Chapter 17: Her Own Gala

Two men in dark jackets came through the crowd toward me.

Before they reached the doorway, Desmond stepped into it.

He did not raise his voice.

"Stop there, please."

They stopped.

"That is my wife," he said. "And the woman who called you is no longer the chair of anything in this building."

Hester turned to him slowly.

The marble hall had gone so quiet that I could hear the chandelier tick.

"Desmond," she said. "You're upset."

"I'm very calm."

"You've been misled by a recording obtained by trickery. Selene was frightened and confused. Anyone will say so."

"Then say it to the donors."

He gestured at the crowd with an open hand.

Two hundred people stood in evening dress with their phones raised.

Nobody lowered one.

Hester's mouth tightened.

"You are making a scene, darling," she said, softly, and it was the same voice she used on me. "Think what it costs."

"I know what it costs."

He took a step toward her.

"You told me Selene's baby was mine. You told me it at the bottom of these stairs, over her blood on this carpet. I believed you for three years."

"I was protecting you."

"You told the hospital not to call my wife while she was losing our child."

A sound went through the room, low and shocked.

The woman in the silver wrap, whom I remembered from the dedication, took a step back from Hester as if she had been burned.

"That is a lie," Hester said.

"No, ma'am."

The voice came from the back.

The nurse in the grey cardigan walked up the hall between the donors with her shoulders square and her hands shaking.

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