I Wed the Ruthless Alpha, and Now His Wolf Kneels to Me novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Sunday Supper

On Sunday the Cornish sang before they ate.

They stood in rows at the long tables with their pasties going cold.

They sang a hymn in four parts, men low and women high, and the old windows of the Dry hummed with it.

I stood at Petroc's right hand and did not know a word.

When it ended, they sat down all at once and looked at me.

Three long tables ran the length of the hall.

The Cornish had the one under the Board, and the town Finns had the middle one.

The French-Canadians had the one by the kitchen door, where Solange sat with her sleeves rolled up and a ladle in her fist.

Each table had its own Chair, and the three Chairs would vote on whether my brass check stayed on hook 242.

The Chair of the Cornish table was a bent old man in a chapel tie.

He got up slowly with his napkin still in his hand.

"Cornish says no," he said. "We don't say it against the girl. We say it for the Dry. A Finn's check on that wall is a stain, and a lamp lit by a Finn's hand is a trick."

Murmurs ran up and down the Cornish bench.

A woman said something about Toivola and farm sauna smoke.

I kept my face still and held my fork.

Petroc did not move, but I felt him go cold beside me.

"The Chair of the town Finns," Petroc said, in a voice that carried to the back wall.

The Finnish Chair was a heavy woman who ran the hardware store.

She stood up and said, "Finns say yes."

"French says yes," Solange called from her table, without standing. "French says yes, and God help whoever argues."

Somebody laughed.

"Two tables to one," Petroc said. "The check stays."

The old Cornish Chair stayed on his feet, shaking.

"And what of the lamp?" he said. "Nine years the Cap'n has sat in that chair with no wife and no shame."

"Sit down," Petroc said.

"Now he takes a Finn whose brother lights fires on his say-so, and he expects the Cornish to eat at her table."

"Enough," Petroc said.

He stood.

I saw his shoulders change, and I saw forty people look away from his face.

"I have bent thirty-one checks in this hall," he said, "and I never gave a reason for one. You'll get the same one they did."

The old man's mouth worked.

"This is my hall, and I say who stands in it," Petroc said. "Yours is the next check I bend."

He took one step toward the Board.

He raised his hand to the old man's brass tag, with the thumb and finger already curled to pull it off its hook.

"Wait," I said.

It was not loud.

I said it into the sudden quiet, and I was only trying to give the old man time to sit down.

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