Arranged to the Don, Freed from the Lie novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Great Hall

By noon on Saturday, forty Crowninshields filled the Great Hall, and not one of them was eating.

Harrison had phoned every cousin on the list at dawn and told them the family was in danger.

Folding chairs stood in rows behind the long oak table.

The six members of the Council sat in their usual places with their hands folded.

Edmund stood at the head, in a pressed cardigan, with his cane planted.

He had put the soft voice back on.

I sat halfway down the left side with Phoebe pressed against my arm and my mother on my other side in her blue dress.

Someone had found my mother a footstool for her bad hip.

Santino had refused a chair.

He stood against the wall behind me with his hands in his pockets, and his six men stood along the stone on either side.

He had not touched me since the attic.

I knew exactly where he was every time I breathed.

The minute book, the county charter and the ledger lay on the table in front of me.

The man from Providence had pushed the charter back into my hand on the gravel before he drove away, and I had slept with it under my pillow.

"Family," Edmund said. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."

He let the quiet settle.

"On Thursday, a young woman of this house was married in our chapel, in great haste, to a man of a certain world. The pact that made the marriage was never completed. The groom refused the oath."

"Because the oath was a theft," Phoebe said under her breath.

I put my hand on her wrist.

"Today the family will decide whether this marriage stands," Edmund went on, "and whether the Council's arrangement stands with it. That arrangement has kept this house together for twenty-two years."

In the third row, a cousin in a tweed jacket raised his hand.

"Kept it from what?"

"From the ruin that took your father's farm," Edmund said gently. "Sit down."

← Chapter 12 · All chapters · Chapter 14 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend