The Reluctant Heiress

The Dinner

A knock sounded at the door just as I was slipping into the smallest set of heels I could find. Dubois, the lady from earlier, entered and stood by the door, hands folded in front of her. She looked me up and down before sniffing.

Clearly, my little black skater dress and matching shoes weren’t doing it for her. Or maybe it was the hair I’d left loose and riotous around my shoulders. Either way, Dubois turned on her heel without a word, leaving me to stumble after her.

“How long have you worked for the family?” I asked, feeling the eyes of a dozen portraits tail my every move. Were the sour bunch my disapproving ancestors? I bet they were all turning in their graves to see a mutt like me gracing the great halls.

“All my life,” Dubois said briskly. 

Did anyone ever make it out of this place?

“So you’ve known my father since he was young then?” I was curious about what made my father the cold, commanding man he was. Was it the house or the people who’d lived here? Or the money, of course.

The woman made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat before ignoring any other attempts I made to talk to her. Eventually lapsing into silence, I tried to memorise the layout of the house. Who knew if she would be picking me up after dinner.

I was dropped at the door like an orphan in a basket – how fitting – Dubois walking away before I could even open my mouth to thank her.

“You’re late,” my father sneered, voice booming along the surface of a ridiculously long table.

Checking my watch, “Only two minutes.”

“A lack of punctuality denotes a lack of discipline,” he said, waving a hand at the chairs to his right. “A Hawthorne has neither.”

But they did have a whole heaping list of expectations, I was learning. I was going to have to start taking notes.

 My father sat at the head of the table, with Eloise and a girl about my age on his left. To his right, two dinner places were set up and waiting. I had to keep myself from gaping at the beautiful chandelier hanging from the ceiling, its dripping crystals twinkling like stars in the low light of the dining room.

“You simply can’t rely on a mongrel to show the proper traits,” Eloise piped in with a catty smile, flicking out a scarlet napkin and smoothing it across her lap. “A waste of perfectly good breeding, I say.”

The girl next to her snorted and reached for her wine glass. She had too much Eloise in her to be anything but her daughter, right down to the sharp curve of her pixie chin. They could have passed for sisters. But whereas Eloise’s golden tresses flowed over her shoulders, this girl’s hair was severed at her collarbones and swung with each small movement of her head.

She would have been perfectly at home on the cover of Vogue.

“It won’t happen again,” I promised, reaching to pull out the chair next to my father.

“Oh, no, darling. You sit in that one.” Eloise simpered, trying and failing to sound like she wanted to help me out.

“Oh,” I said, trying not to feel the heat scattering across my cheeks. The chair was heavier than I expected and I scraped it across the hardwood floors. Its screech was enough to make me wince and turn even redder. Pretending I didn’t notice either, I hurriedly flopped into the chair…only to realise I was miles away from the table. “Uh, sorry.”

“She’ll learn.” My father sighed, running a hand through his hair. It only vaguely sounded like a threat.

Clearing my throat as quietly as I could, I reached for a napkin and smoothed it over my thighs like I’d seen Eloise do.

“Oh look! She’s blushing, how quaint.” Eloise’s daughter gushed, saccharine enough to make my teeth ache. “Did we embarrass you?”

“It’s warm, that’s all,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. I wouldn’t let them get to me, I wouldn’t let- I hoped whoever we were waiting on showed up soon. Maybe that would distract them all. Or maybe it would just be another person to gawk and poke at me. I smiled at the girl, “I’m Mag- Margaux.”

My father’s face darkened in the corner of my eye but before he could say anything, the girl rolled her eyes and said, “I know that.”

I could almost hear the ‘duh.’

Her gaze remained on me, barely flickering even when a server slipped up on her right to place a bowl of soup in front of her. I was not so cool when the same thing happened to me. I jerked to the side, earning me a quick and earnest apology from the server I’d nearly made spill soup down me.

“I’m Araminta,” she finally said after we had all been served and our wine glasses filled. I’d requested water instead, only to be flummoxed by the offer of still or sparkling. She continued, her petal-pink smile curving like a scimitar. “Or Ari, if you prefer.”

I peeked at my father from under my lashes but he made no move to correct her. He was too busy swirling his merlot and bringing it to his nose, the liquid clinging to the sides of the crystal fluke like blood. Acrid and annoyed, I did my best to swallow the words climbing up my throat. Unfair, my fingers twisting in the napkin. Hypocritical, my teeth in my lip.

But there was nothing I do could about it. Not here or now, anyway.

The fragrance of autumn washed over me. It was as though the chef had known I would need something warm and comforting to distract me. I finally turned my attention to the soup. Rusty orange with an artful swirl of cream pulled through it. It even had a sprig of something on top. Was I supposed to eat that part? I’d never eaten soup that hadn’t come straight from a tin.

It wasn’t until I reached for a spoon that I realized just how out of depth I was. There were several of them in front of me, each a slightly different shape.

“Do you need some help, Sweetie?” Eloise’s head was tilted, feline. Like I was a bird just about to have its throat ripped out.

“No, I’ve got it. Thanks.” Work your way in, right? Hadn’t I heard or seen that somewhere before?

Regardless, I waited for someone else to start. It was as if Eloise and Ari knew that though because they waited too, giggling lowly to one another between sips of wine. Lucky for me, my father had no qualms about starting without us.

I lifted a spoonful of soup to my mouth, already salivating from the smell.

It was impossible to contain my groan as it flooded over my taste buds. It was warm and spicy, homey even. Better than any flavour of tinned soup I had ever had by a country mile. An odd choice for the middle of spring maybe, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth – it was the first taste of comfort I’d had all day.

Had it only been a day?

I sucked up the feeling like a sponge that had been dried out for a decade.

“What was that?” Ari’s pretty face twisted in disgust and she dropped her spoon back into her bowl. Like my enjoyment had put her off or something. “God,” she looked at me blankly. “Didn’t they feed you in that hovel of yours?”

I must have eaten half the bowl in the time it took for her to speak, curved over it like a starving wolf that’d happened across a dead elk in winter. This had to be what restaurant food tasted like. It was wonderful. Easily the best thing I’d ever tasted…no wonder people went out to eat all the time. If my mouth could have wept for joy, it would have.

Blinking, I realized they were all staring at me intently. Waiting for me to answer. I hesitated but decided to be honest; sometimes feeding the boys meant going hungry myself. I shrugged, “Not always.”

“Ugh, you are such a downer,” Ari complained, pushing her bowl away and crossing her arms over her chest. “Looking at you makes me sad and not in a good way.”

There was a good way?

Eloise laughed, the sound silvery. “Maybe that’s why she looks like she’s dressed for a funeral.”

My spoon fell into the bowl with a clatter but I couldn’t hear it over the sudden rush of blood in my ears. “Well, maybe it feels like that.”

“Margaux!” Father snapped in warning.

“What? I’m supposed to just sit here and take it?” I asked, throwing my napkin down on the table and standing. The chair scraped and screeched across the floor again but I didn’t care. “While they—"

“-While we what, darling?” Sinking back into her chair, Eloise crossed her legs and smirked at me. “Do finish your sentences. We’re all dying to hear your thoughts.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Oh, would you prefer something else?” Eloise asked. She began counting on her fingers, “Runt? Brat? Trespasser, maybe? Oh! What about thief instead?”

Ari hid a laugh behind her glass.

“Thief?” I repeated, unable to believe what I was hearing. “You take everything from me and somehow I’m the thief?”

Eloise slammed a hand down on the table, the dishware trembling with her rage. Silver fire snapped in the depths of her eyes, stinging wherever her gaze landed. But I didn’t look away. “Taken from you? You are being handed the world, you ungrateful little wretch!”

“Enough!” My father’s roar cut through the building tension, the scrape of his chair even louder than mine. A lock of his hair had fallen into his face, laying across the vein throbbing in his otherwise smooth forehead. “Enough of this.”

“Oh, come off it, Richard.” Turning her fire on him, Eloise spat,” What did you expect was going to happen? That this – your bastard – would be welcomed into our family with open arms.” Her voice, which had been growing higher with each word cracked and with it her fire was sucked out of her, out of the room. Leaving behind a vacuum that made me dizzy. “Do you know what everyone is saying about us? About her? We’re a laughing stock.”

And it’s all your fault.

Fixing his hair back into place, my father resumed his seat. As though nothing had happened. “There’s no need for the dramatics. Everything will be better once Margaux is properly introduced to society.”

“As if,” Ari hummed, her tan skin looking pallid. The pink of her lips was awful now, pulled down into a shivering frown.

“Quiet Araminta.”

“But mum-”

“I never asked for this, okay?” I said before they could get into it. Carefully. Slowly stringing feelings and words together before I put them out into the world. I scoffed, blinking back tears as I shook out my hair. “I know that my life must look inconsequential from the lofty heights of yours. Like you can’t imagine anything better than what you have.” I swallowed hard. “But I can promise you it doesn’t feel like that.”

Ari rolled her eyes again, back to looking like the bitchy queen bee in every teen drama as she cooed, “Oh, look at that. She thinks we care.”

“What?” I peered at her, my throat well and truly parched now. Cracking under the strain. “What did you say?”

“Poor thing,” she continued, both Eloise and father just watching. Her with something like approval and him with indifference stacked behind his steepled fingers. “Listen up, I’ll only tell you this once. We. Don’t. Care. We’re never going to care. You’re just here until Dad can marry you off.”

All of a sudden, my defiance looked childish and pointless, the dress a flag of shame. What had I been thinking? That I would earn their respect? That it would make them see me as a person? It was clear that nothing I did would touch these people, so high up on the pedestal they had fashioned for themselves. I wasn’t anything to them. I wasn’t a thinking, feeling being, but a pawn in the game of wealth and status.

I was only a sacrifice.

“I-” I shook my head, trying to rattle my brain and shake out some words. It was useless, nothing I said would make a difference. “Excuse me.”

I stumbled away from the table, almost knocking the chair clean aside.

“Margaux! Come back here right now!” My father thundered behind me.

“No.” No, no, no, no, no. I flung open the door and fled into the hallway, eyes blurry with tears.

“Margaux!”

Those people -they weren’t people, they were monsters wearing human skin and designer clothes. They couldn’t have me. I wouldn’t let them.

There was no way I was going to stay here. I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to live and be free. Not if I ever wanted to be surrounded by people that cared about me.

The boys would still have that first payment. They still had a chance for something better.

And so did I.

I had to get out. Now.