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“I’m hoping that somewhere, on one of those tapes, someone will remember seeing the Esperanza. Maybe even remember seeing what was loaded onboard—art, papers, records.”
Rose frowned.
“Rose?”
“Something you said made me think…” She shook her head. “It’ll come back to me.”
He waited, but she didn’t say anything else. “That’s the next step. Go to Dorset and sort through those tapes. I’m hoping to get confirmation that the Esperanza was there. After that, I hope to have enough proof.”
“Enough proof to do what?”
He hardened his voice. “To take this to the Masters’ Admiralty.”
Her eyes rounded.
“You told me that I didn’t have enough power to fight all of them—the Andersons and the purists. You were right. I tried for years to find a way to fight them all on my own, but it’s not possible. I can’t. We can’t. But the Masters’ Admiralty can, and they know it.”
He watched her expression change as she processed what he’d said. Shock, consideration, and finally grim satisfaction flitted across her lovely face.
The wide-eyed expression made his heart ache, because in that moment he saw the girl she’d been.
The girl he’d failed, and in failing her, lost forever.
Rose now was lean and sleek, like a black cat—unreadable eyes and ready claws.
“You get the proof,” she said. “Then…what? How will you get to the Masters’ Admiralty?”
“I’m already in contact with them.”
“You are?”
He nodded and leaned against the wall again to take weight off his right knee. Normally he hauled one of the kitchen chairs in here if he planned to be in the room for any length of time.
“When—” He stopped. This explanation would mean going back, talking about that fateful summer.
Something on his face must have given away his discomfort, because her expression went blank. “Just say it, Weston.”
He was back to Weston. No more Wes.
“After I learned…” He braced himself to finish that sentence. “After I learned what they were doing to you, I started looking for help. I knew we couldn’t go to the Grand Master—he wouldn’t believe me, or worse, I thought maybe the Grand Master had asked Elroy to…to train you.”
“I remember,” she said softly. “We talked about it, about going to one of the other families.”
He nodded once. He’d forgotten that they’d talked about it, debating in hushed tones whom they could trust. Since then, he’d had this same debate with himself a hundred times. Weston waited to see if she’d say anything else. When she stayed silent, he continued.
“My grandfather used to insist that the Trinity Masters weren’t the first. That there was an organization in England. That Admiral Lord Nelson had been a member.”
She was looking at something on the wall beside him, but he didn’t think she was actually seeing anything.
“I started researching Nelson, and it turns out he was in a trinity—with the British ambassador to Naples and the ambassador’s wife. I wasn’t sure they were a trinity, because in some accounts it looked like the wife, Emma, was just having an affair with Nelson.
“But the more I dug, the more it seemed like the three of them were a trinity, put together later in life. I managed to track down a descendent of William Hamilton—the ambassador.”
“That’s where you really went that summer?” she asked gently.
After the horrific night in the kitchen, he’d stayed in his parents’ house for three weeks, when he’d only planned to be there for two. He lied and said he’d postponed his internship. For the weeks he’d been there, they’d hid in his room, sneaking out only to get food.
They’d made love, Weston taking his time to learn every inch of her skin and giving her pleasure every way he knew how.
