Dove's Way (7 page)

“Yes, yes, sir,” the man stammered.

Matthew spun away, then jerked into his study, slamming the door shut and locking it. When he turned back, his head spun and he fell, catching himself against a burled-wood credenza, sending decanters of hundred-year-old brandy and finely wrought crystal goblets flying before he collapsed on the floor.

Chapter Four

Mary Hawthorne stood on Commonwealth Avenue, watching, stunned, long after her father’s carriage had careened out of sight. Thankfully he hadn’t seen her. No doubt he hadn’t recognized her because of her big-girl double-breasted cheviot sailor’s coat with painted buttons shaped like boats that floated across the front. But not even her favorite coat could make the fear she felt at the sight of her father go away.

Cold surrounded her, but she hardly noticed. She had walked the whole way there, as she did whenever she could slip away unnoticed from her grandmother’s house. Her old house was only a few doors down the street. But suddenly she didn’t want to go to her old house. She wanted her grandmother to wrap her in her arms and hold her close.

Fighting back tears, Mary whirled around and headed in the opposite direction.

“I will not cry,” she whispered desperately with each step she took, dashing her tiny, gloved hands across her cheeks.

She hurried down the street before anyone noticed her. She had become quite good at slipping away from adults ever since her life had changed.

She didn’t understand how her world had been turned upside down, or why. Her grandmother had explained that her mother was sitting with God and angels, and wouldn’t return. Mary knew that her mother would be pleased to be visiting such important people. But she was angry that her mother had left her behind.

And her father. Her throat tightened at the thought of this new man. He had left, gone as suddenly and as unexpectedly as her mother. But he had returned, a scar on his face. And his body. No one knew that she had seen his arm with its spider-web of cuts. No one knew that she had seen how he couldn’t move quickly anymore, no longer able to sweep her up into the air for big hugs and kisses. Or how he couldn’t catch her when she ran away.

Nor did anyone know that she had heard the whispers about the scandal. But she wasn’t even sure exactly what that meant. She only knew that everything had changed.

Not willing to take any chances that her father might come back and see her, Mary didn’t slow down until she was well along the granite walkway. But she hadn’t gotten farther than a few houses when she saw some of the children she had played with her whole life gathered on the front steps of Thaddeus Penhurst’s house.

Stopping dead in her tracks, she tried to dart across the street without being noticed. Since her mother had gone to heaven and her father to Africa, none of the other kids liked her anymore. But she had gone to live with her grandparents on Beacon Hill and it hadn’t mattered. And every time she had come to her old house before, she had managed to avoid them.

“Look! There’s Mary!”

Mary kept walking down Commonwealth Avenue toward the Public Gardens, pretending she didn’t hear. But in a few short seconds, the children raced up to her.

“What are you doing back here, Mary?” little Harry Adams demanded, his voice muffled beneath a thick scarf.

“We thought you were gone for good!”

Seven-year-old Thaddeus laughed harshly, his woolen hat sitting at a jaunty angle over sandy blond hair and a face full of freckles. “Do you want to hear the poem we made up for you while you were gone, Mary?”

She continued on, nearly slipping on a patch of ice, keeping her eyes determinedly focused straight ahead.

“Sure she does,” another stated.

But Mary didn’t stop.

Surrounding her as she walked, they began to chant. “Mary, Mary, monster Mary, where did your father go?”

The children repeated the words over and over, their chime of voices echoing against the snow and ice-covered street.

Mary’s lips started to tremble, and it was all she could do not to slap her hands to her ears. Instead, she started to run, never stopping until she skidded through the tall wrought-iron gates of the Public Gardens, the children thankfully left behind.

She fell back onto a bench, wanting her mother, wanting her father—wanting her old life back.

Closing her eyes, she felt the bench slats bite against her spine as she willed herself to be stronger. But when she opened them again, she saw a mother and her daughter hurrying through the park, their hands clasped together. The tears she had fought back slipped down her winter-reddened cheeks.

“Oh, Mama,” she whispered, “why did you leave me?”

Chapter Five

It was the pounding on the door that woke him.

With a hoarse groan, Matthew moved his head experimentally. He felt as if he had been run over by one of those dray wagons.

Bleary-eyed and weak, he pushed up into a sitting position on the divan. White light flashed in his head from the movement. He barely remembered collapsing on the floor, didn’t remember at all having moved to the divan.

His breathing was shallow but steady as he looked around the room, taking in the upended furniture, the shards of broken glass, and the smell of liquor that overpowered the space like an unwelcome guest.

The pounding came again, making him flinch at the noise. Someone was there. He could just make out the heated exchange that was taking place beyond the study walls.

“Damn it, Quincy. Step away from that door.”

“But sir! Mr. Hawthorne doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“First you tell me he isn’t here, and now you tell me he is unavailable. What is going on here?”

The thick velvet draperies were pulled nearly closed, only a sliver of the world outside showing through. Matthew had no idea how much time had passed since he staggered home and holed up in the study. And based on the voices just beyond the door, he thought to hole up a little longer.

But he knew who was there, and knew as well that his older brother would not be turned away. Too bad it wasn’t his younger brother who had arrived. No doubt Lucas would be more understanding of the disarray Matthew found around him. As the black sheep of the family, Lucas had been in more than his share of predicaments over the years.

Matthew fumbled with a damnably tiny knob on the lamp next to the divan, then stood and straightened his rumpled coat and tie as best he could. With no help for it, he unlocked and opened the door. As soon as he appeared, silence descended in the foyer.

“Good afternoon, Grayson,” he said pleasantly, as if nothing were amiss.

But no one was convinced, least of all his brother.

Matthew bit back a curse when he saw shock crease his brother’s face. Grayson had spent a lifetime acting more as father to Matthew and Lucas than as brother. He took his responsibilities to his family seriously in an attempt, Matthew was sure, to please their father.

It had always been that way—Grayson seeking their father’s approval but never seeming to get it, Matthew having it without even trying, and Lucas tossing it back in Bradford Hawthorne’s face so often, and with such relish, that he had ultimately lost it forever.

“Interestingly enough,” Grayson said with a slant of dark brow, his shock now contained behind an implacable mask, “it’s morning, not afternoon, but who am I to quibble about details.”

Unlike Matthew, Grayson had hair as dark as midnight. The tall, forbidding older Hawthorne glanced around the room, no doubt noticing the tumult. “I take it good help is hard to find these days.” He glanced back at Matthew, taking in his appearance. “It also must be hard to find a good bath and a shave. No wonder you missed Sunday dinner.”

Sunday dinner? He had missed Sunday dinner?

Matthew’s head spun. What day was it?

Just beyond the multi-paned window, he could make out snow drifting down from the cloud-laden sky.

A whisper of something teased at the back of his mind. He thought about what the doctor had told him. “We would assume the weakness in your hand and shoulder was due to the wounds. However, accompanied by the insistent pain and occasional slurred speech and blindness, we are forced to consider other problems.”

The man had been reluctant to expand, but in the end he had said if the pain did not recede as was expected, perhaps the pain was due to a progressive degeneration of nerves and tissue.

“If it is this deterioration, as you say,” he had asked carefully, “what do you do?”

The man had grown truly uncomfortable then. “Let’s cross that road if we come to it.”

“Let’s not,” Matthew had replied through gritted teeth. “Tell me.”

Long, painful moments had ticked by. “There is nothing we can do for you if that is the case.” The doctor looked at him closely. “But let’s not think about that now. Let us monitor your progress.”

Matthew understood his progress. None.

“Are you all right, Matthew?”

Matthew dragged his attention back to find Grayson studying him.

“I’m perfectly fine,” he said with more force than was necessary, clenching his hand at his side. But he couldn’t seem to stop the anger, or was it fear? His family couldn’t know what was happening to him. No one could know. There had already been too much heartache and scandal. He wouldn’t let there be any more. “Can’t a man enjoy a bit of peace and quiet without being interrogated like a common criminal?”

For the first time, anger marred Grayson’s face. “Don’t snap at me. What was I supposed to do? Mother is worried sick that you didn’t show up last night for Sunday dinner, and here it is well into Monday morning without a word from you. She said you stormed out of the house yesterday and she hadn’t heard a word from you since.” His anger turned to something more elusive, dark, and troubled. “And when she sent a note to inquire after you, Quincy here, guard dog of your privacy, only responded with a curt, ‘He is unavailable.’ “

Matthew’s sigh was weary, and a needle of biting pain began to resurface. “Tell her there’s no need to worry. Really. I had other plans that I had forgotten about.”

He hated the look that came over Grayson’s face, the same look he saw in his friends’ and family’s eyes.

Horror.

The golden boy was no longer golden. And they had no idea how to deal with a man who was so changed.

“You had no other plans. You were hiding away.” Grayson gestured to the mess in the room. “In here, from the looks of it. God, Matthew, if only you would try, get out more, see people. Give them a chance to get used to you.”

“I will not go out and socialize,” Matthew replied with a deadly calm, remembering the dinner party at his parents’ house. “I already tried that and I only made people uncomfortable.”

“Damn it, I’m not asking you to socialize. I’m asking you to start living again.”

“Living?” he suddenly raged, the violence that had become his constant companion erupting. He slammed his fist against the wall, and welcomed the pain that shot up his arm. “Look at me!” he demanded. “I scare young children and innocent women. I am a freak!”

“A scar doesn’t change a person, Matthew.”

“Tell that to Father,” he spat unexpectedly.

Grayson went still, then sighed. “Give him time.”

“Time isn’t going to erase this scar. He only cares about the Hawthorne name.”

It was no secret that Bradford Hawthorne was a man obsessed with appearances. He had been born with a fine old name and the respect that name provided, but when he grew into adulthood there had not been a penny left of the Hawthorne family fortune. So he had chosen a bride for a good deal more than her looks and her ability to bear him sons. He chose Emmaline Abbot for her wealth. Her renowned beauty was nothing more than an added bonus. He would have married her regardless of what she looked like.

In the years since, Bradford had restored the family coffers and built an empire based on the family’s good name, Emmaline’s wealth, and three strong sons. Grayson, Matthew, and Lucas.

Years ago, despite Emmaline’s protests, Bradford had forced his oldest son to make his own way from an early age. However, when first Matthew, then Lucas had come to that turning point in their own lives, Bradford had suddenly been willing to help. But each of them had turned their father down.

Solidarity among brothers. And all three had succeeded, though not all of them had done it in ways Bradford had approved of.

Grayson had become a lawyer—the most respected in Boston, but a lawyer all the same. Lucas had opened a gentlemen’s club, fast becoming known for the finest liquors in town, not to mention the finest women. Matthew had been the one who made Bradford proud.

Matthew had made a fortune in railroads and shipping. And because of that success, he had been invited to lunch with his father every Friday at Locke Ober ‘s. Until the accident.

Matthew thought of the message he had given his mother for his father.

Before he could stop himself, he strode to the door and bellowed for Quincy.

“Have I received any messages?”

“None, sir, other than from your mother regarding your, er, schedule conflicts,” he finished with a stubborn look at Grayson.

Matthew’s face went hard at the thought that his father hadn’t replied. It had been no secret that he had been the favorite of his father’s sons. But the accident had changed all that.

“Matthew, don’t do this to yourself,” Grayson said. “Regardless of how Father feels, the rest of us love you.”

Matthew’s throat tightened. “I think you should go.”

The hard lines of Grayson’s face eased, shifting into lines of concern. “I think you should see a doctor.”

A pulse drummed in Matthew’s temple, and he focused on the clock across the room, steadying himself with the regular tick of the second hand. “I have already seen a doctor, Grayson, several in fact. The best in Boston.”

“I want you to see someone else, a doctor Mother has learned of who might have more answers.”

Matthew looked at him, a flicker of hope sparking to life. “Who?”

For the first time since arriving, Grayson looked uncomfortable. “A man at Southwood Hospital.”