The Bread Beneath Her Golden Heel

Chapter 4 - The Answer

Victoria asked to speak to Daniel alone.

He agreed to a few minutes in the corridor. Through the dining-room doorway, he could see his grandmother and Clara sitting with Mrs. Ellis.

“This was a test,” Victoria said. “She tricked me.”

“Yes,” Daniel answered. “She concealed who she was.”

“So you understand.”

“I understand that you thought she couldn't hurt you.”

Victoria stepped back.

He remembered the box in his upstairs desk. He had planned to ask her to marry him after the banquet, privately, once his grandmother had met her properly.

For weeks he had imagined that moment.

Now he could only see a hand reaching for bread and a shoe coming down.

“I was going to propose tonight,” he said.

Her eyes widened. She reached for him again.

“Daniel—”

“I can't.”

“You're ending this over a piece of bread?”

“No. Over what you believed you were allowed to do to someone.”

She began to cry. He found that her tears hurt him, even now. Loving someone did not vanish neatly when you finally saw them clearly.

But neither did the thing he had seen.

He asked Mrs. Ellis to arrange a car for Victoria and retrieve her coat. He did not ask the guests to applaud. He did not follow her into the hall to win the argument again.

When he returned, Evelyn was alone at the table.

“Clara is getting some fresh bread,” she said.

Daniel sat opposite her.

“You could have told me you were coming like this.”

“That would have spoiled my plan.”

He looked at her old coat.

“And Clara nearly lost her job in your plan.”

Evelyn's expression changed.

For the first time that evening, she had no immediate answer.

“I thought I was taking the risk,” she said at last.

“You could have ended it whenever you wanted. She didn't know that.”

Evelyn looked toward the doorway.

“No,” she said. “She didn't.”