I did not yet know the half of it.

Chapter 8 — Table Nineteen

The ballroom had been turned into a suffocating garden — white orchids and imported roses spilling from the chandeliers, the air thick with perfume and roasting meat and the particular smell of a great deal of money being spent at once.

I gave my name to the young man holding the seating list, and watched his brow crease as he searched for it, and searched again, and found it at last near the very bottom.

“Miss Pembroke,” he said, and pointed toward the far dim corner of the room.