Chapter 16: Chapter Fourteen

Twenty people watched Preston Ames kneel in front of Gwen with my old ring held up to the candles.

Gwen looked at the ring.

Then she reached into the pocket of her green dress and took out an index card.

It was one of her round, numbered cards from the cottage wall.

"May I read something?" she said.

Preston laughed, uncertain.

"Of course."

Gwen stood up, and she cleared her throat.

"Chapter Fourteen," she read. "The Banker's Son Kneels."

My mother said, "Gwendolyn."

"He had practiced it in the car," Gwen read on, in a clear sweet voice.

"He did not know the words were not his."

Preston's smile stayed where it was, but his eyes had gone empty.

"'Gwendolyn Cuyler, will you make me the happiest man in New York?'" Gwen read.

She looked up from the card.

"Those are the words you just said, Preston," she said.

"I wrote them on Thursday, and I texted them to you at nine this morning."

"You said it was a toast," Preston whispered.

"I said it was a scene."

A woman near the fireplace made a small noise into her napkin.

"I wanted to know if you'd say whatever I put in front of you," Gwen said.

"You said it word for word."

She turned the card around and held it out to the table.

There was his name in her handwriting, and under it the line.

"You told me Lydia was cruel," she said.

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