“I imagine that will be quite a difficult conversation. He is not expecting to marry an experienced widow.”
Her brother had managed to put into words as delicately as possible his assumption that she was not a virgin.
“As it turns out, I’m not,” she said. Neither experienced, which she would rather not discuss with Reed, nor a widow, which he would learn momentarily. “Phineas Bennet has recently returned to Boston.”
“He died ‘or so you surmised,’” Reed recalled her words with the steel trap brain for which he was famous.
In this instance, Rose knew the reality had momentarily escaped him because of the sheer inconceivability of the mess she’d got herself into. If not for the strange situation she was trying to explain, she knew her brother would have grasped onto those words immediately.
Dropping his arm from her, he stood up and began to pace. The energy radiating from her brother was palpable, and she waited for the barrage of questions or worse — the angry scolding that she soundly deserved.
Instead, Reed suddenly crouched down in front of her and took hold of her hands, looking with piercing intensity into her eyes.
“This scoundrel who wed you and abandoned you, where is he and what does he want?”
Good God, like a knight in battle-worn armor, Reed was going to take up her cause. How noble and not entirely inappropriate, given how Finn had cruelly left her in the dark for so long.
“I had never thought him a scoundrel, and it is hard to change my view of him, though it seems he has dealt with me badly. Finn’s a shipbuilder and was on theGarrard. I’m not sure if you recall how it—”
“It went down south of Nova Scotia,” Reed said.
Rose nodded.
“And you changed overnight into the unsmiling, quiet Rose whom no one recognized. Until William Woodsom came along.”
“Until William,” she murmured. Then, more urgently, she added, “I don’t want to hurt him. Reed, I never meant to hurt him.”
“Nonetheless, I fear William will be. You didn’t answer me, though. What does Bennet want?”
“He said he will let me divorce him.” She gave the only answer she could, for in truth, she had no idea what Finn wanted.
Her brother didn’t seem convinced. “How much money does he want to keep quiet?”
She flinched at his tone. “He didn’t say he wanted anything.” Including her. Besides, asking for money wouldn’t be like Finn at all.Would it?To extort money from her.
“He was in England and heard of my engagement, so he returned.”
“How kind of him?” Reed remarked, standing up once more. “So you’ve met with him?”
She nodded.
“Alone?” he asked.
Rose swallowed. “Not really,” she hedged. “Only in public, though there was no one else around.”Except Charlotte.
“Is that why you were at The Parisien?”
Truly, nothing got past her brother. Moreover, Charlotte was an extra pair of eyes and ears for him.
She nodded again.
“My wife explained to me why you were there, but, frankly, it seemed odd that you would want to engage the services of a French chef when I have one living in my own home.”
Ah, yes. That did seem odd when her brother put it like that. She had no need of Chef Ober’s skills at her wedding luncheon, not with Pierre at hand.
Reed crossed his arms. “I don’t think you should speak to Bennet again. Tell me how to contact him, and I’ll handle this.”
That would be the prudent thing to do, Rose realized. Why did it make her feel like a coward and a failure? Moreover, prudence was such a difficult virtue to which she had never quite adhered.
