Rose nodded. “I know the one you mean, with the four chimneys. It has lovely gardens. I went to a party there once.” She frowned. “Did he go inside?”
“No. If he had, I might as well have tossed myself into the ocean right then and there. If this corruption went up as far as the base commander, as high as admiralty, my goose was cooked for sure. But he went right past, directly to Gilbert’s office. Why did I find Liam here instead of doing his job at Kelly’s?”
“I spoke with him today,” she offered. “Mr. Gilbert, I mean.”
Finn grimaced involuntarily, imagining Rose at the Musket House, like a lamb to slaughter.
“No doubt why you ended up here.” He couldn’t help the hard edge to his own voice. “Did you ask for me by name?”
She shook her head. “I made up a story so I could look around the base, hoping to find you because—” she broke off, a strange expression on her face.
“Why?”
She hesitated.
“Why, Rose? Why did you come to the base and put yourself in such danger?”
“To ask you to sign the divorce papers,” she said quietly.
Her words were like a knife gutting a helpless fish. Even with Woodsom out of the way, she wanted to be free of him.
He couldn’t blame her though. Look where knowing him had brought her. Still, it stung.
“Anyway,” she said, “go on, what happened next?”
“I waited for Liam to come out. Before he did, I was grabbed from behind, a sack crammed over my head. I was punched hard in the stomach so I couldn’t breathe and dumped where you found me.”
“I was, too,” she said, “except I wasn’t punched or trussed up as you were.”
“Dammit!” The idea of her being manhandled by some goon made his heart pound and his blood boil.
Perhaps it was the look of shock on his face that caused Rose to add, “Sorry for interrupting again. Please continue.”
He took a steadying breath. She was here with him. She was safe. Except for his being unable to keep his hands off of her. With that thought, he grabbed hold of both her hands, realizing they’d made love with her gloves on.
“When I could breathe again,” Finn continued, “I was already bound and gagged and in the storage room in the pitch black. Then you arrived and, honestly, at first, I was unsure ...”
He didn’t finish his sentence. In a flash, however, he saw that she understood.
“You were unsure if I was real, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” he confessed. “Right up until you untied me.” Her arrival had been too similar to so many of his disappointing dreams.
Rose offered him a smile in the waning light.
“I suppose real peril is better than believing it’s a trick of your mind, yes?”
She did understand, and it felt like a massive weight lifted off his chest.
“Rose, you have no idea.”
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“As I said before, we wait. I know the yard fairly well, but whoever did this knows it better. We need darkness to get out of here.”
Into the silence that followed came Rose’s next question. “Will you tell me about your injury?” She pulled one hand free of his and placed it upon the knee of his good leg.
He rested his hand over hers, imprisoning it. “It’s not a very interesting tale.”
