Lord Berrick's private viewing in the archive's Rosewood Room was less an audit and more an inquisition. He arrived with his own clerk, a pinched-faced man who smelled of vinegar, and an air of smug expectation. Hadrian and Seraphina were already there, seated at one side of the long table, the annotated logs and their prepared statements before them. Rian, exercising his rights as a member of the oversight committee, was also present, a silent, watchful presence at the room's periphery.
Berrick ignored the prepared materials, going straight for the original commander's log. His thick finger traced down the entries, stopping with theatrical precision on the forty-seven-minute call to Rian.
"Ah," he said, the sound rich with feigned disappointment. "A lengthy private communication. In the middle of a state-funded crisis mission. While your husband, the liaison, was… indisposed." He looked up, his small eyes glittering. "Would you care to explain the subject of this 'personal' matter, Princess?"
Seraphina did not flinch. She had the stillness of the deep sea before a quake. "The subject, Lord Berrick, was despair. The preliminary data from the first deep trawl indicated total systemic collapse. As lead scientist, the weight of that discovery was… profound. I sought counsel from a trusted friend and advisor who had helped secure the mission funding and understood its stakes."
"Counsel," Berrick repeated skeptically. "For forty-seven minutes."
"Grief is not efficient,"Hadrian said, his voice cutting through the stuffy air. He pushed his own annotated copy forward, open to the following day's entry. "But it is noteworthy that the following day, the Princess initiated a twenty-two-minute private communication with me. To inquire after my injury and to discuss the storm's impact on the mission timeline. And here," he flipped pages, "three days later, a transmission I initiated—of a sketch I made for the Princess, sent officially to the Royal Marine Institute. A record of shared witness."
Berrick's clerk scribbled furiously. Berrick himself frowned, his narrative of a secret tryst encountering the stubborn bedrock of a more complicated truth. "A few scattered communications do not erase the… intimacy of the first."
"Intimacy of shared failure, yes," Rian spoke from the shadows, his voice calm and clear. Every head turned to him. "Lord Berrick, you are looking for a salacious story. What you have found is a tedious one: of dedicated professionals under immense strain, relying on a network of support. The Princess relied on me as a political ally. She relied on her husband as her operational partner. The logs show a shift—from reliance on diverse support to a deepening collaboration between the two leaders of the mission. If you read them with an eye for drama, you will be disappointed. If you read them with an eye for leadership under duress, you will be impressed."
It was a devastatingly neutral and accurate summary. Berrick reddened. "I am looking for propriety! For the efficient use of royal resources!"
"Then you will be pleased,"Seraphina said, tapping the scientific log. "The mission's core objectives were exceeded in data collection, despite the catastrophic findings. Every buoy minute, including the personal ones, contributed to the mental resilience required to complete the task. Would you have preferred your lead scientist to break under the weight of the news she carried, and return with nothing?"
Berrick was cornered. The scandal he sought had dissolved into a discussion of psychology and mission efficacy. He blustered for another hour, picking at minor inconsistencies in supply logs, but the thrust of his attack was blunted. The annotated logs, with their story of reconnection, lay on the table like an unassailable fact.
Finally, he snapped the log shut. "This committee will expect a full report on communication protocols for future missions," he grumbled, a retreat disguised as a procedural note.
"Of course," Seraphina said, her tone frostily polite.
As Berrick and his clerk stalked out, the tension in the Rosewood Room bled away, leaving behind a weary silence. Rian approached the table.
"He won't let this go entirely," he warned. "He'll look for other avenues. The man's pride is wounded, and his pockets shallower for the canal plan."
"We know,"Hadrian said. He looked at Rian. "Thank you. For what you said."
Rian gave a small,pained smile. "It was merely the truth. The dull, undramatic truth." He bowed slightly to Seraphina, a formality that felt like a farewell to an old, intimate understanding. "By your leave."
When they were alone, Seraphina let out a shuddering breath, her composure finally cracking. "I felt like a specimen under glass. Every private moment, every fear… laid out for that man to poke at."
Hadrian moved to her side, not touching her, but standing close. "He saw nothing. He saw the shell. We gave him the story of the shell. He doesn't get to see the creature that lived inside it, or the one that lives in it now."
She looked up at him, her eyes searching his. "Are you angry? About the call? The forty-seven minutes?"
He considered it. The old jealousy was a ghost now, faint and distant. "I was, once. On the ship, when I saw you with him on the deck. But now? Now I'm just grateful you had someone to call when I was… unavailable. And that you called me the next day." He offered a wry smile. "The architecture of our recovery has some unusual load-bearing walls. But it's standing."
A small, incredulous laugh escaped her. She reached out and her hand found his, their fingers intertwining over the closed cover of the log that had tried to betray them. The romantic void had been probed, exposed to harsh light, and found to contain not a scandal, but a salvage operation. And they were the salvagers, soot-covered and weary, but standing together on the deck of their own slowly-righting ship.