Fourteen
Fourteen
“Sarah Forbes Bonetta.” McCoskry greeted my mother and me outside the palace, his belly filled with his seven-course meal.
“I was overjoyed when the Queen told me about your engagement. Congratulations.”
He shook my mother’s hand briskly. I thought I was the one he was congratulating. Though it was for the better. I could barely stand to look at him. Imagine if he touched
me.
“I have to run, but we shall hopefully catch up soon?”
Sooner than he thought.
I didn’t close the carriage door quickly enough. I regrettably still heard Dalton’s “Congratulations, Miss Forbes! I’ll be
seeing you” before the slam of wood. My nerves tensed at the sound of his voice. Dalton stood on the street, next to my dapper
husband-to-be, his arms behind his back as was the gentlemanly way, while his sharp look promised mayhem. He’d just begun
to chitchat with Bertie when the carriage took off down the road back to Chatham.
“That was a success, all things considered. Thank God.” Mrs. Schoen adjusted her white shawl over her shoulders. She seemed somehow even more impatient after lunch—probably because she hadn’t been allowed to eat her fill. “The Queen has ordered that you begin your preparations for your union in Brighton under the care of Miss Sophia Welsh.”
“You can’t be serious: marriage training?” I couldn’t imagine a more ghastly punishment.
Mama ignored me. “You begin the morning after tomorrow. I knew you’d need time to gather your things and... yourself. So
I bought you some time.”
I hated when Mama was angry with me and I with her. I hated the disapproving perk of her bottom lip and her absolute unrelenting
inability to admit that she could ever be wrong about any matter concerning my “rearing.” I hated that I knew she did deeply
care for me, and that if her perception of the world had not been so deeply twisted by such backward beliefs, we could have
gotten along truly, both she and I, without masks and subterfuge. I stopped arguing with her then and there. It wouldn’t get
me anywhere.
“Miss Welsh is very strict and older than even I, so make sure you respect her. You cannot behave the way you did today. Her
Majesty chose Welsh for you herself. You will not give her any problems.”
Or Welsh would report me to the Queen. That was the silent warning. And if another building should mysteriously burn down,
then what? Well, I suppose Queen Victoria would have her answers about the “strange happenings” that seemed to curiously haunt
my every step.
Strange happenings. Like Dalton Sass.
Did he know? I’d left no evidence. How could he know? But then again, I was only a child when I destroyed the Institution, and not yet well-versed in the art of retribution.
It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that I could have made a mistake—left even the tiniest clue.
Whether Dalton knew or not, I couldn’t take the chance. If he had inherited even an ounce of his mother’s cruelty, I had to
get rid of him and fast.
Bobby Wheeler was a particularly chatty street urchin. After frightening Uncle George into an asylum, he seemed the proudest among the masked boys, excitedly soaking in their victory after they left the taxidermist with their masks off. That job meant fish and chips, some bread, and a sack of coins to take with them to the cellar they lived in, the one underneath an unpopular London tavern where Scotch girls danced and peddlers tried to hawk stale shrimps and pies. The day after the Queen’s luncheon, when I finally had a chance to escape back to London, Little Bobby talked about the adventure quite a bit before one of the older boys hushed him.
“Rui told us once a job is done, it’s done,” said Connor, an abandoned Irish boy who I noticed was trying a little to mask
his accent. I hadn’t any time to encourage him not to. I doubted he would have listened to me anyway. He glared at me defiantly.
“What do you want?”
That childish defiance disappeared the moment they noticed I came with gifts—namely, the engagement gifts I’d been given at
the luncheon. Mostly silk and other expensive clothes that would go for a pretty penny in the market. Bobby and his boys were
more than happy to give up Rui’s location: the Devil’s Acre. How apt.
The area was a stone’s throw from Westminster Abbey but plagued with poverty. It should have made the Queen ashamed, except
she was too busy enjoying her profiteroles as she cried over her dead husband. A selfish wretch, that woman. How dare she
call herself a monarch?
I bristled as Bobby rapped his knuckles on the wooden door in the middle of an alleyway. Three times. Pause. Then a fourth.
It was some kind of code. The door opened.
“Right this way, miss.” Bobby, the little gentleman he was, let me enter first with a sweep of his hand. I descended the rickety
steps, the sound of men growling and yelling growing ever louder.
The winding staircase led us to an underground cellar packed to the brim with hollering voyeurs. The entertainment: two half-naked men fighting bare-knuckle, clothed in nothing more than filthy pants stained with blood. I just made out the brawlers from the stairs, but lost sight of them once my shoes met the stone floor. Bookies were taking bets and keeping score in the corner underneath the wooden rafters. Crowds of men growled with delight each time a tooth flew and a spurt of blood washed their faces.
“There you go, miss. Rui should be around here somewhere, I reckon,” said Bobby, ducking as a beer bottle flew over his head
and crashed against the wall. “I don’t think he’s been killed yet, at any rate.”
I looked down at him, surprised. “Excuse me?”
But Bobby tipped his hat and disappeared back up the stairs just as the rowdy crowd cheered. I’d never seen so many dark bowler
hats, cigars, booze bottles, and dirty frock coats in one place at a time that wasn’t a dancing room. It was tough to get
through all the bodies. The smell of sweat, vomit, and the faintest hint of urine stabbed at my delicate senses. The rectangular
pit was made of rapidly peeling clay. It shook with all the hands gripping its ridge and shaking it as they watched the fight
below with bloodthirsty shouts. I elbowed my way to the front of the herd, letting out a gasp when I felt a hand pinch my
behind.
“Bloody rats,” I cursed, turning around to catch the perpetrator, but all I could find were sharp, libidinous grins. This
must have been one of those dens of vice Mama had warned me about. And between the gambling and the ceramic jugs of alcohol
spilling every which way, I thought Rui had better taste when it came to his dens.
Apparently not. I reached the front of crowd just as Rui jumped into the pit from the other side of the cellar. The crowd
went wild.
“Come on, who’s bettin’?” The bookie was goading the crowd and they responded.
“Half a crown on the mad lad!” one man cried. “He never loses.”
“All right, then, I’ll try you a ’gen and a ’rough yenap.”
“Right, try your luck! I’ve got sixpence on the big bloke.”
The man Rui was to face was a giant in comparison, with battle scars from previous fights marring his flash from his balding
head to jiggling stomach. Rui seemed to enjoy having his ribs punched and his jaw knocked. I didn’t hate it either. His tight,
lovingly carved muscles, glistening with sweat, contracted with each hit, the blood flying from his Cheshire grin peppering
the clay walls of the pit. I didn’t hate seeing that crooked smile as he fought back knuckle for knuckle. There was nothing
graceful about the way Rui fought. There was no technique—just the pleasure of chaos in landing blow after blow while his
baggy brown pants clung to his slender waist with a tightly wrapped belt.
An uppercut to the Goliath’s chin had the man stumbling back. The crowd cheered. Rui lifted up his toned arms, soaking it
in, turning around to face his audience.
His joy turned to confusion once he saw me at the ledge of the pit. “Sally?”
I didn’t have time to answer him before his opponent tackled him from behind. It was a cheap shot. I gripped the ledge, my
heart pounding while Goliath pounded his stomach. The idiot was going to get himself killed.
“Rui!” I shouted down into the pit. “You look a bloody mess. Hurry up and get out of there. I need to talk to you!”
“Oh?” On his back, Rui moved his face to avoid Goliath’s fist. Knuckles crashed into stone. “It’s not terribly important,
is it?”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to be having this conversation here amongst this rowdy group. “It is. So hurry up with this
foolishness and come with me now .”
Though his opponent straddled him, Rui held his fists back, though it wasn’t without effort. Spit launched from his lips. “Since when do you order me around, princess?”
“Since I managed to bring John Brown to England, just as you begged me to.”
“What?”
Rui relaxed in that one moment of surprise and got knocked in the across the face for it. I covered my gasp. He really was
going to get himself killed if he didn’t finish this up quickly.
“Rui!” I yelled, my voice barely discernible from the murderous howls of the audience.
Rui wiped the blood from his mouth. “Well, since you asked nicely—”
He headbutted the man and jumped to his feet while his opponent writhed in pain. Goliath was bigger, but Rui was quicker.
He recovered quickly, kneeing him in the gut. A few more punches knocked out two of the man’s teeth. I saw them fly into the
hungry crowd.
Cringing, I turned away, flinching when a giant thud and a plume of dust made the audience go feral. Rui had just made a few
men several pence richer. He lifted his arms in victory before striding toward me and grabbing hold of a man’s arm. Together,
a few cheering audience members pulled Rui out of the pit and clapped him on the back.
Clapped him perhaps too hard—suddenly, Rui was hovering above me, the smell of his breath, sweat, and blood wafting into my
open lips.
“You wanted to talk. Then let’s talk.” Grabbing my wrist, he pulled me through the throng of spectators, snatching a small
sack of coins offered to him from a bookie on the way. He didn’t stop dragging me until we’d found a “quiet” spot underneath
the stairs. New opponents had taken to the ring, gripping the audience’s attention.
Letting out a long, weary sigh, Rui lay back against the cold stone wall and slid down to the floor, wincing with pain but
grinning nonetheless. Blood was still oozing from his lips.
“Lady Sarah Forbes Bonetta.” He threw up his sack of coins and caught it with one hand. “Now how is it you keep turning up in places I don’t expect or particularly want you to?”
With my hands on my hips, I stood over him to make sure my face blotted out the crowd. He smirked. Of course he would. My
face was a far more pleasant sight, if I did say so myself. “This isn’t a social call. Like I said, I brought John Brown to
Windsor Castle. Which means it’s your turn. Now you do as I say.”
But Rui wasn’t paying attention. He lowered his head, staring at the floor. His silence put me on edge. Kneeling down, I took
off the white bonnet covering my curly hair and used it to wipe the blood from his lips. His breath reached my fingers, sending
a sudden chill through me. And his gaze suddenly soaking me in made me shiver. Though his body soon relaxed, his aura remained
intense—almost frightening.
“How did he seem to you, John Brown?” he asked without looking at me, lowering his head. I looked past his chapped fingers
to the chain now peeking out of his pants pocket. His watch? He’d had it on his person....
I wrapped my black overcoat more tightly around me. “Hale and hearty. Strongly built from his shoulders to his thick legs.
Beard red as flames. If he’s your enemy, I don’t know, Rui. He may put up a fight.”
Rui brought his knee up his chest. “Oh good.” His black bangs rippled over his forehead as he lifted his head. “I love a good
fight.”
His sharp tooth bit the edge of his lip. The sight of it gave me a bit of a thrill. I could imagine the pain this Brown must
have wrought him—a pain I knew all too well when I was furiously plotting. The defined muscles of his arms tensed as he flexed
his bruised hands into a fist. He was readying himself too. But against what?
Heat rushed to my cheeks. I turned my head away from his body. “Are you going to tell me what you’re planning to do to that
Scotsman?”
“Are you going to tell me why you tracked me down here while enjoying a perfectly good beating?”
I stared at my now blood-soaked bonnet. “You certainly did get a good beating.”
“I did.” He paused. “Were you impressed?”
I ignored the flutter in my stomach and let out a cruel laugh. “Hardly,” I said. “Just beating each other barefisted. Didn’t
any of you ever learn about pressure points? Aiming for joints that can be easily broken? You could take apart a man thrice
one’s size with just a few months’ study of anatomy. If you’re skilled enough, you could do it without leaving even a trace
of murder behind until your enemy was dead and gone—”
I pursed my lips because Rui was staring at me, both eyebrows raised.
“What? I’ve done some reading in the past.” It had become a rather morbid pastime of mine when I returned from Sierra Leone.
He chuckled, shaking his head. “And again, I ask your reason for stalking me.”
“I would hardly call it stalking.” I thought. “Tracking, maybe—”
“Sally—”
“I’m getting married.”
The crowd screamed. Another tooth must have gotten knocked out. But Rui and I only saw each other. He must have seen it—my
distress. I suddenly felt nauseous.
As the silence between us continued, I turned away. I couldn’t bear to check Rui’s expression—which itself, I couldn’t bear
to admit. And the longer the silence went on the more I fretted like a silly schoolgirl waiting for some handsome lad to talk
to her.
Nonsense. I torched my school.
Now, as the silence droned on, the urge to set fire to something else rippled through me until Rui finally broke the tension.
With his laughter.
“You’re getting married? Well, of course you are! A girl just turned eighteen.” Rui slapped his knee and threw his head back.
“Oh, you high-society types, you’re all so repetitious; it’s like you were built from the same factory. One after the other.”
Rui’s laughter was indistinguishable from the shrieks of the men in the filthy cellar. Now I really wanted to burn something.
I clenched my teeth.
“And?” He wiped a tear from his eye. “Who’s your husband-to-be?” And he tilted his head. “Is he better-looking than me?”
My heart caught in my throat. Heat rose to my cheeks as I instinctively slid away from him. Few people could be considered,
from my perspective, better-looking than Rui. But as far as competitors, objectively speaking, Davies did win handily. “He’s
a wealthy businessman from Lagos. Incredibly handsome. Polite. He’s also fourteen years my senior.”
Rui’s grin faded, ever so slightly. At least he’d stopped laughing. Rui was quiet for a time. Then he shifted a little to
make room for me. I sat down on the floor next to him.
“And when are you to be married?”
“Next month.”
“Next month ?”
Rui seemed genuinely surprised. His jaw hardened. His hands went limp upon his lap. But it was a momentary pause. With one
last incredulous chuckle, he ran his fingers through his messy black hair. “Will I get my invitation in the mail? How many
of my men can I bring? Plenty to steal at a wedding.”
The lopsided smile I used to find so attractive only irritated me now. “Rui. This is serious. I’m getting married. In one
month. At which point, my husband will be taking me back with him to Lagos in West Africa. It’s all by decree of the Queen.”
“So you’ll be reunited with the Yoruba people. The Queen must have thought it to be in your best interest.”
“How can you say that?” I balled my hands into fists, furious at his indifference. He wasn’t even looking at me. He didn’t
understand. How could he? He seemed perfectly happy here in London getting his face punched in while commanding his army of
criminals.
I did want to be reunited with my people. I did want to go home someday. Being ripped from my homeland was a visceral experience. Flesh split from bone, heart and lungs
torn asunder and left as a bloody stain on cold England soil. Maybe once I was home, when the time was right, I would find
people to love again. People who would move my battered heart and make it sing once more. A family of my choosing.
Ade and I used to boil plantains in a clay pot. We used to eat mangoes together under the fattest palm tree near my home.
The other children always envied him—a friend to a princess. My parents inspired fear and awe in our village, yes. But it
was simply being important to someone that gave him, a sickly boy nobody would talk to, a sense of a pride.
A family of my choosing. If I could be whole again... if this was the way to do it...
But it wasn’t that simple. Things were different now. I was different. I wasn’t the Princess Ina they knew—if anyone remembered me at all. I would be an alien returning to them,
a foreigner with different manners and behaviors, my accent changed into something gaudy. I sometimes had nightmares of being
laughed at by my own people, all of them pointing and jeering at me as I spoke a language I couldn’t fully remember because
of no fault of my own. The forced separation schemed by the Forbeses had created a chasm between us—and within me. I could
admit to no one how deep the insecurity was that filled it.
But I did want to go. One day. When my mind and heart were ready. When I’d done all I needed to do here in England to gain closure following the indignities that had plagued my life. On my own terms. On my own terms .
That’s all any of this was about.
“What about what I want? What about my plans?” Sucking in a deep breath, I calmed myself enough to lower my voice. “The Queen suspects me. That is the only reason
she’s so quickly prepared to ship me out of England.”
“If the Queen already suspects you and has so quickly prepared a countermeasure to your schemes, then that only proves you
were too sloppy for your mission to ever succeed in the first place.” And when I glared at him: “Either that, or you have
to accept that Queen Victoria truly has your best interest at heart.”
“When it comes to me, the Queen has only ever had her own best interest at heart.” I remembered seeing the ravenous look in her eye the day I met her as a child. The endless possibilities
of what this new toy could bring her. And indeed, toys are meant to be played with—controlled. The Queen’s African goddaughter
united with a wealthy, British-educated African businessman. A perfect match. Who would disapprove? It was as nature intended,
they’d say. It would be remembered forever as yet one more accomplishment of England’s civilizing mission with the noble white
Queen at the fore. The headlines and history books were writing themselves even now.
I was no one’s pawn, least of all the Queen’s.
“My, my, Sally, you look so furious.” Rui’s lacerated hand suddenly enveloped mine, roughly and without apology. It was a
little damp with sweat. I had no time to complain, because he yanked me to him, far too close. “But what are you to do? Unless
you’re confident you can finish your list in one month, it seems the Queen has you beaten.”
“That’s why I’m here.” One thing I hated about being this close to Rui—about the only thing I hated—was that I was sure he could hear feel the rapid beating of my heart through his own chest. “To ask you what I should do.”
“Ask me? Advice? You? ”
“My revenge. My wedding in one month. And there’s also this strange man. His name is Dalton Sass. It seems I accidentally
killed his mother.”
“Well, that’s never good.”
My stomach was in knots, my heartbeat pounding against my skull as that boy appeared in my mind’s eye like a ghost. I thought
of his snakelike grin and shivered. He was surely the one who’d written to Queen Victoria about the new “developments” in
Freetown. How many secrets of mine did he know? How many had he already told the Queen? Between him and my sudden marriage
announcement, I was lost at sea. It felt like my plans were unraveling at a rate too fast for me to even comprehend. “I don’t
know what to do.”
Rui seemed intrigued. But rather than asking more questions, he leaned in close until his lips almost brushed my ears. “Why
don’t you do what you always do?”
My breath hitched in my throat. “What?” Perhaps it was his hot breath that muddled my thoughts. Not that my thoughts weren’t
already muddled to begin with.
“Oi, mad lad.” A wire-thin man who hid his blond hair beneath a bowler hat kicked Rui’s left ankle. With hooded eyelids, Rui
looked up. “For a second there, it looked like you were going to throw the fight. Now, you wouldn’t ever think of doing something
stupid like that, would ya? Because I got a lot of money riding on you these days.”
Rui didn’t answer, but once Wire Man’s gaze slid to mine, a disgusting grin on his face. “What’s this, then? Now isn’t this
a sight. A Negro girl.” As my eyebrows furrowed, he laughed. “I love myself a good Negro song as much as I do a flash ditty
and a flash song. You sing, little Negro girl?”
I recoiled at the sight of him, standing on my feet, biting the inside of my cheek to keep my rising rage from overflowing. Before he could get any closer, Rui slid between us. It didn’t matter that Wire Man was a head taller. Rui’s silent but palpable animosity caused the man to stumble back. Wire Man tripped over an empty bottle of beer and fell on his behind.
“On your arse, where you belong.” Rui grabbed my hand and turned to me. “Come, Sally.”
I didn’t argue, though my heart fluttered a little when he stepped on the man’s leg for good measure. As we passed through
the crowd, I heard myriad conversations, some, as usual, pointed at me: “Not too many of them around.”
Rui was bloodied and battered—a member of the fold here in the underground fighting ring. But I was in a fine dress and coat
suitable for an outing. It confused some. And for others, it was as if my very presence offended them. Well, it wasn’t anything
I wasn’t used to in this country.
Rui led me away from the chaos to the brick wall where only a few men stood a few paces next to us. They looked undoubtedly
upper class. Interesting, the places where men of good standing seemed to turn up. One short man dressed like a dandy handed
a newspaper over to his much rounder friend. I just spied the cartoon before he folded the page: Queen Victoria in mourning
black, her head bigger than her whole body, with gobs of bright blue tears flooding the streets.
“Old girl’s gone mad, they say. I know a chap in government from back in Eton. She refuses to see all of them, even the prime
minister.” The dandy laughed. “Wonder if she’s even useful for anything at this point, now that she’s in such a state.”
“Public opinion is turning against her,” Rui said as the men moved away to get a better view of the new fight that’d just
started.
Just the thought of it excited me. This was a country of gossip, after all. The very future of the royal family depended on when or if the public would finally realize they never had any need of them in the first place. What I’d done to Uncle George had certainly made the rounds and damaged the Queen’s name.
Which might have made her more desperate to get rid of me.
She might have her chance now.
“Sally...”
The crowd roared. Another fight was over, almost as soon as it started.
“Why do you fight?” I asked him.
“I’ve been asked that before.” Rui acknowledged an acquaintance with a nod of his head—an older man with scars all over his
face and a bald head. Even in his middle age, he was shaped like a brick, and with his shirt off he was ready to fight. “One
of the many reasons I’ve brought shame to my family.”
He reached into his pocket. I watched, stiff, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver watch. It was cracked—of
course it would be, from the fights. But not broken. He opened it, finally showing me the inside.
The clock didn’t work. Both the hour, the minute, and the second hands were stuck at six. The second hand twitched as if trying
to escape—a feeble attempt. But it was the black-and-white photo tucked into the clock’s cover that caught my eye. In a regular
parlor room, a square-jawed man with his hair perfectly combed sat in a wooden chair. Black suit, pants, and a bow tie. Two
boys stood next to him, their haircuts revealing their entire forehead. One had soft doe eyes. The other, much shorter, looked
uninterested, his expression curved into an uninviting scowl. Their black collars were so high up to their chins it should
have choked them. But their father seemed happy. His smile glimmered with kindness.
“Your father,” I guessed. Rui’s eyes hadn’t changed. They were still filled with mischief and a little bit of malice. Big and twinkling just like those of the older man.
Rui looked at me, impressed. I couldn’t pretend that didn’t move me. “A good man,” he told me, tilting his hand as he stared
at the photo. “Grew up in Xiangshan, Guangdong. Attended the Morrison Education Society School—very prestigious in Hong Kong.
Then came to London with my brother and me as a translator. He translated countless Chinese texts into English.”
So this was his brother. They looked alike—their heads small, with a sharp tip to their chins, though his brother’s face was
longer and nose rounder.
“My brother made a respectable life for himself too. He went to Edinburgh and got his PhD in anatomy and pathology. Luk Ham.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Such an upright gentleman. He’s still in Edinburgh with his wife and two darling daughters.
I believe he’s involved with the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, last I spoke to him.”
Luk Ham. The full name of Rui’s elder brother. What could Rui’s be? Even the tiniest bit of insight into Rui’s origins piqued
my curiosity. I wanted to know his name, his true name, but a timid part of me pulled me back with a gentle tug. I couldn’t
ask, not after I refused to let him call me by mine.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wire Man. He didn’t approach us—not completely. He stood with his back to the wall a few
paces away, his arms folded. He was looking me in particular up and down as he pinched his cigar between his fingers. It was
starting to bother me.
“Doesn’t seem like you speak to your brother much,” I said, shrugging off the growing irritation from that vile, nosy man.
“Well, I don’t have too many opportunities to go to Edinburgh, but when I do, his wife, Wai Ming, cooks the loveliest beef dish.” And those bright eyes began twinkling again. Even with all the bruising on his face, he seemed to come to life. “His daughters, Yee Yan and Yee Fen, are brilliant, as expected of my father’s legacy. Yee Fen in particular seems incredibly gifted in the arts. I’m certain she’ll be an actress when she grows up.” He closed his pocket watch. Seeing such a gentle smile on Rui’s lips made my hands feel warm and my heart feel soft. “Last I saw my brother he didn’t even have to tell me. I could see it in his eyes. He is genuinely, extremely happy.”
“It is a truly respectable life,” I said.
“It is.” Rui paused. “And not at all for me.”
A vicious cheer erupted from the crowd. Another man had been knocked out cold. His body was sprawled out against the ground,
bruised limp.
“Oi, give me my money, Barnes!” cried one man.
“Wait a minute, that bloke cheated. He cheated, I saw him use a knife!”
“What?”
Rui laughed and folded his arms, but this was no laughing matter. The crowd’s bickering became more volatile, and I started
to feel my heart rate pick up. Soon they’d be out of control. Unconsciously, I grabbed Rui’s sleeve, but he didn’t move an
inch. He was reveling in it—in the mayhem. He drank it in with a shark-toothed grin, and not for the first time I was both
exhilarated and terrified.
“My brother believes in playing by the rules. They’ve served him well. They’ve given him everything he’s always wanted—a loving
family, a beautiful home. I say damn the rules.” His gaze slid down to me, arresting me to the spot. “Rules are cages designed
by those with power to keep us in our places. I enjoy pain and pandemonium far better. I built for myself the life that I
wanted. On my own terms. For my own reasons. It wasn’t easy. But like I said: I like a good fight.”
A fight indeed broke out. This time was barely controlled. Bookies ran out of the way as men piled on top of each other. Panicking, I grabbed Rui’s bare shoulders, squeezing myself against him as some men ran for the staircase. One body flew in our direction, hurled by the man Rui had fought, that Goliath. I screamed. Rui wrapped his arm around the small of my back and flipped me around so his body covered mine against the onslaught. The brick scratched my back through the layers of fine clothes, now dirtied and ruined.
“Rui,” I said in barely a gasp, seeing a man smash a beer bottle on another’s head. “We need to get out of here.”
“Do we?”
I looked at him, my mouth dry. “What?”
“Can you fight for the life that you want, little princess, even if it means you break a few rules? Even if it means you get
blood on your hands?” He leaned in closer. My grip on his sleeve tightened. “Even if it means you fall?”
I remembered his words in the opium den, remembered him watching me carefully as Vale nearly gunned down Uncle George. As
I almost let him.
“Oi.” Wire Man took advantage of the mayhem to approach us. Plucking his cigarette out of his mouth, he rounded on the two
of us. “You think you can make a fool of me, do you?”
Rui looked around as a dirty shoe flew up into the air. “Who are you again?”
This made the man crazy. He slammed his fist against the wall. “You and your little Negro had better get out of my sight while I’m still behaving myself.” He reached out to push me. Rui caught his arm rather easily and shoved him onto the floor. His hat flew off his head, revealing a shocking bald spot in the center of a blond rug. He didn’t much appreciate this. But just when I thought Rui would step in to defend me, he backed off.
“Rui?” I said, my breath quickening as I looked between Rui’s retreating figure and Wire Man floundering on the floor like
a rhinoceros getting ready to charge.
“If you want to take the life that you desire,” Rui said to me, “the life you deserve, you have to fight for it. And perhaps,
little princess, you’ll have to get your hands dirty. So? What will you do? What are you willing to do to get everything you
want in life?”
The man began hurling horrendous racial, sexual epithets my way and my mind turned blank. I suddenly remembered dancing naked
in the parlor filled with jeering adults. The tears in my eyes with each of Miss Sass’s strikes of her canes. The searing
indignity of William Bambridge, royal photographer, ripping my Egbado tribe beads from my neck as he took my first portrait
for the Queen.
I remembered Ade, drowning in the Atlantic Ocean.
I clutched my chest, my fingers curled around the peach lace fabric. I felt suddenly dizzy, suddenly feral. Suddenly bloodthirsty.
“Oi!” And he called me that word again just before charging at me.
I took off my shoe and slammed the sharp heel into his temple. I kept hitting him until he hit the ground. Arranged journeys.
Arranged photos. Arranged luncheons. Arranged marriages. Arranged murders. Everything in my life since meeting Queen Victoria
had been, in a word, arranged . A strategic, slow death of my identity until I was nothing more than an empty doll whimsically named after a slave ship.
No more. No more conditional love.
No more.
I used my other foot and stomped on the man’s face until he wasn’t moving anymore.
“I will take the life that I want with my own hands,” I whispered, wiping the blood off my shoe. The red smeared the brown of my skin. “No matter who has to die to make it happen.”
Rui stared at the bloody mess of the man on the ground. Not even he expected this amount of rage. But it was time he saw it.
It was time they all witnessed me peel off the straitjacket of polite society. My viciousness made Rui’s eyes glaze and his
chest still. He bit his lip as if trying his best to tamp down something dangerously carnal rising up inside him.
Then he smiled. “That’s my girl....”