Chapter 17: Margot's Price

"My price is simple," Margot said.

"I want to be released from the engagement, in front of witnesses."

"Why do you need me for that?"

"My father won't hear it from me."

"He'll hear it from a Brevoort, in public, or he'll spend a year calling it nerves."

"And what do I get?"

She took a small black notebook out of her handbag and held it against her chest.

"Hugh's second ledger," she said.

"Last spring my father's company paid Kinsman Partners a consulting fee."

"It was far too large, and nobody could say what it was for."

"I asked Hugh, and he laughed. I copied his books out of his study while he made me a drink."

I did not touch the notebook.

"Why not give it to Tristan yourself?"

"Because I'm in it." Her mouth went thin. "My father's name appears three times, next to numbers he can't explain."

"If I hand it over alone, Hugh turns it on my family."

"And Tristan won't believe me. He believes nobody who wants something from him."

"You're the only person in his life who asked for nothing."

"I need you to be the one who puts it in his hand."

I stood there with the lights of London in the glass beside me.

"You let him hang up on a nurse," I said.

"Yes."

"You sat there."

"Yes. I'll be sorry for it for a long time, and I'd still like you to take the notebook."

It was the first time all night that anyone had said sorry without asking me for something back.

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