Chapter 2
I sent Tobin inside with Margaret.
He chose her.
Not me.
That hurt.
It should have.
For the last five minutes, every adult near me had become frightening.
Even his father had punched a cake instead of immediately taking him somewhere quiet.
I remembered that.
Powerful men often congratulate themselves for defending children without noticing the child still had to watch the defense.
Margaret held out her hand.
Tobin took it.
Before leaving, he looked at me.
“You coming?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Only then did he go.
I returned to the guests.
“Glasses down.”
They obeyed.
No applause.
No relief.
“Anyone who knew Tobin was going to be humiliated and participated anyway leaves now.”
Seven people moved.
Interesting.
Only seven.
The others remained frozen.
I looked at Harold.
“You believed I authorized it?”
“Yes.”
“And that made it acceptable?”
His face reddened.
“No.”
“Yet you raised your glass.”
“Yes.”
Good.
Honesty finally arriving after cowardice.
I did not expel all of them.
That would have been emotionally satisfying and intellectually lazy.
Some had been told this was a symbolic announcement I had approved.
Some thought Tobin already knew.
Some suspected cruelty and stayed silent.
A few genuinely believed adopted children should remain peripheral to blood families.
Different failures deserved different responses.
I pointed toward Jessamine.
“Inside.”
She did not move.
“Lucan—”
“Inside.”
My voice stayed soft.
She walked.
No ring removed yet.
No public ending.
I wanted answers first.
We entered the library.
She turned before I closed the doors.
“You embarrassed me.”
I stared.
“That is what you noticed?”
She flinched.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You placed coins on a three-year-old’s plate.”
“He isn’t stupid.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“He’s three.”
Her jaw tightened.
“He needs to understand reality eventually.”
That sentence interested me.
“What reality?”
She hesitated.
Then:
“That love doesn’t make him a Briarwood.”
There.
Not orphanage.
Not succession.
Identity.
I looked at the woman I had planned to marry in six weeks.
“You’ve been calling him my son for two years.”
“Because you wanted me to.”
Wrong answer.
“And what do you call him when I’m not there?”
Silence.
There.
May you like
The garden humiliation was not the beginning.
It was simply the first time I had seen what she believed.
