Chapter 3 - Marble Does Not Forget
Rafferty did not return to the ballroom until after 1 in the morning.
By then the engagement celebration had become loose and glittering. The official speeches were finished. The photographers had captured every necessary angle. Celeste's smile had reappeared, flawless enough that no one glancing at her would imagine she had spent the last hour periodically checking whether a poor woman was still on her knees.
Rafferty had left the room earlier to take a call from a judge who owed him more than money.
The call irritated him.
Not because the judge asked for favors. Men always asked.
Because the judge assumed the engagement had softened Rafferty's judgment.
Marriage, apparently, made weak men easier to manage.
Rafferty corrected that assumption in 4 quiet sentences.
When he stepped out of the east study afterward, the mansion sounded different. Not silent. A party of 300 powerful people never fully quieted. But the hour had loosened the structure of the evening. Music drifted from the ballroom. Laughter rose and fell. Somewhere, crystal broke and was quickly cleared.
He walked toward the grand hall intending to rejoin his guests.
Then he stopped.
At the far end of the corridor, beneath a smaller chandelier near the service passage, a woman was kneeling on the floor.
At first he saw only the posture.
Bent shoulders.
Hands braced against marble.
Head lowered with exhaustion.
Something old and ugly stirred in him.
He had seen men kneel before. Enemies. Traitors. Borrowers who had mistaken mercy for weakness.
But this was different.
This was not a person kneeling because she had chosen apology.
This was a person who had been placed there.
Rafferty walked closer.
The woman did not hear him at first.
Her fingers were red from cold and cleaning solution. A damp cloth lay beside a dark stain on the marble that had long since been scrubbed clean. Her knees pressed into the floor without any cushion. Her cheap black shoes were tucked behind her, one heel split almost in half.
"Who did this?"
His voice was low.
The woman startled so violently that she nearly fell sideways.
She looked up.
Rafferty recognized her from the ballroom.
The quiet waitress.
Her pale gray eyes were glassy with pain, but not empty. That struck him. Even after hours on the floor, even after humiliation, some steady part of her remained awake.
"Mr. Cain."
Her voice cracked around his name.
She tried to stand.
Her legs failed her.
Rafferty moved before thinking and caught her elbow.
She flinched.
He let go immediately.
The flinch hit him harder than it should have.
"Tell me who put you here."
Fay lowered her eyes. "It was a misunderstanding."
"Do not waste your strength lying to protect someone who left you on my floor."
She looked at him then.
The sentence had surprised her.
Before she could answer, Mrs. Odette hurried from the service hallway, her face pale with fear and shame.
"Mr. Cain, please. I should have gone to you. I tried to send Fay to the kitchen, but Miss Vanderpool said the staff would be dismissed without payment if she left."
Rafferty's hand became very still at his side.
"Celeste?"
Mrs. Odette swallowed.
"Yes."
Fay closed her eyes.
Not because she disagreed.
Because the truth had finally escaped and would now do whatever damage truth decided to do.
Rafferty looked down at the damp cloth.
Then at Fay's knees.
"How long?"
Mrs. Odette whispered, "Since a little after 10."
For the first time in years, Rafferty Cain felt something in himself move past anger into a colder country.
He did not shout.
That would have been less dangerous.
He removed his jacket and folded it once.
Then he placed it on the marble beside Fay.
"Sit on that."
Fay stared.
"Sir, I can't."
"You can."
"Your jacket—"
"Is cloth."
He crouched in front of her, ignoring Mrs. Odette's startled inhale.
"You are not."
Something in Fay's expression faltered.
Not gratitude.
Suspicion.
Good, Rafferty thought.
Kindness from powerful men should be inspected before accepted.
Fay shifted carefully onto the jacket. Pain crossed her face before she hid it.
As she moved, something slipped from her apron pocket.
A folded piece of paper.
It skated across the marble and stopped near Rafferty's shoe.
He picked it up before she could reach it.
"Please," Fay said quickly. "That's my daughter's."
Rafferty unfolded it only enough to see the drawing.
A crooked sun.
A woman and child holding hands.
In the corner, drawn in blue crayon, was a small paper boat.
His breath caught.
Not visibly.
Not enough for anyone else to notice.
But inside, a door opened.
Gray stone walls.
Rain against tall windows.
A feverish boy shivering beneath a thin blanket.
A girl's voice telling him that boats did not sink if they knew where the sunlight lived.
Rafferty folded the drawing with almost frightening care and handed it back.
"Your daughter's name?"
"Josephine."
"And yours?"
She hesitated.
"Fay Delacroix."
Delacroix.
The name passed through him like the first note of a song he had not heard in 25 years.
Rafferty rose slowly.
Silvano appeared at the end of the hall, summoned by instinct or by the shift in the house's air.
"Find Celeste," Rafferty said.
Silvano's eyes moved once to Fay, then back.
"Now?"
May you like
Rafferty looked toward the ballroom doors.
"Especially now."
