Iron Cast(63)

“He’ll survive, I’m sure. Gabriel is just a . . . friend.”

Her mother, predictably enough, seized on the hesitation. “Where is he from, then? Do I know his parents? Corinne, you really can’t just show up with a stranger to your brother’s rehearsal dinner. I’m not sure if I—”

She cut off when Gabriel arrived with the drinks. His was already half empty.

“Mother, this is Gabriel Stone,” Corinne said. “Gabriel, this is my mother, Constance Wells.”

Gabriel took her hand in what Corinne thought was a more than passable greeting for polite society, but her mother’s face had gone white.

“The pleasure is all mine,” she managed to say before jerking her hand away. “I beg your pardon, but I just remembered I forgot to tell the caterers that my aunt is allergic to sage.”

She whisked away before Corinne or Gabriel could reply.

“What did you do to her?” Corinne demanded.

“I didn’t do anything to her. I just got here.”

“She acted like she knew you. Like she’d seen you kill a puppy or something.”

She expected Gabriel to be flippant with her, but he was studying her mother’s retreating figure carefully, his brows knitted in concentration. Finally he shook his head.

“Honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before,” he said.

Corinne couldn’t read anything but truth in his face. She shrugged. “My mother does tend toward exaggeration, and my great-aunt really is allergic to sage.”

As they made it through the gauntlet of elderly relatives, the matter didn’t come up again. No one seemed to recognize Gabriel, and those who treated him with suspicion did so only because they trusted no one without a country club membership. One half-deaf distant cousin with bluish-gray hair and an oversized fur stole thought he was a film star and congratulated Corinne in what she probably thought was a whisper on bagging herself a sheik.

By the time they finally had a few minutes alone, Corinne had made it through three glasses of champagne and Gabriel wasn’t far behind.

“Is it time for you to fall ill yet?” he asked her.

“Not until after my toast,” Corinne said, patting his arm. She was feeling much more congenial toward him now that her head was fizzy with champagne bubbles. He also hadn’t shot anyone yet.

“Shouldn’t there be a wedding rehearsal at some point during this rehearsal dinner?”

He must’ve felt the champagne too, because he wasn’t stiff and wary anymore. There was an unguarded leisure about him, even in the tuxedo, that Corinne liked better than his usual intensity. The memory of him on the sofa, speaking softly of his parents, sprang unbidden to her mind. She knew hardly anything about Gabriel Stone, but the way his mother had grasped him close, pressing her lips to his forehead like he was the last thing she had left to love, was somehow enough.

“I’m sure there was a rehearsal,” Corinne said, “but as I’m not part of the wedding, my presence wasn’t necessary.”

“Bride doesn’t like you?”

“Why do you say that as if it’s the obvious conclusion?” Corinne asked.

His eyebrows arched.

“I’ll have you know that she asked me to be a bridesmaid, but I talked my way out of it,” Corinne said. “I don’t like the man she’s marrying.”

“You mean your brother.”

“Yes.”

Gabriel took a sip of champagne.

“Shut up,” Corinne said, though she couldn’t summon any malice.

“Yet again, I didn’t say anything.”

“How can I be expected to play nice with someone who married into Boston’s foremost anti-hemopath family just to advance his political career?”

“Still not saying anything.”

“Well, I wish you would, every once in a while.”

“What?” He stopped examining his cuff link and looked at her.

“You never say what you’re thinking. It’s tiring,” she told him, and snatched a napkin from the tray of a passing waiter. “Also you still have some of Aunt Maude’s lipstick on your face.”

She wiped at the smudge with short, angry strokes, avoiding his eyes.

“I don’t say what I’m thinking because my opinion doesn’t change anything,” he said, his voice low.

“It matters, though,” she said.

“That so?”

Corinne realized she was still wiping his cheek, even though the lipstick was gone. She lowered her hand, risking a glance into his eyes. His gaze didn’t flinch away from hers, and Corinne tried to remember why she had been so determined not to kiss him tonight.

When the dinner bell rang, she couldn’t decide if she was irritated or relieved.

Ada practiced her violin for a while, trying to pass the time, but her heart wasn’t in it. She gave up and rested it in her lap, fingering the polished spruce and taut strings. Even though she’d played the old violin her father gave her for longer than this one, she still felt that this violin had always been hers. It was hard to remember a time before she’d known it better than her own two hands.

She placed it back in its case on the coffee table right as the door at the top of the stairs slid open. Saint had returned from the Mythic, and he was more chipper than Ada had seen him in a long time. He was humming a tune as he peeled off his coat and retrieved his sketchbook from his room. From the couch, Ada watched him with a raised eyebrow. He sat in the armchair and gnawed thoughtfully on his pencil for a few seconds before he noticed her.