“That’s all right. I’ll find her. It’s good to see you, Walter.”
Matthew took the marble steps from the landing to the spacious reception hall, his tall broad form standing in contrast to the other, much shorter men. He didn’t get very far before he was stopped by an elegantly dressed woman, her jewels stunning, though subdued enough for Puritan Bostonians’ tastes. She was also his wife’s closest friend.
“Matthew, darling,” she said, extending her hands. “You naughty boy. You’re late.”
With a gallant bow, Matthew took her fingers and smiled. “You are a vision, Celia,” he said warmly.
“As are you,” she said, stepping closer.
He chuckled, the sound deep and sultry, as he firmly but politely pulled away.
“Where’s Kim?” he asked, scanning the crowd.
She huffed and smoothed her hair. “I haven’t seen her for a while,” she said, her full lips pouting. “Why don’t you dance with me until she turns up? “
Matthew smiled. “I think it s best that I find her.”
The woman snapped open her fan and waved it quickly. “You should have married me.”
“So you’ve told me, Celia,” he said, tilting her chin with the crook of his finger. “And I’ve told you that any man here would be happy to have you.”
“Every man but you,” she sniffed.
“You’re a heartbreaker, Celia. I’ve known that since I was fifteen. I’m not one to tangle with that,” he said with a good-natured laugh.
“You’re the heartbreaker, Matthew Hawthorne, as well you know.”
After she left in a whirl of skirts, Matthew raked his blond hair back from his forehead as he worked his way through the throng of guests.
“Have you seen my wife?” he asked an older woman who had been a family friend for years.
“Kimberly?” The woman turned to another who stood next to her and raised a brow. “He’s looking for Kimberly,” she stated in a way that made his thoughts go still. “Does he also want to know that when we saw her a few moments ago, his wife was upset? I wonder? “
She looked back at him, her face pulled into sharp lines of disapproval as if he had done something wrong. “Has it occurred to you that your wife is your first and foremost responsibility? “
“Margot, really,” her friend interjected nervously.
“Well, someone has to tell him.”
“What are you trying to say?” he asked.
She tilted her chin like a schoolmistress. “Far be it from me to intrude in other people s concerns. But I suggest you go to the back cottage and see to your wife. I saw her head that way.”
Not liking the sudden ticking in his mind, Matthew shut the terrace doors as he walked out into the nighttime air. He strode across the gray slate tiles, the party raging on behind him. Without a word, he made his way down the curved granite steps to the narrow path leading to the cottage that stood at the back of the property.
With every step he took, his pace increased until he came through the lattice-covered passageway and tall box hedges that separated the front gardens from the back. The cedar-shingled, white clapboard cottage stood quiet, and frustration kicked harder when still he couldn’t find her. He started to turn away, but then he noticed one low light burning inside.
Without warning he saw a flash of color inside the cottage. A shimmering blue gown. And white-blond hair.
He felt his answering smile. The relief that he had found her. He would apologize for being late.
He headed toward the tiny house, not stopping until he stood in the doorway. His smile froze on his face.
Her back was against the wall. Literally.
Her long, fashionable gown of crepe de chine and gossamer voile was bunched carelessly around her waist, her naked back pressed along the wood paneling.
At the sight that met his eyes his mind closed with the surety of a steel trap.
In a rustle of fabric, Kimberly cried out, her bare legs wrapped around the strong, lean hips of the man before her. His long, thick shaft teased at her swollen wetness, entering her, though barely, before pulling back, only to tease again.
She groaned her frustration and he kissed her breasts.
“Always so greedy,” the man murmured, a smile in his voice as he pushed into her further, though not enough.
“Stop tormenting me,” she moaned, her head falling back.
He laughed out loud. “Is this what you want?” the man asked as he plunged deep, his laughter trailing off to his own heated gasps as he sank into her tight sheath.
“Yes, Reynolds! Dear God, yes!”
Chapter Seven
Finnea woke up on the floor.
It was the following morning, and she lay in a bundle of linen sheets and white woolen blankets that she had taken from the bed and spread out on the plush deep blue carpet. Her red hair spilled across plump feather pillows.
She still couldn’t get used to the overstuffed bed standing so high off the ground, though she had tried, night after night, only to wake up cross and ill-rested.
She threw back the covers, and quickly smoothed them over the bed before a maid entered to stoke the fire. She had found since moving to America that her family and their friends lived in stately homes with uniformed servants to tend their every need. Finnea was alternately drawn in and repelled by the wealth and privilege, an ostentation, she had heard, that would have been considered modest compared to some cities. But there was nothing like it in Africa. Floors made of dirt, walls made of mud or thatch. The house her father had built, with its rough-planked floors and multiple rooms, was considered the finest for miles around. But it couldn’t compare to the likes of Boston town houses with their marble floors, brass handles, and velvet as fine as any gown lining the walls.
Yesterday, Finnea had promised the underbutler that she would mix up a fresh batch of eucalyptus salve for his aching joints. This morning she was going to do it, and while she was at it, she planned to make a restorative tea of dandelions for Matthew, all before she went for her lessons on Boston. The underbutler’s hands should do remarkably better after a week using the salve, and no doubt Matthew could use a good cleansing herbal after what must have been a drunken binge, based on the disarray and reek of liquor in his study. If ever anyone could use a purifying tea, it was Matthew Hawthorne.
Thankfully her brother generally went to work, and her mother and grandmother left the house daily for an assortment of meetings, luncheons, and who knew what all, making it possible for her to slip out of the house unnoticed.
Wanting to look perfect for her first day of lessons, Finnea took extra care with her ablutions, pulling on one of the spectacular gowns she had found at the most wonderful little shop she had run across downtown. The store had been in a tiny corner of a cramped street, filled with clothes hanging from racks, and shoes all in a row. No measuring, no pinning. A person could simply buy what she liked on the spot, without waiting for a gown to be made. It was amazing.
Just before she hurried down the grand staircase, she plucked out a few cherished photographs from her bag. She had thought about it last night as she drifted off to sleep, thought about how the photos from Africa might serve as some sort of peace offering to Nester.
The house ran with a precision that both astounded and impressed her. She had learned in the short time she had been there that the Boston Herald was delivered to the Winslets’ palatial home on Commonwealth Avenue at five minutes past eight, at which time Bertram, the family butler, would take the folded pages to the pantry, where an aproned girl spent the next half hour ironing it into long flat sheets.
At five minutes until nine, a line of serving maids would march up from the basement kitchen and set out the breakfast items. Eggs, ham, porridge, and freshly baked bread with a silver dish of butter. It was always the same; it never varied.
Slowing her pace, Finnea strode to the elegantly decorated brocade-and-velvet-lined parlor and found her mother.
Finnea stopped just outside the room as if peering through a looking glass into a foreign world, taking in the woman who sat so gracefully in a finely crafted wingback chair with a notch in the middle. Chippendale, her grandmother had called it. Finnea only knew that it was beautiful.
As always, her mother’s gown was of a soft, subtle color, nearly blending in with the winter white of the seat cushion. Her skin was creamy, and her hair, barely brown, more like sand, was pulled up in an elegant twist at the back of her head.
Just then Leticia turned, her sky-blue eyes finding Finnea in the doorway, and the woman smiled—a gentle mix of surprise and uncertainty, but pleasure and delight as well.
Her mother. The one person she should confide in when she needed help in learning this world. Not Matthew, not some stranger.
Finnea decided in a staggering rush of hope and love that it was foolish to have asked Matthew Hawthorne for help. It was time she told her mother the truth of her situation and gained her assistance. It was ridiculous to think that she couldn’t turn to the woman who had given birth to her for guidance.
“Mama,” Finnea said, “you look lovely.”
“Please dear, don’t call your mother ‘mama.’ It is so common.”
Finnea turned with a start to find her grandmother standing behind her in the foyer. Disdain lay below the surface of the woman’s smile, barely hidden, like rocks unseen beneath a murky waterline, and a piercing thought leaped out at her.
Was she willing to pay the price of fitting in with these people?
Finnea shook the thought away. There was no price for fitting in, there was only reward, she told herself firmly. That reward was acceptance from her mother.
But could she learn all she needed to know?
Slowly Finnea turned back to the woman she had come clear across the world to see, to love, and her determination to confide faltered. She couldn’t utter the words that would confirm that indeed she was lacking in the finer points of American society. More than once since Finnea had arrived, Hannah Grable had made it clear that she had thought little of William Winslet before he left for Africa, and thought even less of him now after meeting the daughter he had raised.
Pride and protectiveness surged. She would prove them wrong. But the only way to do so was to learn the ways of this town inside and out. Which meant she needed Matthew to teach her. Or was that just an excuse? To be seen. To be touched by him again, she thought suddenly. So she wouldn’t be lost.
Her mouth was swollen and dry. Matthew gently rubbed water from a rustic pouch over her lips, slowly, with infinite patience, then dripping water onto her tongue.
She was propped between his legs, her back to his chest, his knees up on either side of her. Protecting her.
“I can’t swallow,” she choked.
“Yes you can.”
He tilted the sack so the water came out, but she turned away, the flow washing down over her throat, soaking into the tattered remnants of her hunter’s shirt. He jerked the bag up so as not to lose more.
“You are going to drink, Finnea. I will not let you die. You are going to survive this.”
Her head was still turned so that her cheek was against his chest, the water on her face mixing with sudden tears. “But I don’t want to be saved.”
He was quiet for a long time. “Sometimes we are saved whether we want to be or not.”
“What is this you’re wearing?”
Finnea nearly jumped when she found Hannah standing so close, her plain gray eyes surveying Finnea’s gown.
Finnea glanced down at the beautiful dress of vibrant red velvet.
“I think you look fine, Finnea,” Leticia said quickly.
Hannah Grable let a long, disapproving minute reverberate through the silence before she smiled tightly. “Fine, Leticia? Of course. Who am I to turn up my nose at leftovers from a thrift shop meant for paupers? What do I care if Grace Baldwin or perhaps even Adwina Raines notices Finnea wearing one of their New Year’s masquerade castoffs?”
“Really, Mother,” Leticia said uncomfortably, “you don’t mean that.”
“I mean what I say, daughter,” Hannah stated with a crystalline smile. “Now come along. Breakfast is being served.”
Nester was already at the table when they entered the dining room. Finnea was surprised to find Jeffrey Upton there as well. The men were huddled over a series of papers. Her brother looked irritated, Mr. Upton looked impatient. The minute they entered, though, the older man stood and smiled.
“Good morning, ladies.”
The night he escorted the Winslet women home from the Hawthornes’ dinner party, he had asked Finnea to call him Jeffrey. Her mother had made it clear to her that this man would make a fine husband.
In truth, he would make a fine husband. He was older, a widower. Refined and proper. Kind and respectable. A man who already had full-grown children. A man who wouldn’t need more.
Beyond that, she liked him. She could trust him. And she knew that was worth a lot.
Jeffrey was what her mother wanted for her. Finnea knew it was the ideal solution. She could please her mother and gain a new life—a safe life. No more uncertainty. No more emotions that threatened to burn her up with intensity and fill her body with heart-racing desire.
She pulled her shoulders back. Exactly, she thought. No more feelings she couldn’t afford. This was just the sort of thing she wanted. Though she couldn’t quite shake the emptiness that came over her at the thought.
Jeffrey took Hannah’s hand and kissed her knuckles. “Good morning, Mrs. Grable.” He nodded to Leticia, then turned to Finnea, and a kind and gentle smile pulled across his face. “Good morning, Finnea.”
“Good morning,” she answered, silently repeating all the wonderful attributes Jeffrey Upton possessed.
“I haven’t seen you since the Hawthornes’ party,” he added.
“Speaking of which,” Hannah interjected, glancing at her granddaughter, “have you sent your thank-you note yet?”
Finnea blinked. “Thank-you note?”
Hannah’s lips pursed. “For the Hawthornes’ dinner party. Surely you have sent your thanks by now.”
Finnea felt a traitorous blush sting her cheeks as she glanced between her mother and grandmother. She had never heard of a thank-you note. “I will send it right away.”