She Lost Her Name, She Took Back Her Place novel · Chapter 8 of 24
Chapter 8: The Forged Transfer
Bianca reached the clasp of the sapphire before I had finished drying my hands.
She had followed me out of the powder room and caught me at the head of the ballroom stairs, where thirty guests could see us.
"Oh, it's caught in your hair," she said, loud and warm. "Hold still, darling. Let me fix it."
Her fingers closed on the back of the necklace.
She would tug it, and the old clasp would give, and the Visconti sapphire would go skittering down forty marble steps.
Then she would cry, and I would be the girl who had worn a priceless heirloom badly.
"Thank you, Bianca," I said. I did not move. "I'd better leave it to Adrien. He put it on."
"I did," said Adrien.
He stood two steps below us. I had not heard him come.
His eyes went to Bianca's hand on my neck and stayed there.
She let go at once and laughed.
"I was only helping."
"Of course you were," said Adrien. "It is always so kind of you."
He gave me his arm, and we went down the stairs together.
On Monday morning, Henri's secretary telephoned the house and asked that I come to the bank.
I had never been inside Rochefort & Fils in either life. In the first one, they had always sent a car to take me to lunch.
Henri was waiting at the door of the conference room.
Margaux sat at the table with her gloves on her knee.
Bastien stood by the window with his arms crossed.
Bianca sat at the end of the table, composed, her eyes wide and sorry.
No one said good morning.
"Close the door, Élise," Henri said.
I closed it.
He pushed a sheet of paper across the table to me.
"This is a transfer order for forty thousand euros," he said. "It went out of the family's charity account at ten-forty this morning. The recipient is the account of the Maison Sainte-Claire, in Lyon."
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