Chương 4
Elena slowed.
“What?” Margaret asked.
“My bag is upstairs.”
“What’s in it?”
“My wallet. Medication. House keys.”
“You have your driver’s license?”
“In my purse.”
“Do you need the medication tonight?”
Elena hesitated. “Yes.”
Nadia spoke quietly. “I can ask one of the housemaids to bring the bag down.”
“No,” Elena said. “Adrian will know.”
“He already knows you are leaving,” Margaret said.
Elena looked back at the house. On the second floor, a curtain shifted.
“You don’t know that.”
Margaret followed her gaze. “Then we should assume he will.”
Nadia took out her own phone. “Tell me which bag.”
Ten minutes later, a maid named Rosa appeared through the kitchen entrance carrying a tan overnight case. She looked from Elena to Margaret and seemed to understand enough not to ask questions.
“Mr. Bellamy was in the west hall,” she said. “I used the back stairs.”
“Thank you,” Elena whispered.
Rosa handed her the case. “Your blue folder was on top. I put it inside.”
Elena went still. “What blue folder?”
“The one from the desk in your room.”
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“I thought it went with the bag.”
Rosa’s face changed. “I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s fine.”
The kitchen door opened behind her, and Adrian stepped outside.
He had removed his jacket. His sleeves remained buttoned at the wrist, his bow tie perfectly centered. Vivian Bellamy stood several feet behind him in a silver dress, one hand resting on the doorframe.
Adrian looked first at Elena, then at the overnight case.
“You’re leaving.”
Elena gripped the handle.
Margaret moved beside her but forced herself not to step in front.
“I need some space,” Elena said.
“From me?”
“Yes.”
“Because of last night?”
Elena glanced toward the kitchen. Two staff members had stopped inside. A third pretended to arrange glasses.
Adrian noticed them too.
“This isn’t the place,” he said.
Margaret almost laughed at the familiarity of the sentence.
Elena did not. “No. It isn’t.”
“We can go upstairs and talk privately.”
“I don’t want to.”
His jaw shifted.
Vivian came forward. “Elena, darling, you look pale.”
“I’m tired.”
“Then of course you should rest. But leaving like this, with the staff watching—”
“The staff are working,” Nadia said.
Vivian looked at her as if a chair had spoken.
Adrian kept his attention on Elena. “Did your mother tell you to turn off your location?”
Margaret felt the answer rise in her throat and swallowed it.
Elena said, “I turned it off.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
Adrian took one step onto the gravel. He did not approach further.
“What happened last night was an accident,” he said. “You were upset. You pulled away. I tried to stop you from falling.”
Elena stared at him.
Margaret looked at her daughter’s face and saw not uncertainty but recognition. Adrian had chosen the version they were all expected to repeat.
“You took my phone,” Elena said.
“Because you were trying to call a car at one in the morning after drinking.”
“I had one glass of wine.”
“You hadn’t eaten.”
“I wanted to leave.”
“We were in the middle of a conversation.”
“You locked the door.”
Adrian’s expression changed by less than a breath. “The wine room locks automatically. You know that.”
“The outer door doesn’t.”
“You were panicking.”
“You blocked it.”
“I was trying to keep you safe.”
Elena’s grip tightened on the overnight case.
Margaret saw the argument’s design. Every action had a softer name. Restraint became protection. Confinement became conversation. Fear became instability. If Elena objected, the objection became evidence.
Vivian stepped closer to her son. “This can be discussed when everyone has calmed down.”
“I am calm,” Elena said.
Her voice shook.
Adrian’s eyes softened. “You don’t look calm.”
Margaret took a step forward, then stopped when Elena lifted one finger beside her leg.
It was a tiny gesture. Wait.
Elena looked at Adrian. “I’m going to my mother’s house.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“The rehearsal is tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“Three hundred people are coming Saturday.”
“I know.”
“The museum director is coming. Half your board is coming.”
Elena’s face lost more color.
Adrian saw it. “You need to think about what you are doing.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re reacting.”
This time Margaret did step forward.
Elena touched her wrist.
“Don’t,” she said.
Margaret turned toward her.
“I can answer him.”
The words were quiet, and because they were quiet everyone listened.
Elena faced Adrian again. “I’m leaving. Do not follow me.”
For the first time, his composure cracked—not into rage, but into disbelief.
“Elena.”
She turned and walked toward the car.
Margaret followed. Nadia stayed near the kitchen entrance, holding the garment bag. When Margaret opened the passenger door, Elena placed the overnight case on the floor and got inside.
Adrian did not pursue them.
Vivian called after Margaret. “You are making this much worse than it needs to be.”
Margaret looked back.
For years, she and Vivian had served on committees together. They had exchanged holiday cards, attended funerals, and spent long lunches discussing other people’s children with the confidence of women who believed their own were safe from ordinary disaster.
Margaret almost answered.
Then she saw Elena watching through the windshield.
She got into the driver’s seat and shut the door.
They drove away without the wedding dress.
For the first ten minutes, neither of them spoke.
Elena held her phone in both hands but did not look at it. Margaret drove too quickly down the winding road from Bellamy House, braking hard at the first traffic light. A delivery truck behind them sounded its horn.
“Sorry,” Margaret said.
Elena looked out the window. “You don’t have to apologize to me for traffic.”
“I wasn’t apologizing to you.”
“Oh.”
A moment later, they both laughed once. The sound was brief and wrong, but it loosened something in the car.
Margaret turned onto the parkway.
“We should have a doctor look at your back.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
May you like
“You said I could choose.”
“I said you could choose about the phone.”
