The Reluctant Countess

Chapter Fourteen: The Docks

James had never had much occasion to visit the London docks before Aniya, and he found, on his first proper walk through them at her side, that they suited her in a way the drawing rooms of Mayfair never quite had. She moved through the noise and the crowded wharves with an ease he rarely saw in her at society events — greeting warehouse clerks by name, inspecting a shipment of tea with the same sharp, assessing eye she’d once turned on him in her father’s drawing room, entirely unbothered by the stares a countess drew, wandering the docks in a plain traveling coat rather than silk.

He asked her, watching her check a ledger against a manifest with brisk efficiency, why she’d never mentioned how much she loved this part of the business. She considered the question seriously before answering — admitted that she rarely got the chance to be here anymore, now that London society expected a countess to occupy herself with drawing rooms and correspondence rather than cargo manifests, and that she’d missed it more than she’d let herself admit, these past two years.

James found himself, not for the first time, quietly furious on her behalf at a world that had decided a woman with her particular gifts belonged behind a tea service rather than a ledger. He told her, plainly, that whatever she needed to do here, whatever time it required, he’d make certain Wentmoor managed without her for as long as necessary — that he had no intention of being the kind of husband who clipped his wife’s wings simply because society expected a countess to stay decoratively at home.

Aniya looked up at that with an expression he’d come to recognize well over two years of marriage — the particular softness she rarely showed anyone but him, the one that undid him a little, every time. She told him that was, without exaggeration, one of the kinder things anyone had ever said to her, and that she loved him rather considerably for it.

He kissed her right there on the crowded dock, in full view of clerks and dockworkers and at least one startled gull, and didn’t much care who saw.

It was later that same afternoon that they finally encountered Sedgwick himself — a tall, immaculately dressed man who approached the Rao company’s warehouse with the unhurried confidence of someone entirely accustomed to getting his way. He introduced himself with excessive courtesy, complimented Mr. Rao’s operation with the particular condescension of a man who considered himself several rungs above the person he was complimenting, and inquired, with studied casualness, whether the family might be interested in discussing a merger — his company’s resources combined with the Rao family’s established relationships in the region, a partnership that would, he assured them, benefit everyone considerably.

Aniya’s father, courteous but unmoved, thanked him for the offer and declined, citing no particular need to merge a company that was managing perfectly well on its own. Sedgwick’s smile didn’t waver, but something behind his eyes went cold in a way James recognized immediately — the exact same flicker he’d seen in his uncle’s face, once, the moment a polite request had been refused and the mask had briefly slipped to reveal the calculation underneath.

Sedgwick said, with the same unbothered courtesy, that he understood entirely, and hoped Mr. Rao wouldn’t come to regret the decision — a sentence that managed to sound, despite every word of it being perfectly civil, like a threat dressed in a gentleman’s clothing.

He turned to leave, then paused, and let his gaze settle deliberately on Aniya — assessing her the way, once, she herself had assessed James in her father’s drawing room, though there was nothing of James’s honest bluntness in it, only a cold, calculating interest that made James’s hand find the small of her back without conscious thought, a small, instinctive claim of solidarity that Sedgwick’s eyes tracked with obvious, unhurried interest.

He remarked, mildly, that he’d heard a great deal about the Countess of Wentmoor — her sharp mind, her unusual involvement in her father’s affairs for a woman of her position — and that he looked forward, he said, to becoming rather better acquainted with the whole family in the coming season.

Then he was gone, leaving behind him a warehouse gone very quiet, and a feeling James couldn’t quite shake that they’d just met an adversary considerably more dangerous than Charles Ashworth had ever managed to be.

That night, in the town house, Aniya sat very still at her dressing table while James stood behind her, hands resting on her shoulders, both of them turning Sedgwick’s visit over in silence before either spoke. She said, finally, that she didn’t like the way he’d looked at her — not admiration, not even simple threat, but something closer to a man cataloguing a weakness he intended to use later.

James told her, with quiet certainty, that whatever Sedgwick intended, he wouldn’t face it alone this time either — not her father, not her, not any of them. They’d learned, this past year, exactly how to fight a man who mistook their family for an easy target. Sedgwick would learn the same lesson Charles had, however much longer it took him to understand it.

Aniya reached up and covered his hand with her own, and told him she believed that completely — and that whatever came next, she was, for the first time in her life, entirely unafraid to fight it, because she wasn’t fighting it alone anymore.

James pressed a kiss to the top of her head and thought, watching her reflection in the mirror, that whatever Sedgwick turned out to be, he was about to discover exactly how formidable the two of them were, together.