He Chose the Girl Who Tried to Kill Him novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Mission Luncheon

Harriet stopped in the study doorway with her hat still on.

Nan had gone behind the long curtain at the first sound of her heel.

The pistol went with her.

"Langston," said Harriet. "Adaline. How cosy."

"I let her out, Mother," Langston said. "She was lonely, and I thought you'd want her kept in good spirits."

"Did you?"

"She's agreed to the church. She just wanted the chance to say so to my face."

Harriet looked at the two of us for a long moment.

Then she smiled, and held out her hand to me.

"Come, my dear. You've had a day."

She took me upstairs herself and turned the key.

I stood at the window in the dark and saw a shape drop from the kitchen roof into the garden.

A second shape caught it at the bottom.

I put my forehead against the cold glass and stayed there until the garden was empty.

On Saturday Harriet took me to the Mission.

She dressed me herself, in a dove-grey wool with a high collar, so that we matched.

"The Christmas luncheon," she said in the carriage. "Forty ladies, my dear. They will want to see the bride. You will be gracious."

"I will."

"You will say nothing about your father or about servants."

"I will say a great deal about Christmas."

She laughed and tapped my wrist with her fan.

The Ladies' Mission kept a long hall on Woodland Avenue, with holly on the beams and tea urns at the end.

The stout woman who had waved at Pelham's presided at the head table with a bell.

Harriet sat on her right.

I sat on Harriet's other side.

Forty women in good hats ate their chicken and watched us.

"Mrs. Haldane," said the stout woman, standing. "Our dearest patron. You have given the Home its new wing, and the bed fund, and the Easter coal. We should all like to hear a word."

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