Not a Love for Faint Hearts novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Edith's Garden

Edith offers her stage, Percy's mother orders Imogen out of the family name, Percy reads the 100 inside the ring aloud, and his suitcases arrive carried in by Camille.

Imogen said nothing about the text.

She thanked Camille twice, took a cab to Larkin Street, and lay awake until the window turned gray.

Whatever Camille and Percy's mother were doing, she would see all of it before she moved.

At seven she was in Edith Wexford's sunroom with a cup of tea she had not asked for.

Edith sat in her green wool suit with both hands on the silver handle of her cane.

She was seventy-nine, and she had not slept either.

"Dylan Keelan's friend posted the video at midnight," Edith said. "Forty thousand people have watched you say Fine."

"Then forty thousand people heard the terms."

"They did." Edith's pale eyes were very bright. "I chair the Harbor Foundation, Imogen. The stage at Marlow Hall is mine to give."

"I didn't come to ask for it."

"I know. I'm giving it anyway."

Imogen set her cup down very gently.

"Edith, I can't tell him why I stayed. He called it a story the first month. I won't tell it again."

"You don't have to." Edith's mouth went tight. "I was on that bench in my garden when it happened. I will say so on any stage you like."

"He won't hear it from you."

"Then he'll hear it from something else."

Footsteps crossed the hall outside, quick and hard.

Percy's mother came in without knocking.

She wore a camel coat and pearls, and she did not look at Edith.

"So this is where you hide," she said to Imogen.

"Good morning to you too."

"You will not be at that gala. You will not be at my son's table, and you will not use my family's name for one more week."

"Your son agreed to thirty days in front of eight people."

"My son was drunk."

"He had one glass." Imogen kept her voice level. "I was watching him the whole time."

Edith made a small noise that might have been a laugh.

Percy's mother stepped closer.

"Whatever you want, I'll pay it. Name the number. Sign today and you walk away rich."

Imogen stood up, so that they were eye to eye.

"I'm not selling anything. I'm giving your son exactly what he asked for, ninety-nine times. I'm just doing it in front of the people who watched him ask."

"You cheap little gold-digger."

"That's the sixth time you've said it. I stopped being hurt by it in March."

The color rose in the woman's face.

Edith struck the floor once with her cane.

"Sit down, or leave my house," she said. "I am too old for you to do this before breakfast."

Percy's mother did not sit.

She did not leave either.

The glass door from the garden opened, and the cold came in with Percy.

He wore yesterday's shirt and a tired face, and he held something small in his closed fist.

"Grandmother." He nodded at Edith. He did not nod at anyone else.

"Dylan fished this out of my glass at two this morning," Percy said.

He opened his hand.

The ring lay in his palm, still wet at the edges.

"I see the band is engraved." He tilted it toward the window light. "One hundred. Is that what I'm supposed to be, Imogen? A number?"

"It's a number," she said.

"You told me, the first month, that I asked you to marry me a hundred times." He said it flatly, to the room. "That I'd stood on your doorstep and begged. I've heard a lot of stories about me. That one is my favorite."

His mother made a sound of disgust.

Imogen held out her hand.

"Give it back, then. I'll need it on the twentieth."

"I'll keep it." He closed his fist. "In case you try something."

"I'm not going to try anything. I told you what I'd do."

"You said you'd sign." His eyes went over her face and found nothing in it. "The woman I've known for three years would have fought me to the end. What's the catch?"

"Ask me on the twentieth."

"Why not now?"

"Because now you wouldn't believe me." She picked up her coat. "You'll find out thirty days from now, with everyone else."

He stared at her.

For the first time in three years, his stare held a question.

"Thirty days," Percy said. "And I walk."

"And you walk."

His mother started to speak, and he lifted one hand to stop her without looking away from Imogen.

Nobody in that room had ever seen him do that for her.

Back in the hall, the front bell rang.

Edith's housekeeper opened the door to a delivery van, three leather suitcases, and a woman in a pale gray coat with honey-blonde hair in a low twist.

"Good morning, everyone," Camille said, bright and warm, with one of the suitcases already in her arms. "I brought Percy's things over to Larkin Street. I thought I'd help him settle in."

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