In an instant, I had crossed the floor to the adjoining door, but when I turned the handle, I found it locked.
I had leaned against the frame, bracing my palm on the wood.
“You’re not alone, Kitty. Not anymore. Even if you bolt the door every night, I’ll be here, waiting for you on the other side.”
The silence between us had buzzed with all that went unspoken.And though I couldn’t see her, I had felt her presence—afraid, distant, but still near.
She had not let me in.
And now, I could only wonder, what would I find this morning?
Downstairs, I found no sign of my wife. But as I turned toward the breakfast room, raised voices from the corridor halted my steps.
Julien and Grandfather.
I followed the sound to the study, where a little over a year before I had been summoned and ordered to marry Miss Grenville or lose everything. I paused at the doorway, the panel slightly ajar, and peered inside. Now Julien stood in my place, his posture tense, arms folded tight across his barrel chest as Grandfather paced before him with a cane in hand.
“You will not withhold rice from the workers again.” Grandfather slammed his cane against the edge of the teak desk. “Do you wish for another riot? Must I remind you what happened the last time someone let tempers flare among the port workers and sepoy guards?”
Julien shifted his wide-legged stance. “The crates weren’t sealed properly. I’ve every right to dock their pay.”
“Dock their pay?” Grandfather hissed. “You had them whipped, boy!”
I froze in the corridor’s shadow, bile rising in my throat.
Whipped?
I stilled outside the door, the words landing like a stone in my gut.
Julien let out a short, humorless laugh. “They were lazy and insolent. It’s no wonder we’ve fallen behind on the indigo shipments. And now we’ve a backlog of lacquer barrels as well—many of them cracked from being dropped.”
“The men are half-starved,” Grandfather growled. “You wantdiscipline, not mutiny. You treat them like dogs and wonder why they bite you.”
I knew that warehouse. No. 14 Clive Street wore the polished brick face of British respectability—but inside, a bloody murder had been quietly brushed beneath ledgers and lies. It was the place where Hugh had died in my stead.
I closed my eyes and gripped the doorframe, the weight of guilt anchoring me.
“Do you think the natives do not speak?” Grandfather’s voice rose again. “Even now the newspapers whisper of unrest. That blasted Carey and his converts stir up the laborers with talk of equity. You will not give them a reason to rally against us.”
Grandfather halted when he spied me.
Julien swore under his breath.
“I heard an argument,” I said. Best to curb Julien’s baser instincts before things truly got out of hand and he took out that temper on the staff within the Sinclair residence.
My younger brother had morphed into a near-perfect representation of Hugh. Big and hulking—the very sight filling me with more shame at how I had failed to be a better example. But while Hugh had been cold, Julien had turned cruel.
“And I would remind you of my wife. Surely we Sinclairs do not want to give a poor impression,” I added.
Foolish admonishment. She already thought so poorly of us. The memory of her tears last night brought a sickening twist of dread.
“Your wife,” Julien said with a sneer, “has left for the marketplace.Alone.I daresay you have no right to chide us when it appears she will not wait for you to accompany her.”
Dread fizzled into panic. My admonishment regarding the harsh treatment of the sepoy workers, the lack of rations—all would have to wait.
I spun on my heel and left.
The streets buzzed with life, a riot of color and sound as merchants shouted their wares and laborers hauled crates through the narrow alleys. I scanned the crowd, my height giving me some advantage, until at last a flash of her green gown caught my eye.
