Free Dove's Way by Linda Francis Lee Page B

one else.
    “Where’s my brother?” he asked caustically, looking around the study for Grayson.
    “If you mean that stern-faced, stiff-upper-lip sort that I saw slamming out your front door minutes ago, I’d say he’s gone. Looking none too pleased, I might add.” She ran her fingers through the long tassels of silk that hung from the drapery, and shot him a bemused smile. “You have a way with people, don’t you?”
    He only muttered and dropped his head back against the divan. “Why are you here, Miss Winslet?”
    She didn’t answer at first, and just when he would have asked again, she said, “I need a favor.”
    He opened one eye. “Why do I get the feeling that I’m not going to like this?”
    “Now, now. Don’t go jumping to wrong conclusions again. It’s nothing much, really.” She hesitated, running her fingers over the hand-carved ridge of a hardback chair, before blurting out, “I need you to teach me the ways of Boston.”
     
    Chapter Six
     
    Matthew came off the divan as if a lightning bolt had shot down his spine. “What?”
    Finnea’s eyes glimmered a deep, excited green. “It’s the perfect solution. It came to me last night while I was lying on the floor… .” She blushed. “I mean the bed, the bed on the floor. Anyway, you know the rules of these Americans. You know which spoon must be used and when. You could teach me the workings of this difficult place!”
    “No.” He said the word simply, forcefully, sweat beading on his forehead. He would not teach her. He would not be entwined in her life. Would not feel that frantic urgency to save her.
    But then she touched him unexpectedly, her fingers running along the scar on his face. Her fingertips sent fire racing through his body. Fire, frustration. And yearning.
    “Does it hurt?” she whispered.
    The words spun in his head. It hurt nearly every second. “No,” he said simply. “I give it little thought.”
    She looked at him. Into him. As if trying to determine if he had lied.
    Left off balance by the concern in her face, he fought the insane urge to turn his lips into her palm. He wanted to hold her, bury his head against her breast. Tell her about the pain, about the fury. Tell her that his family thought he was going insane.
    “So will you help me?” she asked.
    His eyes narrowed at her sudden change of subject. “What?”
    “Will you help me, show me the ways of these people? I can learn, really,” she whispered, the words emphatic.
    It was her tone that snagged at him, not the words, making him think that she was trying hard to convince herself but not succeeding.
    “You need an etiquette teacher, Miss Winslet, not me.”
    “But no one can know that I’m doing this! Not my mother, not my brother. When I arrive at my next party I want to be perfect. I want to know what to do. No one will be able to laugh at me.” She looked at him hard. “Besides, you said I could learn. You said you believed in me.” There was a flash of darkness in her eyes before she scoffed, “Or didn’t you mean it?”
    As always, Matthew hated the look in her eyes. Only minutes before she had been charging through life, excited about the prospects for the future. But he knew Bostonians weren’t so easily swayed. He needed to tell her that it would take more than learning to use the right spoon for this city to accept her.
    But the words wouldn’t come.
    “You learning and me teaching you are not the same issue,” he equivocated.
    He saw the relief, saw the flicker of hope rekindle in her eyes as she laughed. She turned away in a twirl, her strange gossamer skirts billowing like waves of green and gold.
    But her smile trailed off into startled surprise when she suddenly noticed the broken glass and overturned furniture. She stood for a moment before she tilted her head, then shrugged, as if finding a room in such disarray was not such an odd occurrence.
    “It would be pretty in here if it wasn’t for the mess,” she stated.
    “I