Vows Written In Poison

Dinner At The Whitmore Estate

Claire didn't remember hanging up.

She only remembered Grace's small hand on her wrist and Grace's small voice saying, "Claire? Claire, you're squeezing me."

"I'm sorry, monkey." Claire loosened her fingers. "I'm sorry."

"Who was that?"

"Wrong number."

"You look scared."

"I'm not scared."

"Claire."

"I'm a little scared," Claire admitted. "But not anything real, okay? Not of anything that can touch you."

That night, Claire sat alone in the private conference room at Halden and did the only thing she could think of. She called the two people in her life who scared her almost as much as Casandra had, and asked them to do something extremely illegal.

The first was Felicia.

"I need a private security firm," Claire said. "Around Grace's hospital room. Twenty-four hours. Nurses, orderlies, cleaners, food deliveries, I want every single person who walks near her checked twice."

"Claire, that costs..."

"I have the money now. I need it done tonight."

"Done."

The second call was harder.

"Anthony," she said. "I need to ask you a favor that is going to make you angry."

"Try me."

"Do you still know anyone at the private investigation firm in New York? The one you used for the patent case?"

A long silence.

"Claire. What has happened."

"I need everything about a b***h named Casandra. I don't have her last name yet. I have her face. I have her phone number. I have an anklet. And she just threatened my sister's life."

There was a very quiet sound, like Anthony setting down a glass very carefully.

"Send me what you have," he said. "By morning I will have her family tree, her bank accounts, and her shoe size."

"Thank you."

"Claire," Anthony said. "There is one more thing I need you to hear."

"What?"

"There is a man in this city who hates Raymond Whitmore more than any human being alive. He is Raymond's cousin. His name is Vincent Whitmore. His grandfather left him out of the family fortune when he was nineteen, and by twenty-nine he had built a pharmaceutical group that is now three times the size of the Whitmore empire. If a woman like Casandra is threatening you, and if Raymond's family is involved, you may find that Vincent Whitmore is a very useful ally."

"I don't want an ally, Professor. I want to walk out."

"Then walk out. But do it knowing where the doors are."

Two days later, the invitation arrived.

Thick cream card. Gold letters. Handwritten by the grandmother.

"Sunday luncheon at the Whitmore Estate. Dress code: pale. Grandmother Patricia would be delighted to have Claire at her right hand."

Grandmother Patricia had never once, in four years, sat Claire at her right hand.

"It's a trap," Felicia said, watching her read it.

"Yes."

"Don't go."

"I have to."

"Claire, this is Raymond's grandmother inviting you to a public event three days after you caught him with his pregnant girlfriend. What could she possibly want?"

"To measure me," Claire said.

"For what?"

"For a coffin, probably." Claire folded the invitation in half. "Or a replacement."

On Sunday morning, she wore pale grey. She wore no jewelry except her wedding ring, which she planned to take off before dessert. Raymond drove her to the estate himself, and for the whole drive he kept glancing over at her the way a man glances at a bomb he's not sure has been defused.

"You've been quiet," he said, halfway there.

"Have I?"

"Claire, we need to talk about the hospital."

"Not now."

"Baby, she's a colleague. Nothing more. What you thought you saw..."

"Raymond." Her voice was very soft. "If you finish that sentence, I will get out of this car on the highway. Please. Not today."

He closed his mouth.

The Whitmore estate was set behind a wall of old oaks, and the driveway alone was almost half a mile long. Cars had parked all along it, sleek and black and identical, and Claire counted them as they passed. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.

At the front of the line sat one that was different from the others. A pale silver coupe, low and long, with a license plate that read only three letters.

V.J.W.

Raymond's hand tightened on the steering wheel.

"He came," he muttered.

"Who came?"

"Nobody. Nobody you need to worry about."

Inside, the great hall smelled of lilies and money. Grandmother Patricia was seated at the head of the long oak table, small and straight and made entirely of iron, her white hair coiled like a crown. Beside her sat Judith, Raymond's aunt, whose smile always came a second too late.

"Claire, darling," Patricia said. "Come sit."

Claire took the seat at Patricia's right hand.

"How is your sister?" Patricia asked, before Claire had even reached for her napkin.

"She is holding on, thank you."

"So expensive, these long illnesses. A blessing that Raymond is so generous."

"Very generous," Claire agreed.

"Speaking of generosity." Patricia lifted her wine. "We have been discussing, the family and I, that in four years there has been no child."

The table went quiet.

Judith leaned forward, eyes bright. "Some women's bodies just aren't made for it, of course. It's nobody's fault."

"I have been to three doctors," Claire said pleasantly. "All of them said my body is perfect."

"Perhaps," Patricia said, "you should try a fourth."

"Perhaps."

"Or perhaps," Judith said, sipping her wine, "you should simply accept that a marriage without children is not a marriage at all, and step aside for someone more suited to the role."

Raymond, at the other end of the table, was staring into his soup.

Claire turned very slowly to Judith. "Someone more suited. Do you have a candidate in mind, Aunt Judith?"

"Oh, don't be defensive, dear. I am only saying."

"Ten weeks along, is she?" Claire said.

Every fork at the table stopped.

Patricia's eyes narrowed. "What did you just say?"

"I asked," Claire said, "if the candidate you have in mind is currently ten weeks along."

Judith's mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Raymond stood up. "Claire, may I speak to you outside."

"No, thank you, Raymond. I am having a very interesting conversation with your aunt."

At that moment, a low voice spoke from the far end of the room.

"Grandmother, forgive my late arrival. I was told this was a family lunch. I would hate to think it had become something else."

Every head turned.

A man was standing in the doorway. He was tall and lean, with hair the color of wet ink and eyes that took in the whole table without effort. His suit was black. His hands were empty. He looked, Claire thought, like a knife somebody had left in the room by mistake.

"Vincent," Patricia said. It was the first time Claire had ever heard her voice not command a room but ask permission of one. "You came."

"You did invite me."

"I did," Patricia said. "I did."

Vincent Whitmore stepped inside. His eyes passed over Raymond as if Raymond were a piece of furniture in the way, then settled on Claire.

He held her gaze for exactly one second.

It was long enough.

"Cousin," he said to Raymond, without looking at him. "You never introduced me to your wife."

"There was no reason to," Raymond said.

Vincent's mouth did something that was not quite a smile.

"There is now," he said.

He walked the length of the room, past every stunned face at the table, and stopped at Claire's chair. He held out his hand, palm up, the way one might offer a fallen woman a way to stand.

"Mrs. Whitmore," he said. "Would you do me the honor of sitting beside me for the meal?"

Grandmother Patricia's wine glass slipped an inch in her hand.

Raymond's chair scraped against the floor.

Claire looked up at Vincent Whitmore. Up close his eyes were not dark at all. They were the color of storm water, grey and green and something colder than either.

"Yes," she heard herself say. "I would."

She put her hand in his.

And behind her, softly, dangerously, Raymond said her name.

"Claire.”