped one of the ledgers on top, flipping it open. His gaze moved swiftly down the page, scanning columns of figures.
“These shipments,” he said at last. “Here. These wool consignments—what do you know of them?”
Gardiner leaned forward. “I just examined those—they are routine. Large orders for mills in the north. I have been shipping textiles for over a decade.”
“Then why,” Darcy asked, tapping another section of the page, “does this shipment mark an irregular departure? Look—your records show a wool consignment sent from your warehouse in Southwark on the twenty-sixth. The shipment on the twenty-ninth, however, bears no corresponding invoice for goods received.”
Gardiner’s brow furrowed. “That is impossible. Every shipment has an invoice.”
Richard took the ledger from Darcy’s hand, examining the entries. “Then where is it?”
Gardiner’s jaw tensed. He turned sharply toward one of his clerks. “Summon Turner at once.”
The young clerk scurried out, and for a moment, silence settled over the room. Then, footsteps returned, and a tall, balding man with ink-stained fingers stepped into the office.
“Mr. Gardiner,” Turner greeted, eyes flicking warily between the assembled men. “You requested me?”
Gardiner wasted no time. “What do you know of the shipment on the twenty-ninth? The wool consignment?”
Turner hesitated, adjusting his spectacles. “It left as scheduled, sir. The records should reflect—”
