Finally, he found his voice again.
"Well, Father," he said quietly, the sincerity in his tone unmistakable, "it is very clear that you are enormously excited about this, and rightfully so. I can hear it in every word you’re saying, and honestly I understand why."
He paused briefly. "And I want to say thank you. Genuinely, thank you for going to those lengths, for personally delivering that invitation before you even traveled, for wanting so badly to make sure that this wedding would be sothing truly extraordinary and morable. That ans more to than I can properly express right now."
There was a warmth in his father’s response, but Richard pressed forward before the conversation could shift entirely into celebration.
"But Father, before we go any further, I need to report sothing to you quickly. Sothing happened this evening that I think you need to be aware of, especially now that you’re telling a guest of this magnitude will be in attendance."
Richard’s voice beca more asured and deliberate. "It has co to our attention that there is going to be an intruder at this wedding. I am very, very sure about that. The person in question has been openly bragging that they intend to co regardless of whether they have a legitimate invitation, and that there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop them from showing up."
He let that sink in for just a mont before adding with quiet seriousness.
"So you can see the problem, Father. You are now telling that a guest of extraordinary standing and complete anonymity is going to be present at this wedding, a man who values his privacy above everything else, and at the sa ti I have soone out there actively scheming to gate-crash the occasion without an invitation." Richard’s jaw tightened. "We simply cannot afford to disgrace ourselves in front of soone like that, Father. You know that, right?"
Hearing what Richard had just said, there was a sharp and imdiate shift in the entire energy coming through the phone line. Richard’s father, who had been floating on a cloud of joy and excitent just monts before, ca crashing back down to earth with the kind of swift and thunderous landing that only a man of his particular temperant and standing could manage.
There was a brief but telling silence on the other end of the line - the kind of silence that preceded a storm rather than followed one - and then the sound of movent, of a chair scraping back, of a man physically rising to his feet as though the news he had just received demanded that he face it standing upright rather than sitting comfortably.
"Who?" his father’s voice ca through the phone with a sharpness that made Richard instinctively sit up straighter in the driver’s seat. "Who is this person? Who is this bastard that is actually considering sneaking into my son’s wedding? Who would dare to even think about trying to pull off sothing like that?"
The older man’s voice was rising steadily now, not into the uncontrolled shouting of a man losing his temper, but into the controlled and dangerous elevation of a man who was deeply, personally offended by what he was hearing.
"Does this person have absolutely any idea what they are contemplating? Does this individual understand that attempting sothing this childish and this disrespectful at an occasion of this magnitude is nothing short of a death wish? Because I want to be very clear about sothing right now."
Penelope, sitting in the passenger seat and now completely abandoning any pretense of only half-listening, had turned her body fully toward Richard with wide eyes, her earlier smugness replaced by sothing closer to fascination as she watched her fiancé navigate what was clearly becoming a very intense conversation with his father.
"I am not going to condone this kind of behavior," Richard’s father continued, his voice carrying the absolute finality of a man who had never once in his life made a threat he didn’t follow through on completely.
"I will not condone it, I will not accommodate it, I will not look the other way from it, and I will certainly never allow it to actually take place. Not at my son’s wedding. Not in front of the people who will be in attendance. Never. This is not sothing I am prepared to be remotely flexible about."
Richard exhaled slowly and nodded, even though his father couldn’t see him through the phone.
"I trust you completely on that, Father," he said carefully, "and I’m glad you feel that strongly about it. But I need you to understand sothing important - we need to be especially wary of this particular person because she is genuinely, deeply determined to ruin everything. This isn’t soone who is simply going to show up at the door without an invitation and hope for the best."
Richard’s voice was asured but urgent. "She is calculating and she is desperate, and a desperate woman with resources and determination is capable of absolutely anything."
He paused to let that assessnt land properly before continuing.
"So I think what we need to do is completely change our security strategy from what we originally planned. Every single person who arrives at that wedding needs to be thoroughly scanned and verified before they are allowed through those doors - not just a casual glance at an invitation card, but a proper, thorough scan of every card against the registered guest database."
Richard tapped his free hand against his lap as he laid out his thinking.
"Because this woman is entirely capable of going out and purchasing an invitation from soone on the guest list who might be willing to sell or transfer theirs. She has the ans to do it and she absolutely has the motivation. She will explore every possible loophole available to her, and we need to make sure every single one of those loopholes is sealed shut before that day arrives."
He glanced briefly at Penelope as he said the next part.
"We need to handle this delicately and thoroughly, Father. We need to be absolutely watertight in our approach so that when the day cos, there are no surprises, no scenes, no embarrassing monts that reflect poorly on our family or on our guests. We cannot afford to disgrace ourselves. Not this ti."
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