She also fervently hoped her next conversation with William would go as smoothly.
Most of all, she wished she could stop wondering why Finn had left her waiting at the church and whether anything had happened to him. However, she had to remind herself that he was not her responsibility or her concern anymore.
***
The knock at his door caused Finn to jump up from his bed where he had spread out his reading material. Boat building books on one side, newspaper accounts on the other. Wondering if he should have obtained a firearm, he called out, “Who is it?”
“Reed Malloy.”
Finn’s face twisted into a grimace of regret. He’d been expecting Rose’s brother, but still, the man was an unwelcome visitor. Like a downpour on a July 4thcelebration.
Yet Finn had no one to blame except himself. He had done everything wrong from the moment he’d been rescued, and it had led to this moment. The moment when he would lose Rose.
He yanked the door open. Was it appropriate to introduce himself or to shake hands?
The other man did neither. He gave Finn a cursory glance up and down, sighed, and then asked, “Shall we meet here or do you want to come to my office?”
Finn moved sideways and gestured for Rose’s brother to enter.
“You were expecting me, I take it?” Reed quipped, stepping into the center of the room and setting down his portfolio on the bed cover.
“Yes. Rose did mention she had spoken to you.”
Reed’s glance was sharp. “She was supposed to stay away from you.”
“Except for one or two brief encounters, she has done so,” Finn said, feeling all at once irritated at having to apologize for seeing his own wife.
A flash of his feeling must have shown on his face. Rose said her brother was perceptive and sure enough, he pushed his coat back, hands going onto his pockets, and an expression of utter displeasure set firmly on his face.
“The only reason I didn’t greet you with a blow to your face is that you left my sister with her innocence.”
Finn’s mouth opened briefly and then he snapped it shut. Reed certainly laid it all out.
“I’m surprised Rose talked about that with you,” Finn said tightly.
Her brother shrugged. “We are a close family, and I believe she told me in order to stick up for you, to convince me you weren’t as terrible a scoundrel as I think you are.”
“I’m not,” Finn said, then felt annoyed at himself for being defensive. He didn’t really owe this man an explanation. Or maybe he did.
“I love your sister. I always have. If I hadn’t thought we could make a good life together or that I could provide for her, I wouldn’t have married her. That’s the truth. However, over the past few years, I’ve realized she can certainly do better than me.”
“Is that why you played dead and broke her heart? Do you have any idea what a sad state she was in? You put her through hell.” Reed’s eyes sparkled with pure anger. “I may just thump you anyway.”
Finn took in the words. “I wouldn’t stop you.”
“What sort of man marries a woman like our Rose and then doesn’t keep his word to her? That doesn’t sound like a man my sister would love?”
Reed was not going to make this easy.
“It’s a long story, one that I won’t bother you with. Yet I will ease your mind, Mr. Malloy, by saying I believe your sister has made a decent choice in husbands. Inbothinstances.” The words came out bitterly, but there was nothing Finn could do about that. Thinking of his Rose going off with the perfect William Woodsom was a continuous ache.
“I have time to hear your story,” Reed insisted, “or at least the part about how you decided to abandon my sister.”
Finn sighed. “Very well. When I finally reached England, it was already months since the sinking of the Garrard. I was desperate to get back to Rose. At the same time that I figured out how to earn passage home, I also discovered that I could make something more of myself. I intended to return home first, of course, and was considering asking Rose if she would go back with me so I could earn a study there with the best. I was working to earn passage back.” He remembered the flash of pain, the disbelief. “Then I got severely injured.”
He paused. Did Reed really want to hear anymore? The man looked to be absorbing every word.
“The longer I was gone and the longer she believed me dead, the harder it was to disrupt her life. In truth, I began to think she would be better off without me. And seeing her current choice for her next husband, I would say I was right. The man is a descendent of English nobility, for Christ’s sake.”
