“Don’t think that way,” he commanded. “Don’t defeat yourself before you ever walk into a room.”
“Then tell me how!”
She stood erect. Always proud. Always brave. But she couldn’t quite hide the fear that raced through her eyes. It never ceased to amaze him how sometimes she seemed a woman, other times a child.
As always, the contradiction in her brought a reluctant smile to his lips.
“For starters, keep your arms at your side rather than swinging them.”
She held her arms up and looked at them like she had never seen them before. “I swing them?” she asked, seemingly dumbfounded.
“Yes, you do,” he said, his lips crooking.
“Hmmm.” Her brow furrowed in concentration; then she nodded her head and she started to walk across the room, her arms plastered to her side, making her look like a swiftly moving upright stick.
He had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
“How was that?” she demanded, whirling around to face him.
“Well…”
“It was awful! I can tell by the look on your face.”
“I wouldn’t say awful. Just don’t be so stiff.”
“Don’t move, but don’t be stiff. Grrr.”
“Just move naturally. Think of it as flowing, keeping your arms relaxed at your sides rather than swinging them like windmills.”
“Stiff? Windmills? Aren’t we full of compliments today,” she bit out caustically.
“You asked,” he replied with an amused shrug.
She glared at him, forced out a breath, closed her eyes, and concentrated. “Okay.” She rolled her head around as if to relieve tension, then started off across the room. “I’m flowing, how does it look?”
Like her body had lost its bones and she was some sort of palsy victim. “Better,” he lied.
“You don’t mean it!”
“Actually, no, but I was trying to be polite.”
“Why start now?” she snapped.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Miss Winslet. What do we say about women with sharp tongues?”
“That they are smarter than the lot of Boston women thrown together, who, I might add, could stand a month or two learning a bit about life in Africa!”
“Hmmm, that wasn’t exactly the line I had in mind.”
She glared at him.
“Are we going to deal with your walk or not?” he asked.
“Yes! But you’re going to have to show me how to do it.”
“Me?” he blurted out.
“Yes, you. You walk across the room like you are trying to describe.”
“Not on your life.”
“What do you mean? You’ve been telling me how to do it for the last twenty minutes. Why not just show me?”
“Telling you is one thing. I see women walk all the time. But doing it is another thing entirely. I’m a man, for God’s sake.”
“Which means?” she asked sarcastically, dragging the words out in question.
“That I am not about to parade around this room walking like a woman.”
“Who’s going to see you?”
“You will.”
“That’s the point.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No!”
“Are you afraid?” she asked, her brow raised in challenge.
His stare was murderous, and he muttered expletives that made her blush. “I am not afraid, Miss Winslet.”
“Good, then show me.”
He stood for long seconds, glowering; before turning on his heel and starting across the room. He tried to do just as he had instructed. Hell, it was hard.
Once, twice, hanging his arms at his sides and walking in a way that felt like a flow. Swish, swish. Head held high. He turned back. And stopped.
“You’re laughing!” he accused.
“Me?” she asked innocently. “Never. I’ve got something caught in my throat.”
“You’re going to catch something else. A door in your face with no hope for another lesson from me if you’re not careful.”
She smiled at him, trying her best to look contrite. “Not another word, not so much as a smirk.”
“That’s true,” he began, taking her hand and pulling her toward the door, “because you’re leaving.”
She stopped abruptly, the motion pulling him back, bringing them face-to-face.
He forgot about what she was saying as his thoughts swirled around this odd woman who stood before him.
She was dressed in a beautiful deep blue silk today, no doubt a gown chosen by her mother. Her hair was pulled back in an elegant twist at the back of her head. Demure. The perfect lady. Except for her eyes.
He had the fleeting thought that no matter how refined she became, if indeed she did, her eyes would always betray her. For a moment, all good humor fled, and he saw someone as lost as he was and just as determined not to show it.
“What made you change your mind about teaching me?” she asked, so quietly he almost didn’t hear.
His gaze drifted to her lips. “Your dogged persistence.”
“That wasn’t it.”
He reached out and brushed her lower lip with his thumb. “In truth, I still owe Janji,” he replied, hardly thinking about his words. “I didn’t get you safely to Matadi.”
And he hadn’t. As soon as the rescuers had arrived, they were separated. He hadn’t seen her again until the night of the dinner party, though he had tried to find her. But she had disappeared from the hospital. He hadn’t tried after that, telling himself it was for the best.
“That wasn’t your fault,” she said.
“A debt is a debt. And I still owe him.”
“You never told me why you owe him.”
He chuckled at this. “You don’t let anything go, do you?”
“Just tell me.”
“It was nothing,” he said, forcing a casualness into his voice that he didn’t feel. “He shot a lion that was showing an overzealous interest in me.”
At the words, she stiffened. “A lion that was about to attack?”
Matthew shrugged with practiced indifference, blood rushing through his veins as he remembered. “So it appeared.”
“Janji told me about that day.”
His indifference fled and he froze.
“He never mentioned your name, but he told me the man stared boldly, straight into the lion’s eyes. That was you.”
“What else did he say?”
This time she hesitated. She looked up at him, studying him, before she said, “That he was never sure if you were going to raise your own gun to save yourself. Were you?”
He looked away.
“Matthew. Were you?”
No. He wasn’t.
His heart pounded, the sounds of rustling long grasses filling his ears. The heat. The constant despair. Then the lion, suddenly there, standing as still as Matthew, each staring at the other. Each understanding in some primal way that one of them wouldn’t survive. The odd second of relief that it was finally over. But in the next second, it had come over him, swift and intense. Mary. He couldn’t do this to Mary.
He remembered the surprise of the thought, the overwhelming intensity of the love he felt and the need to get home, to make everything right.
At that point he tried to lift the gun. He had. But by then it was too late. Just when he felt the lion’s hot breath on his cheek, regret and despair for a little girl across the sea swept through him. But regret froze in his mind when a shot rang out and the lion dropped at his feet. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Until finally he turned and found the regal black man standing twenty paces away, his gun still smoking, studying him.
Janji had saved his life, but more important, he had given him a second chance to make things right with Mary. If only things had been different when he returned.
“Matthew, talk to me.”
Finnea stood before him, proud and determined. She was so strong, stronger than he was. She was lost, for reasons he didn’t understand, but she fought on—to fit in, to not give up. He nearly smiled at the thought that she was the warrior, not him. He wanted to give up, would have if it hadn’t been for Mary. And now he didn’t know where to turn, since the one reason he had to live was afraid of him.
He drew a deep breath. “There is nothing to talk about.” He stepped closer, needing the feel of her, the strength of her.
His gaze drifted low, catching on her mouth, and he felt the swift rush of blood through his body. God how he wanted her.
He told himself to step away, but his ironclad control deserted him. He couldn’t stop himself from touching her any more than he could stop himself from breathing.
His hands came up to frame her face, and his thumbs gently trailed over her lips, her mouth opening on a trembling breath. Her warrior’s stance wavered. Her eyes filled with uncertainty.
“I don’t think this is wise,” she said, her voice hoarse as he leaned down to her.
“I haven’t done a wise thing since I met you,” he replied, the whispered words fanning her face.
With that, he kissed her, brushing his lips against hers. Just a touch, he told himself. Just a touch to sate his curiosity.
But the touch only made him want more. Yearning raced through him like a torch. His manhood swelled, and he leaned back against a table. With an exquisite slowness, he pulled her between his legs. Desire, hard and raging. And she gasped.
But he wanted her as he had wanted little else in his life. Just as he had wanted her in the jungle.
He realized the truth and muttered a curse against her skin.
But he couldn’t stop. “God, how I’ve wanted this.”
His hands held her face as he kissed her eyelids, his lips trailing down until he captured her mouth once again in a delicate dance. He gently tugged at her full lower lip, his tongue coaxing her to more.
“Open for me, Finn.”
And she did. She sucked in her breath when their tongues touched, and his hand drifted down her back, pressing her close, cradling the rise of his male flesh against her softness. Innocent and unaware of what she was doing to him, she moved slightly, brushing the gentle curve of her abdomen against his hardness, making him suck in his breath at the intensity.
She melted into him, as if becoming a part of him, and all sense of time and place vanished, sensation building like waves.
Suddenly her hands tangled in his shirt, and she pulled, making it clear she wanted him as much as he wanted her. They gave in completely, their kiss becoming something wild, something primitive. She licked his lips and he gently bit her tongue. Her fingers sought skin; then she gasped when he brought his hands around and raked his fingertips sensually over her nipples beneath the bodice of her gown.
Lost to the feel of her, he was unaware of the discreet knock that sounded on the door, unaware still when the door opened.
But Finnea heard and she jumped away, her startled gasp penetrating the desire-filled recesses of his mind.
His jaw tight, Matthew stepped in front of Finnea protectively as she hurriedly adjusted her gown, and found the butler, tripping over himself to back out of the room.
“You better have a damn good reason for this, Quincy,” he demanded.
“A note, sir,” the man choked out, then clumsily extended a silver tray. “From your father.”
Chapter Ten
“Frankfurters on a street corner,” Matthew said, his words crystallizing in the frigid air as he stared in disbelief at the nickel dog-in-a-bun the swarthy, dark-haired little vendor had just handed him.
It was the following day, Friday, and Matthew forced a laugh. He had set out from the house in a grand mood, but his excitement was quickly dying a harsh death. “Quite a change from Locke-Ober’s, Father.”
Bradford Hawthorne and his son stood amid the nearly deafening din at the bustling corner of Tremont and Winter Streets, not fifty yards from the long, narrow alleyway that led to Boston’s bastion of male dining called Locke-Ober’s. Friday luncheon at the exclusive men’s club had always entailed a small, select group of men, muted voices, stuffed leather chairs, a quartet playing Bach in the corner, and some of the finest food in Boston. Matthew and his father had held a standing reservation for years. Had always sat at the same table.
Today they stood on the sidewalk, jostled now and again by the throng of pedestrians, suspect meat in their hands, and a hurdy-gurdy man playing his traveling piano with a tin can set on top to encourage people to toss change his way.
Beyond that, it was cold. Much too cold to be standing outside. Matthew’s scars began to throb, his hand started to ache, stabs of pain shooting down into his shoulder, making it difficult to hold his meal. But his good hand held a cup of hot cocoa, giving him no way to shift the burden.
Burden.
His breathing grew harsh. A five-inch, feather-light dog-in-a-bun had become a burden. Inadequacy raked over him.
He told himself to concentrate. This was not the place for his body to turn on him. But the cold was making everything more difficult, and people began to stare. He tried to ignore them but couldn’t, and neither could his father.
Bradford grumbled and awkwardly balanced his own frankfurter and cocoa in thickly gloved hands.
“Perhaps we could go someplace where we could sit down,” Matthew offered, forcing the words carefully through rapidly numbing lips.
“I don’t have time. And this is close to my office.”
So was Locke-Ober’s, but Matthew didn’t say that.
The older Hawthorne looked at his lunch as if he had never seen such a thing in his life, and undoubtedly he never had. Even as children the Hawthorne boys weren’t allowed to buy food from street vendors. Matthew’s jaw hardened at the thought that suddenly it was good enough now.
Shame spiked through his mind. His nostrils flared on a deep breath as a crisp winter breeze wrapped around him. His hand fumbled, and he dropped the frankfurter on the ground. Mortified, he reached down too quickly, the sudden movement sending sparks of pain shooting through his side, and he lost his balance. Dropping to his haunches, the cup and cocoa spilling from his hand, he balanced himself on the cold grimy walkway.
Passersby craned their necks to get a better look at what was happening.
“Get up,” his father snapped, his eyes darting around to see who was watching.
Breathing deeply, Matthew forced himself to stand, forgetting the food that lay on the ground.
“What’s wrong with you?” his father demanded, his voice low and harsh. “Your behavior is appalling.”