Chapter 7: The Foundation Dinner

At the Rutherford Foundation's winter dinner, my mother-in-law fastened the sapphire back on my neck in front of two hundred people.

I had brought it in my clutch to give back to her.

Eileen came with me in a borrowed black dress, because she had said she would sooner be arrested than let me walk in alone.

"Do not touch the bread," she murmured as we crossed the ballroom. "It's a trap."

"It's bread."

"It's Rutherford bread."

Harriet was already at the head table in dark blue silk, with her cane out of sight.

I laid the velvet case in front of her plate.

She did not open it.

She rose, took it, lifted the sapphire out with her good hand, and said, "Stand."

"Harriet, I said I would bring it."

"And you have," she said. "Turn around."

Every table nearby had gone quiet.

I could have stepped away, but then the whole room would have watched me do it.

So I turned, and her cold fingers closed the clasp against my skin.

"Rutherford women wear this," she said, loud enough for the first four tables. "Mrs. Thea Rutherford is wearing it tonight."

Applause rippled out from the board table, polite and puzzled.

I sat, and the stone lay heavy at my throat.

Eileen leaned over.

"Your mother-in-law just made you her announcement."

"I know."

"What does she want it to say?"

"I don't know yet."

I found out ten minutes later, when the doors at the end of the ballroom opened.

Celia Huntington walked in wearing pale gold, her hair down, her hands folded in front of her.

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