Chapter 3
Gareth smiled.
Wrong choice.
“Orson. Terrible timing.”
I slipped the coin from Elowen’s palm.
“For you.”
His smile weakened.
Elowen held the recorder against her chest.
Gareth noticed that too.
“Mrs. Blyth was confused near the end.”
Elowen stiffened.
I looked at him.
“Careful.”
He stopped.
Nora had been many things.
Confused was not one of them.
I asked Elowen whether she wanted us to listen there.
She shook her head.
“Home.”
Her choice.
I arranged a car for her and her aunt.
Not mine.
No bodyguard unless she wanted one.
She did.
Good.
Then I faced Gareth outside the church.
“How many coins?”
He laughed.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I held up Nora’s.
His eyes followed it automatically.
“One.”
“Try again.”
Silence.
Black favors belonged to a dead era of my family.
My father accepted them at weddings because marriage dinners drew every branch into one room.
Men brought expensive bottles, watches, horses, art.
And sometimes a coin.
The gift was decorative.
The coin was the real transaction.
I stopped the practice because it turned celebration into future leverage.
Apparently Gareth had discovered its usefulness.
“What did you promise?”
He adjusted his cuff.
“Nothing you didn’t already owe.”
Interesting wording.
“To whom?”
“No one.”
Then:
“Maura has her own relationships.”
There.
Not me.
Maura.
I looked at him.
“These coins require the Ravenshaw head to accept them.”
“They require acknowledgment.”
“Mine.”
He smiled faintly.
“Unless the bride presents them with the wedding gifts.”
My jaw tightened.
There was the mechanism.
Tonight, after the ceremony, Maura would stand beside me while gifts were presented.
If black coins appeared among them and I allowed the ritual to continue, older families could claim I had revived the custom.
Public acceptance through silence.
Clever.
Dishonest.
Very expensive silence.
“How many?”
Gareth finally answered.
“Twelve.”
Twelve future claims.
Twelve families buying access to my name through my bride.
I looked toward the church doors.
May you like
Nora had discovered at least one.
Which meant before she died, an elderly former steward had managed to see the architecture of my wedding more clearly than the groom.
