Chapter 5: The Morning After

Sunday brunch at the Verran house was held on a table that seated twenty.

I had set tables like it for Constance's bridge club.

I had never sat at one.

Rowan pulled out my chair.

Mrs. Verran sat at the head, in a grey cardigan, buttering toast with the focus of a surgeon.

"You slept," she said to me.

"Some."

"Good. You will need it."

The butler opened the double doors before she had finished the sentence.

"Mrs. Larkin to see you, madam. She has a gentleman with her."

Constance came in without waiting.

She wore her navy suit and her pearls, and the man behind her carried a leather briefcase.

"Winifred," she said. "I'm sorry to interrupt."

"No, you aren't," said Mrs. Verran.

Constance's smile twitched.

"My lawyer has filed a petition. A marriage under the wrong name is no marriage at all. We can settle this quietly, today."

"Quietly," I said.

Constance finally looked at me.

Her eyes went from my face to the sweater I'd borrowed to the ring on my hand.

"Willa. You'll hand back the deed. You'll sign a paper saying you were confused. You'll come home, and we'll forget all this."

"Confused," I said.

"You were not yourself. Anyone could see."

"Anyone could," I said. "There were three hundred people there."

The lawyer cleared his throat and put a stack of papers on the table.

"We only need a signature, Mrs. Verran."

"Mrs. Verran is my grandmother," Rowan said. "The woman you just addressed is my wife."

He put his hand over mine.

The lawyer went the color of the tablecloth.

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