The Bride He Replaced novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Say Her Name

The hospital benefit was held in the ballroom of the Teasdale Hotel downtown, under a banner that read A WING FOR EVERY CHILD.

I was thirty-five weeks pregnant, and I wore Bea's sister's green velvet.

Bea sat at table nine in her good blue dress, with six retired night nurses.

They had a plate of tiny crab cakes, and she had already complained about it.

"If I see a petition for custody on a dessert tray," she said, "I'm taking the knife."

"Table nine is the safest in the room," Duncan said.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

He had his hand at my back, and nobody had asked him to put it there.

I felt it through the velvet, warm and steady, and I did not step away.

Across the room, Marguerite stood in silver by the stage steps, and she watched us come in.

Miles was beside her in black tie.

Camilla stood on his other side in a gold gown, with her hair up and her left hand folded over her right.

I saw her look at Duncan once.

Then she looked at the floor.

"She came," I said.

"She came," he said.

"Does she know what she's walking into?"

"She thinks she's collecting a house."

The dinner went on for an hour, and I ate two bites of salmon.

I watched the room instead.

Everyone at the surrounding tables had seen the clip.

They were polite to my face and stared at my back.

At nine, Marguerite went up to the microphone.

She thanked the hospital, and the donors, and the board.

She said a wing for children was a wing for the future, and the future of the Teasdale family was never far from her mind.

"I'd like to speak about family," she said. "Because tonight, family is on my heart."

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