The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 800

At eight o'clock the black envelope lay on the white cloth in front of the Baroness, and nobody at the long table had touched their toast.

The Baroness had ordered breakfast laid in the great hall this morning, not the dining room, and everyone knew why. For two hundred years Tiffany brides had stood in this hall to speak their choice, and the Baroness had always kept her hardest words for it. The hall smelled of cold butter and coffee gone bitter in the pot. Grey light lay on the silver chairs.

Serena stood at the foot of the table. Her husband stood one step behind her, in his old Harland coat, with his hands folded like a boy called up in front of the class.

The Baroness picked up the card with two thin fingers and read it out loud, flat and dry.

"Halcyon Group requests the presence of Serena Tiffany on Friday, in her own name, as an independent nose. One bench has been held for her. It will not be held for anyone else."

She put it down.

Then Patricia laughed. Bright and sweet, the way she laughed at weddings.

"An independent nose?" she said, delighted, looking round the table for company. "Independent of what, darling? Soap? Halcyon is a laboratory. They want a perfumer with a house behind her. You've got a kennel and a tin fork."

The cousins laughed. Preston slapped the table and barked, once, like a dog, and they laughed harder.

"Laugh," Serena said quietly. "You laughed for two years. You've had the practice. Go on. I'll wait."

"Oh, she bites now," Patricia said sweetly. "Somebody taught her. Was it the dogs, darling, or the idiot?"

"Who sent it?" the Baroness asked, ignoring the noise. "There's no name."

"I don't know, Grandmother," Serena said evenly. That was true. Mostly. She didn't let herself look back at her husband.

"A stranger holds a bench for you at the richest company on this coast, and you don't know who," the old woman said. "Then you're either a liar or a fool. I haven't decided which."

Julian laughed from halfway down the table. Only days ago he had been the man Serena was meant to marry. He had walked out of this same hall when she chose the dog boy instead, and he had never forgiven either of them. He sat beside Dulcie with his legs stretched out, and the smell of his hot coffee and last night's brandy drifted down the table.

"She's not a fool, Grandmother. She's proud," he drawled. "I went down to that kennel last night out of pure kindness. I offered her a title on Patricia's team. She threw it in my face. So, no. The Pryces won't be sponsoring Serena. We don't offer twice."

Cordelia beamed at him over her sherry as if he had invented money.

"And by Monday," Julian went on comfortably, "Halcyon takes the Pryce Lake Hotel into its new chain. My mother has it from the chairman's own people. Every great house on this coast wants into Halcyon, and Halcyon wants the lake." He lifted his cup toward Serena like a toast. "Everyone wants the lake, cousin. Except you."

"Monday," Alex agreed, nodding helpfully. "You told me too, my lord. At the kennel."

"Nobody asked you," Julian said. "You smell of dogs. Stand further back."

"Yes, my lord," Alex said, and took one small step back, into the cold draught from the door.

The side door opened. A footman came in with a silver tray and one cream envelope on it, and bowed it toward Lord Julian. The second post, forwarded from the lake. A small silver ship was pressed into the corner of the seal.

"Halcyon," Julian said, pleased. "That was quick. Shall I read it to the kennel?"

He broke the seal with his thumb and read it out lazily, for the whole table. "Halcyon Group thanks the Pryce Lake Hotel for its application to join the Halcyon chain." His voice slowed. "The application is declined. Halcyon will not consider it again. Permanently. No reason is given."

He stopped. He read it again, silently, his lips moving.

The colour went out of his smooth face all at once, like a lamp turned down. The whole long table went quiet. Even Preston. Cordelia's sherry glass tilted, forgotten, and dripped sticky and sweet onto the white cloth.

"That's a mistake," Julian said. His voice had lost its laziness. "It's a clerk. Some silly clerk." Then, too loud: "Mother will call them today, and they'll apologise, and they'll take the lake. Everyone takes the lake."

Nobody answered him.

Serena looked down at her own hands on the back of the empty chair in front of her. She didn't smile. It was very hard not to.

"Is something funny, Serena?" Patricia asked sharply.

"No," Serena said. "I was thinking about lakes. How everybody wants them. Until they don't."

The coffee had gone cold and bitter in her cup. Somebody had held a bench for her. Somebody had just closed a door on the lake. Same ship. Same silver mark. Behind her, her husband shifted his weight, a man getting more comfortable.

The Baroness looked at the black card. She looked at the cream letter crushed in Julian's fist. Then she looked at Serena for a long time, the way she looked at an account that had come out a different number than she'd expected. She had run the House of Tiffany for longer than anyone at the table had been alive, and she had never once let a letter on her own table go unexplained.

"Two letters from Halcyon in one morning," the old woman said slowly. "One holds a bench for my granddaughter. One shuts a door on the Pryces. I don't like not knowing things in my own house." She tapped the black card with one cold finger. "But Halcyon chooses one house on this coast. One. If two Tiffanys stand in that laboratory on Friday, whichever one wins, it's still a Tiffany. My name. My bank. I'd be a fool to stop her. Let her go."

"Grandmother!" Patricia was on her feet. "You signed my name yesterday. You said Patricia goes. And now a blind girl with a dog walks in with a black letter that smells of the sea, and you just let her?"

"She isn't blind any more," the Baroness said. "That's rather the point."

Patricia's hands were shaking on the cloth. Across the table Serena could smell her: green fig, and the cold iron under it. Her own winter, on her cousin's wrists. Patricia had worn that scent at every party for two years and called it her own. Then, slowly, Patricia's hands stopped.

"Fine," Patricia said softly. "Then let's make it worth something. What I told you in the corridor, I'll say in the hall, in front of everyone." She looked straight down the table. "If I win, she and the dog boy leave this house. By the front gate. On Friday night. In the rain. And they never come back."

There was a single, loud clap.

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