At first Darcy thought it was Sloane, who was supposed to be in attendance tonight. But the slender brunette in a gray hammered-silk jumpsuit who swished to Teagan’s side was his chairperson, Nora.
She kissed his cheek and smeared it with red gloss.
“I didn’t know if you’d come! And I’m so glad you made it in time for cocktail hour,” Nora said, winking like she’dmade a clever joke. She gestured with the big glass of white wine in her hand. “This must be like going to Bâtard while you’re on a diet. Oh! But of course you brought your helper with you.”
Darcy showed Nora the white points of her teeth.
“Cocktail hour is my specialty,” Darcy said. “It’s like demining without the risk of death.”
Nora laughed in a way that mimed huge amusement without much volume.
“Good! Very good,” she said, somehow implying the opposite. “I’m sure you take very good care of Teagan.”
“We were just going to get a club soda,” Teagan said, edging away. “And then see the kids’ art.”
“Oh, of course! I love to see the little babies’ paintings too. So cute. But actually, can I borrow you for a minute first? Patricia Hausauer said she was dying to catch up with you. And she collects Cindy Sherman, just like your mother did. You must remember Patricia, right? You picked up your mother from her birthday party out in West Hampton a few years ago.”
“Yes,” Teagan said. “I remember.”
Darcy had begun to recognize a certain sludgy quality to Teagan’s voice when he was agreeing to something he didn’t want to do, so she told Nora, “I’ll bring him by after we’ve got our drinks.”
“He’ll be fine!” Nora said breezily. “I promise I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Without waiting for Darcy’s response, Nora grabbed onto Teagan’s arm and turned to wave at an older woman in a flashy pink skirt suit on the other side of the room.
“Well, I—” Darcy began to object. She didn’t think sheshould let Teagan out of reach at his first event where alcohol was served.
“Save yourself,” Teagan muttered despondently, sotto voce, as he was dragged away.
Darcy hesitated until he was already gone. Nora all but frog marched him to a group of women near the bar, several of whom pantomimed great excitement to see him, an emotion Teagan overtly did not return.
Darcy was left alone in the middle of the entryway. She felt slightly less optimistic than she had on the way over. She’d imagined standing next to Teagan for the entirety of the evening, batting away cocktails and whispering judgmental observations into his ear to make him laugh.
She should have said something, Darcy decided. Next time she’d make a scene. She didn’t really mind making a scene, and she sensed that the women at this event would consider it a tragedy if the entire evening passed and nobody made a scene. It might as well be Darcy. Next time she’d fight Nora off.
Her stomach sank as nobody else looked her way. Shit, what was she supposed to do now? What did people do at parties if they couldn’t drink or dance or flirt with strangers?
At loose ends now, she edged back over to the tables of junk. Most of the people present were talking with other people they seemed to know, but there was one man standing by himself, a tall man with dark auburn hair and a bored attitude. He and Darcy made brief eye contact as he desultorily browsed the items on display. His thousand-yard stare and the death grip he had on his glass of red wine gave her the impression that he was just as happy to be here as Teagan.
He glanced over at the crowd around the bar as Darcyapproached him, so she assumed he belonged to one of the well-dressed women catching up with their friends there.
“This is a silent auction?” Darcy asked to open the conversation.
The redhead looked down at the clipboards arrayed along the table. He gave Darcy a long look down his very aristocratic nose before he answered.
“Yes. Have you never been to one before?”
Darcy shook her head. She wasn’t ashamed that her life had been more interesting than this.
“All of the things on the table were donated to the event. People come and write down the amount they bid to buy them. You can see what the current bids are and what the reserve price is. At the end of the evening, the proceeds go to the charity,” he said, his explanation very neutral.
Darcy hummed and browsed a little further down the table. There were spa packages, vacation rentals, ski lessons—all the stuff rich people liked, she guessed. She came to a large painting and stopped.
The style was semiabstract, and the colors were gray and chilly. The subject was a riderless horse in the woods, fully saddled and bridled but rearing in alarm.
Darcy didn’t know anything about art, but she didn’t think she liked it.
Nobody had bid yet. She looked down at the reserve.
