Ruling with a New Frame novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Kneeling at Supper

I closed my fist over the ring and shoved it into my sock before the door opened.

Marguerite stood in the gap with the key ring in her hand.

Her pale eyes went to the chair.

Then to the housekeeper, white as flour.

Then to me.

"She walks in her sleep," the housekeeper said, too fast. "I found her at the door. I brought her in to tuck her back in."

My grandfather sat slumped against the wing of his chair.

The fog had come down over his face.

I felt a hot, tight pity in my chest, and I kept it out of my eyes.

Marguerite crossed the room and took me by the collar of my nightgown.

"Out," she said.

She dragged me down the corridor with my toes barely touching the floor.

At the top of the stairs she bent until her face was an inch from mine.

"You will kneel at supper tonight."

"In front of the household and the cousins who have come for the Founders' week."

"You will learn watchfulness by watching, as every heir has."

"Yes, Grandmother," I said.

She searched my face for defiance and found only a child's bruised blankness.

It was the best mask I owned.

The long dining table held fourteen people that evening.

Cousins from Boston and Albany, an uncle with a hearing aid, a pair of sisters in matching cardigans.

My father sat at the middle of the table, gray with worry.

Joanna sat beside him, elegant, with Felix on her other side.

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