Dove's Way

DOVE’S WAY

LINDA FRANCIS LEE

SERIES: Dove’s Way trilogy — Book 1

ISBN: 0-449-00205-5

COPYRIGHT (c) 2000 by Linda Francis Lee

SUBJECT: Historical Romance — Victorian period — Boston, Massachusetts — Africa

VERSION: v1.0 - Not Proofed

SUMMARY: “Even months after that day on the train, her face still haunted my dreams. And I was sure the feel of her in my arms would stay with me forever. But then one night, she stepped back into my life as if walking into my dreams… .” Matthew Hawthorne saved Finnea Winslet’s life one day on a train in Africa. But Finnea didn’t know that on that day she saved his soul. Destroyed by scandal, Matthew would have been ostracized completely by the unyielding society of his birth had he not been such a powerful man. Matthew doesn’t let himself care about anyone or anything, until Finnea arrives unexpectedly in Boston.

Raised in Africa, Finnea is as foreign to Bostonians as they are to her. Yet she is determined to make a life for herself there, so she turns to Matthew to learn the ways of that rigid town. But can Matthew help Finnea without losing what is left of his heart?

From the jungles of Africa to the heart of Boston society, DOVE’S WAY is an extraordinary tale of redeeming love that will rescue a man, and release a woman from the pain in her heart.

AWARDS: 2001 Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award for Best Short Historical nominee

“Why did you lie to me?” she asked quietly, without moving her hand away.

“What?” Confusion clouded his mind, the world outside the room suddenly distant.

“During that long night in Africa,” she whispered, “you told me that everyone here in Boston was kind and wonderful. I believed you.”

“I told you what you wanted to hear.”

“You lied.”

“You were dying!” The words came out sharply, the tinge of remembered panic lacing the air. “You were dying,” he repeated more softly, forcing a teasing he didn’t feel into his tone. “I saw no reason to tell you the truth and hasten your demise.”

Finnea pressed her eyes closed and laughed, a burst of sound that was filled with relief. “True. If you had told me about Adwina Raines, no doubt I never would have recovered.”

“But you did,” he whispered.

He stared at her, unable to look away. They were close, so close that if he leaned just so he could kiss her… .

DOVE’S WAY

Linda Francis Lee

IVY BOOKS • NEW YORK

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to…

Dr. Scott Joy, M.D., for his help with medical questions;

Dr. Julius Nyang’oro, Ph.D., and Dr. Alphonse Mutima, Ph.D., for their help with Africa;

Shauna Summers, for being wonderful;

Amy Berkower, for her endless kindness;

Jodi Reamer, for Chinatown;

Kathleen Nolan, for sharing her beautiful home on top of the world;

Stef Ann Holm and Kathy Peiffer, for their friendship, for reading everything I sent them, and for always being willing to read more;

Carilyn Francis Johnson, dear friend and sister;

And, as always, to Michael, because I couldn’t do it without him.

PART ONE

Like a dove in the morning,

she sought her way home.

Anonymous

From the Journal of Matthew Hawthorne

I met her on a train in Africa. One minute I was alone, the next she was there, the thick green jungle surrounding us in the open-air railcar. Strange how life can turn on end so quickly and unexpectedly, how mere seconds or hours can change the course of a lifetime.

If I noticed her at all when she first walked in, then I’m sure I noticed that she had hair as red and untamed as the setting sun, and eyes as green as the African forest. She wasn’t a native; her white skin and light eyes were proof of that. But she was wild nonetheless. Like Africa. A woman so unlike either the Africans I had seen over the six months I had been there, or the ladies of Boston I had known my whole life.

But what I do remember, vividly, is that she didn’t so much as blink when she saw the scar that etched my face.

Beyond that, I remember little else of that first moment I saw her. I had no interest. In her. In the surroundings. In anything. I had gone to Africa to forget. All I could think that day was it was a damn shame I hadn’t.

Chapter One

Africa 1891

She nearly missed the train.

Finnea Winslet raced across the makeshift platform of the Congo Free State Railway, her hunter’s pants and cotton shirt splattered with mud because she’d had to run the last quarter mile to the train. Her father’s longtime servant Janji hurried along at her side as they came to the line of antiquated railcars that waited deep in the African jungle.

Only the long, metal scrape of train tracks marred the thick tangle of vines and evergreen trees. And the smell. Of jasmine and damp, mineral-rich dirt. Mixing with the sounds. A nearly deafening clatter of vendors hawking their wares, and of animals—goats, chickens, and even the oxen that had carried many of the travelers to the station.

The oxen could go no farther. The train would take Finnea across the most impassable portions of the Congo to the Congo Free State’s major port of Matadi and the steamship that would take her to America. Take her to see her mother and brother, whom she hadn’t seen in nineteen of her twenty-five years.

“Tusanswalu,” Janji said in Kikongo, telling her to be quick as they ran.

Janji was a powerful man both in size and respect from his tribesmen. His skin was dark against the white of his flowing African robes, his gray hair gleaming in the brutal midday sun. Though years older, he wasn’t out of breath and he spoke with ease. “If we don’t hurry, the train and the guide I have arranged to escort you to Matadi will leave.”

Finnea wasn’t particularly happy about the guide, hadn’t known about him until minutes ago, when Janji informed her of the arrangement. But she was determined to make this trip, and it was no secret that Africa was not a kind place to a woman alone. And now that her father had succumbed to spotted fever, she was alone.

“The guide will be waiting for you in the second car,” Janji added. “His name is Matthew Hawthorne.”

“How do you know he will be there?” she asked, her Kikongo as fluent as his.

“Be assured, I know. We made the arrangements just yesterday. And Matthew Hawthorne is a man of his word.” Janji hesitated, his face looking distant but determined. “He is also a good man.”

“But—”

“You go now,” Janji stated in his blunt, forceful way, cutting her off. But then he hesitated, his wizened old face softening. “I will make certain your belongings come to you in America.”

Suddenly thoughts of guides and mothers were gone. Her heart kicked in her chest with fear, fear of this new life that both pushed and pulled at her. Without warning, she didn’t want to leave Janji or his family. She didn’t want to leave Africa. She would stay. She would find a way to make a new life for herself on her own.

Her mind raced with possibilities, but Janji must have read her thoughts.

“You must go,” he said, not unkindly. “You are like a dove in the morning that must find its way home. There is nothing for you here.”

He was right, deep down she understood that. But that didn’t make it easier to accept.

Despite the fact that she knew he wouldn’t like it, she flung her arms around him as the train lurched and sent up a great puff of steam. “I will miss you, my friend.”

He was stiff and unyielding in her arms, but after a long minute she could feel the tautness of his sinewy muscles ease. One small concession to affection after a near lifetime of seeing to her welfare.

Without meeting his eye, refusing to let him see her tears, she reached down and grabbed her pack, then raced away. Only when she stood on the metal steps as the train pulled out of the rustic, makeshift station, a lump lodged in her throat, did she look back. Janji stood quietly, proudly. No emotion. But just when the train began its first curve out of sight, he raised his hand in silent farewell.

Finnea stood on the steps, her own hand raised, tears streaking her cheeks as she watched until the station was swallowed up by the thick green jungle. Would she ever see him again? Would he send the few belongings that mattered to her as he promised? Could she live without them if he didn’t?

With a firm shake of her head, she dashed the tears away. There was nothing she could do about it now. And in that second, she realized she was starting over. With that thought came a flash of emotion. A sweet, exhilarating rush of feelings. A freeing, of things, of the past.

There was truly no place for her in Africa. But she had family a world away in America. In Boston, the town where she had been born. The town from which her father had taken his family and moved to Africa nearly twenty years ago.

But Finnea’s mother had hated Africa, her father had explained, hated what she called a “primitive life,” and the minute little Nester had become ill, Leticia Winslet had insisted she return to Boston with him to seek medical care.

Promising to return within the year, Leticia had taken her son and sailed to America, leaving her husband and daughter behind. But one year had stretched into two, and two into three, until the promises ceased. Finnea hadn’t seen her mother or brother since. Now, in a few short months, she would see the two people who were more strangers to her than family.

Often Finnea had wondered what her brother looked like. Was he tall like their father had been? Full of laughter and kind smiles? But her attention was held by Leticia.

Her mother. A woman she didn’t know.

Her father had shared bits and pieces of her mother with her, a sort of jigsaw-puzzle glimpse of a woman, fragmented and incomplete. But soon she would have the rest of the pieces to complete her picture.

Excitement began to drum in her veins as she entered the first car of the train. For years she had dreamed of her mother, in a town house in Boston. Her father had told her of the home he had left behind. A tall, stately structure made from blocks of chiseled stone the color of sand mixed with the sea, and huge windows filled with precious panes of glass. Throughout her childhood he had described the house, the steps built amazingly of granite instead of wood leading up to majestic front doors that clicked open with handles that he swore were made of bright gleaming brass. And inside, more steps, this time made of smooth marble climbing higher in the house. Four floors in all, filled with lights called chandeliers and rugs woven from thick wool instead of dried grasses. After a lifetime in Africa such a place seemed as remote as America itself.

The ivory season was over, so there should have been plenty of empty seats in the open-air car. But she was surprised to find that the first car was packed with people, both natives and foreigners, and small animals trying to settle in.

Finnea refused to think about the descent to the coastal river town. The Congo’s train was a rickety affair at best, but it was the only viable means of transportation in the area.

As she made her way through the throng of passengers toward the second car, Finnea spoke to a native woman from a nearby village, pulling out a sweet for the woman’s child. She exchanged pleasantries with a brawny man with dark mahogany skin whom she had dealt with at market, joked with a vendor she had traded with for years. She talked and laughed as she made her way through the first car, in no particular hurry to seek out the guide. These were the people she knew. This was where she was comfortable.

She didn’t do as well in the coastal towns where small colonies of Europeans had settled. She knew they thought her odd and outlandish. Not that she cared. She never had.

But for reasons she didn’t understand, despite the fact that she hardly knew the woman, Finnea cared what her mother thought. She wanted her to be proud of the woman she had become.

Finnea made her way through the throng of people toward the second car. The train rocked and swayed, sometimes jarring so violently that conversation broke off, an eerie silence falling over the passengers. No sooner did the motion of the train smooth out than the conversation flared anew. In Kikongo and Swahili. A smattering of Portuguese and a few other languages. Then sharp, spiking laughter to cover the fear everyone had felt.

When she reached the platform that connected the cars, she was forced to step aside when first one European couple, then another hurried out of the second car. The rush of wind whipped her face, stinging her eyes as she grabbed the rusty handholds for balance. The sound of iron wheels clacking rhythmically over tracks of metal and wood made it impossible to hear what anyone said. But Finnea had the distinct impression that the people were hurrying away disturbed.

She gave it little thought. When the platform cleared, she hooked the straps of her pack on her arm, slid the door open, and stepped into the nearly empty car.