Chapter Twelve: The Baby Shower

Pink balloons filled the east lawn of the Cole mansion, rising in clusters against the blue sky, and every one of them reminded Seraphina that she was hungry.

She had not eaten since dawn. At nine, she had folded two hundred napkins. At eleven, she had arranged twelve vases of white roses. At noon, Margaret had inspected her apron and snapped, "Staff eat after the guests."

It was now three in the afternoon, the baby shower had begun, and Seraphina was carrying a silver tray of champagne flutes through a crowd of sixty women in pastel silk.

"Mind the glasses, dear," Mrs. Whitlock murmured, brushing past. "You look pale."

"Thank you, ma'am."

At the center of the lawn, beneath a canopy of pink flowers, sat Vanessa on a cushioned throne, her hand resting on her stomach in a pose so practiced it belonged in a magazine. Gifts stacked around her feet like offerings at a shrine. Margaret stood at her shoulder, beaming.

And at the edge of the canopy, a glass of whiskey in his hand, stood Julian Park.

He was a tall man with sandy hair and an easy smile, the kind of man who always seemed to be enjoying a private joke. He caught Seraphina's eye over the rim of his glass and winked.

Her tray trembled. Not a drop spilled.

"Friends!" Adrian's voice rang out. He stepped onto the platform with a champagne flute, glowing in a pale linen suit. "I'd like to say a few words."

Applause rippled across the lawn.

"A year ago, I thought I understood what mattered to me. Business. Success. The Cole name." His gaze moved to Vanessa and softened. "Then this woman walked into my life and showed me what it is to be truly seen."

Seraphina lowered her eyes to the tray. Her hands had gone numb.

"I've had the east wing redone as a nursery," Adrian went on, his voice thickening. "Every piece of furniture imported from Milan. And for the mother of my child..." He drew a small velvet box from his pocket. "The Cole family sapphire."

Gasps rose from the guests. The sapphire was Margaret's mother's jewel, worn by the Cole matriarchs for four generations. Margaret did not flinch. She had given her blessing.

Adrian fastened it around Vanessa's throat, and the women applauded with moist eyes.

Seraphina swayed. A white wave rolled behind her eyes. Eat something, her body begged. Please.

"And of course," said Vanessa, rising gracefully, one hand lifting the hem of her pink gown, "I must thank everyone who has been so kind to me."

Her gaze landed on Seraphina.

"Even the staff."

A ripple of tittering. Seraphina kept her face carefully empty.

"Do you know, we have a girl in this household who told us a few weeks ago that she was pregnant too?" Vanessa laughed lightly, a silver bell of a laugh. "Isn't that the sweetest thing? Seraphina, darling, come here. Let everyone see."

"Vanessa," Margaret said sharply. "That's enough."

"Oh, I think it's wonderful!" Vanessa's smile grew. She took Seraphina's wrist and tugged her forward. "Look at her, ladies. Flat as a board. Not even a hint. I think she wanted attention. Poor thing. Some women simply can't bear being left out."

Laughter rolled across the lawn. A woman in green lifted her phone. Seraphina stood in the center of the circle with her tray trembling in her hands, sixty pairs of eyes sliding over her stomach, and she understood that Vanessa was watching for one thing only: a flinch. A hand lifted to protect. Any sign that it was true.

She gave her nothing.

"Congratulations, Miss Reeves," she said evenly. "I wish you and your baby only what you deserve."

Vanessa's smile twitched.

"Servants who speak out of turn," Margaret said, slapping Seraphina so hard that the tray crashed to the grass, "are dismissed. Pick up the glass."

Seraphina bent. The world tilted. Pink balloons smeared across the sky. She heard Adrian laugh somewhere in the distance, a warm, careless sound, and she thought: I did not eat. I did not eat.

Her knees buckled.

She did not hit the ground.

A strong hand caught her elbow and held her upright, and a voice murmured near her ear, pleasant as a lullaby.

"Careful, Mrs. Cole."

Julian Park.

He supported her with a gentleman's polite grip, smiling for the guests, one arm around her shoulders as though he were a kind stranger helping a servant. His voice dropped to a whisper only she could hear.

"The housekeeper has such lovely old bones, doesn't she? Mrs. Holloway. She walks in the garden at night. It would be a pity if she fell."

Cold swept through Seraphina's veins.

"Whatever she thinks she saw," Julian said gently, "she did not. And you, my dear, will remind her of that."

He released her with a smile and a pat on the shoulder, and stepped back into the crowd.

Adrian looked over from the platform. "Is she all right?"

"Just faint," Julian called. "The sun, I think."

"Get her inside," Adrian said, already turning back to Vanessa. "She's ruining the photographs."

Seraphina crossed the lawn on shaking legs and reached the marble terrace. The great staircase of the mansion rose beyond the French doors, its pale steps gleaming.

A perfume drifted up behind her, lilies and expensive musk.

Vanessa stood at her shoulder, close enough to kiss her cheek, her smile fixed for the cameras on the lawn. Her voice was a velvet thread.

"You looked at him, didn't you? At Julian? I saw."

Seraphina said nothing.

"You and that interfering old woman." Vanessa's lips brushed her ear. "You think you're so clever, watching, listening, whispering to your secret friend. But I know what you suspect. And I know what you can never prove."

She tilted her head toward the staircase.

"Accidents happen on stairs, Seraphina. Especially for women who don't know their place."

She walked away, laughing, into the sunlit crowd, and left Seraphina alone with the cold white marble and one terrible thought:

Mrs. Holloway is in the kitchen. Alone. And Julian has just walked into the house.