Chapter 11: Table Nine

Dinner was roast chicken at a long pine table, and nobody ate.

Bryony wore a borrowed sweater and had her hair in a wet knot.

The bank slip lay beside her plate, unfolded, where everyone could see it.

Holbrook sat across from her, in a dry shirt, with his eyes on the paper.

"Mom," Bryony said. "Tell me what this is."

Rosalind's fork stopped.

"Sweetheart, it's nothing. Let's not do this at the table."

"The Draper family trust deposited four hundred thousand dollars into your account on the twelfth of September."

"Bryony."

"Six weeks before you sent me to table nine."

Rosalind's hand moved to her pearls.

"I can explain."

"Then explain it plainly. Once. In front of everyone."

The rain had started on the roof, soft at first.

Rosalind looked at Cordelia, and Cordelia gave her the smallest nod.

Her mother set down her fork.

"Mrs. Draper came to see me at the bakery," she said, in a very quiet voice. "She said her grandson needed a wife. She said you'd be perfect."

"Perfect."

"She said you were the kind of girl who acts. She'd watched you for weeks."

"And you said yes."

"I said I'd think about it."

"And then?"

"And then she paid me four hundred thousand dollars to put you at table nine at four o'clock."

Holbrook's chair scraped.

"Say that again," he said.

Rosalind didn't look at him.

"I chose the table. I chose the hour. Mr. Draper would be there, she said, and he'd be waiting, and I only had to make sure you couldn't leave."

"Dwight," Bryony said.

"Dwight was the push."

Bryony stared.

"You let him say those things to me. You sat in that bakery and let him believe he'd have me."

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