“Hello, Charlene.” I didn’t say it was nice to meet her because it wasn’t and I told myself Nathaniel wouldn’t want me to lie.
“Abby, I’ve been dying to meet Nathaniel’s wife. It’s almost as if he’s been hiding you.” She slapped his arm with her silver clutch. “What made you decide to come this time?”
“Research. I’m a writer.”
“Fascinating,” she said in a tone that told me she thought it just the opposite. “I do love your necklace, though. I’ve been wanting one like that. Where did you get it from?”
My hand automatically drifted to my collar. I wasn’t expecting the question and I didn’t see any way to answer other than what I said. “Nathaniel gave it to me shortly after we met.”
The hand at my waist tightened slightly. A subtle way for him to tell me he heard my use of his name. It wasn’t a situation I’d been in before and I didn’t know if or how he’d deal with it.
But before me, Charlene’s eyes flashed with envy. “Fortunate woman.”
I lifted my chin. “Very.”
Her eyes darted around the room. “Excuse me, you two. I see someone I need to speak with.”
“She wants you,” I told him as she crossed the floor to grab Daniel. I shot Julie a look of sympathy.
“Yes. And you handled her well.” He pulled me toward his chest and whispered, “Except for the part when you used my name. How unfortunate there wasn’t a way to avoid it. Now you’ll spend the rest of the party thinking about the consequences.”
My heart pounded in anticipation or trepidation, I couldn’t quite determine which. He let go of my waist and pointed toward the buffet in the corner.
“Go grab us a plate,” he said. “I’ll get us a seat.”
I said a silent prayer that no one would speak to me while I was getting our food. Fortunately, no one did and I found Nathaniel moments after filling a plate.
He’d found us a love seat. It was secluded, but we would still be in view of the attendees. He took the plate while I sat down, and once seated, I put my hand on his knee. He fed me a few bites of stuffed mushrooms and as we ate, he pointed out a few people sharing snippets of his dealings with them.
It was refreshing to have a few minutes of alone time with him, even if those minutes were technically shared with hundreds of others. As expected, it didn’t last long.
“Nathaniel,” a man I didn’t know said, approaching us. “There you are!”
“I’ll be right back.” Nathaniel handed me the plate. “We’re leaving in twenty.”
We were back in our suite twenty-five minutes later. In our absence, the lights had been dimmed and the bed turned down. But neither one of us was ready to sleep.
“Kneel in the living room,” he said, taking off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. He didn’t take it off, even when he sat on the couch and watched me move into position.
“What happened tonight, Abigail?”
“I spoke your name, Master.”
“Against the rules when you wear my collar and yet unavoidable considering the situation. I find myself in quite the quandary.”
In the silence that followed his words, I tried to figure out what he’d do. He stood and walked to the bedroom. When he returned to the living room about half an hour later, he had a box in his hands. He gave it to me.
“Open it.”
It was a rather nondescript black box, about eight by eleven inches with no outward indication of what could possibly be inside. I carefully lifted the lid and peeked inside. A book?
“Take out the first item and open it to where the bookmark is.”
It was a book. A slim volume of Emily Dickinson poems, to be exact. I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but I flipped to the marked page.
“Read the poem.”
It was one I wasn’t familiar with and I read it for the first time out loud to him.
When Katie walks, this simple pair accompany her side,
When Katie runs unwearied they follow on the road,
When Katie kneels, their loving hands still clasp her pious knee—
Ah! Katie! Smile at Fortune, with two so knit to thee!
I closed the book.
“What’s the poem about, Abigail?”
“Destiny, Master.”
“Yes,” he said. “Tonight we’re going to let destiny decide your fate. There are five black envelopes in the box, and two red ones. Open one of the black ones and tell me what it says.”
I picked one of the black envelopes at random. I couldn’t fathom what I’d find inside and I tore it open with excited fingers. My excitement died as I read the word printed on the card inside.