The Gold Digger's Ledger novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Thursday at the Table

The Beaumonts had put forty people at one long table under a chandelier.

I knew the room from the soup, and I knew the white-eyebrowed man at the head of it.

Honor sat on Mr. Beaumont's right in dove-grey silk, with a leather folder squared beside her plate.

Lydia sat on his left in cream, with a diamond at her throat.

She was smiling, and she was looking at the door.

It was the wrong door, and it opened on the wrong people.

"Gus, darling," said Honor, and her smile didn't flicker. "What a surprise. And Miss Dunleavy."

"Honor," said Gus. "You look well. A little tired."

He lowered himself into the chair beside her, and I took the one next to his.

At the far end sat the five women from the tea room.

One of the five women, the one in pearls, caught my eye and looked straight down at her plate.

"Tristan is unwell," Honor told the table, pleasantly. "He sends his love."

"Does he," said Gus.

I put the ledger on the cloth beside my fork.

It lay there through the soup, and through the fish.

Honor never looked at it once. That was how I knew she'd seen it.

When the plates were cleared, Mr. Beaumont tapped his glass.

"Friends," he said, in that slow, flat banker's voice. "We are here for the happy news."

He opened the leather folder, uncapped a pen, and laid it by the signature line.

"Pemberton has been a name on this avenue for two hundred years. I'm glad to see it joined to mine."

He looked at Honor.

"Where is your son?"

"Delayed," said Honor.

"Then we'll announce without him. I trust he'll sign when he arrives."

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