Swan's Grace

by Linda Francis Lee

  Then there was Lucas, the youngest. He hadn’t caused a scandal. But as the sole owner of Nightingale’s Gate gentleman’s club, he lived one. Grayson was not about to add fuel to the family fire.

  He knew his father was counting on him to marry Sophie. The coming together of the two old, distinguished families would be a renewal. It was one of the few times Grayson’s intentions had coincided with his father’s constant schemes and plans to better the Hawthorne name. Or at least they had coincided until last night. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “Damn it, I want to know what you’ve been doing for the last three months,” Bradford Hawthorne demanded, pulling Grayson out of his reverie. “I thought the contracts had been signed. But now you stand there and tell me things are up in the air. I demand to know what is going on?”

  Grayson shot his father a warning glance. “My affairs are none of your concern.”

  “That’s the problem,” Bradford shot back. “All you have had for the last decade are affairs. It’s time you settled down and got married. Damn it, Matthew is married and he’s a year younger than you.”

  “Lucas doesn’t have a wife,” he offered.

  Bradford snorted. “The devil take it. Who’d have him?”

  “From what I hear, any number of women would have Lucas,” he said with a shrug.

  “I’m talking about a proper woman, not some lady of the night who’d like to get her claws into a Hawthorne.”

  Grayson started to disagree, but decided not to waste his breath. He had been arguing about life, marriage, and his youngest brother for too many years to count. He hadn’t found an argument yet that could scratch his father’s angry convictions.

  The only person who had ever been able to make inroads with their father was Matthew. It was no secret that the second son had been Bradford’s favorite child. Matthew had been able to talk to their father in ways Grayson never had. But all that changed after Matthew’s face had been scarred in an accident.

  Grayson dropped his arms to his sides, telling himself he didn’t care about his father and his inability to please the man. But he did care about Matthew and Lucas.

  For as long as he could remember, it had been the three of them. Brothers, friends, confidants. Protectors of their fragile mother, who drifted through the house like a whisper. Though if stories were to be believed, when she was young, Emmaline Hawthorne née Abbot had been wild and daring.

  But something had happened that took the laughter from her eyes.

  Grayson turned back to the Public Gardens. When he had arrived that morning, he had asked for his mother. But her lady’s maid had explained that she was not feeling well, and was not receiving visitors.

  “You are the oldest,” Bradford continued harshly. “You need to provide me an heir to continue the line.”

  “Matthew has provided you with a child.”

  “He has provided me with a girl!” Bradford drew a sharp, deep breath, his nostrils flaring. After a moment he visibly eased. “Sweet as she is, Mary will not retain the Hawthorne name once she marries. I need a boy. Only a boy can ensure that the Hawthorne name doesn’t die out. You need to provide me with that boy.”

  Grayson’s temper flared, but he held it in ruthless check.

  He would not argue with his father. Instead he started to leave.

  But Bradford stopped him. “I know how you are. You’ll walk out that door and do whatever you please. But I’m serious about this. You get those contracts finalized with Conrad. I want a wedding.”

  “I don’t doubt you do,” he stated coolly. “I will marry, but only when I’m ready.”

  Bradford grumbled. “You had better be ready soon. I’m not getting any younger. And if I left it up to you or Lucas, the Hawthorne name would undoubtedly die out—at least die out on the legitimate side. I need a grandson. You owe me a grandson. Damn it, you owe me!”

  The men stared at each other, steely dark eyes clashing with harsh, angry blue, until Grayson forced an ease into his voice that he didn’t feel. “I owe you? How is that? At sixteen you turned me out of the house.”

  The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. They hung in the room, startling and painful.

  Bradford shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked away, his face set in stubborn lines. “You should thank me for that. It taught you that life isn’t easy. It made you a fighter, it made you succeed.”

  “Ah, yes, the sink-or-swim method.”

  Bradford looked back. “You do owe me.”

  Only long years of practice kept Grayson’s emotions in check. “Really, Father? Tell me why.”

  “Because a son always owes his father.”

  A late-winter sun was well into the sky when Grayson slammed out the front door. He had locked horns with his father for as long as he could remember. Even when he tried to please the man, he only managed to send them both into a rage of temper. And he had never understood why. He also never understood why his father had forced him to leave Hawthorne House at sixteen. The excuse that he had needed to learn to succeed rang hollow. As a teen, he had worked harder than anyone he knew, had better marks, had more plans. But none of that had mattered.

  Stunned and dazed, he had been forced to strike out on his own, finding a rat-infested garret across the river in Cambridge, close to Harvard, where he had already made plans to attend. In the beginning he’d had to fight to survive, the only thing separating him from having to steal for food being baskets filled with meat and cheese, bread and milk. And always a cake—from Sophie.

  For months after leaving Hawthorne House, all he’d had were those baskets secretly delivered by servants. And the talking machine. Sophie’s words and her gifts of food to sustain him. His eyes narrowed against the memory of the young boy he had been those first weeks. Scared. Cranking the handle of the talking machine over and over again in that drafty, thin-walled garret. The words surrounding him, blocking out the angry shouts and fights between grown men in the hallway.

  Eventually he had worked his way through Harvard College, culminating with his graduation from Harvard Law. But as long as he lived he would never forget that it was Sophie who had helped him when he needed it the most.

  Instead of hailing a hired hack, Grayson cut across the Public Gardens, a large expanse of land made of curving pathways, footbridges, and plants and trees imported from all over the world.

  When he came to the footbridge that would take him toward downtown and the courthouse, where he had planned to go, he veered off to the right and headed for Commonwealth Avenue. And Sophie.

  Sophie.

  A slow, deep breath filled his lungs. Despite himself, he wanted to see her. Needed to see her.

  He cursed the need, but somehow couldn’t bring himself to change his direction. His thoughts hardened at the weakness, but then he told himself he simply needed to replace the memory of the bold, provocative woman he had seen last night.

  He wanted proof that he hadn’t made the single biggest mistake of his life based on the foolish memory of a young girl and a long-ago kindness. Did he yearn only for someone who no longer existed? In the years since she had left Boston, had he in some way always been waiting for her return? And when she didn’t, had he simply seen to it that she did?

  After he slipped out through the gate and wrought-iron fencing that surrounded the park, he had to stop for traffic before he could cross Arlington Street. The boulevard was packed, and the walkway was filled with warmly dressed pedestrians. When a gap came in the flow of carriages, he stepped off the granite-block curb onto the unevenly cobbled thoroughfare to start across. But he stopped in his tracks as a hired hack sped by. He would have sworn the woman inside was his mother.

  “Come on, stop holding everyone up,” a washerwoman barked at him.

  But Grayson didn’t move. The swarm of people who had been waiting to cross parted like a sea and hurried around him as he stared at the retreating carriage. But then he shook his head. That couldn’t have been his mother
. Emmaline Hawthorne didn’t take public conveyances. Beyond that, he had been told she was still in bed.

  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.