Chapter 24: The Colonel's Daughter

I looked at the box on the stone rail for a long time.

The avenue hummed far below the balcony.

Behind the glass, my father's table was laughing at something Hattie said.

"You told me you didn't date clients," I said.

"I don't."

"You told me a lease first."

"I'm a lawyer," Cedric said. "I read the terms I wrote, and then I ignore them."

I picked up the box and opened it.

The ring was plain, a single gray stone in an old setting, and it was exactly the color of his eyes.

"My grandmother's," he said. "I haven't got a speech. I spent a month on one and burned it."

"Good."

"Will you marry me when your decree comes through? Not before. I'd like to ask a free woman."

I had been asked once before, in a ballroom, by a man who had planned the answer.

Cedric waited with his hands at his sides, and I knew he would accept either one.

"Yes," I said.

He let out a shaky laugh and kissed me there on the balcony.

Half the Holcomb family watched us through the glass.

Somebody inside whooped.

It sounded like my daughter.

The decree came in March.

In April, on a gray bright Saturday, I stood in the courtyard behind the school in Bedford Square.

I wore a borrowed raincoat and a ring on my left hand.

Forty students stood around me in dirty overalls.

My father sat in the front row on a folding chair, leaning on his cane with both hands.

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