“No,” Rose protested, wanting to correct him.
William said nothing. He simply cocked his arm and punched Finn squarely in the mouth. It happened so fast that Finn neither ducked nor swerved. In the blink of an eye, blood was flowing where his own teeth had cut into his lip. At the same time, William shook out his hand as if in pain.
Rose ran forward, putting herself between them as Finn started to roll up his sleeves.
“No,” she said again, this time to both men. “Stop it. Please.”
“You are worth fighting for,” Finn said.
William still said nothing, but he held her gaze as she turned her back on her husband and looked at her fiancé squarely.
“Please,” she beseeched him, putting up her hands, touching his solid chest. “This will solve nothing.”
William’s eyes darkened. “It will make me feel better.”
Was that a flash of humor?
However, Finn was close against her back, and she could feel the tension coming off him in waves. Any moment, he would put her aside and lay into William. They were evenly matched, and it would be awful.
“It won’t makemefeel better,” she assured William. “Please, go with me now.”
William’s eyes narrowed. At the same time, she felt Finn take a step backward.
“Please,” she said again. “I don’t want either of you hurt.”
William’s mouth hardened into a straight line.
What had she said wrong?
“That’s fine,” he told her. “You stay and conclude your business with your husband.”
With that, William left, not sparing a backward glance for either of them.
Silence enveloped her and Finn for a few seconds. Then he muttered, “Touchy fellow, isn’t he?”
Rose turned and slapped his cheek hard, smearing the blood across his face and leaving a wet trail across her own palm. Finn grabbed her wrist when she held up her hand, not to strike him again but to look at the evidence of what she’d done.
Her arm was shaking. All of her was shaking, Rose realized. She wanted to cry, though not in front of Finn who had caused so much misery.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, still gripping her arm. “I deserved that. But not from him.”
She looked up at his face. It was a sight to see, with his upper lip cut and a bruise forming at the edge of his mouth. His thick dark blond hair was standing up on his head and mussed everywhere else.
She wrenched herself free and ran after William, hearing Finn’s footsteps behind her.
“William, please wait,” Rose beseeched, catching up to her fiancé on the busy sidewalk. They couldn’t leave it like this, not with him furious at her.
He halted and turned, but there was no inviting expression on his face.
“I will not stand here in public and discuss this,” he said calmly but firmly. “I’ll talk to you anon, Rose. In private.”
Then he stalked off stiffly without his usual self-assured gait that bespoke of a confident William Woodsom, son of English nobility.
Rose stared after him until he disappeared into the horde of other Bostonians. She didn’t call him back to her — or even try to. What could she say after all? She let her tears fall, her insides aching for how she’d hurt him.
Realizing that Finn was at her elbow, standing in broad daylight with his battered face for all to see, she wiped her cheeks with her handkerchief.
“Should I go after him?” she asked, not caring that she was asking her own husband for advice on matters of the heart.
