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too large, as some Back Bay residences tended to be, and built by Charles Bulfinch in the early part of the century.
    The rooms were exquisitely detailed with fine woods and oriental carpets. Elegant and refined, but never ostentatious. Porcelain Ming vases stood on high pedestals. Priceless paintings lined the walls. One could spend money on art. That was an investment. But gold-gilt crown moldings or marble balustrades were an extravagant waste of a man’s good, Puritan money. Or so his father had always said.
    Matthew waited, silently, not trusting himself to speak. His head pounded, his arm and shoulder ached, making it difficult to think. Anyone who looked at him could see the scar on his face. But no one except the doctors had seen the scars on his shoulder and forearm, left from the accident that made him a widower a year and a half ago.
    Sometimes in the night he found it hard to believe how much his life had changed.
    “I’ve made you uncomfortable,” Emmaline said, descending the stairs with regal grace and a desperately loving smile.
    When she stood before him, she placed a hand on his wrist. Pain shot up through his arm to his head. It took every ounce of his control not to suck in his breath.
    He thought of the doctors. The looks on their faces, the concern in their eyes. But Matthew was never quite sure how much of their concern was about his condition and how much was due to the fact that they had to tell one of the wealthiest, and once one of the most powerful, men in Boston that he wasn’t getting better, as they had assured him he would.
    When they first voiced their concerns, Matthew had refused to believe. But he was finding it took more and more strict concentration to make his wounded arm work properly. The arm was growing weaker, and just like last night, if he didn’t focus, he fumbled around like a schoolboy. But if he did pay careful attention to each task, he moved through life with a large degree of normalcy, making it possible to hide his growing weakness from his family.
    “Oh, Matthew, I just hate to see you so unhappy.” Emmaline hesitated, then added, “And marriage would do you a world of good.”
    “I will never remarry, Mother,” he said, his frustrations seeping through, his normally ironclad control strained.
    “Stop living in the past!” she suddenly cried. “Kimberly is gone. You have to accept that!”
    His throat worked as he thought of his wife. They had been married seven years earlier. He had known from the minute he saw her that she would be his wife. Now she was dead, he was scarred, and he would never marry again.
    “I think Finnea Winslet would make a wonderful wife.”
    She had caught him off guard with her talk of marriage, but this stunned him. “Marry Finnea Winslet? That’s crazy!” And it was. He hardly liked her, much less wanted to marry her. Or so he told himself over the sudden rush of sound through his head.
    Emmaline’s face was riddled with uncertainty. “I don’t know. It was just a thought that came to me last night at the party.”
    “I can’t imagine why. Finnea and I hardly spoke.”
    “I noticed, as no doubt everyone else did.” She sighed. “Even though your behavior makes it easy to forget, I still remember a day when you made everyone around you smile. Gracious, you had all of Boston dancing attendance on you. Women followed you with simpering looks, and men courted your favor. Everyone you knew, and many you didn’t, adored you.” She looked him straight in the eye. “Now you slam your fist down on the table to deal with those very same people.”
    He bit back embarrassment over the truth of his mother’s words. Futile embarrassment. Just as wishing life hadn’t changed was futile.
    Showing none of the turmoil he felt, he crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back against a Roman column. “You mean I wasn’t charming last night?” he asked, teasing, as he once did so often and so well.
    “No you were not, as well you