“Thank you, Mrs. Hawthorne,” Finnea replied. “You are kind to invite me.”
She glanced across the table, candlelight reflecting in the long, flat knife blades of European silver. She looked at the woman who sat before her. Her own mother. A woman who seemed more distant to her now than she had when time and an ocean separated them. Finnea was mesmerized by skin as white as a fragile bowl of cream, fascinated by the ways of a woman that were so foreign to her.
Leticia Winslet chatted amiably, a winsome smile animating her face. She wore a shimmery gray satin gown, with a single strand of pearls around her neck. Elegant but understated, her grandmother had pointed out. Never screaming to be noticed, rather drawing people in with her whispered beauty.
Finnea glanced down at the fine-jeweled bracelet her mother had insisted she wear that evening.
“Your father gave this to me,” Leticia had said as she gracefully fixed the bracelet on Finnea’s wrist. “And tonight for your first evening out, I want you to wear it.”
The gold was cool against her skin, warming to her touch. But a borrowed bracelet wasn’t enough for her to feel close to her mother. Finnea glanced at the silvered mirror at the end of the dining room. She looked at her eyes, her face, to find some glimmer of proof in the reflection that indeed she bore some relation to the beautiful woman who sat across from her.
“So tell us, Miss Winslet, it must be a tremendous relief for you to be back in civilized society,” stated a woman named Grace Baldwin.
The dinner party consisted of twelve people. The host and hostess. Finnea, Jeffrey Upton. Her mother, Nester, and his fiancée, along with several other people Finnea had never met. Grace Baldwin. Another woman named Adwina Raines. A flighty couple called Dumont. And of course, Matthew.
Finnea shifted her gaze and tried to make sense of the woman’s question. Relief? Back in civilized society? She hadn’t lived in Boston since she was six, and those early years were nothing more than a distant haze.
“Tell us, Miss Winslet,” Adwina Raines began, one arched brow slightly raised, “where exactly did you live? With some tribe of sorts, I hear.”
Mrs. Dumont gasped, peering closely at Finnea. “A tribe of savages?”
Finnea sat very still, unable to think, much less respond.
“Those heathens are carnivores, you know,” Mrs. Dumont added in a breathless rush. “Flesh-eating savages.”
“We all are carnivores, Mrs. Dumont. Each and every one of us at this table.”
All heads turned to Matthew, his abrupt words rumbling through the room, surprising the occupants, since he hadn’t spoken thus far. He had sat quietly all evening, a barely contained violence shimmering about him like a mist over the sea.
But Mrs. Dumont only sniffed and glanced meaningfully at his face with a brittle tilt of brow. “Speak for yourself, Mr. Hawthorne.”
An embarrassed silence descended about the table. Matthew only stared, his spine rigid. Finnea suddenly remembered the Europeans hurrying from the second car. Could people truly run from a face that would be merely beautiful without the dignity of such a scar? Were these Americans no different?
“Miss Winslet,” Mr. Dumont chimed in too brightly, breaking the quiet. “Please tell us about the beauty of Africa.”
Before she could answer, Adwina Raines interrupted. “I hear there’s no beauty about it, Mr. Dumont,” she stated with a superior nod. “All wild jungles and heathens, as your own wife just pointed out. Naked heathens,” she added with a knowing and impugning glance at Finnea.
Finnea began to simmer.
“Africa, I hear,” Mr. Dumont stated, “is called the Dark Continent.”
“The White Man’s Grave.”
Their tones were accusatory, and Finnea tried to think of words to defend her beloved land. But what they said was true. Africa was a dark, forbidding place, though beautiful beyond words. She knew instinctively that these people with their clothes up to their chins and servants to do their slightest bidding would not understand its unforgiving beauty.
“Yes, heathens the lot of them,” Grace Baldwin breathed, her eyes growing wide with excitement. She glanced from side to side, blotted her lips delicately with her napkin, then leaned forward, her sapphire-and-diamond necklace catching the light from the chandelier. “I heard the Dutch heiress Alexine Tinne sailed up the Nile to some desolate place and attempted to cross the Sahara desert—”
“To hear it told,” Adwina interjected yet again, pulling the attention back to her, “the fine woman’s attempt was sabotaged by her native guides, who slashed off her hands and left her to die in the desert while they made off with her provisions and money.”
The women blanched and even the men gasped.
“Proof,” Adwina stated with a confirmatory nod, “that Africa is a land of barbarians.”
“I would wager it was those cannibals who did her in,” Mr. Dumont stated, leaning back in his chair, grasping his lapels importantly.
“No doubt,” confirmed another.
“Is that true, Miss Winslet?” Grace asked, her voice a mix of disgust and fascination. “Do the heathen cannibals really eat people?”
“I don’t know if it’s true or not,” Finnea said tightly, her head beginning to throb, “but I do know that their manners would no doubt keep them from discussing it at the dinner table.”
This time it was the men who blanched and the women who gasped, outraged and embarrassed at the same time.
“You are so right,” Emmaline Hawthorne interjected smoothly. “We have forgotten our manners.”
Adwina harrumphed. Grace barely stifled her sigh of disappointment that she wasn’t going to get a firsthand account of the sordid tale that had made its way around the globe.
Finnea was baffled by these people, not understanding the dictates they expressed, though seemed to forget when it suited them. It was like trying to learn the rules to a club of which she wasn’t a member. Secret handshakes and unvoiced sentiments that everyone in society understood but her. It made Finnea’s head spin.
But when she looked up, she caught sight of Matthew. He looked at her, his blue eyes boring into her, and somehow her thoughts calmed.
“We especially wanted our son to be here,” Emmaline explained, “because he has recently returned from traveling in Africa.”
Matthew’s expression turned dangerous, and he reached for a tall-stemmed goblet filled with red wine. But somehow he stumbled, his hand banging into china and crystal, almost spilling the wine. The group looked on, startled.
His eyes flashed with sudden rage before he covered it by sitting back with a casual grace and self-deprecating smile. “My apologies for my clumsiness,” he said, though he made no other move to reach for his glass. “You were saying, Mother?” he prompted, his face a study in calmness, unless someone looked very close.
Bradford looked at his son, his eyes filled with disdain. Emmaline appeared uncomfortable and worried.
“Well,” his mother began, seeming to search for her train of thought. “We invited both you and Miss Winslet because we were certain you would have much to discuss.”
“Invited, Mother?” Matthew’s tone was clipped and wry. “As I recall, I wasn’t given a choice.”
Emmaline blanched, then forced a laugh. “We thought you might have traveled to some of the same places,” she persevered awkwardly.
“Actually,” he said, glancing across the table to meet Finnea’s eye, “I met Miss Winslet in the Congo. On a train.”
Finnea looked at him, her heart suddenly pounding.
“I have to touch you, Finnea.”
“You’ve met?” Emmaline gasped, surprised. “Matthew, you didn’t tell us you had already met Miss Winslet.”
“There is nothing to tell,” Finnea interjected quickly. Nothing but hours of frantic struggle. Hours of fighting to survive. Then hours longer as they waited through the night, hours of him holding her close and talking. Of her telling him her secrets. Of her telling him her dreams, the jungle and the trauma lending the night an intimacy she wished she could forget. No, she wasn’t interested in sharing that. She wanted nothing to do with Africa any longer. Or Matthew Hawthorne.
Matthew raised a brow. She could read the sarcastic tilt as if it were a page in a book, and she turned away, thankful this time when Grace interrupted.
“Ah, look at this!” the woman exclaimed. “Turtle soup. How divine.”
Stiffly uniformed footmen appeared at the table, their steps muffled by the thick Aubusson rug. They carried ornate tureens of soup, silver platters of bread, and dishes of herbed butters shaped like tiny shells. A footman came up to Finnea’s side, and stopped abruptly, his whole body seeming to stiffen as he stood next to her.
Finnea glanced to her side, her eyes going wide. “Are you all right?”
Then silence, people startled and confused.
“Of course he is all right,” Adwina stated with a twist of lips that was tight and condescending. “He is offering you soup.”
Finnea felt her answering blush, a blush that grew worse when she saw her mother’s flash of embarrassment. Mortified, Finnea turned to the footman and nodded.
Soon everyone was served and Finnea had no choice but to eat, though which of the slew of spoons she was supposed to use she had no idea. Not wanting to make another mistake, surreptitiously she tried to see what everyone else was using. But given the assortment of flowers and tall stemware dotting the table like trees in a forest, Finnea couldn’t make out which spoon the others had picked up. Her only clear view was of Matthew in between three towering crystal goblets. But he wasn’t eating at all.
With no help for it, hoping for the best, she made a choice. Choosing the closest to her hand, she picked it up and waited. Then she sighed her relief when no one said a word.
“Matthew had a wonderful time in his travels,” his mother said, her tone soft and loving. “He brought back the most interesting gifts.” She sighed unexpectedly, her eyes clouding in sudden memory. “I remember a silvered mirror Matthew brought me from Venice years ago. I still have it. Do you remember that, Matth—”
As soon as she looked up at him, her words cut off and her gaze grew startled, as if both surprised and devastated by the sight of her son.
Finnea knew in that second that she had been right on the train: He hadn’t always been so fierce, or so scarred.
What had happened to him? she wondered. What had changed his life so drastically?
No one spoke. They watched as the careless disregard that had marked Matthew’s face all night long evaporated into the candlelit night. Finnea wanted to weep for this man when he looked at his mother with grim devastation of his own.
But after a moment passed, it was her own mother who broke the awkward silence. “I hope everyone here has received their invitations to the gala ball we are having to honor Finnea’s birthday.”
Penelope sat forward, excited. “It’s going to be a grand affair. Mother Lettie and I have been making the most wonderful arrangements.”
Mother Lettie.
As if Nester’s fiancée were the daughter instead of Finnea.
Leticia toyed with her pearls, then glanced at Jeffrey with a meaningful smile. “We are hoping Finnea will have some joyous news to announce at the ball.”
Finnea’s head shot up. Joyous news?
Jeffrey reached over and discreetly squeezed Finnea’s hand beneath the table, and she understood very suddenly what she should have understood earlier when he had placed a possessive hand against her back as he led her to the dining room. From the minute she had met him he had shown her nothing but kindness and consideration. He had made her feel cared for and welcomed. And now she realized that he was going to ask her to marry him.
Hot embarrassment shot through her when she glanced up to find Matthew pinning her with a penetrating gaze, and she looked away.
Nester straightened in his seat. “What news? I haven’t heard a thing about any news.”
“Now, dear,” Leticia said, her voice cajoling. “I can’t say. It would ruin the surprise.”
“I think I have a right to know, Mother.”
“Nester, please.” She gave him a pointed look, tempered with a smile.
Soon the soup bowls were cleared from the table. Thankfully, this time when the footmen appeared Finnea wasn’t expected to do anything. A plate was simply set before her. A large plate covered with food. Though the only things she recognized were the gossamer-thin petals of a nasturtium.
But at least she recognized that. With a silent sigh of relief that there was something she knew what to do with, she picked up the long green stem of the umbrella-shaped flower and bit off the top.
It wasn’t until she glanced up, one betraying petal stuck to her lip, the stem still held in her hand, that she realized everyone, including the statue like footmen, had stopped to stare at her, their mouths agape.
Adwina’s hard brown eyes cemented with knowing disdain.
With a silent groan, Finnea wondered what she had done this time.
Moments passed before she noticed that not a single other person there had touched the flower and she understood her mistake. Americans, apparently, didn’t eat nasturtiums.
Her mother’s slightly rouged lips rounded with humiliation; her brother groaned. Emmaline stammered.
But it was Matthew who spoke.
“The nasturtiums are a special surprise, Miss Winslet,” he said, his voice low and deep, commanding. “I told my mother they are a delicacy in Africa, and she served them in your honor. Isn’t that right, Mother?”
“Ah, yes, dear,” Emmaline said, her pale gray eyes flashing with quick understanding.
Matthew looked at Finnea, his eyes intense. She didn’t know what to make of his actions, and her embarrassment grew. She wanted to leap up and run from the room. But then, with his gaze never wavering from hers, he picked up the flower from his own plate and bit off the petals.
Finnea’s eyes suddenly burned as she watched this man, such a contradiction. One minute fierce, the next so caring. Just as he had been in Africa.
She forced herself to finish chewing. And after a moment, Emmaline picked up her own nasturtium, eyeing it dubiously. “I hope they are as good as what you enjoy in Africa, Miss Winslet. I’ve been looking forward to trying them myself.” And she did, chewing carefully and swallowing.