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a luncheon for
ten
bridesmaids. That would be like asking lightning to strike her in the head. She planned to call in sick at the last minute and was even practicing a demure cough when Thayne called to say that she’d be late.
    â€œExactly how late?”
    Thayne could not answer with any degree of certainty: diarrhea was an affliction with its own timetable. “Hopefully not more than fifteen minutes. It depends on traffic.”
    Rosimund had let a damning silence elapse. “Please arrive as close to the scheduled hour as possible. As you may recall, I have a ball to oversee this evening.”
    â€œYou never hired a planner?” Thayne crowed. “Good Lord! You’re doing all that grunt work yourself, Rosimund?”
    â€œMy dear woman, an event as vital to me as my son’s rehearsal dinner is not something I would ever entrust to outside help. By the way, did you read the newspaper this morning?” There had been a lengthy article purporting that Rosimund’s rehearsal dinner cost as much as Thayne’s entire wedding.
    â€œNo. Robert told me there was nothing of interest.” Thayne hung up.
    Annoyed that she had not been able to edge in the last word, Rosimund returned to the bed in her parlor suite, the largest room available to her after Thayne’s usurpation of the presidential, terrace, master, and executive suites. Across the bedspread Rosimund had arranged forty disks the size of dinner plates, each representing a table for tonight’s rehearsal dinner. She was attempting to distribute four hundred one-inch Velcro tabs, each inscribed with a guest’s name, ten to a table. Red tabs represented her friends, blue were Thayne’s, green were Pippa’s and Lance’s. Rosimund had been working on the seating plan for months and had yet to feel secure that the red tabs were arranged in slightly superior position to the blue tabs. Engrossed in place setting, she barely noticed an hour slip by. Her phone rang again.
    â€œI’m on my way.” Thayne felt no need to apologize.
    â€œTake your time. I’ve made other arrangements for lunch.” Rosimund hung up.
Touché!
    After two hours of hell, she settled on the final seating configuration for the Henderson Ball, as she liked to call tonight’s rehearsal dinner. She phoned her majordomo, whom she had brought from Houston along with her entire household staff. “Harry? Is everything all right over there?”
    â€œTotally under control, madam.”
    In keeping with her numerologist’s reading of four as her lucky number, Rosimund’s ball would take place in four sumptuous climate-controlled tents that had been erected in Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. The Hendersons considered Texas Stadium “family” since Lance would be working there come September. “Send someone to my room for the seating chart. I’ve finally finished it.”
    â€œRight away, madam.”
    After carefully stacking the disks and their Velcro tabs on her desk, Rosimund ordered jumbo shrimp with dandelion greens from room service. She was famished and a bit exhausted. Her personal attendant would arrive at four to help her bathe and dress. Until then, she needed to rest. As she was wrapping herself in a red silk robe, Rosimund heard a soft knock on her door. “Pippa!” She had been expecting room service or, even better, her peerless son. “Please come in.”
    â€œAre you feeling better, ma’am? I brought some hot and sour soup.” While at the mall, Ginny had forced Pippa to consume a second lunch to replace the one she had just barfed.
    â€œHow kind of you.” Robe fluttering about her long, slim legs, Rosimund took the tray into the living room. She moved with the grace of a purebred stallion; from certain angles her face even looked equine. No question Lance had inherited his athletic prowess from his mother. “I’m sorry to have missed the