“Ellie May, will you take this man to be your…”
Virginia was seated in the eighth row of the congregation, among the cadet branch of the Campbell family. She had an excellent view of the nuptials, and had to give Ellie May some credit because Cyrus looked almost acceptable in morning dress, and may even have shed a few pounds. And from the look on his face, he clearly adored the about-to-be-pronounced Mrs. Grant. Although, in truth, even a devoted mother would have been hard pressed to describe the bride as anything other than plain, which gave Virginia some satisfaction.
Virginia had taken a seat as close to the aisle as possible, in the hope that Cyrus would spot her as he and his bride left the church. But at the last moment, a family of three rushed in and edged her toward the center of the pew. Despite her staring fixedly at the groom as the new Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus T. Grant proceeded down the aisle together, Cyrus appeared oblivious to anyone other than his bride and marched happily straight past her.
After Virginia had left the church, she checked the instructions neatly printed on the back of her invitation card. She was on coach B, which, along with seven other buses, countless limousines and even the odd car, stretched as far as the eye could see. She climbed on board and selected a seat near the back.
“Hello,” said an elegant white-haired old lady, offering a gloved hand as Virginia sat down next to her. “I’m Winifred Grant. Cyrus is my nephew.”
“Kathy Frampton,” said Virginia. “I’m a cousin of Ellie May.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” said Winifred as the bus moved off.
“No, I hail from Scotland, and I don’t get over to the States that often.”
“I see you’re expecting.”
“Yes, in a couple of months.”
“Are you hoping for a girl or a boy?”
Virginia hadn’t given a moment’s thought to any questions she might be asked about being pregnant. “Whatever the good Lord decides,” she said.
“How very sensible, my dear.”
“I thought the ceremony went rather well,” said Virginia, wanting to change the subject.
“I agree, but I do wish Cyrus had married Ellie May twenty years ago. It was what both families had always planned.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
“Cyrus was always shy. He didn’t even ask Ellie May to be his date for the school prom, so he lost out to Wayne Halliday. Wayne was the school’s star quarterback and, frankly, he could have had any girl he wanted, and probably did. But she let him sweep her off her feet and, let’s face it, it can’t have been her looks that first attracted him to Ellie May.”
“Where’s Wayne now?”
“I have no idea, but with the settlement he ended up with, he’s probably lounging on a South Sea island drinking pi?a coladas, surrounded by skimpily clad maidens.”
Virginia didn’t need to ask who Wayne Halliday’s lawyer was. She had followed the case in the State-Times with great interest and been impressed with the size of the settlement Mr. Trend had pulled off on behalf of his client.
The bus swung off the road and drove through a vast set of wrought-iron gates before proceeding down a long drive lined with tall pine trees that led to a massive colonial mansion surrounded by hundreds of acres of manicured lawns.
“What’s Cyrus’s ranch like?” asked Virginia.
“About the same size, I would guess,” said Winifred. “So he didn’t have to bother with a prenup. A marriage made not in heaven, but on the New York Stock Exchange,” she added with a smile.
The bus came to a halt outside a vast Palladian mansion. Virginia climbed off and joined the long line of guests who were having their invitations carefully checked. When she reached the front of the queue, she was handed a small white envelope by a woman who seemed to know exactly who she was.
“You’re on table six,” she whispered. “No one there for you to worry about.”
Virginia nodded and followed the other guests into the house. A row of white-jacketed waiters holding trays of champagne created a path all the way to the ballroom where a lunch for four hundred was waiting to be served. Virginia studied the layout of the room like a Grand National jockey considering which fences might bring him down.
A long table, clearly reserved for the family and their most important guests, ran down one side of the room. In front of it was a dance floor and, beyond that, forty circular tables filled the rest of the room. Virginia was still taking all this in when a gong sounded and a toastmaster dressed in a red tailcoat announced, “Please take your places so we can all welcome the family and their distinguished guests.”