Dove's Way by Linda Francis Lee Page B

boys’ bickering and taunts a backdrop to the returning hardness in his heart. He tried to block them out, telling himself he didn’t care. But another rock hit him, and the scar that ran down his arm beneath his shirt and coat turned to fire, making his head spin.
    He fell back against the carriage, his horse tossing its head when its guide reins jerked. Matthew counted. He breathed. He had to get home before someone saw him like this. But when he tried to straighten, a wave of stomach-churning heat washed through him and sweat sprang out on his forehead.
    Breathe, damn it, breathe, he told himself.
    He concentrated, aware of nothing other than steadying his mind, and he didn’t hear the boys whispering. It wasn’t until he felt another rock pelt him in the back that he whipped around with a roar of frustration and pain.
    The boys were right behind him. Their eyes went wide with fright, and they screeched, knocking each other over in their haste to be gone.
    Two women, dressed in elegant winter day gowns and heavy capes, must have heard the boys’ bellows and hurried toward them from around the corner, their eyes wide with fear. At the sight of their terrified sons and of Matthew standing there like a wild man, they gasped and grabbed the boys’ hands, racing away as fast as they could go.
    Matthew’s mind reeled. Humiliation snaked through his pain. He had known both of the mothers for a lifetime. Nan Penhurst and Corrine Adams were women he had danced and laughed with for more years than he could count. Their boys were friends of his daughter’s. Now he scared them away.
    He started to shake. Breathing deeply, he threw himself into the carriage, steadying himself on the plush leather seat. His entire body burned, pressing in on him. The glimpse of sun was gone, the sky closing up. The wind gusted, ringing in his ears. He turned the horse by sheer instinct toward his house on Marlborough Street, barely noticing the people who hurried out of his way—barely noticing the tiny little girl wrapped tightly in a coat and hat who stared at him in shock.
    He sped along with no thought for traffic, ignoring the shouts and curses when he cut in front of careening dray wagons.
    Mere blocks seemed like miles, but finally he crashed through the front door.
    His butler rushed forward. “Mr. Hawthorne!”
    At the sight of his employer, the man gasped. “Dear God, let me get the doctor!”
    With a ravaged remnant of strength, Matthew grabbed Quincy by the lapels. “Tell no one,” he commanded through the blinding pain. “I’ll be fine; do you understand?”
    “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.