Swan's Grace (5 page)

He continued on, and by the time he came to Swan's Grace, taking the front steps two at a time, he forgot about the woman in the hansom cab.

All thoughts were replaced by music.

Grayson stood for a moment, taking in the sound. His response was swift and intense as the notes soared. He had never heard the piece before, but the deep, yearning sound of the cello pulled at him. The melody was emotional and moving, and he had a fleeting understanding of why Sophie had become famous.

He went to the door and halted. It was his house, his office, but with Sophie inside he felt an aggravating need to knock and did so. No one answered. After another knock he simply turned the knob, and realized the lock had been broken. It became clear how Sophie and her entourage had gotten in the house last night. A smile pulled at his lips and he shook his head. Hell, she really was a maddening little baggage.

Inside, the music was louder, filling the house with a series of short, rapid notes. He headed for the sound, bypassing the office where his desk stood, his footsteps muffled and unheard beneath the music, and found Sophie playing in the library. Despite the cold air, the windows had been thrown open, the curtains flung wide. The furniture had been moved back with careless disregard, while his books lined the walls like an audience.

He had just completed the room the week before her arrival. It was austere and dark, filled with his law volumes and a desk for his receptionist, who, he remembered, had the day off. One less issue to deal with.

But he gave that fact little thought as he took in Sophie. She sat in the middle of it all, winter sunshine and a slight breeze filling the room as she played, her brow creased in concentration. Her hair was pulled up loosely, her skin creamy with a hint of red from exertion. But it was the cello that demanded his attention, pulled between her legs, and he felt a visceral surge between his own at the sight.

She was stunning to watch, beautiful and captivating, her eyes closed, lost to the music.

The two women she had brought along with her sat scattered around the room, one lounging in his fine leather, wing-backed chair, the other sitting up straight, writing as fast as her hand could go. But it was the sight of Henry that made his temper flare, certain that this man must feel the same insistent pull at the way Sophie held the instrument.

Conrad was right about one thing. This ragtag group of hangers-on had to go.

Once again he had the sharp, clear thought that this wasn't what he wanted—not for his wife. But then Sophie looked up and saw him. He saw her surprise. Saw that flicker of joy, however brief, before her bow pulled an uneven note and the music died a harsh, discordant death.

Looking at her now, he felt that same inexplicable shift inside him. She filled something in him that was hard to deny.

"Don't stop on my account," he said, heat warming his blood, his eyes never leaving hers.

The tall woman craned her neck to see him, but she didn't bother to unhook her knees from the arm of the chair. The dowdy one dropped her pad, then fumbled around on the floor trying to gather the papers. Henry looked on with amusement. But Sophie never moved.

"What was that you were playing?" Grayson asked, taking in the way her full lips were parted, showing a hint of pearl-white teeth and pink tongue. He felt an urge to dip his head and taste her.

The words shook her out of whatever place she had been, and she snapped her mouth shut. "It is a piece adapted for me from
La Traviata.
"

"The opera? I thought people sang operas."

Her lips pulled into a brittle smile as if he had offended her. "It is not uncommon to have popular operatic pieces arranged for instrumental interpretation. Musicians do it all the time. No doubt even Pablo Casals has done it before."

He wasn't sure where that had come from, but he sensed that the subject was a sensitive one. "No doubt. Regardless, your interpretation was lovely, and I'm impressed by how much effort it takes to play."

The prim one groaned. The sultry one
tsked
. Sophie jerked her head around to the little man.

"Henry, you told me I had gained perfect ease!"

The man looked abashed. "
Ma petite
, what was I to do? We have been here only a day after traveling for many. You need time to relax."

"I meant it as a compliment," Grayson stated, bringing four sets of angry eyes around to stare at him.

The light caught Sophie, and he saw for the first time that she looked tired and worried, as if she hadn't slept. He felt an unwanted flare of concern.

She sighed, seeming to rein in her frustration, then nodded her head. "Thank you, but the listener should never feel the musician is having to work hard. The listener can understand that the piece is difficult, but the musician should have mastered it so that the music seems like an extension of herself," she explained.

She set the cello aside, placing the bow on a small, mahogany end table, a long, faint line of white rosin marking the surface like chalk. "You should have been aware of nothing more than the sound and the emotions that the sound makes you feel. Do you understand?"

Before he could answer, she looked back at him. "And furthermore, do you understand that you should have knocked?" she asked, raising a delicate brow in challenge.

He swallowed back a chuckle, amazed to feel his mood lighten. She was beautiful even if she was a little baggage.

He leaned up against the doorjamb and crossed his arms on his chest. "One, I did knock, and two, that was hardly necessary as this is, after all, my house."

Sophie picked up a cup of tea that Margaret had poured. "So you keep saying. Before long I expect you to throw something and stomp your feet like a three-year-old child."

The others laughed. Grayson only looked at her, choosing not to take her bait as she curled her legs up into the chair, glancing at him over the rim of her cup, looking like a provocative little nymph.

"I went to see your father last night," he offered instead.

"What for?" she quipped. "To tattle?"

He cocked a brow.

Sophie eyed him with a mischievous quirk of her lips, seeming to warm to her subject. "Though, in truth, you never were the tattling type. So maybe that hasn't changed, but you do seem different. Hmmm, you look the same." She considered him for a moment. "It's your hair, I think. It's longer than I can imagine you wearing it." Her gaze suddenly danced. "Have you become a derelict, Grayson Hawthorne?"

Grayson's jaw went hard, his good intentions not to become agitated flying out the window when the little man laughed out loud. "A derelict?" he demanded with a scowl.

"Well, it is nearly noon and you aren't at work." She picked up a sugar cube from a dish and popped it into her mouth. "It must be," she said over the sweet, "that you've lost your business and your house, so you've moved in here to save money. Father must actually be out of town for the week and he is simply letting you stay here, and you are too proud to admit that you have become so indebted."

"Ooh," Henry mused. "Fodder for a great story."

"An article," Margaret supplied.

Deandra studied her cuticles. " 'Good Lawyer Goes Bad.' I think that would read well in the evening paper."

"Our Dea is a genius at getting attention," Henry explained.

"Yes," Grayson replied dryly. "I learned that last night."

Sophie tilted her head, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "You should hire her. With Dea at your side, no doubt you'd have a slew of publicity and more clients than you could imagine. You'd be surprised at all the people who come out of the woodwork after you've appeared in the papers." She sliced Deandra a look. "Though I can't promise the caliber of clients she can deliver."

"Business is business," the tall woman replied with a shrug.

Setting her tea aside, Sophie jumped up with a laugh. "Very true. Now tell us, is that why you are here, Grayson, dear? Has your life run amok and you have no place else to go?"

He stood away from the doorjamb, his eyes narrowing, whatever traces of ease and humor he had gained disappearing with the swiftness of a judge's gavel hammering home. "I am here to get
my
files out of
my
office in
my
house at
my
leisure."

She glanced at the others. "If I were a gambling woman I would bet that just about now his jaw is starting to tic."

"Not
starting
to tic, Sophie."

If he thought his tone of voice would intimidate her, he was sadly mistaken. She started out of the room in a breezy swish of long skirts, but just when she would have passed him, she stopped and leaned close.

"You really make this too easy," she whispered. "Baiting you is like taking candy from a baby."

She smiled provocatively and stepped away. But just when she would have slipped by, he flattened his palm against the wall, blocking her path.

Her head tilted back and she looked at him, her gold and green-flecked eyes filled with something he couldn't name. For one unbidden moment she was the young girl who had innocently followed him around. The girl he had known forever. Not provocative. Not forward. Just Sophie.

But then her eyes flashed with something he couldn't name, and she changed—like a stage actress slipping into a new role, he thought fleetingly. Her lips parted. Her gaze drifted down to his mouth, and she was no longer the young girl. He felt an instant stab of desire for the woman she had become. Without thinking, he reached out with his free hand and ran the backs of his fingers ever so slowly down her cheek. He could feel her quick intake of breath— as if he had thrown her off balance.

He curled one long strand of hair around his finger, and he could feel her tremble. In that second he didn't know if he wanted to strangle her for the way she was acting, or kiss her until she went soft in his arms.

But he was saved from making a decision—much less a mistake, given the murmuring audience behind them— when Conrad Wentworth strode into the house.

With Sophie standing so close, Grayson watched as the disconcerted lines of her face went soft and adoring. "Papa," she whispered, as if time had circled back and she were still a child.

Grayson stepped away and she flew into Conrad's arms. "Oh, Father!"

The older man hugged her tight, then set her at arm's length, his smile gentle and loving. "Let me have a look at you. Haven't you grown into the prettiest girl around." He glanced at Grayson. "Isn't that so?"

He conceded the point with a nod. "I agree."

Sophie's cheeks reddened.

"What's this?" Henry asked, shooting Deandra a questioning look. "Do we have a blush?"

Sophie pressed her hands to her cheeks, then laughed out loud and stood back. "Boston women can blush over a compliment as well as any Southern belle."

Conrad cleared his throat. "Why didn't you let me know you were arriving early?"

"It was supposed to be a surprise—a proper surprise that I was home."

"Speaking of proper, Sophie, you need to pack your bags. You really can't stay here." He eyed her entourage. "And I'm sure your… um, friends will be more than happy at the Hotel Vendome."

"Heavens," Henry said dramatically, "the place is getting an absolute profusion of business. What with our brutish Mr. Hawthorne staying there. And now us. Perhaps we should invest."

Sophie ignored him. "Father, what is going on?"

Conrad, however, had to drag his disbelieving glare away from the dapperly dressed little man. "I had planned to explain when I picked you up, but you got home early and didn't give me a chance."

"Explain what? And where are you and Patrice and the girls living if not here?"

"Well, I built a new home on The Fens. A beautiful place, actually. I know you'll love it." He smiled uncomfortably. "Didn't I tell you?"

"No, Father, you didn't, and what does that have to do with Swan's Grace? Mr. Hawthorne said you sold it to him."

Sophie stared at her father, her golden brown eyes darkening with vulnerability, and Grayson realized that she was silently, desperately willing the man to deny her words. She wanted the words to be untrue in a way that ran deep.

Conrad hesitated, glancing around the room before turning back to his daughter. "Well, you see, princess, I did."

She went still. Too still.

Grayson saw a world of hurt and betrayal flash through the golden depths of her eyes, and for reasons he didn't understand, he hated the look, hated that only minutes before she had been laughing and teasing and thrilled to be home.

He needed to tell her about the house and the betrothal, get it out in the open. But right then wasn't the time to do it. Instead he found himself stepping in. "As the ubiquitous Henry has just noted, I am staying at the Hotel Vendome, and I'm fine there while we straighten this out."

"Straighten this out?" Conrad demanded.

"Yes, Conrad." Grayson locked his gaze on the older man. "We will straighten this out."

"But what about the party?"

Sophie looked back and forth between her father and Grayson. "Party? What are you talking about?"

Conrad smiled grandly, seeming to forget the uneasiness of seconds before as excitement laced his words. "Your stepmother and I are holding a huge party at The Fens to announce your—"

"Your homecoming," Grayson interjected, cutting Conrad off.

Conrad's mouth hung open, then his eyes narrowed in anger, his face turning a mottled red. But in the end, he was smart enough not to defy the younger, more powerful man.

"Call it what you like, but all I can say," Conrad finally managed, "is that this had better be
straightened out
soon." He gave a meaningful look to Grayson. "The party is next Saturday."

Things would be straightened out, Grayson thought. But not here. Not with that suddenly haunted look in Sophie's eyes.

Emmaline Hawthorne, wife to Bradford, mother to Gray-son, Matthew, and Lucas, extended her white-gloved hand and gave the driver fifty cents plus a nickel tip. She sat in the carriage for a moment, her primly straightened spine flush against the cracked leather seat. That morning she had taken great care with her attire, slipping on a peach silk gown and her favorite winter-white cape with fur trim.

It had been years since she had been out by herself, and it took a moment before she realized the driver wasn't going to help her alight.

The man's rudeness didn't bother her, however. It actually made her smile that she was about the city, rubbing elbows with every sort of person.

She was less thrilled a few minutes later as she was jostled and bumped on her way to the small building in the South End of Boston. But even that couldn't dampen her spirits. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to make these arrangements, telling her maid she was sick so she would be left alone. Bradford would be furious if he found out what she was doing.

But her husband's anger paled in comparison to the sudden, disturbing feelings that had hit her a month before. Life was passing her by. It was as if she woke up one morning and wondered what she was doing. Her husband didn't need her, and he never had after she had brought him the substantial dowry that had allowed him to rebuild the Hawthorne family fortune. Her darling sons didn't need her any longer either. Being much like their father, her three boys had always been independent. Bradford had seen to that. God forbid he find one of them curled up in her arms as a child.

But that was the past, and on that morning when she had woken up and wondered what she was doing with her life, she remembered the years of her girlhood. Years of love and gaiety. She doubted there was a soul in Boston who would believe she used to ride hell-for-leather down the country roads outside of town. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had seen her laughing out loud, or her long hair free.

Certainly not her husband. His interest in her body had waned after the birth of their youngest child. She still remembered the night she had gone to him and he had turned her away, telling her that a proper woman didn't want to make love, only saw it as a duty.

But she
was
proper. She had led committees and attended church and sewn altar cloths. She had raised awareness of the poor and had instituted a charitable foundation to see to the preservation of Boston's historic landmarks. She had been called the epitome of what all proper Boston Brahmins wanted their wives and daughters to be.

Then why did she wake up in the wee hours of the morning with a sick feeling of emptiness in her heart? With desire running deep.

She spent the first two weeks of her new awareness feeling guilty that she wasn't grateful enough for all that she had. When that sentiment failed to make headway in her mind, she then spent the second two weeks deciding what to do about it. It hadn't taken long to know what she wanted to do. Resume her sculpting.

She was fifty. But the mirror still showed smooth and only gently lined skin. Her hands were still slender. Her body was still curved. She was still strong enough to work the clay.

Emmaline hurried the last steps to the barnlike building that had been an artists' haven for decades. When she was a young woman her father had allowed her to study sculpture. Her dear, kind father who had wanted her dreams to take flight. He hadn't wanted her to be restrained by the reins society had placed around women.

Sometimes it was hard to believe that Bradford, the man who had swept into her life, so full of energy and excitement, could have taken her dreams and ripped them apart. All too soon in their life together the illusions of love had worn away.

Pushing through the heavy front door, Emmaline was hit with the rich smell of clay. The cavernous room was filled with people, a few using potter's wheels, their feet pumping the pedals in a smooth, mesmerizing motion. Others worked on varying stages of sculpting clay, some of it still in large blocks, barely touched, some already being tackled, their masters leaning over them in trance-like pursuit.

Everyone was trying to take the thoughts in their heads and translate them into the malleable earth they molded with their hands.

Emmaline remembered the feeling well, even after decades away from working the clay.

"Do you want something?"

Emmaline whirled around, her long skirts sweeping the dust-covered ground. She came face-to-face with a woman with long gray hair secured in a braid down her back. No demure bun or simple chignon, as any woman over the age of eighteen was expected to wear.

"Yes, I'm here to see Mr. Springfield."

The woman eyed her rudely. "His matron types don't usually come here. Send him a message, and if he wants to see you hell meet you at one of those fancy teahouses women like you frequent."

Stunned by the woman's instant and intense animosity, Emmaline was speechless for a moment and she nearly left. But then she remembered those long, sleepless hours.

"Mr. Springfield is expecting me."

"Here?" the woman scoffed.

"Yes, here." Courage she hadn't felt in years surged through her. "I am sure he is in his studio upstairs. I'll just go up there now."

The woman was clearly taken aback by Emmaline's knowledge of this place. But Emmaline didn't wait for her permission. She headed for the stairs.

As soon as she placed her hand on the banister, a door flung open.

"Emmaline!"

She craned her neck and found Andre Springfield at the top of the stairs. "Andre."

"I didn't believe you would really come."

"Well, believe it. I'm here."

The short, round man barreled down the stairs, grabbed her hand, and all but dragged her up to his study on the second floor. As soon as he slammed the door shut, he stood Emmaline in a shaft of light, took her hands, and held them out dramatically.

"Let me look at you!"

He danced her around in circles, and Emmaline couldn't help but laugh. In a matter of minutes she felt the years drop away. It was as if she had never left. He had less hair and she knew she no longer looked eighteen. But none of that mattered.

"Sit, sit! You must tell me all about what you've been doing these last many years." He directed her to a chair, then dashed back to the door, flung it open, and hollered out, "Collette, bring us some tea!"

He was still a whirlwind of energy, and Emmaline smiled to think that not everything had changed.

"Now tell me everything."

"Heavens, we would be here all day."

"Grand! I can't imagine anything I would like more than to spend time with you."

Emmaline lowered her head and glanced at her gloved hands. Andre reached out and nudged her chin. "What is this? Emmaline Abbot blushing?"

"Emmaline Hawthorne now."

"Yes, yes. How could I not know? Your husband is written about in every paper. He is either taking some poor politician to task or signing some new deal to make thousands more dollars. He is everywhere one turns. But I don't want to hear about him. It will ruin my day."

He said the words with a wicked grin, and Emmaline couldn't help her answering chuckle—couldn't seem to manage a bit of offense. Somehow Andre Springfield had always been that way. He could say the most improper things and get away with it.

He glanced at the door. "Where is our tea?" he bellowed.

Just then the door opened, but it wasn't Collette who entered. A tall man with broad shoulders stood in the doorway. He had a full head of hair, graying at the temples. His skin was lightly tanned, as if he spent time in the sun. His eyes were dark and clear. He looked directly at Emmaline and after a long moment he smiled.

Emmaline couldn't move, her breath caught in her chest. Her mind spun and her heart leaped.

"Hello, Em. It's been a long time."