At the end of it all she’d run to Perry, not Liam.
He counted it a sign of hope. Hope that she was beginning to see him as more than merely a friend; hope that the pain he’d given her would fade quickly. Already she was thinking beyond herself, staying with Mei Ling and doing what she could for the dazed young woman. Perry’s brief explanation of the fate that awaited girls like Mei Ling—a fate Caroline had been ignorant of—had roused her immediate indignation.
It was the first stirring of the woman Perry knew she could be. Would be. He’d heard only a trace of bitterness in the last words she’d spoken to him: “I know Liam has no need for me. Nothing can ever truly hurt him.”
In that she was wrong, Perry thought with a twinge of sadness. It wasn’t the physical wounds that mattered most. From those a man recovered. But that was not something she could yet understand; Liam had hurt her youthful pride, torn her admiration of him to tatters, and she would need time to…
Time to fully realize how wrong it would have been to marry her guardian, to see that things had worked out for the best. Time to recognize what love could be. That was all she needed now—time and love.
Perry knew how to be patient.
“Mr. Sinclair?”
He came back to himself. “Doctor?”
“Mr. O’Shea asked me to send you in. I advised him to rest, but—” The doctor shook his head. “I trust you won’t tax him.”
“You may trust me,” Perry said gravely. He nodded to the doctor and glanced at Rose. She stood frozen against the wall, her face a mask to hide what Perry knew she must be feeling.
Liam hadn’t asked to see her.
Perry went to Rose and clasped her shoulder. She looked at him with such desperation that he almost mouthed the platitudes he knew she had no use for.
Instead he squeezed her shoulder and turned to beard the lion in his den.
Liam lay on the bed, propped up against a bundle of pillows, his arm and chest swathed in bandages. He was as pale as Rose, the hollows under his eyes and cheekbones pronounced, the lines around his mouth deepened with pain. He opened his eyes as Perry shut the door.
“So,” Liam said. “It seems you saved Mac’s life. And mine.”
Interesting, a part of Perry thought distantly, which action Liam mentioned first. “I know that surprises you, old man,” he said. “But perhaps now you’re prepared to believe I never wanted you dead.”
Liam laughed and hissed as the motion wrung a protest from his body. “No. Just out of the way.”
Perry pulled a chair close to the bed. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
“I’m not in any shape to stop you.”
“Of that I wouldn’t be too sure. But I do trust your common sense—now.” He sat down and crossed his legs. “Where shall we begin?”
“I don’t know.” Liam passed his uninjured hand over his face. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
From Liam it was a shocking admission, especially to one he’d considered an enemy. “You want to know why it appeared that I was working with the tongs,” Perry prompted. “You want to know what really happened with the carriage, and the drugged wine, and the ambush in Chinatown. Is that a place to start? Or do you perhaps still suspect I was behind the jungle attack?”
“Should I think what happened with the guerrillas was coincidence?” Liam said heavily.
“It seems to be the truth. Odd, isn’t it? It was that coincidence that led you to assume I was responsible for the carriage accident as well. I learned of the sawed axle soon after it happened. I suspected you might hold me responsible for it even before I knew you had better reason than I’d supposed.”
“And that’s why you disappeared.”
“Only in part.” Perry uncrossed his legs and sat forward. “Hear me out, old man. You may have trouble believing what I tell you, and I don’t ask for your trust. I knew you wouldn’t listen before, but now…”