There, that was far more gracious, she congratulated herself, quite befitting the lady of the house as she led him down the hall to her front room.
“It’s a lovely house,” Finn said, trailing behind her. “Well crafted.”
“Thank you. I have lived here all my life.”
As they entered the parlor, she spied her cat, curled up in the sunlight on the sofa. It lifted its head at the disturbance.
“Cocoa, this is Finn. Finn, Cocoa.”
“A pleasure,” he said to the cat, who put its head back down and closed its eyes. “Handsome-looking animal.”
Why did it please her that he liked her cat?“Yes, I think so, too. Will you sit?”
He did, which was how Rose came to be in her parlor on a Sunday afternoon with her former husband seated opposite.
“Truthfully,” Finn started, “I have tried very hard to leave you alone, but you are in my thoughts daily.”
She nodded. She would not confess to the same though it was true.
“I thought I might tell you what I’ve been doing and find out how you are.”
“All right,” Rose said, feeling a little tentative at becoming drawn in by his magnetism too quickly.
“I have taken over Kelly’s yard. The old man was quite devastated by all that occurred and by having a hand, however unwittingly, in such a great loss of life.”
“So he wasn’t a part of the scheme? Yet he seemed so unhappy at your return.”
Finn leaned back in the chair, and Rose marveled again that he was in her sitting room, right there, on a chair where each of her family members had sat.
“When I appeared at his yard the first time, Mr. Kelly was shocked, plain and simple, and wanted to deny the truth by calling me a liar. Now, I’m his master builder. I foresee owning the yard within three years, if not sooner, as he is nearly ready to retire.”
“That’s good. You deserve it. I know you’ll be successful.” Her heart was entirely full of gladness for him.
All at once, she recalled how Claire started nearly every conversation of late with a question.
“I have to ask you something though it has no import anymore.”
Finn smiled slightly, leaning forward. “Of course, love, ask me anything.”
How easily he still used that term of endearment?With every member of the female sex or only her?What was that emotion bubbling up in her, bittersweet and familiar?
“How did you come to find me at The Quincy? The floor I was on, the very room, in fact?”
“Oh, that,” he said, appearing to have expected, or hoped for, some different question.
“It is quite a mystery to Claire and to me,” she confessed.
Finn smiled slightly. “Tell Claire that after the incident at the Ropewalk, I spent every waking hour keeping my eye on you.”
“You did?” That was news to Rose, though she remembered expecting to see him at every turn and yet he was never there. Apparently hehadbeen, but well out of sight.
“I knew the trouble wasn’t over, I felt it in my bones. Liam had seemed scared when I’d last spoken to him, so I asked myself, what will he do now? And then there was Walsh, gone missing, according to your brother.”
“He’s been apprehended, did you hear?”
“Yes. I think he and Gilbert will hang for cooking up such wickedness.”
She nodded, wondering if Finn had heard about the ship’s owner. “I heard from my brother that Dilbey had gone along with the scheme and is expected to spend his life in jail for doing so.”
