He knew she was close, and his heart surged. He wanted to bring her to release, needed to. Tilting her slightly, his own body throbbing and hard, he stroked her one long, lingering last time. With that she seemed to explode, her body quivering as she cried out his name.
Cupping her woman’s flesh with his palm as her body convulsed, he murmured reassuring words. He stayed very still for a moment, then kissed the inside of her thigh when she had calmed. Finally, humbled and reverent, he stood and stretched out next to her, pulling her into his arms. Never had he been so moved by passion.
Minutes ticked by as they calmed.
“See, Finn, you do feel,” he whispered later, stroking her hair.
Her eyes flashed open, and fire sparked to life. “Feel?” she demanded, the word choked and harsh as she jerked away from him, angrily batting down the thin remainder of her clothes. “Of course I feel. Don’t you understand that? Don’t you understand that I feel too much, for you for this new life that has been one failure after the next, for Africa? God, I feel too much, and it’s pulling me under.”
The fire deserted her, leaving her spent. She squeezed her eyes closed and she bowed her head. “I’m tired of fighting, Matthew,” she whispered so quietly that he nearly didn’t hear. “I thought you understood that all along.”
He sat stunned, realizing in a sharp, unrelenting moment that this was what he had set out to do. He had brought her to the dark, desolate place he knew so well. Shame and remorse wrapped around him.
He started to take her back into his arms, cherish her, whisper his apology. “Finn—”
But she pushed him away. “Don’t, Matthew. I don’t want to hear it.” She scooted off the bed and reached for her clothes. “Please, just leave me alone. That’s all I ask.”
Words deserted him. How to explain the unexplainable. The unforgivable.
“I’m sorry, Finnea,” he said, his voice filled with emotion.
She didn’t answer. And who could blame her.
Angry at himself, he turned on his heels and quit the room. He slammed himself in the garden room and locked the door. God, what was happening to him?
Fire beat in his temples. He was drawn to a woman who wanted no part of him. A desire made worse by her nearness. Again, he cursed his stupidity for thinking this could ever work.
He had woken up on his bad side this morning, yet as the day progressed, he had begun to feel better. But whatever headway he had made was wiped out when he received the letter from Jules Beetle.
He picked up the paintbrush he had taken out of the box earlier, trying to block out the image of Finnea, her passion, as wild and intoxicating as the African jungles.
He wanted to paint, needed to paint, but his hand was weak. He felt like he did after a near accident. The warrior rush gone, leaving him shaky.
The smell of linseed oil filled the room. He relished the satiny feel of brush bristles against his fingers. He opened the tin of turpentine and welcomed the sharp sting in his nose.
He was going to paint.
Once and for all, he wanted to prove to himself that he could work—as if the act of painting could somehow prove that all was not lost.
With steadfast determination, he held the palette and paintbrush, then focused on the crisp white canvas. He concentrated, his hand extended. But half-formed images erased themselves in his mind. Color faded to black and white.
An annulment. The words clicked with finality in his brain. How could he deny her one if he couldn’t do something as simple as paint?
But what if he could? What if he worked with diligence and proved that he could regain his life? What if he could put the pieces back together again, like pieces to a puzzle?
With quiet determination, he lifted the brush and focused on the canvas.
A sound startled Finnea in the night.
“Isabel?” she called out, more asleep than awake. “Is that you, baby?”
But then she truly woke, alone in her room, and a stark emptiness nearly choked her. Of course it wasn’t Isabel. She had been dreaming.
Finnea rolled onto her side where she lay on the floor and looked out the window at the moon that flitted between scurrying clouds, tears slipping down and soaking into the pillowcase.
“Oh, Isabel,” she whispered. “I miss you, baby. Do you know that I still love you? Do you know that I would never forget you?”
The night was still and quiet. She listened. But silence was all she heard.
She lay for long minutes until suddenly she heard the noise again. This time she realized it came from down the hall.
Very quietly, she pulled the blanket away and pushed up from the floor, wrapping herself in the cashmere robe her grandmother had given her as a wedding gift. Finnea peered down the hallway. A dim light was on in Mary’s bedroom.
Shut the door. Go back to sleep. You’ll be gone soon.
Her mind whirled frantically. But her heart propelled her forward. She stepped out into the hall and walked toward the glimmer of light.
But the child’s bedroom was empty. Mary stood down the hall at a window in an alcove, staring out at the dark night. She wore a ruffled white-flannel nightgown and dainty velvet slippers on her feet. She looked like an angel with gently curling hair tumbling down her back. But then she shifted, and Finnea could see the tears streaming down her face.
“Mary?” she said quietly, struggling to keep her voice even and distant.
Mary turned with a start, pulling her doll close to her chest, and eyed Finnea warily.
“Did you have a bad dream?” Finnea asked, her voice gentle.
The little girl nodded her head and tugged her doll so close that Finnea thought it would rip apart.
“What was your dream about?”
Silent minutes ticked by as Mary’s face screwed up with trauma. And just when Finnea thought she wouldn’t answer at all, she burst out. “Please don’t tell my father that I hate him.”
Finnea’s throat tightened, her eyes burned, and she barely held on to the distance she had put between them. When she spoke, the words were choked, tangled with emotions she did not want to feel. “Of course I won’t tell him. I know you didn’t mean it.”
“I didn’t, I really didn’t.”
“I know, Mary.” Finnea had to wait for her voice to untangle from the tears that threatened. She pulled a deep, calming breath and searched for a smile. “Why don’t you go back to bed and get some sleep. I’m sure everything will seem better in the morning.”
“I can’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes. When I do, everything spins in my head.”
Turn around and leave. Now. “What kind of things?” she whispered instead.
“I see my mother. And my father.” Mary closed her eyes. “When we were happy. Before Mama died and Papa got hurt.”
“Oh, Mary …” But her words trailed off. What could she say? She knew about those circling images, those relentless visions of a life that was no longer. “You have to get some sleep,” she said at last.
The little girl looked at Finnea. “Will you go with me?”
Not knowing what else to do, she led the child back to her room. Finnea guided Mary straight to the bed, her hands barely touching tiny shoulders. She smoothed the covers, tightened the sheets, anything to keep busy, anything to maintain the distance. She had no ability to deal with this child’s need. She couldn’t, she thought, as she began to panic, her throat tight and burning.
Mary crawled onto the high feather mattress, and Finnea nodded her head decisively. With a quick tug and what she hoped was a kind smile, she tucked Mary in, then turned down the light.
She started to leave, but Mary unexpectedly caught her hand. Finnea stared at their fingers, entwined, Mary’s so small and vulnerable.
“Don’t leave me,” Mary said so softly that Finnea barely heard her.
“Mama…”
Finnea couldn’t breathe.
“Do you love me? Only me? “
Her hand was stiff inside the child’s. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t. She closed her eyes over the feel of Mary’s hand. She wanted to jerk away, afraid she would break apart from loss and love and the knowledge that she would never see her own child again.
“Please,” Mary whispered.
Fighting back tears, Finnea felt herself wrap her fingers tightly around Mary’s, needing this child suddenly even more than the child needed her.
Sinking down, she sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m here, little one,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks in the dark. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Thank you,” Mary murmured.
Finnea sat that way as the night slipped away, long past the time when Mary’s breathing grew steady and deep. Looking at the child in sleep, Finnea disengaged their hands. And when she should have left, gone back to her own room and shut the door firmly between them, she lay down on the blankets beside Mary and gently wrapped the child in her arms.
“Sleep, baby,” she whispered. “I won’t leave you.”
Chapter Sixteen
She dreamed of acacia trees and African grasses. She woke feeling disoriented, her mind filled with Matthew. With her heart beating out the wild rush of longing, she slowly slid her hand down her body along the same torturous path Matthew’s lips had taken the day before, tracing the dips and curves with her fingertips, wanting to know what he had felt. In that moment when she was more asleep than awake, when a hazy scrim coated her mind, she was lost between the present and the past, lost in a place where nothing could hurt her.
But as the sun rose on the horizon, it burned the scrim away, leaving the stark colors of reality.
With a jerk, she ripped the covers back and pushed up from the floor. She needed a new lawyer. She would gain an annulment even if she had to go through every solicitor in Massachusetts. In the meantime, she had every intention of avoiding Matthew.
But two days later she determined she didn’t have to try to avoid him at all. At night she slept alone in her room, the door between them remaining firmly shut. When she came down for meals in the mornings, the breakfast room was empty. She hadn’t seen him once since the afternoon he had shattered her control.
She didn’t like to think about the fact that by gaining an annulment she was defaulting on a debt she owed. But how could she remain in this house? Nothing had changed. And when she had pulled Mary into her arms the night of her bad dreams, Finnea had wanted nothing more than to stay. But it didn’t matter what she wanted. She still couldn’t be a mother; she had proven that once before in Africa.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hawthorne,” the butler greeted as she came into the room.
“Good morning, Mr. Quincy. How is your tooth doing?” she asked, thankful for the diversion.
Quincy beamed, his hand pressing against his jaw experimentally. “It is much better. I barely feel it.” He looked around, then leaned forward. “And my hand. That salve you made for me works wonders.”
After dispensing the tooth concoction, Finnea had mixed garlic and thyme into a salve to heal an angry cut. Mary had come into the kitchen and had ended up helping with each step of the tedious process. The child seemed to absorb the purpose of each ingredient they used. Garlic to prevent infection. Thyme to soothe. Finnea had also told her how poplar bark reduced inflammation, lavender calmed nerves, and lemon balm reduced fevers. The list was endless, but Mary sat and listened with wide-eyed fascination.
A ripple of joy washed through her at the thought of Mary, a ripple of joy that she couldn’t quite hold back.
“Where did you learn such remedies?” Quincy inquired.
“I spent time with the Katsu tribe’s medicine man.” She shrugged. “He frequently put me to work.”
Quincy’s eyes went wide. “You gave me a savage potion?”
Finnea stiffened and Quincy immediately was contrite.
“I mean, well, you see…”
“Savage as it may be, it worked, didn’t it?”
His gray head tilted in thought. “Well, I guess it did.” He grew serious. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hawthorne.”
She patted his arm. “Not to worry.”
“I was wondering,” he began hesitantly, when she started for the spread of luncheon fare, “about Violet.”
“What is wrong?”
“Her ear. Perhaps you could …” His words trailed off awkwardly.
“I’ll go see her now.”
“But you should have your meal first.”
Finnea grabbed a slice of hot bread. “I have it,” she said, then headed for the kitchen.
Thirty minutes later Finnea hurried out the front door of Dove’s Way. Just as she pulled on her heavy coat, she saw Mary sitting on the granite steps in the cold.
At the sound of the door, the child turned around. “Hello.”
Finnea’s heart skipped as she remembered the clean little-girl smell of a fresh bath and sweet, dry powder. “Hello, Mary.”
“I thought I might go with you if you were going to run errands again.”
Finnea fought the surge of emotion that made her want to smile. She needed to start looking for a governess to bring some order into Mary’s life. But she wasn’t sure where to start.
“Fine,” she replied, trying for her best businesslike voice but failing. “We need some more garlic.”
Mary wrinkled her nose as if she smelled garlic at its mere mention. “You sure use a lot of that stuff. What’s it for this time?”
Finnea smiled. “To make a tincture to heal Violet’s ear.”
They walked for a few steps before suddenly Mary blurted, “Do you think you could heal my father?”
Finnea stilled and her heart wrenched in her chest. Heal Matthew? She didn’t know how to heal herself, much less a man who wrapped his anger around him like clothes.
Or was it like armor? Like the warrior in the mosaic.
The thought hit her. Was he protecting himself by lashing out? But what would he be protecting himself from? People’s reactions to his face? His father’s callousness?
“Garlic isn’t going to heal your father’s scar any more than it can heal his anger.”
Mary looked crushed and Finnea kicked herself.
“Though perhaps we could slip him a bit of garlic just to see,” she added softly with a teasing smile, making Mary giggle.
They headed for the Public Gardens, walking side by side, neither saying a word. And it was much the same over the next few days, Finnea and Mary walking through the crowded shops of Boston, gathering herbs and oils, neither of them saying much, rather finding comfort in the routine.