Chapter 10
The ground pitches and rolls as I stumble on the top deck of Victoria’s royal yacht, holding on tighter to Leo for balance. He tucks the muscular arm I’m holding tighter against his solid torso and extends his other hand in case my stumbles turn into full-on falls. A very real danger.
Although the risk of a fall might be worth it to be wrapped in Leo’s arms again.
I’m in so many layers I don’t think I can physically bruise from the fall, and I missed him last night.
His banter, his touch (through layers of clothes), and his carefree approach to life (even when it annoys me) were all things I got used to at our first ball, and all things I missed at the second.
Since he was busy enjoying the fruits of our plan. And I was busy keeping a plant company.
A few men might have looked for me to dance, but I avoided them all with the expertise of someone who knows a subpoena is coming, dodging everyone like they’re potential process servers.
“Not quite used to sea travel?” he asks.
“No.”
“That must make the voyages between India, America and England torture.” His tone isn’t accusatory, but the statement tells me I’m being suspicious again. Or “curious,” as he likes to call me.
And I can’t exactly tell him that I’m not used to boats because I travel on planes.
“My body adapts eventually during a trip and then immediately forgets everything it learned about the motion of the ocean about ten seconds after I’m back on dry land.
” I do always get butterflies in my stomach when I take off and land in planes, no matter how many times I fly. That must be the same principal.
“Let’s get you seated. There is a topside lounge. If you can make it another twenty feet.”
“I’ll manage.” But I tighten my hand around his bicep anyway. For stability. Completely ignoring the smooth wooden railings along the luxury boat.
Leo opens the door to the lounge, and I brush past him to get inside, followed by Anne, who has been following me like a shadow. There are a few members of the royal household already in the lounge, and they give us judgmental looks but return to their conversations.
I sit down on the closest surface, a blue tufted bench. The same bench goes along the entire edge of the room, with a gleaming wooden dining table in the middle. Windows cover the walls above the couches, so I can still enjoy the view while not being sprayed by the sea.
If only my stomach wasn’t trying to stage a rebellion to rival the one that happened in the US in 1775. Instead, I lean back and close my eyes as Leo sits down next to me.
“It will not be a long trip, Your Highness.”
It’s so weird to be addressed as a princess. And reminds me that I’m a liar. “Thanks. But please call me Meera.”
“That’s very familiar.”
“I’m odd, remember?”
“Not odd. But curious, I would say.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Odd implies something I should probably avoid. Curious makes me want to investigate further.”
His voice is low when he says that, making me strain to hear him over the water crashing against the side of the boat. Sitting down, I feel stable enough to raise my head, open my eyes, and look at him again.
He’s looking back at me, attentive even though I was practically having a nap on the bench.
His wavy hair looks especially soft in the filtered light of the lounge, making me want to run my hand through it not only to see how soft it is, but to watch it move and bounce as I straighten it then let it go.
Right now it’s flopping over one eye. Rakishly.
A fitting attribute for my first ever, real life rake.
It's no longer just a concept I’ve read about in historic romances.
“I want to know more about you,” he says.
“The truth. Where you are from. What you do there. How you think. You already know everything there is to know about me. Anything worth reporting in the papers, at any rate.” The last two sentences are said in a tone so bitter it gives me whiplash from the cheerful, demanding tone of the first few.
And from his general I love life outlook.
But my real story would make his head explode. “There’s more to people than what’s fit for newspapers.”
It’s why I love diaries so much. The big events are reported in history, written about and analyzed by contemporaries and modern historians.
But in a diary, I get to see what someone actually thought when no one else was looking, about every day, ordinary subjects.
It’s intimate. It makes me feel close to them.
Not too many people keep them. Not even me, even though I’ve started one approximately twelve times at various stages of my life, never to be kept up for more than a few weeks each time. I should probably start one now. Except if someone read it, I would be locked away. Maybe not then.
But I don’t just want to know about the big moments in famous people’s lives.
I want to connect to those people, see how they thought about what was happening to them.
Get a peek into what their daily life looked like.
Ideally, I would be able to read them from more people in the past, from the aristocrat who lived in the country house, to the builder who built it, to the maid who worked in it, to the coal miner who supplied fuel for it.
But it doesn’t really work that way, unfortunately.
“It is the only thing that lasts.”
“Maybe.” This historian can’t argue with that. “But who cares what people a hundred, or even two hundred, years from now think? The people who are close to you know you in a way the papers never will. And that’s special too.”
“I want to know you.”
He’s persistent. Not so much of a careless rake then. “I’m a scholar. I study history and then write about it and teach it.” There, I can give him part of my story, without any unnecessary details. Like geography, or time period.
“What do you study?”
“Mostly the history of Indian immigrants and those with Indian heritage in the United Kingdom.”
“Ah, you find me worthy of study.” He takes a second to preen, and I think this is where I’m supposed to fawn over him.
I don’t. Not because I disagree with him, because I do think he’s worthy of study.
But because it’ll make his already inflated ego burst. So I fawn on the inside. “Why that area specifically?” he asks.
“It’s close to home—my parents are immigrants, and I’ve moved around for my education. So I find the immigrant experience here an interesting reflection of my own, with its own differences which are also fascinating.”
“America must be a very progressive place.”
“Weeeeell, let’s just say I’m lucky and have opportunities that not many people here”—more like now—“have.”
I hold my breath but he accepts it without asking for more details. “Are you being courted in your home? Is someone going to be jealous of me and our fake courtship when you return?”
“No. I’ve been busy, with studying and work. There haven’t been any serious…suitors.” And they would laugh themselves out of my office if they heard me call them suitors.
“Why?”
“The…courtships never seen to go anywhere. And I have work anyway, so I don’t have time to court.
” That’s not just it. I just haven’t found someone who wanted to be with me, and everything tends to fizzle out before it gets serious.
I’m not fun like Leo; most of my free time is spent ranting that no one respects my field of study. That’s hard to deal with, maybe.
“You are dedicated.”
“I guess. I have good friends through work and my family doesn’t live near me but I’m able to caaa…
write letters to them. On paper.” The telephone has been invented, but it’s use isn’t widespread right now, especially in England.
“What about you? Tell me about yourself.” I order before he can wonder too much at what I was going to say.
“Much less exciting than you, I’m afraid. Eton, then Cambridge. Then enjoying life in London and the family seat when Father inherited, until he died and I realized just how badly he was doing. And how I had not been helping with my own activities. The drinking, gambling, hunting, et cetera.”
“I would have loved to go to Eton and then Cambridge. Not to be unappreciative to my own schools, which at least let women in.” I send him a pointed look, despite it not really being his fault.
“But there would be something really special learning about history in history.” My campus was mostly built in the 1920s, which is basically ancient for California, but not quite the same as Cambridge.
“I never thought of it like that. I can take you, if you want to go. It will not be as exciting as studying there, but at least no one will flog you.”
“Oh, god. No thanks on floggings.” I cross my arms then ruin the effect my leaning forward to whisper, “But I will take that trip to the schools.”
“No corporal punishment for you?”
“No. A teacher who needs to beat their students isn’t very good at their job.”
“That is not the prevailing outlook here, I’m afraid.”
“Well, they’re wrong.”
“Probably.” The agreement is easy, no fervent defense of the way things are done just because that’s how they’ve always been done. Impressive from this dinosaur. “Where else would you like to go in London?”
I smile slowly and widely, like the Grinch does when he thinks of stealing Christmas.
“You don’t know what you’re offering me.
” I take a deep breath. “But I’d love to go to the British Museum, and all the palaces and Westminster Abbey and Parliament and all the country houses that let polite tourists in, and honestly, any house I could get into—” I progressively bounce higher and higher in my seat, the seasickness forgotten, or at least pushed aside, at the prospect of seeing all those places I’ve studied. “Anywhere and everywhere, basically.”
But I keep some of the places off the list, because if I try complete honesty, like mentioning I also want to visit the Indian community in Limehouse, I don’t think he’ll react well to it.
And even though he seems nice enough, he’s still an aristocrat who can turn me in if I annoy him too much, because he has a lot more power than me here and people who have been given everything can have fickle natures, even if we’re supposed to be in this together.
I need to remember that, and keep distance between us.
“All right, all right.” Leo laughs at me. “I will take you to all of the places that propriety lets me take you.”
“Thank you.” I settle back in. “Can I also add a blank notebook to the list of things I want out of this agreement?”
“Yes, I shall procure you a notebook. Is there anything else you would like?”
“Writing tools would be great.”
I don’t know how this all works, but I know I’ll want a written recollection of this adventure. It might be the first diary I stick to.
Even if I can’t share it, or this experience with anyone else, I can still have it for me.