Chapter 9 - The Autumn Ball
By late October, the transformation of Corsini House was complete.
The white sheets that had covered the furniture in the grand ballroom for fifteen years were removed, stacked into canvas bags, and sent down to the linen room to be turned into drop cloths for the painters.
On the last Saturday of the month, three hundred people from Boston, New York, and Providence arrived at the estate for the autumn charity gala.
The long driveway was lined with black sedans. The cut-crystal chandelier in the grand foyer was lit with two hundred real beeswax candles, casting a warm, golden light across the dark walnut paneling and the hundreds of red roses that Mrs. Abernathy had ordered from the greenhouses in Beverly.
Sadie stood near the top of the grand staircase.
She wore a long, dark midnight-blue silk dress that fell from her shoulders to her heels in smooth, liquid folds. Her dark hair was styled into an elegant, low knot at the nape of her neck, secured with two small pearl pins that had belonged to Julian’s mother.
She looked, as Mrs. Abernathy had said before she walked out of her room, "like a woman who owned the harbor."
Julian stood beside her.
He wore a black tuxedo that fit his broad shoulders like a second skin, his dark hair touched with silver at the temples catching the candlelight. His hand was firmly linked with hers, his long fingers laced between hers with an open, quiet authority that left no doubt in the minds of the two hundred guests below about who she was.
"They are looking at you," Sadie whispered, leaning her shoulder slightly against his arm.
"They are looking at you," Julian corrected smoothly, his gray eyes scanning the crowd below without a flicker of concern. "Specifically, Arthur’s former real estate partner, who has spent twenty minutes trying to figure out if your dress is from Paris or Milan."
"It's from a small shop on Newbury Street," Sadie murmured. "And it cost four hundred dollars."
"It looks like forty thousand," Julian said flatly. "Which means you got a bargain."
He turned to face her, his broad chest blocking the light from the chandelier. He reached out, his thumb lightly skimmed the small mole below her collarbone, his dark eyes softening into that rare, fierce tenderness that he saved only for her.
"Are you tired?" he asked softly.
"I haven't danced yet," Sadie said, her dark eyes flashing with sharp amusement.
Julian offered her his arm. "Then let us go down and show Boston how it is done."
They walked down the grand oak staircase together.
The crowd below parted naturally, the murmur of two hundred conversations dropping into an expectant, quiet hush as the master of Corsini House led his partner onto the floor of the grand ballroom.
The small six-piece orchestra near the floor-to-ceiling windows paused.
The conductor—a thin man with a white mustache—looked toward Julian for a signal.
Julian didn't look at the conductor. He looked into Sadie’s eyes.
"What shall we play, Sadie?" he asked softly.
May you like
Sadie smiled—a bright, triumphant expression that lit up the entire room.
"Something fast," she said. "And play it on the Garrard."
