One by one, the guests murmured doubtfully but followed suit—every guest but Adwina Raines. She sat in her chair with a suspicious scowl.
“Eat!” Matthew bellowed, his fist crashing against the table, silverware clattering against china and wood.
A startled moment passed before Adwina picked up the stem and bit off the top.
Matthew focused on his plate, but after that he seemed to understand Finnea’s dilemma. After each new course was set before her, with barely held patience, he very discreetly, though emphatically, showed her which utensil to use.
There were forks for salad and forks for meat. There were knives for cheese and spoons for coffee until all fourteen pieces of silver were gone and Finnea felt she would burst from so much food. But at the end, she felt proud. She hadn’t made a single other mistake the rest of the evening.
At least she hadn’t until the guests began to depart, and she noticed that the bracelet her mother had given her to wear was missing. She glanced back toward the dining room. But just then Grace Baldwin extended her hand to shake in polite farewell.
Without thinking, Finnea extended her own, placing her left hand under her armpit, as was her custom.
First Grace’s then Adwina’s eyes went wide. Her mother groaned. And the pudgy, old Mr. Baldwin couldn’t seem to help himself. He laughed out loud.
Finnea forgot about the bracelet as she realized it was her hand in her armpit that was causing the consternation.
Nester made a harsh, frustrated sound, then snatched his coat from the footmen and bid a tight good evening.
Shaking her head, Finnea dropped her hand and forced a smile, hating the sudden threat of tears that burned in her eyes.
Chapter Three
“I think it’s time you remarry.”
The words stopped Matthew cold in his tracks.
It was the next day, Sunday, and he was exhausted. The dinner party last night had taken its toll. It was getting harder and harder to hide the fact that the injuries that were only hinted at by the scar on his face were getting worse, not better.
He stood in his parents’ foyer, having just arrived from his town house on Marlborough Street. At the sound of his mother’s voice he looked up to see her standing at the top of the stairs. Her hand rested on the mahogany banister that stretched out atop white spindles that looked like soldiers lined up in a row.
Hawthorne House was what most prominent Bostonians considered an exemplary home. Large, but not too large, as some Back Bay residences tended to be, and built by Charles Bulfinch in the early part of the century.
The rooms were exquisitely detailed with fine woods and oriental carpets. Elegant and refined, but never ostentatious. Porcelain Ming vases stood on high pedestals. Priceless paintings lined the walls. One could spend money on art. That was an investment. But gold-gilt crown moldings or marble balustrades were an extravagant waste of a man’s good, Puritan money. Or so his father had always said.
Matthew waited, silently, not trusting himself to speak. His head pounded, his arm and shoulder ached, making it difficult to think. Anyone who looked at him could see the scar on his face. But no one except the doctors had seen the scars on his shoulder and forearm, left from the accident that made him a widower a year and a half ago.
Sometimes in the night he found it hard to believe how much his life had changed.
“I’ve made you uncomfortable,” Emmaline said, descending the stairs with regal grace and a desperately loving smile.
When she stood before him, she placed a hand on his wrist. Pain shot up through his arm to his head. It took every ounce of his control not to suck in his breath.
He thought of the doctors. The looks on their faces, the concern in their eyes. But Matthew was never quite sure how much of their concern was about his condition and how much was due to the fact that they had to tell one of the wealthiest, and once one of the most powerful, men in Boston that he wasn’t getting better, as they had assured him he would.
When they first voiced their concerns, Matthew had refused to believe. But he was finding it took more and more strict concentration to make his wounded arm work properly. The arm was growing weaker, and just like last night, if he didn’t focus, he fumbled around like a schoolboy. But if he did pay careful attention to each task, he moved through life with a large degree of normalcy, making it possible to hide his growing weakness from his family.
“Oh, Matthew, I just hate to see you so unhappy.” Emmaline hesitated, then added, “And marriage would do you a world of good.”
“I will never remarry, Mother,” he said, his frustrations seeping through, his normally ironclad control strained.
“Stop living in the past!” she suddenly cried. “Kimberly is gone. You have to accept that!”
His throat worked as he thought of his wife. They had been married seven years earlier. He had known from the minute he saw her that she would be his wife. Now she was dead, he was scarred, and he would never marry again.
“I think Finnea Winslet would make a wonderful wife.”
She had caught him off guard with her talk of marriage, but this stunned him. “Marry Finnea Winslet? That’s crazy!” And it was. He hardly liked her, much less wanted to marry her. Or so he told himself over the sudden rush of sound through his head.
Emmaline’s face was riddled with uncertainty. “I don’t know. It was just a thought that came to me last night at the party.”
“I can’t imagine why. Finnea and I hardly spoke.”
“I noticed, as no doubt everyone else did.” She sighed. “Even though your behavior makes it easy to forget, I still remember a day when you made everyone around you smile. Gracious, you had all of Boston dancing attendance on you. Women followed you with simpering looks, and men courted your favor. Everyone you knew, and many you didn’t, adored you.” She looked him straight in the eye. “Now you slam your fist down on the table to deal with those very same people.”
He bit back embarrassment over the truth of his mother’s words. Futile embarrassment. Just as wishing life hadn’t changed was futile.
Showing none of the turmoil he felt, he crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back against a Roman column. “You mean I wasn’t charming last night?” he asked, teasing, as he once did so often and so well.
“No you were not, as well you know,” Emmaline snapped. “Act as you want; that’s your right. But the least you could have done was be civil to Miss Winslet.”
He came away from the column in a flash. His pain was pushed aside by a sudden, intense fury—a fury he had never known until his life had changed so drastically, a fury that was now never far away.
“Civil? I was more than civil.” He had saved her ungrateful life in the jungle, then led her through the intricacies of dinner etiquette like a guide leading the blind.
“You may have saved her from that embarrassing flower debacle,” his mother continued, “but boorishly ignoring her the rest of the evening hardly constitutes civil behavior.”
“If you believe I was so terrible to her, then why in the world would you suggest marriage in the first place?”
“Because Finnea Winslet is the first person I’ve seen who pulled you out from under that steely facade you have built around yourself.” Her gently lined face softened. “You’ve locked yourself away, Matthew. But for one fleeting moment last night when she walked in, life filled your eyes.”
His heart hammered in his chest as the sudden glimpse of naked white skin flashed through his mind. And blood. Everywhere.
“She’s such a nice woman, Matthew. I liked her instantly.”
Ripping his outer shirt. Pressing piece after piece to the jagged wound in the soft flesh of her inner thigh. But the blood hadn’t stopped, seeping into the material, staining it red. Again and again, white turned to red until his shirt was completely spent. Working ceaselessly. The powerless feeling of her growing weak in his arms. Life draining away. Frigid, aching cold seeping into his soul when he knew she was giving up.
“I think she would be good for you, son.”
“No!” The word exploded, echoing against the silk-lined walls and twenty-foot-high ceilings.
He blinked and sucked in his breath, the sound of his heartbeat rushing through his ears as he looked at his mother’s startled expression.
“You’re wrong, Mother,” he managed to say, forcing his mind back to the present. “I don’t want a wife, nor do I need one.”
“But what about your daughter!” Emmaline demanded, anger flaring in her eyes.
Matthew flinched, jerking away to look out the long windows that lined the front door, the simple movement making his head swim. Mary. His precious six-year-old daughter. She was the only reason he had come back from Africa at all. But his homecoming hadn’t gone as he had hoped.
“Mary has you and Father to love her,” he answered.
“She needs you to love her.”
“I do love her!” The words were torn out of him. “God, I do,” he whispered. “But she needs a woman to guide her. And I can’t do that.”
“But a wife could.”
He met her gaze and very slowly said, “I am telling you for the last time, I will never remarry. Not Finnea Winslet, not some other woman you get it in your head would make me a good wife. I was married once. I will not marry again.” He searched for control. “Is that why you sent for me?”
After a long moment, she sighed. “Actually, no. I wanted you to return this bracelet.” She hesitated uncertainly. “It’s the one Miss Winslet wore last night.”
He prayed for patience. “Isn’t that convenient.”
“Now, Matthew. I just want you to return the bracelet so they won’t worry about its whereabouts any longer. I had a note this morning.”
Matthew could imagine the note, just as he could imagine Finnea wanting to make up some reason for seeing him.
“Will you do that for me?” she asked.
“Fine, I’ll return it. Then I’ll leave. That’s it.”
“Fair enough.”
He glanced toward the study. “Is Father here?”
Emmaline looked at her son for several moments and said, “No, he’s out.”
“Tell him I was here and wanted to know if he would like to meet me for lunch on Friday. At Locke-Ober’s.” His voice quieted. “Just as we used to.”
Emmaline pressed her eyes closed for a fleeting second, then seemed to pull herself up. “I know he plans to travel out to Worcester next Friday to look at some property.”
“Then the following Friday.”
She nodded her head. “All right. I’ll tell him. I’m sure he’ll send word when he returns this afternoon.”
“Thank you.”
“Here’s the bracelet.”
He sliced her a grim look, took the piece of jewelry, and slipped it into his pocket. Leaning down, he brushed a quick kiss on her cheek.
“I will expect you tonight for Sunday dinner,” she added.
He made a noncommittal sound, then turned to depart.
“Aren’t you at least going to say hello to Mary before you leave?”
Matthew stiffened. He didn’t want to see Mary, he told himself firmly. But a pang of yearning wrenched his heart. He cursed himself for a fool. He knew what would happen, but still he couldn’t bring himself to walk out that door without at least trying. Maybe this time would be different.
“She’s in her room.”
Carefully he took the wide curving staircase that led to the upper regions of the house. Walking down the long, spacious hall, he passed his brothers’ childhood rooms, nearly stopping when he came to his own. But he forced himself to continue on, down two more doors, where he knocked.
“Come in.”
Sweet and gentle Mary.
His heart surged as he turned the knob and found her sitting in the window seat. Lace curtains framed her tiny little-girl’s body, making her look like a cherished princess. Her dress was full and ruffled, as she liked, her hair curled and pinned back. She had white-blond hair and huge blue eyes. A beauty already. For a moment he forgot the past, forgot that everything had changed, and he started toward her.
But when she turned and saw him, her sweet angel’s face tensed, first with surprise, then with fear. He stopped dead in his tracks. She hadn’t been able to look at him without crying since the accident.
His heart plunged and naked despair snaked through him. But he blocked it out. “Hello, Mary,” he said softly, his voice steady by sheer force of will. He turned his face just so, in a way that minimized the sight of his scar.
But it did little good. The look in her eyes grew distant, and she started to hum, quietly, with determination, stroking her doll as if soothing it. He wanted to cross the room and pull her into his arms. He wanted to bury his face in her soft shoulder, hold her close, tell her everything was going to be all right.
But everything wasn’t going to be all right. He couldn’t erase the scar. And as weak as he was today, he doubted he could even hold her close.
His heart turned to stone, and it was all he could do to contain himself. He held on by a thread, focusing as he left, shutting the door with a barely controlled violence. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped in front of his mother. “One of these days you’re going to accept that I do more harm than good.”
He slammed out of the house, white dots dancing before his eyes when he hurtled into his carriage. He jerked up the reins, taking to the streets as if he were back in Africa, heedless of the mammoth dray wagons carrying their heavy loads. He threaded in and out of traffic, snowflakes the size of silver dollars catching in his hair. He barely missed light posts and granite curbs as the wheels of the two-seater skidded, then caught, then skidded again, slipping along over the cobblestone street as he turned left off Beacon Street onto Arlington toward the Winslet home on Commonwealth Avenue.
Rage and despair ticked like a clock inside him. He moved on the seat, and the bracelet bit into his leg.
Finnea.
His heart beat oddly at the thought of her—this strange woman who had come into his life so unexpectedly, twice now. He wanted to see her. Just look, as if by doing so it would give him some clue as to why unwanted thoughts of her circled in his mind.