She Kept the Trash, I Kept the Crown novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Terrace

Leonie meets the Trowbridges, Felix and his clock, sets the terms of the engagement with Kellan, and Felix guesses her secret.

The Trowbridges' house stood at the end of the shore road, white and long, with a lawn that ran straight down to the water.

Mrs. Trowbridge walked me through it room by room and apologized for every one.

"It's too big," she said. "We never meant it to be this big."

Her thoughts were quieter than her voice. Please like it. Please don't leave in a year.

"I like it," I said. "Especially the windows."

She squeezed my arm and left me at a door at the top of the stairs.

The room had a desk, a bed with a green quilt and a view of the sea, and someone had put a vase of dahlias on the sill.

I sat on the bed with the orange pen case in my lap and tried to think.

Daphne had walked away from the one thing I would have fought her for, because she wanted what the Wheelocks would win.

I knew exactly what that was.

I also knew I had no way to prove anything about my last death, and a sister every donor in Connecticut had just watched be generous.

Downstairs, a door slammed.

A voice shouted, "Not that one, the other one!"

I opened my door and looked over the banister.

A young man in a cardigan stood at the front hall with a tape measure in one hand.

He had round glasses and a watch on each wrist, and he was glaring at the left front door.

"It faces the wrong way," he told the door. "It has always faced the wrong way."

Then he looked up and saw me.

Numbers poured out of his head into mine, loud and fast. Seven thousand nine hundred and nineteen. Seven thousand nine hundred and twenty-seven. Both prime, both rude.

I held the banister.

"You're the new one," he said. "I'm Felix. Mother says I'm to be nice."

"Are you being nice?"

"I'm being accurate." He held up his wrists. "This watch is right. This one is about forty minutes fast on purpose."

"Why?"

"So I'm never late for the one that's wrong."

I did not know whether that was a joke.

His thoughts told me it was not, and that he was proud of it.

"Dennis will like you," Felix said. "Dennis is a clock. Don't touch Dennis."

He went out through the right door, and I decided I liked him.

Kellan Slade found me on the terrace after dinner.

The Trowbridges had gone to bed early, with a lot of whispering, and Felix had taken his plate to the boathouse.

Kellan stood at the stone rail with his hands in his pockets.

The lamps down the lawn lit one side of his face.

"I wanted to say something before this goes any further," he said. "You didn't choose me. You chose the Trowbridges. If that's a problem, say so now."

I looked at him.

I had not heard a single mean word in his head all evening.

What I had heard was plain things, in short sentences. Don't crowd her. Let her sit. She looks tired.

It made no sense in a man who had signed a merger with a family I had just been handed to.

I decided he was being careful, which was not the same as being kind.

"It's not a problem," I said. "But I want terms."

"Go on."

"A year. Until the merger is done, or the spring, whichever comes first."

"The wedding's the day after the Maddox dinner."

"Fine. Until then, separate rooms."

His face did not change.

"We touch only when someone is watching," I said. "Photographs, donors, Mrs. Trowbridge at breakfast. Not in private."

"Not in private," he said.

"I need a husband in name only, Mr. Slade. I have things to do, and none of them is you."

I meant it kindly.

Under it all I was afraid, and it was easier to be a closed door than a woman with a soft spot.

He was quiet for a long time.

Then I heard him think, Of course she does. Don't ask for more.

"That's fine," Kellan said aloud. "I'd rather be honest about it. You'll have your rooms."

He nodded once and went in through the kitchen.

I stood on the terrace until the lamps clicked off on their timer.

The house was dark when I went up.

I had my hand on my door when a voice came from the end of the hall.

"Don't turn on the light," Felix said.

He was sitting on the floor against the wall in his socks, with a brass clock in his lap.

The clock ticked.

"That's Dennis," he said. "He's fine."

"It's midnight. Why are you in the hall?"

"I wait up for new people. It's the only time the house is quiet." He looked at me through his round glasses. "You flinched at the doorbell this afternoon. It hadn't rung yet."

I did not say anything.

"And you looked at Mother before she opened her mouth. Twice." He turned the clock over in his hands. "Everyone is loud to you, aren't they?"

His thoughts were nothing but a number, repeating, waiting.

I felt something in my chest give way.

"Yes," I said.

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