A small, wiry man had stopped and looked on with blatant curiosity.
Bradford wheeled around to face him. “What are you staring at?” he bellowed.
The man’s eyes widened and he hurried away.
Bradford cursed, then tried to contain himself. “What do you want, Matthew?” he demanded, no longer pretending to be anything but impatient. “Your mother said it was important.”
“What do I want?” Matthew asked, startled.
“Yes. Is it money? Women problems?” He narrowed his eyes and looked at his son before he quickly dropped his gaze. “Are you in trouble?”
Matthew gritted his teeth, pride surging, mixing with the pain. “I thought now that I was back from Africa,” he stated, with a casual indifference he didn’t feel, “we would start having our Friday lunches again.”
Bradford met his eye for a long drawn-out moment, and a world of something—regret, anguish … anger—flashed across his face before he looked away. “While you were gone, I made other commitments, to the historical society. They meet Fridays at one.”
“Then we can lunch another day.” He couldn’t stop the words. Matthew knew he should have kept to his resolve not to see his father, since the man had made it clear he no longer wanted to see him. But somehow he couldn’t let it go. Somehow he thought he could make things right again by spending time together, by letting his father get used to his appearance.
“The thing is, Matthew, my days are filled.” Bradford shifted his weight.
Matthew straightened. “Why?” he demanded, his lips feeling thick and awkward. “Why can’t we go back? Pick up where we left off.”
“Because the past is just that. We’ve started new lives. We all have new lives since the … since you’ve been back,” he said curtly, glancing at the spilled cup of cocoa on the ground.
“No!” Matthew snapped, his jaw clenched as rage flashed quick and hot. “Just say it! It’s because you’re embarrassed of me. Of this face.”
His father’s head shot up, and he stared at him with blazing eyes. “Yes! Yes, I’m embarrassed of you!” The words exploded into the cold. “But not because of your face.”
The older man’s countenance went red, a telltale vein bulging out on his forehead. Matthew’s spine stiffened with sudden dread.
“I won’t go to lunch with you to a place like Locke-Ober’s or anywhere else important because everyone will see you and remember your wife!”
The words slashed Matthew with the sting of a whip. He couldn’t move as he watched his father hurl his own frankfurter and cocoa into a wire mesh bin, then turn back to meet his eye.
“Kimberly used you, for your money, for your position, but you were too blind to see it. You failed this family!” Suddenly he became aware of the people who had begun to stare at him, so he leaned close. “That reflects on me!” he hissed. “Me, Bradford Hawthorne. After I spent my life rebuilding the family name, I have to endure the shame of being tied to the worst scandal to hit Boston in a hundred years! I was willing to tolerate your painting fancy, but I will not tolerate a disgrace.” Bradford leaned even closer. “Hawthornes satisfy their women, and if they can’t manage to do that,” he added with a derogatory sneer, “then they keep them in their place. You did neither.” His eyes narrowed. “Your scarred face is simply an unavoidable reminder to me—and to everyone who sees you—of a scandal that will be remembered by all of Boston for the next hundred years. That is why I can’t stand to look at you.”
Bradford was breathing hard, his face florid. Visibly he attempted to regain his composure. “I believe we are both through with this lunch. Now, if you will excuse me.”
With that, Bradford walked away, disappearing into the crowded streets as Matthew stood, too stunned to move.
A sickening fury rose up inside him. He concentrated, forcing himself to breathe. He turned away sharply before he could do violence, but as soon as he came around he saw Finnea. She stood several yards away at the street corner looking between him and the retreating back of his father, her brow furrowed in confusion.
For one brief moment, caught in her dazzling green-eyed gaze, he felt like the man he used to be.
But that wasn’t true. His father had just made that perfectly clear.
He felt the burn and itch of his scars. On his face, down his arm. The pain that never went away, that kept him up at night. Made him weak and inadequate.
Without a word, he strode past her on the granite walkway, forcing himself to concentrate on anything besides his father. He held his arm close to his side, minimizing the movement. He needed to get home.
But the walkway was crowded, and people ran into him, jarring his shoulder. White dots flashed and for a moment he had to stop and steady himself.
“Mr. Hawthorne.”
He didn’t open his eyes, but he could tell she was right next to him, could feel her without touching. He felt a swift stab of longing to turn his face into her shoulder, to pull her close and forget.
The weakness stunned him and angered him in turn.
Biting out an expletive, he started forward. When the throng of pedestrians got too thick for him to maneuver, he stepped down the granite curb to the cobbled street, mindless of the traffic.
“Mr. Hawthorne, please.”
He didn’t slow down.
“Damn it, Matthew, stop!”
He halted dead in his tracks, as did just about everyone else within earshot. Turning slowly, his gaze was deadly. Finnea elbowed her way through the men and women until she came to his side.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“I want to know what is wrong.”
With a curse, he started walking again. After a startled second, she hurried after him along the brick-lined walkway that bordered Tremont Street. She came up to his side but he didn’t stop, so she fell into step beside him. The farther they walked, the quieter it became as they left behind the bustle of downtown. Quiet, but no peace.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” she inquired, having to run every few steps to keep up. “Did you have a fight with your father?”
Still he ignored her.
Tree branches coated in ice formed a web like canopy over their heads when they cut through the park like expanse of the Boston Commons toward Charles Street, their footsteps echoing on the recently plowed path. The air was filled with the smell of birch and pine, burning in fireplaces in the houses that bordered the park like a redbrick and sandstone frame. It was a sunny day, the long rays making the ice glisten like crystal.
As usual, she wasn’t careful where she stepped, and when she hit a slick of ice, she gasped, her arms flailing at her sides to regain her balance, to no avail. She started going down, but Matthew caught her.
And sucked in his breath.
They stood for long seconds, clasped together beneath the canopy of ice and branches. She could feel his heart pounding in his chest, saw his eyes pressed closed tightly.
“Matthew, what’s wrong?”
He inhaled sharply and opened his eyes. He didn’t let go of her, and she had the fleeting thought that he couldn’t as their breaths curled white between them.
With effort, he cursed and set her at arm’s length. When she stood back and looked at him, she had to swallow her startled cry. His countenance was ravaged, the muscles in his jaw leaping beneath his skin.
“Don’t you ever stay home?” he snapped.
The question surprised her. “Not if I can help it,” she answered too honestly, then quickly added, “I mean, I need to get out to shop.”
He cast her a baleful glance. “You mean shop for some more of those bizarre gowns you wear?” he asked unkindly.
Her mouth opened and closed, her eyes blinking.
He started away.
Finnea watched him for a few seconds, then hurried after him.
They exited the Commons, then crossed Charles Street to the Public Gardens. The elaborate, wrought-iron gate that marked the Charles Street entrance stood open, the tall carved granite posts stoic like guards to the wide-open path. Finnea followed him doggedly over the footbridge that stretched over the lagoon, ice-skaters speeding by below. Every time she came here, she marveled at the men with heavy woolen mufflers wrapped around their necks, gliding over the ice like sleek, long-legged birds.
She yearned to leap out next to them, glide along, fly across the smooth surface—to empty her mind. But she ignored the urge and hurried over the bridge.
“Matthew, talk to me! Tell me, what is wrong?”
Minutes later, she nearly ran into the back of him when he stopped short in front of Dove’s Way.
“Nothing is wrong, Finnea. Now, go home, or go buy more dresses, or go do whatever it is you do. Just leave me be.”
He took the granite steps, and Finnea could have sworn he was counting. But when he tried to slam himself inside the house, she followed.
“I just want to help!” she pleaded.
But his expression transformed from annoyance to outrage, though he was no longer looking at her.
For the first time, she took in the surroundings inside his palatial town house. Quincy stood proudly in the foyer, the servants lined up beside him. The cook, several maids, the groom. All looking starched and proud.
“I hope you don’t mind, sir,” the butler said, his chin held high, “but I took the liberty of rehanging the paintings I found in the attic that you had uncovered. They look splendid, don’t they?”
Finnea’s mouth fell open in silent awe at the paintings. Some large, some small, all exquisitely detailed works of art.
“You painted these?” she asked with a gasp, walking into the house uninvited.
Matthew didn’t answer, only stared.
“Indeed, madam,” Quincy boasted. “An impressive lot, to be sure. Everyone said so.”
Matthew stood like stone as Finnea moved from piece to piece, stunned, catching glimpses of other paintings hanging in startling vividness beyond the foyer. She had never imagined the caliber of his work.
With breath held in wonder, she recognized his mother and what had to be his brothers. His father, so finely wrought that Finnea felt as though the man would step off the wall at any moment and comment on the work himself. But it was the portrait of a woman who held her eye. White-blond hair, ice-blue eyes. Stunningly beautiful, carrying herself so properly. She was everything Finnea was trying so hard to be.
“Who is she?” Finnea asked, her mouth going dry.
Matthew didn’t say a word.
Quincy grew solemn. “That is Mrs. Hawthorne, God rest her soul.”
In that instant everything made sense. Matthew had been married and lost his wife. He had gone to Africa to forget.
He had been married to a perfect lady.
The knowledge embarrassed her—the realization that he had known she was lacking from the second she stepped on the train.
She turned to face him, but Matthew didn’t notice. He stared at the work, his eyes traveling from canvas to canvas, his expression closed. He turned to the line of servants, his body rigidly held, though Finnea could see the veins standing out on his temples.
“Please go,” he told the staff, his lips thinned, his face deeply etched with lines of strain.
The cleaning maids and footmen exchanged nervous glances, then hurried away. But Quincy stayed, the pleasure on his face disappearing.
“You, too, Quincy.”
The man remained at full attention. “I am sorry if I have displeased you, sir,” he stated. “I thought… I just thought that…” His words trailed off. “You left in such a fine mood this morning, and when I found the paintings uncovered, well, I took the liberty—”
He cut himself off.
“I understand, Quincy,” Matthew said, his voice tight, though not unkind. “I appreciate your efforts.”
The butler immediately raced to a painting and started to take it down. “I’ll have each and every one of them put away within the hour.”
But Matthew stopped him, his control barely held. “Please leave, Quincy.”
“But sir—”
“Leave!”
Quincy scampered away.
Finnea stood to the side and watched as Matthew closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked at the painting of his wife. Never had she seen such utter despair in all her life.
“She was beautiful,” she whispered.
He wheeled around as if he had forgotten she was there. “Beautiful?” he raged. “Yes, she was beautiful! But she used that beauty to get what she wanted, as my father just got through pointing out. That, Miss Winslet, is what I was just discussing with my father. Are you happy now? Will you finally stop badgering me?”
“I was not badgering you!” She blushed because of course she had been. But how could she help it? “I was concerned, that’s all.”
He jerked away, but everywhere he turned, he stiffened at the sight of another painting.
“They really are stunning, Matthew. Truly, you should take up your art again. You are an incredibly talented artist.”
“I am not an artist!” he shouted, his voice breaking. “Not any longer!”
Without warning he picked up a vase and hurled it, the china connecting with a brilliant portrait of himself. The frame crashed to the ground, and before Finnea knew what was happening, he took to each work with a manic strength, tearing each piece from the wall and crashing it violently to the floor.
“Stop!” she cried, racing to him.
But he only shook her off, the crash and clatter of noise echoing against the high ceiling as he continued his destruction.
“Good God, what are you doing?”
But Matthew wasn’t listening. He went from piece to piece like a madman, sweat breaking out on his brow, his step faltering until he stumbled, only to pick himself up and go to the next. He didn’t stop until there wasn’t a painting left on the walls.
When he turned back, his eyes were wild, as if daring her to say a word.
Matthew leaned back against a marble column, his breath coming in sharp bursts.
They stared at each other, both wary.
“Why?” she whispered finally. “Why do you act this way?”
He gave her a negligent shrug. “It’s no act, sweetheart,” he drawled, insolence marking his tone. “That’s me.”
“It is not!”
His insolence evaporated and he stared at her.
“Stop acting like some crazed warrior.” She felt as if all of Africa were threatening her. “I happen to know you are not really like this. You are a wonderful man. Stop pretending to be otherwise.”