Garland laughed. “Wait until later, after dinner, when we all retire for the evening,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll take you first to my father’s trophy room. This one,” he said, nodding at the tiger, “was his, but I’ve added a few up there.”

My mother looked at him and then turned to me. I could read her mind as well as I could if I were inside her head.

Are you another trophy?

Funny, I thought, until this moment, I had never considered that possibility. Foxworth Hall was filled with things Garland and his father had collected. They seemed to be the lifeblood of the mansion. It consumed paintings, statues, vases, and jewels. Why not people, too? Now that the idea hovered in the air, I wondered if courting women was simply another form of hunting to Garland. More important, of course, if that had been true until now, would it stop?

In one of our very rare mother-daughter talks, as short as it was, my mother had told me marriage either changes a man or reinforces who and what he is. She meant my father was a very responsible and organized person, and marriage not only fit nicely into that but emphasized it. It was one of the few times she bragged about winning him before any other woman could.

Of course, right now, I was worried more that this marriage would change me in ways I wouldn’t want. That was what probably made every soon-to-be bride nervous, although most of the girls I knew would likely be concerned their fiancés would discover something terrible about them right before the wedding and cancel.

We all walked out, and Garland immediately began explaining how he envisioned the event’s layout. It was all far too much for my mother or me to comprehend, with “this squared with that and that at right angles to this.” He and my father were quite into it, however. Like two emperors surveying their kingdom, they walked ahead of us, gesturing to each other as if we were no longer there. We saw the stage being constructed on our right. While Garland and my father were talking, a bulky, thick-necked young man, stocky and with hands that looked too big for his short arms, quickly approached.

“This is Olsen, my head gardener,” Garland said, turning back to us. “He’s going to have a lot to do with the setup out here. Olsen, this is my fiancée, Corrine, and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Dixon.”

He nodded and struggled to say, “Plea . . . sed to . . . m . . . eet you.”