Chapter 22: Page Sixteen

Griffin came down the hall in his jeans, with his shirt in his hand, and found his father taking off his socks.

"It's a rule," Garrison said, to nobody.

They gathered in the sunroom because it was the closest room, and nobody could find a chair that wasn't under a ferry stub.

The lawyer set the envelope on the wicker table and drew out a single sheet.

"This is page sixteen," he said. "It was in the stack two years ago, right behind the clause."

"Nobody read it. Mrs. Sutherland asked me to hold it until the sixty days were over."

"Grandmother asked you," said Imogen.

"She did. I received her instructions this morning."

Griffin took the page.

It was typed, one paragraph, with a line at the bottom and a space for a date.

This marriage becomes binding only if the husband, knowing everything and of his own free will, signs below on or after the sixty-first day.

He read it once.

He read it again.

"So I'm not married," he said.

"You are married by license," the lawyer said. "You are bound by nothing until you sign."

Behind the door a cane tapped on the hall tile.

"I was wrong about the pen," said Winifred, in the doorway. "But not about the page."

She had brought her own shortbread.

She had also taken her shoes off at the front step, and she carried them in one hand.

"You tricked me into a marriage," Griffin said, "and then you made it optional."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Wild Heir and His Icy Bride from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.