Page 56 of Four Promises to Love

Relief swept through Finn that Owen wasn’t going to stand in her way. Since receiving Carver’s threat, she’d been consumed by fear. She had only a week to find the treasure—or Iris would pay the price.

In the past, when she’d been afraid, she’d had Iris to turn to. When she felt she couldn’t breathe and the world was bleeding her will to go on, she and Iris would sit together. Iris would be in a chair, Finn on the floor, her head in Iris’s lap.

Iris would stroke her hair and say, “Rest your head awhile, and an answer will come. One always does, Finicky.”

Under Iris’s gentle ministrations, Finn would relax and a solution would emerge.

But now she didn’t have Iris. The closest thing she could come up with was brushing her own hair. She’d done stroke after stroke, until the excuse for returning to Bottoms House came to her.

It had worked, allowing her and the Hawks to get back into the manor yesterday. They’d searched every nook and cranny…but they’d found nothing. Last night, she’d collapsed into bed—but instead of resting, she’d been plagued by dreams. She couldn’t remember them in their entirety, just the smell of crushed roses, splatters of red, and the glow of green eyes…

“You look tired, Finn.”

Snapping out of her reverie, she saw Owen regarding her with concern. They stood together in the maze of bookshelves. Gigi and her husband remained in the sitting area, and Finn could hear them flirting.

She tried to sound light. “You didn’t pick up any town polish in London. Don’t you know that no lady likes to be told she isn’t looking her best?”

“You’ll always be beautiful. Right now, you are beautiful and tired. Tell me why.”

He had a way of melting her defenses.

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she admitted. “I…I have been having dreams.”

“About what?”

“I’m not certain.” She bit her lip, then everything poured out in a rush. “One took place in the rose garden. It felt like I was there—I don’t mean a few days ago, but…before. When the garden was new, and the roses were young. I was there with my lover.”

“Your lover.” Owen’s tone was dry. “If you don’t mind my asking, who was this cove?”

“I don’t know—and there is no need to get jealous over it,” she said with an amused huff. “I am not sure it was even me in the dream. The woman could have been…someone else.”

“Rose?”

She nodded slowly.

He didn’t blink. “Tell me more.”

Relief swamped her, and she wished she’d told him earlier about the woman she’d seen by the stream. It would fit her role of a seer, after all. Yet she knew why she hadn’t. It was one thing to make up visions as part of her scheme and another to share experiences that felt real and eerie and…personal. She hadn’t been in control of the latter, and she didn’t like how that made her feel.

Mad, perhaps. Vulnerable, definitely.

“You can trust me, Finn.”

He cupped her cheek, and she shivered at his warm, callused touch.

“In the dream, he and I were making love,” she said. “I was looking up at him—at the roses hovering all around us.”

“Did he pleasure you the way I did?”

Crikey. The smolder in Owen’s gaze weakened her knees. She leaned against the shelves for support, and he braced his arm above her head, caging her with his rangy length. With anyone else, she would have felt trapped.

With Owen, she felt…safe.

“Did he kiss you, Finn?” he murmured.

“Yes.”

“In all the places you like best, the ones that make you moan?”