Swan's Grace Page 10

  “Are you going to kiss me again, right here in front of Boston’s most proper society?” She was amazed at how steady the words sounded, even in her own ears.

  “No,” he said, his voice gruff. “Not here.” His hands ran up her arms—strong, capable hands, his thumbs coming up to graze her mouth like a promise. “But soon.”

  Despite herself, a shiver of anticipation raced through her at the words. And when he took her elbow, she let him, understanding in that moment as he led her in to dinner that regardless of her best intentions, the long-fought-for wall she had built around her emotions had slipped lower by a notch.

  The massive room was filled with twenty round tables, ten guests at each. Nearly as many footmen streamed in, bringing silver dishes piled high with extravagant fare.

  Both Sophie and Grayson were seated at the head table with her father and Patrice. Emmaline and Bradford were there as well. The two older men sat in deep conversation, though it was clear that Emmaline was straining to make conversation with Patrice. At least in some arenas, Sophie thought with childish satisfaction, Patrice hadn’t been able to take Genevieve Wentworth’s place.

  She would rather have been seated at a table with Deandra, Henry, and Margaret. But her entourage had not been invited, and no amount of begging had changed that fact. She almost hadn’t gone. But they had insisted, saying they hadn’t come all this way to have her turn her nose up at the very thing she wanted—her father showing that he cared.

  Conrad sat between Sophie and Patrice, with Grayson to Sophie’s left. She was all too aware of his nearness, the brush of his forearm against hers when he reached for his knife, his long fingers picking up his tall crystal glass. With renewed effort, she attempted to fill in the crack in her wall. It was safer that way, safer not to care. Caring only ended up hurting.

  But she would not let him see that she was off center. Leaning close and teasing, she said, “You’re impossible to get away from these days.”

  She expected a laugh, or better yet, a scowl. She didn’t get either. Instead he looked at her intently, one bold finger reaching up to crook beneath her chin despite the crowds around them. “Do you really want to get away from me, Sophie?”

  Disconcerted by the way he made her feel—one minute like a recalcitrant child, the next like a desirable woman— she wrenched back. “Yes, I do.”

  This time he smiled. “Liar.”

  With that he turned his attention to the woman on his left.

  Sophie concentrated on the hand-carved candelabra that lit the room, the high-polished silverware reflecting in the light. The cups were filigreed and the plates accented in gold, jeweled, much like the women in the room.

  Dinner was served in nine courses. She hardly noticed the meal, too busy was she trying to avoid Grayson. But she nearly knocked the contents of her wineglass across the snowy white tablecloth when he turned to her and offered her a taste of the decadently rich chocolate soufflé with a drip of sugared brandy poured down the middle.

  “No, thank you,” she managed, turning away abruptly to the sound of his all-too-knowing chuckle.

  At the end, huge folding doors were slid back to reveal a stunning ballroom with crystal chandeliers and sheer white draperies pulled back from French doors opened to the black-velvet night. And then music erupted. A stunning Dvorak waltz from a twelve-piece orchestra, inviting the guests to join in.

  The crowd gasped in awe at the fairy-tale scene. Patrice looked on with exhilaration at what was clearly a social triumph.

  Conrad smiled to the crowd, then said, “I believe I’d like to dance with my girl.”

  My girl.

  The words her father had always said to her as a child. The words that sang in her heart. The words that preceded a glorious dance. He did care. He hadn’t forgotten.

  With her heart in her eyes, she stood from the table. But she froze half in, half out of her chair when Patrice stood as well, her father taking her stepmother’s hand and leading her to the high-polished parquet floor for the dance.

  Sophie couldn’t seem to move.

  Silence fell across the table, tension shimmering through the small circle like waves of heat on the summer-scorched cobbles of Boylston Street.

  But before other heads could turn and take in her dismay, Grayson stood up and had her on the dance floor, pulled so close to his chest that she could feel his strength.

  She wanted to melt away, melt into the floor.

  “I’m sorry things have changed so much since you left,” Grayson said, his voice filled with genuine regret. The words wrapped around her much like the music. “Your father hasn’t handled your homecoming well.”

  She hated that he understood her pain, must have seen it in her eyes, and pride forced its way into her voice. “Good heavens, Grayson, I never thought for a moment that my father was going to dance with me. I was on my way to the ladies’ retiring room. I’d be there now if you hadn’t swept me onto the dance floor.”

  His look made it clear he didn’t believe a word she said.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” she scoffed. “I didn’t need your help.”

  She calmed herself, then shrugged her shoulders with practiced indifference. “But if your overactive, manly pride needs to think so, who am I to contradict you?”

  “Manly?” he asked.

  His voice lowered, a vibration of sound that sent a shimmer of feeling through her body.

  “Do you think I’m manly, Sophie?”

  She wasn’t sure if he was serious or not, but she didn’t like the way he pulled her closer, the way his hand spread across her back with such assurance and strength. Her skin felt tingly and too sensitive as he studied her.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Grayson Hawthorne,” she warned.

  “What look is that?” His mischievous smile grew heated.

  “That… manly look.”

  “You mean this?” He set her back a bit, his dark-eyed gaze traveling down to where their bodies nearly touched.

  “You’re impossible.” Frantically she tried shoring up her wall. She refused to feel anything, and she tried to step away.

  Grayson chuckled. “I’m not ready to let you go, sweetheart. We haven’t finished our dance—or our discussion. As I recall, you were just telling me how manly I am.”

  The words surprised her. She almost laughed at the thought that he was toying with her. Grayson Hawthorne playing the cad was an event to remember. But she didn’t laugh. Instead she decided on a new tack sure to have this proper man escorting her back to the table so fast they’d leave scuff marks on the parquet floor.

  Slowly she ran the tip of her tongue along her upper lip. “Is that what you would like me to do? Tell you how manly you are?”

  She moved closer and his eyes darkened.

  “Would you like me to show you right here?” she challenged, her voice soft and sultry. “On the dance floor?”

  His eyes never wavered from hers, and she was certain he was considering her offer. But he surprised her with his words.

  “Is this how it will always be between us? Each pushing the other, playing chicken to see who will back down first?”

  “Sounds like my kind of game. Why don’t we try it? I’d be interested to see who would actually win.”

  He touched her cheek, his finger tracing the line of her jaw as he forced her to look at him. “I’m not interested in battles, Sophie. What do you say we start over?”

  She was quiet for a moment; then she pulled back, the dance floor becoming crowded around them. “That’s the difference between you and me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the battles that make life interesting.”

  “There is more to life than battles.”

  “Like what?”

  “A home and family.”

  She glanced at her father dancing with Patrice. “Perhaps.”

  “And children.”

  Her eyes shot back to Grayson. “So it’s true! You are looking for a wife.”

  He
hesitated. “What if I said I am?”

  “I’d laugh.”

  She felt him stiffen and she smiled.

  “I hardly think my marital pursuits are cause for amusement.”

  “True. And based on the considerable amount of gossip I’ve been hearing, there are an ample number of mamas anxious to bring their daughters to your attention. Tell me that you aren’t seriously considering Monica Redmond.”

  “Who said anything about Miss Redmond?”

  “No one. But I saw you talking to her earlier, and even I’ve heard that she’s looking for a husband. Furthermore, I have been led to believe that you are considered something of a catch”—she glanced at him with a coy smile—“even if you are destitute and forced to live in my house.”

  He bared his teeth. “I hardly call paying large sums of money to reside at the Hotel Vendome reason to say that I am living at your house.”

  “You might not be sleeping under my roof, but you spend nearly the rest of your day at Swan’s Grace.”

  “My office is there,” he stated.

  “True, but it seems a silly place to work. And the few papers I’ve seen on your desk hardly seem worthwhile.”

  His eyes narrowed and his features went hard. “You’ve gone through my belongings?”

  “Of course I have,” she stated, unable to keep her lips from quirking. “What did you think, that it was above me to search through your drawers, given the chance? Though I was hoping to find something of some interest. Like some hapless soul’s divorcement papers, or better yet, a tantalizingly juicy lawsuit. Maybe even an arrest warrant of sorts. Surely even your clients get tossed in jail.”

  He stood like stone, his face a disbelieving mask.

  Sophie chuckled, relieved to be the one causing discomfort. Finally. “You’re upset.”

  “I hardly think upset covers what I feel.”

  She bit her lip to keep from laughing, then looked at him through lowered lashes. “If it will make you feel better, I’ll let you come over and search through my drawers.”

  She drew the last word out, letting it roll off her tongue provocatively. She expected him to sputter, and if she were lucky he might even turn red.

  But he offered little more than a flicker of dumbfounded surprise before his face washed clean of expression.

  A clever man, she mused. He was smooth and able to play the game better than she had thought, she realized when his hand drifted low, slipping to that place on her gown under which those very crudely called “drawers” circled her waist.

  In the next minute he danced her through the open doorway and out onto the flagstone terrace, cold, clear moonlight filling the blackened sky.

  “I think you actually are trying to get into my drawers, Mr. Hawthorne,” she said with mock primness. “But if you think it will be that easy, you’ve been dealing with the wrong kind of women these last many years.”

  “Or you’ve been dealing with the wrong kind of men.”

  She laughed appreciatively despite herself.

  But then his chiseled face grew serious. No more heated smiles or sensual grazes over skin. It was the face she remembered, the face of the young boy she had known a lifetime, dark and stormy.

  “Did you really not remember the talking machine?” he asked without warning.

  The words surprised her, and her head tilted in confusion at the sudden change in subject. “The talking machine?” she replied, her heart beginning to pound.

  “Yes, Megan Robertson’s gramophone.”

  Her heart skipped and she felt vulnerable, just as she promised herself she would never be again.

  “Do you really not remember what you said about me on that machine?”

  She stared at him, then couldn’t help asking, “Do you remember?”

  “You said you loved me.” He said the words with force, almost as a challenge.

  She looked away, her mind drifting back as it had so many times this night. “I believe my exact words were that I loved you. Forever. I loved you with all my heart. And one day I would be your wife.”

  She turned back to him and saw something she couldn’t name in his eyes. Regret, need?

  She felt them both, and hated them each in turn. Because forever was a long time, and sometimes things happened that got in the way.

  Chapter Eight

  “This has gone on long enough. Sophie has to be told.”

  Patrice’s smooth brow furrowed with agitation as she paced across her husband’s study, her dark coil of hair shining in the muted light. It was late, the party was over, and the guests had gone home. But Patrice still looked dazzling and vibrant in her shimmering gown.

  “Now, darling,” Conrad said, looking every one of his nearly fifty-two years, “I’ve talked to Grayson several times. But I can’t push him. We have to let him do this in his own time. And he will do it. I’m certain. Besides, there is time enough to tell her. She has barely been here a week. Even I see now that I expected things to move too fast.”

  “They can’t move fast enough, as far as I’m concerned. In the time she has been here, she has managed to gain the attention of every eligible male in Boston. I can’t tell you the line of men who begged me for an introduction tonight. Of course I didn’t comply,” she said with a sniff. “I only brought Niles Prescott to her attention.”

  Conrad tensed at the mention of the man, and thought of his first wife. He hadn’t wanted to invite him at all. Why dredge up old wounds? But Patrice had been adamant.

  “And do you know what that daughter of yours had the audacity to do?”

  He sighed.

  “She turned down an invitation to play at the Music Hall! Good Lord, she travels all over the world performing, but she won’t play in her own hometown.” Her cool eyes turned heated. “These are the people who supported her and nurtured her along the way. Not that pack of impoverished, overbred peasant stock who call themselves European royalty.”

  “Actually, it was her mother who nurtured Sophie’s talent, not Boston, and not Europe, for that matter—at least not until recently. If I’m not mistaken, her first concert in Europe wasn’t a success. I’m not sure what made the difference.”

  Patrice gave her husband an impatient look, then resumed her pacing. “Regardless, she is successful now, and Niles said if Sophie performed, the show would be the premier event of the year. There would be parties leading up to the concert. Parties and dinners. It would be a social coup.”

  “For whom?” he asked with surprising acumen.

  “For me!”

  She stopped abruptly, her gaze meeting her husband’s; then she ran a jeweled hand down the bodice of her expensive gown and drew a deep breath. “Regardless of what you think about who did or did not support her, Sophie owes Boston, dear.”

  Turning his gaze away, Conrad thought of his only child by his first wife.

  He had loved Genevieve as a husband should. But before she died, her days had been absorbed in Sophie and her music, with little time for a husband or having a larger family.

  Not long after Genevieve’s death he had married again. There was a significant age difference between Conrad and his new bride, but she was a stunning woman who captivated him, making him feel younger than his years. They had three lovely daughters who were sweet and… simple in the best kind of way. Thank God for that.

  Sophie was anything but simple.

  As a child she had lived for music. As an adult she still lived for music. But as he had told Grayson, it was time she settled down. As her father, it was his responsibility to see that she did—no matter what he had to do to achieve that goal.

  “I think it’s best she turned Niles down,” he said. “I don’t think she should play the cello any longer, at least not in public. She is a grown woman now. It’s time she turned her attention to a husband and children.”

  Patrice whirled around. “Fine!” she exclaimed, her blue eyes like fire. “But if that’s the case, then we need to stop beating around the bus
h and tell her about the betrothal. It’s time, Conrad, long past time.”

  A knock sounded on the door. When Conrad turned the knob, he found his best friend’s son.

  “Grayson, I thought you would have been long gone by now,” Conrad said in surprise.

  Grayson raised a questioning brow and glanced at Patrice as he entered, then looked back at Conrad. “I was asked to meet you here.”

  Confusion swept through Conrad before a sharp dread began to fill him, and he turned his gaze on his wife. “What is this about, Patrice?” he asked, his tone exacting.

  “I told you, husband, this has gone on long enough.”

  Grayson’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and he brought his arms up and crossed them on his broad chest.

  Grayson Hawthorne had grown to be a man of great wealth and power. He had a reputation for scrupulous fairness, but also for unmatched ruthlessness when someone crossed him. A person could see the power of him in the way he moved, the way he spoke, even in the fine, chiseled lines of his dark countenance.

  Conrad tugged at his rumpled dinner jacket, feeling a flicker of concern caused by the younger man’s hard stare.

  “What has gone on long enough?” Grayson inquired, his voice deceptively soft.

  As soon as he asked the question, Grayson saw Conrad’s unease. He also saw the flare of pleasure in Patrice’s eyes. Grayson knew right away that she was up to no good.

  Annoyance flickered through him as he came farther into the room and shut the door.

  Conrad glanced nervously at his wife before turning back to Grayson. “Patrice and I were just discussing your betrothal.”

  A fire burned on the hearth, reflecting on fine oil paintings and bronze sculpture. After doing some digging into Conrad’s financial status, Grayson had learned that Conrad’s finances were not as healthy as they once were.

  “What are you waiting for, son? The longer we wait the harder it will be to tell her. You’re not having second thoughts about this, are you?” Conrad asked, his voice growing guarded.

  Grayson no longer doubted his intent to marry the man’s daughter. Regardless of the fact that she was headstrong and had made it clear she had little interest in being a proper lady, he couldn’t give her up.