Chapter 1

The chair hit the ballroom floor like a gunshot. The sound cracked through the hum of a hundred conversations, and for one full second the room went quiet enough to hear the champagne sloshing over the rim of Petra's glass, a wet hiss against the white tablecloth, the dark gold liquid spreading in a fast stain across the linen.

Petra was already half-risen, her napkin still in her lap, her face turning not toward the woman who had just walked in but toward the nearest tables, the ones closest to the head table, the ones she knew would laugh first. And they did. A man in a navy suit coughed into his fist. A woman with a pearl bracelet covered her mouth. The sound rippled outward from the head table like a wave, gaining strength as it traveled, until the whole back half of the ballroom was laughing at the woman standing alone in the aisle with nothing on her head.

Rosalind stood perfectly still. She was fifty-eight years old, small-boned, dark-skinned, and completely bald. The deep emerald gown she wore fell from her shoulders in clean lines, a small antique garnet brooch pinned at her collar catching the chandelier light. In both hands she held a cream clutch. She had walked through the double doors of the ballroom with her chin lifted, and now she stood in the open aisle between the guest tables, halfway to the head table, looking at her son.

Nathaniel had risen from his chair the moment the crash sounded. He stood beside Petra now, one hand on the back of his seat as if he might sit back down, his mouth slightly open, his eyes moving between his mother's bare head and his bride's laughing face. He wore a charcoal suit with a burgundy tie, the knot undone half an inch, and his simple silver watch caught the light as he raised his hand halfway, not quite reaching toward the aisle.

"Look at her," Petra said.

She said it loud enough for the room. She was still standing, still half-turned toward the guests, her champagne glass dripping onto the cloth. The laughter grew sharper. Someone at the far table actually clapped, once, twice, a mocking rhythm that a few others picked up before it died.

Rosalind did not look at the laughing tables. She looked at her son.

"Mother-of-the-groom," Petra added, and she turned the words into a joke and a verdict at the same time. "It's just a joke, darling."

Nathaniel's hand dropped to his side. "What did you say?"