Dove's Way (19 page)

Without bothering to knock, he stamped his high-polished boots on the horsehair mat to clear the ice and cinders, then entered Hawthorne House. It was Friday afternoon, and Matthew knew Mary would be in the sunroom at the back of the house reading. His daughter loved books, had demanded he teach her to read as soon as she could hold a book. He had cherished those hours of sitting close, her concentration mixed with her cheerful giggles over the stories they read.

Sure enough, he found her in the sunroom curled up in an overstuffed chair, a book in her hands, her white-blond hair catching a long ray of sun. He didn’t go in, and when a maid started to announce him, he pressed his index finger to his lip. She nodded her understanding, bobbed a curtsy, then went on with her work.

Matthew stood there, just stood, taking Mary in, feeling the ease he needed so badly wash over him.

But quick on the heels of the ease came frustration. How was this ever going to change? he wondered, leaning his shoulder up against the doorjamb. How was he going to move beyond just watching his daughter from a distance?

As always, he saw no answers.

Voices sounded in the foyer and he turned away, not wanting Mary to look up and see him. He was nearly to the front door when his mother’s voice stopped him.

“Matthew?”

He turned to her as she came down the stairway, dressed to go out. “Hello, Mother.”

She took his hand, her beaded reticule swinging on her outstretched arm. “What are you doing here?”

His shrug was casual, and he pushed a lock of blond hair back from his forehead as he searched for a smile. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in and say hello.”

She looked at him askance. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. You’re here for some other reason.” She studied him. “You look upset. Are you perhaps unhappy that Finnea Winslet is announcing her engagement tonight?”

He felt stung by the words.

“I heard it’s true. Everyone is talking about it,” she said.

“Actually it isn’t true. At least not anymore. Her engagement to Jeffrey Upton has been called off.”

“Really? How do you know?”

A wry grin pulled at his face. “She came by the house and asked me to take his place.”

Her grip tightened on his hand. “Do it.”

Matthew sliced his gaze over his mother. “We’ve been over this. You know I can’t.”

But Emmaline didn’t back down. “What I know, son, is that you never loved Kimberly in the way you should have loved the woman of your heart.”

Matthew’s breath hissed in through his teeth, but Emmaline was relentless.

“You looked at Kimberly as the perfect wife to escort about town on your perfect arm. There was no emotion—no real emotion. I hate that you were hurt—that you were scarred. But since you’ve met Finnea, for the first time in your life I can see that you truly feel. Hurt, anger, frustration. Love.”

His heart pounded as he tried to deny her words. “I don’t need you to play matchmaker, Mother,” he stated, not bothering to explain that Finnea only wanted a fake engagement, not an actual marriage.

“Maybe, maybe not. But actually, I was just on my way to your house to talk to you.” Suddenly she grew uncomfortable. “Your father told me … to tell you that it’s time Mary live with you.”

His body tensed. “She can’t!”

“She can, and she will. Your father will brook no argument in this.”

“The bastard!”

“Don’t you dare say that. He’s your father. And while I might hate this situation, I know he is right. Mary needs you whether you are willing to admit it or not.”

His world spun.

Her voice softened and she stepped closer, her fingers reaching up and touching his scar as only Finnea had done before. “I love you, my dear, dear boy. But you’ve been handed circumstances that you must learn to deal with. It is time you stopped hiding away. Marry Finnea. Make a home for your child. She is only asking you to do what deep down you already want.”

The party would start in less than forty-five minutes. Finnea had to find her mother and tell her there would be no announcement.

But when she hurried up the grand sweeping stairs of her family’s home, inadequacy overwhelmed her at the sight of her mother and Penelope so at ease with each other, conferring over the last-minute details of the party.

“Everything is ready,” Penelope told Leticia. “Once the guests start arriving, all you have to do is be your gracious self and I’ll take care of everything else.”

“Thank you, dear,” Leticia said, her long gown a dreamy fluff of a sugary confection. “You have been indispensable to me these last weeks.”

Finnea veered toward her room.

“Oh, Finnea, there you are,” Leticia called out, her gown rustling. But she cut herself off abruptly as she took in the stained blue silk and the hair tumbling free of its moorings. “Oh my goodness, quickly, you must change! The guests will be here any minute.”

Penelope looked at Finnea, then demurely lowered her gaze as she picked up her deep blue velvet skirt, which matched her eyes, and headed downstairs. Leticia took hold of Finnea’s arm and propelled her toward her room.

“Mother, wait!”

“What is it, Finnea?” Leticia demanded.

“We need to talk.”

“We can talk some other time. You’re not presentable, and half of Boston is about to walk through the front door to hear the announcement of your engagement! And you will not announce anything looking like that.”

“There isn’t going to be an announcement.”

“What?” The word reverberated in the long hallway.

“My engagement to Jeffrey is off.”

“What do you mean?” she gasped.

“Just that. There will be no announcement.”

“How could you let this happen?” Leticia’s face distorted with outrage. “Everyone who is anyone in Boston will be here at any minute, and they are expecting to hear that you and Jeffrey are to be married!”

“It’s too late for that.”

“I should have known!” she cried, her voice shrill. “I should have known that it would never happen.”

But then she sucked in her breath and calmed, leaving an eerie quiet that sent a shiver of foreboding up Finnea’s spine.

Leticia’s face suddenly relaxed and filled with a world of regret. She reached out and took her daughter’s hand. “Do you understand how this isn’t working?”

Finnea stood unmoving in the middle of the hallway, panic slipping over her like rain washing down the clear glass of a windowpane. She felt as if she were falling, drifting in air as if the world had been pulled out from beneath her. A free fall. Would it ever stop?

“What do you mean, Mother?” She asked the question very carefully, afraid that at any second she would crumble.

“Don’t you see? You’re unhappy. Nester is unhappy.” Leticia hesitated. “It’s too late to change the past, Finnea.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think we both know that you don’t belong here.”

Finnea felt her entire body flinch as if she had been struck.

“Oh, Finnea, we’ve been kidding ourselves. You don’t fit in here, no matter how hard you are trying.”

Finnea was aware of the front door opening and the sound of guests arriving, the click of the latch, the low heels on marble, decorous hellos, wraps being taken. Leticia must have heard them, too, because her face transformed. She put on her perfect smile as if nothing had happened. Kind and genteel.

“We will discuss this further tomorrow. For now, I must see to the guests. We simply won’t make an announcement; we will pretend as though there never was one planned. It is your birthday, after all.”

Leticia stopped, suddenly awkward. “Happy birthday,” she said with an uncertain kiss to the air beside Finnea’s cheek.

Not one person had wished her a happy birthday until now. A consolation prize at the end of an awful day. But it wasn’t the end yet, she reminded herself.

“We will make it through this party,” her mother continued, stepping back. “Then we will talk.”

Once her mother had gone, Finnea entered her bedroom. Panic threatened to swallow her whole. As soon as the door shut behind her she walked to the French doors that led to a balcony and pulled them open. The cold hit her first, harsh and biting, but she hardly noticed. With frigid winter air filling the room, catching in the draperies, she slid to the floor, her skirts billowing around her in a cloud of stained blue. She lay back on the thick rug like a child, the hand-knotted design of flowers forming a garland around her head. Unable to think, unable to feel, she stared up at the plastered ceiling, concentrating on the peaks and swirls of the white-icinged contours. Voices drifted up the stairs and down the halls, words that were muffled and fragmented by the carpeted floor.

She wanted to lie there forever, to never get up. She didn’t want to go downstairs. But that wasn’t her way. She would dress in the splendid gown her mother had chosen. If people were going to talk about her, let them talk about her to her face. Let them see that she was strong, not weak. She was African, after all. As her mother had just pointed out.

The house overflowed with guests, glittering and bedecked, jeweled in a way that Puritan Boston rarely saw. Men in white waistcoats and cutaway tails, women in shimmering gowns of the finest materials. Indeed, everyone who was anyone was in attendance. Leticia Winslet couldn’t have asked for more. Except for the announcement of her daughter’s engagement.

By the time Finnea came down, everyone had arrived. She steadied herself on the banister as she descended the stairs, trying to calm herself with the strands of music coming from the orchestra that played at the side of the room. Her mother was there, as were her grandmother and brother. But not a glimpse of Jeffrey, she realized with a sting of defeat. Of course he wasn’t there, she reminded herself. She wouldn’t have him.

Everyone in the room turned to look at her, the conversation breaking off as she entered, her foot on the bottom step. She had dressed with care in a stunning gown of soft gray velvet. Her mother’s lady’s maid had arranged her hair in an elegant style. Even she knew she looked beautiful. She could see it in the faces of the men, in the stiffening shoulders of the women—a sharp bristling like the ridge on an animal’s neck.

Even in beauty and decorum she wasn’t accepted.

The thought hit her suddenly, without warning.

But she was given no opportunity to take it in when Penelope entered the room. She looked stunning, a pale, icy beauty that would always be more fitting in this cool society than Finnea’s wild features.

Penelope came forward, walking toward the stairs, but she bypassed Finnea without a glance and strode directly to Hannah.

“Mother Hannah,” Penelope said with the familiarity that Finnea had never felt. “How lovely you look.”

Hannah Grable, the queen among her people. Penelope as the granddaughter she wished she’d had. The heir to Hannah’s throne. And Finnea’s heart sank even further.

Hannah took Penelope’s hand and allowed a kiss to her cheek. “Thank you, dear.”

Still holding the older woman’s hands, Penelope looked coldly back at Finnea. It was then that Finnea understood that no good could come of tonight. Penelope had clearly heard the engagement was off, and she relished what Finnea had not realized until now was a victory. An opponent who only now showed her colors.

“I see Jeffrey didn’t arrive,” Penelope said in a creamy drawl that everyone could hear. “Why is that, Finnea?”

It was like a physical blow. The women around the room glanced between Penelope and Finnea, waiting expectantly. Penelope couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let the evening slide by without playing her trump card.

It hit Finnea then—not sadness or lament but fury, white-hot fury for all she had tried to accomplish in this self-centered, limited world that was being tossed back in her face. She realized that next Penelope would ask about the announcement, and there was nothing she could do to stop her. Penelope didn’t want to be usurped, never had.

“So tell us, Finnea,” Penelope continued, “where is Jeffrey? Didn’t you have a marriage announcement to make?”

Finnea raised her chin, fighting back the tremble she felt beginning in her soul, and looked her in the eye. “I won’t be marrying Jeffrey.”

The crowd murmured uneasily.

Penelope’s smile was coy. “Why ever not?”

“Because she is marrying me.”

The simple statement, spoken in a deep, rumbling voice, brought everything to an abrupt halt. One guest after another turned toward the arched entryway, until they stood silently. The crowd gaped but didn’t say a word. They might have difficulty looking at him, but everyone there knew he was too important a man to cross.

“Matthew,” Finnea barely whispered, emotion she didn’t understand sweeping through her.

Matthew Hawthorne stepped into the grand room, tall and elegant. Impeccably dressed in white tie and black tails. He was beautiful, really. When he stood just so, it was easy to forget the scar. He did it in a way that made her think that he realized that fact. That he felt the need to hide even when he couldn’t made her want to weep.

She knew he had rarely been out among people since the day he met his father at the street corner. He hadn’t wanted to be seen. But here he was with all eyes focused on him.

“Ah,” Penelope began, “how interesting to see you here, Mr. Hawthorne. Have you come to fill in for Mr. Upton?” she asked with a meaningful look that everyone in the house could read.

Finnea stiffened as all eyes turned to stare at her, standing on the bottom step as if she were a china doll on display. But what took her breath was the furious look on Matthew’s face as he stood like a statue.

“Why am I not surprised?” Penelope continued sarcastically. “I understand that Mr. Hawthorne has been doing a grand job of filling in for Mr. Upton. Is this a last-minute plan to save Finnea’s reputation after you spent numerous days with her alone in your home?”

Penelope looked at Hannah with a knowingly raised brow. Finnea could see her disgrace in Hannah’s eyes. Her grandmother understood that not only couldn’t she keep a man but she had been alone with another, and Matthew had come here only to help her avoid total disgrace.