Chapter 6: After the Flowers
The hall was very quiet.
One of the catering staff appeared in the doorway, looked at the room, and withdrew without a word.
The florist near the arch began, slowly, to gather her tools.
Nora stood up from the chair.
Her daughter was awake now, looking around at the chandeliers with the calm curiosity of someone who had not yet learned that any of this was unusual.
"Are you all right?" Nora asked Daniel.
"I don't know yet," he said.
"That's honest."
Eleanor had not moved from her position near the window.
She was looking out at the grounds — the long lawn, the hedgerows, the gravel path that curved toward the gate.
"Gerald Foss," Daniel said.
"Do we know him?"
"He handled the Whitmore property transfer four years ago," Eleanor said.
"Your father used him once.
I never liked him."
"Can we prove the application was forged?"
"The signature is mine," Eleanor said.
"I have thirty years of documents with my signature on them.
Any examiner will see it in an hour." She turned from the window.
"The question is whether Warren Holt understood that, or whether he believed Cassandra when she told him I was no longer capable of contesting it."
Daniel looked at his mother for a moment.
"She told him you were declining."
"Yes."
"To your face, she was —"
"Attentive," Eleanor said.
"Thoughtful.
She asked about my health every time she visited.
She remembered small details." A pause.
"She was very good."
"I'm sorry," Daniel said.
"Don't be." Eleanor picked up her phone from the windowsill.
"I'm not."
Nora adjusted her daughter against her shoulder.
"What happens to Warren now?"
"That depends on Gerald Foss," Eleanor said.
"If Cassandra was telling the truth about the recordings —"
"She was," Nora said.
Both Daniel and Eleanor looked at her.
"She gave us Foss because she's protecting herself," Nora said.
"If Warren goes down for the forgery and Foss confirms it, Cassandra becomes a witness, not a co-conspirator.
She's already calculating her exit." She looked at the doorway where Cassandra had disappeared.
"She's been calculating it since the moment Daniel said my name."
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
"You knew something was wrong before today."
"I had a feeling," Nora said.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
She looked at him.
"Would you have listened?"
He didn't answer.
That was its own answer.
Eleanor set her phone down.
"There's one more thing."
Daniel looked at her.
"Warren Holt has a meeting scheduled with Gerald Foss on Thursday," she said.
"To finalize the transfer.
He doesn't know yet that today didn't go as planned." She looked at her son steadily.
"We have three days."
Daniel picked up his phone from the windowsill.
He looked at it for a moment — at the two photographs, at the document, at everything his mother had quietly assembled while he had been choosing centerpieces and writing vows.
"Call the solicitor," he said.
"Not Foss.
The one in Edinburgh."
"Already done," Eleanor said.
"She's waiting for your call."
He looked at his mother.
Something passed between them — not warm exactly, but solid.
The kind of understanding that doesn't need to be named.
"And the guests?" Nora asked.
Daniel looked out at the hall — at the orchids, the arch, the tables set for a wedding breakfast that would not be served.
"Tell them the wedding has been postponed," he said.
"Don't say anything else."
Nora shifted her daughter to her other arm and looked at her brother.
"For what it's worth," she said, "I never liked her shoes."
Daniel looked at her.
For the first time since the champagne had hit the floor, something moved at the corner of his mouth.
"Her shoes were fine," he said.
"Her shoes were terrible," Nora said.
"I was being polite."
May you like
He almost smiled.
Almost.
