Merchant’s Son Humiliated an Apprentice — But Her Father Owned the Trading House
Chapter 5
Anna hurried to the door.
She pulled the handle.
Nothing.
“Hello?”
No answer.
She tried again.
The lock held.
Outside, footsteps passed.
Anna struck the door.
“Open this!”
Still nothing.
Her eyes moved around the darkened room.
Then she saw the window.
It was narrow, but large enough.
She pushed it open.
Cold night air rushed inside.
The drop to the courtyard was dangerous.
But staying was worse.
Anna climbed onto the sill.
Her skirt caught on a nail.
She tore it free and lowered herself onto the stone ledge below.
Then she heard voices.
Two men were speaking in the alley.
“She found the book.”
“Then we have a problem.”
“Her father?”
“No. The girl.”
Anna froze.
One voice belonged to a man she had seen in the counting house.
Thomas Bell, the senior bookkeeper.
The second man was unfamiliar.
“We should frighten her.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because Hawthorne wants the matter handled quietly.”
Anna’s heart pounded.
She waited until they left.
Then she slipped into the alley.
The old customs warehouse stood at the far end of the harbor.
She reached it just before midnight.
The building was abandoned, its wooden doors hanging crookedly from rusted hinges.
Inside, moonlight fell through broken roof boards.
Anna searched beneath piles of rotten rope and crates.
Nothing.
Then she remembered the note.
Original account book.
She looked toward the old weighing platform.
A loose stone caught her eye.
Anna knelt.
She pulled it free.
Beneath it was a wooden box.
Inside lay an old account book wrapped in oilcloth.
Her hands trembled as she opened it.
The entries were twenty years old.
They proved that goods had been stolen from Samuel Whitmore’s family business.
But there was more.
Names.
Payments.
Signatures.
And beside one payment, a note:
Hawthorne was not the organizer. He was forced to cooperate.
Anna stopped breathing.
Her father’s accusation had been wrong.
Jonathan had not betrayed her grandfather.
He had been threatened.
By whom?
She turned another page.
At the bottom was a name.
Lord Edmund Vale.
A powerful landowner.
A man whose ships controlled half the harbor.
A man whose influence reached the governor’s office.
Anna heard footsteps behind her.
She closed the book.
“Give it to me.”
Thomas Bell stood in the doorway.
Anna backed away.
“You locked me in the counting room.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your father came back too soon.”
Thomas stepped closer.
“You were never supposed to find this.”
Anna held the book tightly.
“What did Lord Vale do?”
Thomas’s expression changed.
For the first time, fear appeared in his eyes.
“He didn’t do anything.”
“Then why are you afraid?”
Thomas whispered:
“Because he is still doing it.”
