The Whole Valley Called Her the Plain Fiancee, So She Let the Banquet Read the Deed novel · Chapter 8 of 24
Chapter 8: Our Local Touch
Signe's POV
The Growers' Dinner was held in the same ballroom as the banquet, with the same round tables and a different tablecloth.
It had been a week, and the whole valley had learned my name.
I wore my own dress this time, a plain navy wool I had bought for my cousin's wedding, and my mother's glasses.
I had not asked Rhys to pick me up.
I had driven myself in the green Ford and parked it in the far corner of the lot.
At the door of the ballroom a woman in a black dress with a clipboard looked down her list, and looked up, and smiled with her teeth.
"Miss Aldahl.
"Mrs. Wheelwright has seated you at table twenty-two."
I looked at the room.
The head table stood on its dais with the white cloth and the tall candles.
Table twenty-two stood by the kitchen doors.
It was a round table of eight, set for the hired help.
The caterer's lead sat there with her hands in her lap, and two of the cellar crew's wives, and the hotel's wine steward, who looked at me and then at his plate.
"Is this a mistake?" I asked.
"Mrs. Wheelwright was very specific," the woman said.
I walked across the room.
Every head turned as I went, and every conversation faltered and picked up again, louder.
I sat down at table twenty-two with a smile I had practiced on trucks.
The steward poured me a glass of Wheelwright Cellars Riesling without a word.
On the label was the river bend with the three cottonwoods.
I turned the glass a quarter turn so that nobody would see the label I had painted.
At the head table Rhys sat in his black suit with his hands flat on the cloth.
He saw me.
He half rose.
His mother laid two fingers on his sleeve, and he sat back down.
I watched it happen from sixty feet away, and something cold settled in the pit of my stomach.
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