He Hid Our Marriage for Two Years, So I Told the Whole Ballroom novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Toast
Ione, eight weeks pregnant and kept hidden for two years, takes the microphone at the Beaufain gala, says she is Lachlan's wife and leaves her ring on the lectern; he asks what she has cost him.
The pregnancy test was in my clutch, folded inside a tissue, and I had checked it four times since the car.
Two pink lines, every time.
I was going to tell my husband tonight.
I was going to tell him after the toast, when he finally stood up and said my name to a room full of people.
He had promised me that toast for two years.
"After the Gadsden merger closes," he always said. "After that I'll tell everyone, Ione. I swear."
The merger closed on Thursday.
Table nineteen was by the kitchen doors.
It held the florist, the caterer, a man from the tug supply company, and me.
Nobody at the table knew I was married to the man whose name was on the invitation.
Nobody in the whole Telfair Ballroom knew.
That was the arrangement I had agreed to on a June morning at the courthouse.
I had thought it would last a month.
I looked across four hundred people at Lachlan Beaufain.
He stood on the dais beside his mother, tall in a navy suit.
One hand was in his pocket, the way he stood when he was nervous.
He found me over the crowd and held my eyes.
Then he looked away.
I put my hand on my stomach under the tablecloth and told myself he was only waiting for the right moment.
The band stopped.
Rosamund Beaufain tapped the microphone twice, and the room went quiet for her as it always did.
"Good evening, friends of the Foundation."
"Thank you for helping us raise two million dollars for the Port Children's Fund."
Applause.
"Before the dinner, I have a happy duty."
She turned and held out her hand to the front table.
A woman in emerald silk stood up and walked to the dais.
I knew her from the society pages.
Verity Gadsden, thirty, the shipping heir from Charleston.
Rosamund took her hand and held it up beside her son's.
"With the Gadsden partnership signed, our families are glad to announce the engagement of my son Lachlan to Verity."
The room stood up and clapped.
The florist next to me said, "Oh, how lovely," and clapped too.
I did not clap.
I looked at Lachlan.
Verity had gone stiff and white, and I knew nobody had asked her either.
Lachlan's face did not change.
He leaned toward his mother and said, so close to the microphone that the whole room heard it, "Mother, not tonight."
Not tonight.
He had not said I'm married.
He had not said that woman is lying.
He had said not tonight.
Four hundred people laughed kindly, because they thought it was modesty.
I stood up.
My chair scraped the floor.
The tug supply man said, "Ma'am?"
I walked between the tables with my clutch in one hand.
The lights were warm, and I could hear my heels on the parquet.
Rosamund saw me coming and her mouth made a small, satisfied shape.
That was when I understood she had been waiting for this.
I stepped up on the dais.
Lachlan said quietly, "Ione. Don't."
"You had two years," I said.
I took the microphone out of his mother's hand.
She let me.
"Good evening," I said, and my voice came out steady through the speakers.
"My name is Ione Dufresne, and I'm an emergency room nurse at Candler."
"I'm also Lachlan Beaufain's wife."
The room made a noise I had never heard four hundred people make.
"We were married June fourth, two years ago, at the Chatham County courthouse," I said.
"He asked me to keep it quiet until the Gadsden merger closed."
"It closed Thursday."
Verity put her hand over her mouth.
Somebody dropped a glass.
I turned my left hand over and slid my gold band off my finger, where it had left a pale line.
I set it on the lectern next to the printed program.
It made a small click.
"Congratulations to the Gadsdens," I said. "Please enjoy the dinner."
I handed the microphone back to Rosamund.
She did not take it.
It was Lachlan who took it, and his hand was shaking.
I walked down the steps and across the ballroom, and nobody moved out of my way until they remembered they should.
I was halfway to the doors when he caught up to me.
He took my arm above the elbow, low and fast, so the room could not see.
His face was grey.
"Do you know what you just cost me?" he said.
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