Joseph couldn’t remember the last time his brain let him down. His brain had always been so very reliable and so fast. When his heart led him astray or his body gave out, his brain leapt adroitly forward, quick and smooth, with no confusion or fogginess or doubt.

Until now.

Until the spiel of facts and figures tossed out by his wife had literally ground all intellectual function to a dead stop. Once stopped, it hung there, flapping uselessly in the windy place inside his skull.

He felt himself drop into his seat. Everything she’d said—about the dock and the warehouses, the levies and the cargo—made perfectly reasonable sense. And not the kind of sense that compelled him to marry her for £15,000 and the potential of a pretty wife. It made literal sense. He understood everything she’d said. He saw the reasoning behind it. He would have done it the same bloody way himself.

He looked up to her. “Why didn’t you lead with this?”

“I beg your pardon?” she said.

“Tessa, to say that I am stunned at your . . .” He shook his head and tried again. “I am stunned at what you claim to have accomplished. Forgive me. All I can think at the moment is why you did not tell me this first.”

She turned away, dropping her pen back into its little box. “Yes, I suppose it was rather foolish of me to believe we would . . .” she cleared her throat “. . . have a proper meeting about it and . . . collaborate. In the manner of colleagues. That you would think of me as an associate with a derby and a moustache.”

“I’ve hardly gotten used to your . . . brown dress, and now I’m to think of you with a moustache?”

To this, she had no answer. He pressed, “You want to be my colleague, Tessa—is that what you want?”

“I want . . .” she began, but then she moved to the window. He could no longer see her face. “It doesn’t matter what I want. Certainly I am in no position to ask you for another thing.”

He made a scoffing noise. “Asking for things might be an excellent start, where you are concerned.”

She turned back. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, there was a time that I would have given you anything—you needed only but to ask. Instead of . . .” he trailed off.

“Instead of tricking you,” she provided softly.

“Instead of concealing the depth and breadth of your situation.”

She nodded. “In hindsight, perhaps I can see the error in that. Perhaps not. It is impossible to communicate how very afraid I was of driving you away.”

He watched her, waiting for an elaboration.

Finally, she said, “The work I did on behalf of the docks was meant to be the opposite; it was meant to be clear and seamless.”

“It was clear and seamless. I’m so very impressed.” He made a gesture to her notes. She hadn’t looked at them, not once. She knew the information by heart.

He asked, “You’re certain you’ve arranged this all on your own?”

She closed her eyes. She had the look of someone who had just been given an undeserved shove. He swore in his head.

“’Tis me alone, Joseph,” she said tiredly. “You cannot escape what I’ve done, I’m afraid. Sorry.” She turned to face him, bright blue eyes sad and somehow older now, but no less beautiful.

His heart gave a lurch. “Don’t apologize,” he managed.

“I feel like I shall apologize to you forever, and it will not be enough.”

Apologies were never what I wanted, he thought. I wanted you. Instead he said, “Please stop.”

She brought an idle hand to the tight bun at the nape of her neck and patted it, wincing slightly. He had the impulse to go to her, to study the mystery of where she had bound all of her magnificent hair and to liberate it. To rub the place on her nape that caused her to wince.

“But how would you like to proceed?” she asked on a sigh, her hand still gently massaging her neck.

I should like to touch you, he thought. I should like to ask you why you’ve hidden your hair and why you’re wearing that terrible brown dress.

I should like to meet the baby.

I should like to hear what you meant to say when you almost told me what you really wanted.

Now he knew his brain had shut off. These were his wishes for the other Tessa, the fraudulent one, the one who lived only in his memory. He had no notion of this Tessa, the Tessa that managed his business and slicked back her hair and wore brown.

“Obviously I cannot fully comprehend these arrangements without you present,” he said. “You’ll have to come to St. Katharine with me, to advise me.”

She took a deep, steadying breath. Relief? Endurance? Mettle? He couldn’t say.

“Yes—of course, yes,” she said.

And now he was flooded with relief. He would see her again.

She continued, “Only I cannot come today, I’m afraid. My son will awaken very soon, and I’ve promised our nursemaid, Perry, the day off. But here.” She returned to the lacquered box and removed an envelope. “I’ve a copy of the letter I mailed to you informing you of the new dock and the original dock warrant. The letter should explain enough for you and Stoker to safely bring the brig in to St. Katharine tonight. The customs office will not be open until tomorrow morning, and you cannot unload without their inspection. Perhaps you can give your crew shore leave until morning, and I will meet you by ten o’clock? Would that be suitable?” She extended the envelope.

Joseph stared at it, stared at her small hand and delicate wrist.

It occurred to him that he was being dismissed. Politely and quite justifiably. He did not live here with her. He had very little to do with her at all.

Now she would resume whatever it was that she did with her day. She was not his real wife. Never had she been his real wife.

Still. They were finally in the same city, but she would meet him in the morning.

You weren’t even going to seek her out, he reminded himself. His inclination to linger, to discuss the docking—to discuss anything—burned at the edge of his consciousness, a low flame at the edge of a dry leaf.

“Alright,” he heard himself say. He took the envelope. “Tomorrow, then. Ten o’clock.”

She smiled then, her first smile in what felt like an hour, and he drank it in. He almost, almost reached for her.

Instead, she took up a bell and summoned the butler. The man appeared in the doorway, and Joseph followed him into the street.