Merchant’s Son Humiliated an Apprentice — But Her Father Owned the Trading House
Chapter 2
By sunset, Elias had forgotten the incident.
Anna had not.
She stayed late in the counting room, carefully rewriting the damaged ledger.
Outside, carts rattled over the cobblestones. Sailors shouted along the docks. The smell of salt, tar, wet rope, and coal smoke drifted through the open windows.
Anna dipped her pen into the ink.
She knew she had made an enemy.
That did not frighten her.
What frightened her was why Jonathan Hawthorne had looked at her as if he knew something.
At the bottom of the ledger, she found another discrepancy.
This one was larger.
A payment had been made to a warehouse in Portsmouth.
But the warehouse did not exist.
Anna frowned.
She checked the date.
Then the name of the ship.
Then the signature.
Her fingers stopped.
The signature belonged to Jonathan Hawthorne.
Anna stared at it.
She knew that name better than anyone in Greyhaven.
Not because he was wealthy.
Because her father had spoken of him for years.
Her father had always told her the same thing:
“Never judge a man by his coat, Anna. Judge him by what he does when no one is watching.”
She had never understood why he said it whenever the Hawthorne name was mentioned.
Now she wondered.
Footsteps sounded behind her.
Anna quickly closed the ledger.
Elias stood in the doorway.
“Still working?”
“Yes.”
He walked inside.
“You know, most apprentices go home when the workday ends.”
“I was fixing the account.”
“I heard.”
His tone was different.
Less mocking.
More dangerous.
Elias approached the desk.
“You embarrassed me this morning.”
Anna looked at him.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Intent doesn’t matter.”
He leaned against the table.
“People like you should understand something. Men like my father built this house. Men like me will inherit it.”
Anna remained silent.
“You are temporary.”
His eyes moved over her worn dress.
“You’ll leave when the season ends, find another house, marry some farmer, and forget this place.”
Anna closed the ledger.
“My future is not yours to decide.”
Elias smiled.
“Everything in Greyhaven has a price.”
“Perhaps.”
“And everything has an owner.”
Anna looked directly at him.
“Not everything.”
His smile disappeared.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Anna stood.
“I’ll finish the ledger tomorrow.”
She walked past him.
Elias watched her leave.
He did not know that the ledger she had just closed contained the first clue to a secret his father had spent twenty years burying.
And he certainly did not know that Anna’s father was already on his way to Greyhaven.
