Chapter Thirty
Bram is asleep, breathing softly, tucked in the middle of his feather bed. This is the first time I’ve ever been in his room, and I take a moment to look around. Unlike Emmett’s haphazardly placed books and overcrowded desk, everything in Bram’s room has been fastidiously placed: his books, the line of crystals by the window, his rings laid out on the vanity.
I duck my head under the canopy and lay a hand on his shoulder. “Bram.”
I shake him softly. “Bram.”
He wakes with a gasp and blinks a few times. “Ivy? What are you doing here?”
It’s not hard to cue the tears; they flow freely down my cheeks the minute I let the dam break. “I just spoke to the queen,”
I cry. “She told me I’ve lost.”
Bram sits up in anger. “That’s not her choice to make.”
“They tried to escort me from the palace, but I ran from them,”
I gasp. “I had to see you.”
I’ll let him fill in the rest. Bram will want to be the savior here. I can’t feed it to him too easily.
“But I want you,”
he says urgently. “I was going to pick you.”
It breaks my heart to hear him say it. “What do we do?”
Bram pushes himself out of bed, begins pacing the room. “I can’t let her do this. It’s my life.”
“It’s not fair,” I say.
He crosses the room and cradles my cheek in his hand. “I’m not letting her choose for me. I already chose for myself. I chose you.”
My broken heart gives a little thump. “You said yesterday you’d do anything for me.”
I can see the moment the idea comes to him. His gray eyes flash. “We could run away, marry elsewhere. Then she’d be forced to accept you.”
I pretend to hesitate. “I’m scared.”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
He takes me in his arms and kisses me passionately. I feel the ghost of Emmett all over me, but I go soft and pliant against him. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.
He’s the first one to pull back. “Go, now, before the sun rises, and pack a bag. I’ll come for you at dawn.”
“I love you,”
I say. It’s not quite a lie. I want to love him, I really do.
“I love you, too.”
He can’t lie. For the second time tonight, my heart shatters.
In a daze, I walk to Belgrave Square in my nightdress through the sleeping streets of London. I’m paranoid the whole walk, constantly swiveling my head to make sure I’m not being followed.
I’m reminded of the night I went out to look for Lydia so many months ago.
The back door service entrance of my family home is unlocked, as always. It’s been months since I’ve set foot in this house, and while nothing about it has changed, I feel so different from the girl I was when I last stood in this spot.
I race up the steps to my room and throw a valise on my bed to fill with clothes for the journey.
I change into my plainest traveling dress, braid my hair, then fling my wardrobe doors open and toss my few day dresses into the case. At the bottom of the wardrobe is my trusty pair of boots, still mud-caked from the day I won May Queen. Mama made me leave them behind when I moved into Kensington Palace.
I place them by the door, ready to run when it’s time.
On my tippy-toes, I reach to the highest shelf and grab my summer straw bonnet. The ribbons are stuck under something, and I pull once, twice, then go toppling backward. All of a sudden, dozens of sheets of paper rain down on me, floating like white snowflakes as they land noiselessly on the floor.
I pick up the closest one and find Bram’s face staring back at me.
He’s been rendered in waxy pastels, but the likeness is undeniable. The square jaw, sun-streaked hair, laughing gray eyes.
I pick up another one, a charcoal sketch of Bram sitting under a tree.
Another: a pencil sketch of Bram astride a galloping horse.
Another: a study of his hands in agonizing detail.
His profile.
His eyes.
His mouth.
There must be one hundred pictures of him here.
My door swings open, revealing Lydia, her white nightdress made dark blue by the dim moonlight.
I freeze, on my knees, the sketches surrounding me.
Her eyes adjust to the low light, and she gets a look at the riot of papers around me. “Oh no.”
She falls to her hands and knees in a rush and gathers them against her chest.
“It’s no use. I’ve already seen them.”
My voice sounds far away. I can hardly hear anything over my heart pounding in my ears.
“It’s not what you think,”
she says softly.
“I have absolutely no idea what to think.”
She flops down in the middle of the drawings. Her exhausted hands push through them, like she’s a child making a snow angel. “I’ve been having these dreams ever since I returned.”
“Dreams?”
She picks up one of the drawings gingerly, a close-up of Bram’s face, and runs her pointer finger along the line of his pointed ear. The paper crinkles under the pressure of her fingertip. “His face is the only thing I remember.”
“You said they were dreams. That’s not the same thing as a memory.”
Maybe she truly has lost it—whatever fragile thing was holding her together has finally snapped.
She drops her eyes, too embarrassed to look at me. “I know.”
I peer up at my sister in the moonlight, her face so much like mine. “I’m sure they’re just dreams,”
I say. Bram’s face is in newspapers and statues and public houses all over this city.
“Why are you home?”
she asks, as if the strangeness of my presence here has only just hit her.
“I’m running away with Bram. We’re eloping.”
“Oh,”
she says weakly. “Are you happy?”
“I will be,”
I answer hopefully.
She looks to my open valise and starts helping me pack, throwing in chemises, my worn old cloak, the pearls I wore the day of the Pact Parade.
“Are you safe?”
she asks, worried.
“Probably not,”
I answer honestly. “But this is my only option.”
She pulls me into a tight hug.
“I love you,”
I whisper. “You know that, right?”
“It’s just about the only thing I do know.”
The first light of dawn has begun to leak through the windows, painting my room a pale shade of pearly gray.
A banging at the front door startles us both. I snatch my valise from the bed and latch it as quickly as I can. I pull on my boots next. “Tell Mama and Papa I’ll send word soon. Don’t worry, everything will be all right.”
I sprint down the stairs and throw open the front doors, expecting to see Bram but instead find a footman in familiar Kensington Palace blue livery.
“Her Majesty requests an audience.”
My blood turns cold. We must have been found out. She’s going to kill me for this, the same way she killed Greer.
“No.”
I try to slam the door, but the footman blocks it with the toe of his polished boot.
“Ivy?”
Lydia calls from the top of the stairs, but she’s not fast enough.
“Lydia!”
I scream. “Tell Emmett—”
The footman’s arms encircle me like a vise, and he picks me up and carries me to the carriage.
Lydia chases us out the front door, but she’s left choking on the dust of the carriage as we pull away.
“Please,”
I beg the footman all the way to the palace. “I’ll do anything.”
He doesn’t even look at me.
It takes two of them to haul me out of the carriage and into the palace. I fight every step of the way. The footmen stay silent and stoic as I dig my nails into the flesh of their forearms. I rake a hand across the cheek of the one to my left, leaving a long, bloody scratch. I kick out the back of his knees next, and he falls to the dirt. If she’s going to kill me, I’m not going down without a fight.
But in an endless flood, more come. It takes four of them in the end, one on each arm and leg to carry me up the grand staircase as I flail.
“Bram!”
I scream. “Emmett!”
But my calls echo off the glass ceiling. No one is coming for me.
The footmen throw me into the throne room and slam the doors behind me. I land hard on my knees, looking up through tangled hair and frustrated tears.
Golden morning light streams through the high windows, throwing rainbows from the diamonds in the queen’s tiara.
Queen Mor’s skirts are fanned around her, and she sits on the edge of her throne, leaning forward, like she’s been waiting impatiently for me.
She’s smiling. Her sharp canines are fully on display. She’s got a dimple, like her son. This is the first time she’s smiled wide enough for me to see it.
“Lady Ivy Benton!”
she exclaims cheerfully. “Congratulations!”