He Kept the Firm, So I Booked His Engagement Dinner novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Her Sister

Marguerite set her glass down on the cake table with a small click.

"Well," she said. "I see that Cora has been busy."

The garden stayed silent.

"My late husband's family was always so kind to her," she went on, in a tender voice. "And since her father died, she hasn't been well. She sees plots. She's spent her whole inheritance on a firm she never ran, and now she needs someone to blame."

She turned her gentle gaze on the lawn.

"You all know me. You know I would never hurt a daughter of this family."

Nobody answered.

An uncle near the roses studied his shoes.

"Come, now," said Marguerite, and for the first time a thread of steel ran through the gentleness. "Those of you who love this family will stay for cake. The rest may go, and be remembered for it."

She waited.

A cousin in a gray suit put down his plate and walked toward the gate.

Then his wife went after him.

Then a table of four in the back stood, all together, and carried their purses down the drive.

Marguerite watched them go with her smile fixed.

Within two minutes the lawn had split in two.

Half the guests were walking out, and the other half stood where they were.

"Mother," Rodrick said hoarsely.

I had not seen him arrive.

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