Chapter 6: Table One

The seat card at the head table had my name on it.

It had been put at the right hand of the empty chair beside it.

The empty chair belonged to Ezra.

Gerald sat three seats away, and he kept dabbing his upper lip with a napkin.

"You switched the seating?" he whispered to a waiter.

"Mr. Ezra's instruction, sir."

Gerald's napkin stopped moving.

Three hundred guests settled into their chairs with the sound of silk and cutlery.

Colby came in last, in a fresh suit with a split lip, because Gerald's men had not been gentle on the stairs.

He sat beside his father and glared at me over the centerpiece.

Daphne took a seat at table nine, in a blue dress, and gave me a small brave wave.

I waved back.

Then Ezra came in, and every conversation in the ballroom stopped at once.

He crossed the floor without hurrying and took the chair on my left.

He did not look at me.

He put his napkin on his knee, and his beads clicked once against the table edge.

"Miss Brannigan," he said, to the air.

"Mr. Maddox."

Gerald stood and tapped a spoon against his glass.

His smile had been put back on his face with both hands.

"Friends, family. Today my son Colby joins his life to the Brannigan family's. A union of two great houses."

Polite applause.

"Unfortunately," Gerald said, "we have been delayed. So I propose we move the wedding date up, to this Saturday, and be done with all this waiting."

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