Chapter 6: The Gala

The next night, Mathias put a dress on my bed and said, "Wear this if you want to go."

"Go where?"

"Preston's mother is holding her hospital gala in my hotel ballroom."

"Her husband's firm booked it six months ago, and I never cancelled it."

I picked up the dress.

It was dark green velvet with a low back, and it fit me.

"Your size," I said.

"I guessed," he said. "I looked at you a lot."

I went.

The Ardrey Grand ballroom was lit by five chandeliers, with a hundred round tables and the whole of Pittsburgh's old money sitting at them.

I had done the flowers for this gala two years in a row.

This year someone else had, and the centerpieces were a sad pile of carnations.

I walked in on Mathias's arm, in velvet, with my head up.

Conversation stopped table by table as we passed.

Mathias didn't care.

He nodded to the host, took two glasses of sparkling water from a tray, and handed me one.

"Mr. Ardrey," a man said, and half rose from his chair. "We thought you were abroad."

"I was," Mathias said. "I've come home to a wife."

At the head table, under the largest chandelier, sat Preston's mother in a silver gown.

Preston sat beside her.

Whitney sat on his other side in a cream dress that was too tight across the chest.

Pinned to her neckline was a silver lily brooch with a tiny pearl at its heart.

I stopped walking.

My grandmother had worn that brooch on her wedding day, and she had pinned it on my dress the morning she died.

I kept it in the locked drawer in my shop under the register.

I had not worn it in months, because I was afraid of losing it.

"Mathias," I said. "The pin on her dress is mine."

His hand went tight on my waist.

"Do you want it?" he said.

"Yes."

"Then go and get it," he said quietly. "I'm right here."

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