The Family Game by Catherine Steadman (5)

Edward heads back over, balancing our drinks and two mince pies in his hands.

“Did you plan that?” I ask, taking a tentative swig of the sweet heady drink. “The music, the singing?” It fleetingly occurs to me that, with the means at his disposal, Edward could have rented out the entire rink and peopled it with ensemble actors twice over if he had so desired. It’s a terrifying thought but thankfully a million miles from anything Edward might actually do.

He splutters a laugh and shakes his head, wiping mince pie dust from his upper lip. “No,” he says. “I mean, I knew I was going to ask you tonight. I had the ring on me, but I wasn’t planning for it to turn into a Broadway number out there. Guess that’s New York for you; everyone’s got something to say.” He looks suddenly concerned. “Ah God. It was too much, wasn’t it? Damn it, sometimes I forget you’re British.”

He’s genuinely mortified.

“No, stop. It was perfect. I mean, I’m not likely to forget it,” I quip. “And for the record, I’m not British anymore, am I? My US passport is as real as yours.”

“Good, well then, consider what just happened out there on the ice your swearing-in ceremony. It’s all going to get pretty un-British from here on in. But seriously, if anything gets too much, you have to tell me. No harm no foul. I don’t want to scare you off. At least…not yet anyway.”

He means his family. They must know he was planning on asking me; I’m guessing he had to ask them for the ring. And now that we’re engaged meeting them must be in the cards. I raise my hand and consider the deep-red jewel in the light. “What stone is this?”

“Garnet. It was my great-grandmother’s. Mitzi’s.” He studies my reaction. “You like it, right? No? We can change it. Get something new?”

“No, no,” I blurt. He’s so worried about the effect his family will have on me he can’t read me at all. “Edward, I love it,” I tell him, taking in its gleaming facets. “I mean, God, I think I might love it more than I love you,” I joke. “Seriously, though, I love that it means something. To you, to your family. That it’s important. What was she like? Mitzi?”

I would be lying if I said I didn’t already know as much as the internet can tell me about Edward’s family.

John Livingston Holbeck, Edward’s great-great-great-grandfather, was one of the original Gilded Age tycoons who made their fortune in the 1800s during a period of massive expansion across America. J. L. Holbeck created monopolies and reaped the rewards of a captive market by controlling a large percentage of all shipping, railways, and communications at the time. One of the handful of men who built America in an era predating taxation, J. L. Holbeck amassed a mind-boggling fortune and innumerable holdings; he was a contemporary of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, and the father of the man who built the building we’re now sitting beneath. Which makes me wonder if this skating-on-the-first-day-of-the-season tradition dates a lot further back than I had previously considered.

“What was Mitzi like?”

Edward ponders my question. “She was beautiful. And talented. She was an artist, she trained as a ballerina. German, but she left between the wars, then she met my great-grandfather. They had this great love affair, so the story goes, this intense love affair. Famously, theirs was the first marriage for love in the Holbeck family.”

I choose not to open that can of worms. Though I have no experience of wealth I can understand the instinct to protect it, to fortify what you have. Love is an unknown quantity after all. It’s a gamble at the end of the day. I’m more than happy to gamble with the few chips I have, but give me the GDP of a medium-sized country and I might at least consider a prenup. I’m sure the Holbecks have learned the hard way to question that first flush of passion.

“And your family’s okay with this. With me? They let you have Mitzi’s ring?”

I wonder what they’ll make of me now that I know for certain they’re aware of my existence. What Edward has or hasn’t told them about me. Perhaps they’ve looked into me themselves? I shudder at the thought, then quickly reassure myself that while they might be able to research me, they can never know my thoughts, my memories. I am just a British novelist with no real credentials—except one bestseller to her name—no real history, no Ivy League anything, no Oxbridge. I can’t imagine I’m what they had in mind for their firstborn son. I don’t even have a family, let alone a notable one.

Maybe they just want Edward to be happy. Edward has promised me time and time again that not meeting them has nothing to do with me. He’s had problems with them in the past, they like to exert control, he tries to keep his life at a distance from the madness of theirs. Things tend to get dragged into their orbit. Which makes the sudden appearance of this family ring now on my finger all the more interesting.

“Yes, they know about you,” he says with a grin. “A worrying amount actually. Mother was over the moon when I asked for the ring. Insisted I use it actually.”

“Really?” I ask, trying to mediate the surprise in my voice. It’s not that I have a self-esteem issue, but it’s slightly puzzling that a woman like Eleanor Holbeck would be insisting her firstborn child jump at the chance to marry an orphan from England.

“Really,” he echoes and takes my cold hand in his across the table. “Listen, I know it’s weird you’ve never met them. But I wanted to be sure we were in a good place before”—he pauses, trying to find the words—“before I let them loose on you. They are a lot to handle. But if you want to meet them, they really want to meet you. Especially now.” He thumbs the ring on my finger gently. “We haven’t had anyone like you in our family before,” he says lightly, and the words imprint themselves in my mind. What does that mean? Someone like me. “And God knows we could do with fresh blood.”