“There is no invoice.”
Turner paled slightly. “That... that cannot be.”
Richard closed the ledger with a sharp snap. “Tell me, Turner. Who oversaw the shipment?”
Turner swallowed. “Miss Fletcher recorded the documentation, sir. Mrs. Gardiner's assistant.”
Gardiner paled. “Anne Fletcher?”
Turner nodded. “Yes, sir. Since Mrs. Gardiner often manages some of your ledgers, she had Miss Fletcher take on small clerical duties to lighten her burden. She handled invoices, correspondences... logging shipments.”
Richard glanced at Darcy, then back at Gardiner. “So, she had access to all records?”
Turner nodded. “Yes, Colonel. And more than that—she was the one who received all the cloth invoices—linen, satin, wool, all of it—from the warehouse before passing them on to Mrs. Gardiner.”
Richard exchanged a glance with Darcy. “Where is she now?”
Gardiner turned toward the door. “She left this morning. I understand Mrs. Gardiner granted her a se’nnight’s leave to visit her family in Lincolnshire.” His face had gone ashen. “I expect she left… shortly after Elizabeth.”
A heavy silence filled the room.
Darcy felt a slow, simmering rage coil in his chest. It had not been Elizabeth. It hadneverbeen Elizabeth. They had mistaken her for another woman entirely.
And now they had her.
“We need to move,” he said coldly.
Richard nodded. “The warehouses first. If they have used Gardiner’s company to move prisoners, there may still be evidence there.”
Gardiner grabbed his coat, his face set. “I am coming with you.”
The first thing Elizabethbecame aware of was the sharp, pulsing ache at the side of her head. The pain throbbed in time with her heartbeat, radiating outward in waves. The second was the sting of cold air against her skin, its damp bite seeping through her clothes.
How long had she been unconscious?
She forced herself to remain still, swallowing the instinctive urge to move. The last thing she remembered was struggling again—another attempt at escape, her fingers scraping against the wooden window ledge, hands grabbing her from behind, the sharp twist of her arm, and then—pain. Slowly, she eased her fingers up to the base of her skull, and felt the cold, sticky mass stuck in her hair.Blood. She had been bleeding.
Had they struck her? It seemed likely. The memory was hazy at the edges, but her head told the story well enough.
Slowly, she tested her surroundings without opening her eyes. The surface beneath her was wooden, rough and uneven. Not stone. Not a fine-walled townhouse. She was no longer in the room where she had been kept before.
They had moved her.
The air was thick with salt and damp wood, mingling with something acrid—tar, perhaps, or oil. Nearby, water lapped steadily against something hollow. A dock. A warehouse. A ship.
The faint creak of timber above her confirmed it—not the rolling sway of a vessel at sea, but the settling groan of a structure built too close to the water.
She slowed her breathing, listening.
Somewhere close by—it sounded like behind a wall or a door—voices murmured in low, angry tones. They were arguing about something.
She had not been meant to overhear this.
So, she listened.
She remained still, forcing her breathing to stay even. Somewhere beyond her, voices murmured—low, urgent, but not panicked. She listened carefully, piecing together fragments of their conversation.
“…not what we agreed to.” A man’s voice—gruff, impatient.
