The two sat on opposite ends of the table, using it as both a buffer from the others' attacks and the battleground on which they fought for their own ambitions. Both sat down at that table completely aware of the others' intents, opinions, and favored outcomes, and aware that the other knew the same about themselves. They were, after all, businesswomen, at the end of the day. On that mutual ground, they completely understood each other. On any other, though, they found themselves disagreeing, violently.
"And?" was how Catherine began the conversation.
In reply, the younger woman only raised an eyebrow, encouraging her mother-in-law to finish her thought.
"What do you wish for, Elizabeth?" Catherine asked, her voice treading the perfect median between emotionless apathy and biting sarcasm, "We can hardly hold this meeting until we know how you wish to continue your life...and the life of your love-child."
Elizabeth held her silence for a moment longer, regarding the older woman through dark eyes. "I wish only to remain a part of the Palone family. Everything else I leave to your discretion." She bowed her head out of respect, a habit left over from her life in Japan.
Catherine watched the motion, turned that thought over, then turned to her next quarry. "Penny for your thoughts, Antony?"
He, too, did not begin speaking immediately, but not out of the antagonism that had silenced his wife. No, Antony, the heir to the Palone fortune, the shark of the board room and terror of a hundred thousand employees, was still reeling from the news and distrusted his ability to speak rationally. That was what they taught in Business 101, after all: Don't speak unless you know what will come out of your mouth.
"All I want..." He began, then stopped. "I..." He found it a struggle to communicate his thoughts, a struggle to even think said thoughts. "It..." He stopped again, his head, formerly spinning around a constellation of emotions and thoughts, was now a wasteland from which he could gather nothing that could help him now. He spoke again, this time a whisper, "I don't know."
Both women straightened at that, both weighing those words against what they were aiming for, and both realizing what would only later occur to everyone else present: that it was with those words that Antony had forfeited his right to have an opinion about the situation, both within the actual meeting and without it.
"What are your thoughts, Mother?" Jacqueline ventured, knowing that the longer Catherine sat on her own cards, the more weight those cards held.
"My own?" She appeared to be taken aback by the question, as if she hadn't been expecting it, "My opinion seems to be superfluous here. I am not the pregnant one here, nor the cuckold."
Antony winced, and ducked his head. Cuckold. He hadn't known that word would ever apply to him.
"Easy, Cathy," James said, "We won't gain anything by insulting each other now. The media will do enough of that."
The matriarch bristled, but quieted. She contented herself with staring with empty eyes at the family gathered around her. Nathaniel, having only arrived from Italy that morning and been given his final instructions as how he should behave in public and what he should say at the press conference that would be held in two days time, flinched when her gaze landed on him. Throughout the conference, his would be the only voice that was not heard.
"What are my options?" Elizabeth asked, voice perfectly even and toneless. She kept her posture supernaturally straight, and kept her chin lowered. She knew she was at the disadvantage here, and that she would be lucky to escape this whirlwind unscathed. Knowing all this, she continued to play her hand close to the chest, and was quick to see every new detail that she could possibly manipulate. The force of nature that had intrigued Antony in the meeting room was now giving a belated encore performance, and at precisely the right time.
"If I may give my opinion?" James said, looking between his wife and his daughter-in-law, patiently waiting for the resistance from one end to begin. "The public knows that Antony has been in Italy for five and a half weeks. But Elizabeth's whereabouts were only guessed at. And so, if it were to get out that during that time Elizabeth had been secretly flying out to Italy, whenever she had the opportunity, that might be enough to salvage a great deal of this situation."
"But if she's been consistent enough in her work schedule, her employees will know that that's impossible," Jacqueline said, wincing as she remembered how her employees always seemed to know more about her personal life than she found comfortable.
"That's not a concern," Elizabeth said, voice low, "My schedule has enough holes in it to make the story plausible."
"And the servants?" Jacqueline continued, this time addressing Elizabeth, "They would know more about you the times you were out of the house than your employees."
She thought for a moment, index finger bouncing on the wood of the table. "No, I also don't believe they will disbelieve it. Only a few twenty-hour holes are needed, correct?"
Jacqueline hesitated a moment, then nodded.
"So they saw each other a few times throughout this last month, and Elizabeth is pregnant because of that," James stated, confirming the bare skeleton of the story that would later be given details, fleshed out and made so believable that even those who knew better would doubt themselves. Elizabeth gave a tiny, accepting nod.
"I believe you all are forgetting another option," Catherine intoned. Every eye turned to her, every beating heart dreaded the words she had to speak. That is, except for Elizabeth, who merely waited patiently, as one would before a petulant child.
"A discreet abortion will solve the problem rather well."
Jacqueline straightened, mouth opened, ready to voice a protest, but she didn't speak. She had spoken out publicly several times against abortion, and was personally horrified by the idea. But this was not her child, and she couldn't speak out against it if Elizabeth agreed.
I know what you're thinking, Elizabeth thought, face still unreadable, Antony is your heir, and I am Antony's wife. By circulating the story that James has submitted, the Palone family will be accepting this child as the heir to Antony, your heir. The next family heir. And you cannot consent to that, can you? The idea that a child born of wedlock becoming the head of the family.
But though she so wanted to contradict the matriarch, she held her tongue. She had relinquished her right to decide her child's future when she had secured her own. And Catherine was probably looking for just some pathetic excuse to pounce on.
"That's unnecessary," James said, frowning, "It's a risk both for Elizabeth's health and for the fact that it may catch public attention. We may survive this without scandal, but not if our new bride is caught getting a back-alley abortion not even a year into her marriage."
"There are discreet venues," Catherine pointed out, annoyed by her husband's interference.
"None are discreet enough," James returned, firm in only this one point, "And it's hardly necessary. The story will be better protection than anything else. I'm sure there will be some group of young women who will fall in love with the story of secret trysts, which would be perfect to boost our cosmetic and apparel sales."
Catherine pursed her lips, but gave up the argument.
"So," Jacqueline said, a note of optimism injected in her voice, "Elizabeth has been flying out to Europe in this past month to see Antony. Someone notify the presses."
But it would help if they at least looked like the kind of couple to rendezvous like that, she thought, noting the way they sat apart from each other, both locked on their individual thoughts. She had barely looked at him throughout the meeting; he hadn't looked at anything at all. Have they had any time alone together since Antony arrived? If not, I'll have to make arrangements. We can't have them appear in public like that when they look so...dysfunctional.