Chapter 2

The next afternoon I walked into the private club and found Vivian sitting in my chair.

The walnut chair stood in a row with the other three in front of the fireplace. Julian had chosen the wood himself, and a silver plate was set into the back with my name on it: EVELYN ASHFORD.

The attendant recognized me on sight and hurried over to explain. "Vivian arrived early. She didn't dare take the head of the table, and the other seats were—"

"It's all right." I cut him off, walked to the chair, and looked at Vivian. "Vivian, that's my seat."

I didn't raise my voice at her, and I didn't order her out of the club. I simply waited, as I had countless times before, for Julian to come and pull the chair out for me.

But the color drained out of Vivian's face. She shot to her feet, banged her knee hard against the low table, and sent a glass crashing to the floor. A sharp shard sliced her finger, and blood welled up at once.

"I'm sorry, I really didn't know." She stumbled backward. "I don't need any of it. Don't fight because of me, and don't send me away."

Nathan got to her first and pressed down on the cut. I picked up the first aid kit and held it out, but he turned his body and shielded Vivian from me completely. "Stand back a little."

I froze where I was. When I was small and got a rose thorn in my finger, Nathan would scold me for running around where I shouldn't even as he cleaned and bandaged it himself. He knew perfectly well that the sight of blood frightened me. Now, all I wanted was to help.

"I wasn't trying to drive her out," I said.

Alexander looked at me. "Then explain that to her properly."

"I only want my own seat back."

"Why do you always have to have the best seat?"

He asked as if it were obvious, as if he and the other two hadn't been the ones who reserved that chair for me in the first place.

Vivian's tears started to fall. "I'll sit at the far end of the table. I don't care where I sit."

"You won't have to." Julian finally spoke. He walked around behind the chair, took out the small tool kit he carried, and set about removing the silver plate with my name on it.

Metal scraped against wood with a thin, ugly sound. Something else broke along with it.

"Just for seven days." He handed the plate to the attendant. "Put it back exactly as it was once Vivian leaves for Black Harbor."

"And me?"

"Evelyn, don't throw a fit." Julian lowered his voice. "Wherever you sit, you're still you. She needs a token that proves she belongs to this family."

In the end I was put at the very foot of the long table.

The meeting was supposed to be about finding a way out of the Black Harbor engagement. The lawyer spread out a copy of the old contract, and my mother and the three men worked through every angle they could find to release the eldest daughter from it. I had already seen the substitution clause, but I still spoke up to remind the lawyer. "The engagement only takes effect with the woman's consent. If Vivian refuses, the Blackwood family can't force her to go through with it."

Vivian looked up at me, her eyes red. "Thank you, Evelyn."

She reached over and took my hand. I wasn't used to being held like that, and I started to pull back without thinking. Her whole body went rigid, as if I had shoved her away in front of everyone. Three pairs of eyes swung toward me at once.

I held still for two seconds, stopped resisting, and let her keep my hand.

When the meeting broke up, everyone went with Vivian to her therapist. I walked back to the fireplace alone and saw the attendant toss my nameplate into a trash can.

I bent down, picked it up, and wiped it clean with a tissue, bit by bit. Julian stood in the doorway and watched the whole thing. Once, all I had to do was look like that and he would have come over and put his arms around me and told me it had only been a joke.

This time he gripped the door handle, hesitated for a moment, then turned and hurried after Vivian anyway.

I closed my hand around the plate until the sharp metal edges bit into my palm. For the first time, I started to wonder whether this plate needed to go back on that chair at all.