Nathaniel rose to his feet, then extended a hand down toward her, waiting with a patience he rarely allowed himself in any other context of his life.
"Come with me," he said gently, his voice steady despite the tears still tracking down his face. "Let's get you somewhere warm. Let's get your family fed properly, tonight, and figure out whatever else you need after that."
Clara looked at his outstretched hand for a long moment, then carefully set aside what remained of the bread and placed her small, cold fingers into his palm, allowing him to help her to her feet.
Around them, the party continued exactly as it had all evening — champagne, laughter, an orchestra playing bright, festive music beneath a chandelier-lit ceiling. But Nathaniel Cross, walking slowly toward the ballroom's side entrance with a small, soot-streaked hand held carefully in his own, understood with complete clarity that whatever this gala had meant to him in years past, it would never mean the same thing again.
Somewhere outside those doors waited a young boy and a sick mother, waiting on a cold December night for a sister who hadn't come back yet. Nathaniel intended to make sure that, this year at least, none of them spent Christmas hungry again.