Thirty-Three
Thirty-Three
Bertie woke up naked. That, along with his nasty hangover, had convinced him that something wonderful must have happened last
night. I let him believe what he wanted.
“Go ahead, dear.” Standing outside the mansion in the cold morning, I kissed him on the cheek. The carriage had just rolled
up to the stairs. “You have things to take care of in London. I’ll stay here for a day more.”
“You like this place, do you?” Bertie gave me a wink. “Or perhaps what you really like are the memories it now holds for you?”
He leaned in to kiss my lips, grunting in disappointment when I turned my head to the side just in time.
“Go ahead, Bertie. Gowramma will keep me company.”
What he didn’t know was that Gowramma had left last night.
“Don’t lose yourself in all this.” Gowramma’s final words to me before she fled Mulgrave Castle.
I wouldn’t lose myself. I’d done some soul searching of my own. I knew what I wanted. What I needed.
Once Gowramma and Bertie had gone, Rui and I had Mulgrave Castle to ourselves.
We lay in the bed, half-asleep and immobile, our bodies entangled in each other, prey to the chill in the room. I didn’t let Rui leave. I wrapped my arms around his back and laid my head against the pillow. He nuzzled his nose in the crook of my neck, about to sleep.
“It was John Brown, wasn’t it?” I whispered to him before dreams could take him. “He’s the one behind your father’s predicament.”
Rui let out a surprised huff, hot against my neck. Not exactly what he was expecting to hear after a morning like this, but
I needed to know. I figured by now the deal we’d struck in Strangers’ Home no longer held. We were... closer now. With
a little smile, he rolled over onto his back. He stayed there for a moment, still catching his breath, his eyes closed.
“He had accompanied the Queen’s husband on some secret excursion through Whitechapel. In disguise, of course. Royals like
to do that from time to time. A man attacked him at a pub and escaped. My father would never enter a pub. But he passed by
one that night. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. John Brown wrongfully accused him. Well, I guess he couldn’t
tell him and the attacker apart.”
Rui opened his eyes, staring at the white ceiling. “My father was jailed for nothing.”
“I suppose that’s why you took your chance to kill John Brown at the séance.”
Rui paused. He was choosing his words carefully, I could tell. “I didn’t manage it,” he whispered. “But I did manage to get
rid of your problems.”
“Wilkes and Sass.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Two birds. One stone.”
“Except it was Queen Victoria who had Dalton Sass in the end.”
Rui sat up and looked down on me, baffled, I suppose, by my pleasant, serene expression. “You’re not angry with me?”
“Why should I be?” I scratched my head through my thick hair, now not so tidy. “You did get rid of my problems in one fell
swoop. I thank you.”
Next, Rui narrowed his eyes, studying me. “You’re not conflicted.”
“Not anymore.” I turned and looked at Queen Victoria’s letter, which I’d left on the brown ottoman next to the door. “Not anymore. No more guilt. No more apologies. I will not apologize when no one has ever apologized to me.”
Rui lowered his head with a satisfied grin. “I think we finally understand each other, Sally.”
“I think we do.” I sat up and gave him a kiss, one he returned happily. But when he held my shoulders and gently pushed me
away from him, I caught the hint of warning in his eyes.
“If you understand me, then you understand this: nothing matters to me more than punishing those responsible for my father’s
pain.” He leaned in and, after kissing my ear, whispered, “I hope you understand that, Sally. I expect your full cooperation.”
A warning. A threat perhaps. I didn’t know. The very idea of either lit a fire inside me. My passion went beyond the pleasures
of the flesh. What I’d always wanted—what I’d always needed—would soon come to fruition.
Ade and I were almost there....
It was a busy few days in London after I left Mulgrave. First, I surprised George Reynolds, editor of the Reynolds Weekly Newspaper , at a gentlemen’s club in the West End. He came there every Thursday night. I pulled him into a private room away from the
cigar smoke and shoved the Queen’s letter in his hands.
“I have your mistresses on standby, complete with birth records of your illegitimate children,” I said, pressing him against
the door as he read the Queen’s letter in horror. I took it from him before he could tear it or tamper with it in any way,
giving him the copy I’d perfectly created in its place. “I expect this letter to be published by the end of the week. Don’t
delay.”
When I returned home, Mama Schoen was waiting for me.
She stood on the doorstep and held a letter stamped with the royal seal. My lips pursed as I took in the sight of her worried
eyes.
“A royal attendant delivered this to me earlier today,” she said all in one breath, her hands shaking. “The Queen requires
your presence in Balmoral immediately. Captain Davies has already gone. Isn’t this wonderful?”
I took the letter, but didn’t read it. It didn’t matter. If the Queen wanted to see me I wouldn’t have much of a choice once
the carriages arrived. But that was all well and good.
I crumpled the letter in my hand. Mrs. Schoen covered her gasp in shock as I dropped it callously to the ground.
“Sally.” Mama gripped my wrists so tightly I thought they’d break. “What in the world... what’s gotten into you?”
It was a question better suited to the Queen.
Balmoral Castle would be the perfect stage for my final act—and the Queen’s demise.
That night I had a strange dream.
A dream long forgotten by day’s break.
I was standing on the shores of my motherland.
Grains of sand rubbed between my brown toes.
Ade sat in a boat about to leave the shore.
A wave of crystal-white waters crashed against my bare legs.
Ina... , he said, and reached out his hand to me....