Chapter 14
Charles was right about one thing: I am the shiny new object. Now that I’ve been at multiple events with Her Majesty and her godchildren, and been seen doing fashionable things with Leo, people feel much more comfortable coming up to me and talking.
So. Much. Talking.
“Are you the Hindoo princess?”
“Sure. Yeah. Umm-hmm.” Why not?
“You don’t talk funny.”
“Some would say you do talk funny.”
“I say…” *unintelligible sounds of British affront*
“No, yeah. Like that is funny.”
That man goes off in a huff, mumbling further British sounds of indignance. But I can’t understand what he’s saying, beyond general unhappiness at me, so I don’t think it’s as effective as he thinks it is.
“Do you have tigers?”
“No.” But I can’t be mad at that one, because, honestly, if having Rajah was a safe, ethical option, I would have a cuddly big cat.
“Why aren’t you wearing Hindoo clothes? They’re so pretty.”
“They fell off the boat.” I’m getting so good at lying. And talking to strangers.
In the meantime, Leo has danced with three other women who aren’t named Meera. But after that he remembers he’s courting someone and comes back to me. All flushed with excitement. Over other women.
Great.
“This night is going so well.” He reclaims my hand and walks me around the room.
“Yeah.” Because it is, if you judge it by the metrics of our deal. No one has outed me as a fraud from the future and he’s getting the attention he needs to marry rich.
I have no reason to be upset.
Which makes me more upset, actually.
“Want to play cards?” Leo asks when we find ourselves in the card room.
“Sure.” These shoes do pinch. Some things haven’t changed after all, despite the giant advancements in other arenas.
In the card room, Leo teaches me whist, another thing I know only in theory.
I’m delighted that it goes better than him trying to teach me how to dance.
Not that it could have gone worse than that, as I am very uncoordinated.
But like every time I go out with Leo, this is the most fun I’ve had in a while, and he even makes losing easy to take.
Not that we lose much; we do surprisingly well. And even win some money by the end of the night. But then one of the footmen tells me that the queen wants to leave, and I say my goodbyes.
“My lady.” Leo elaborately bows to me in front of the carriage while Queen Victoria is finishing her goodbyes.
“I’m not a lady.” I’m getting sick of the lying to him, even though it’s an important component of my survival in the past.
“You are in my eyes,” Leo says, putting his hand on his chest.
I roll my eyes. Charming rake, even if it is an act.
Then Leo extends our winnings out to me.
“No. You take it.” I push the money back to him. He did spot us the original amount, and I don’t need any money right now. What with the Queen of England sponsoring me, living in a palace, and wearing a princess’s clothes.
He divides the amount. “At least take half. You never know when you will need cash. I speak from experience.”
I accept this time. He’s right. I should have a little bit of money, especially since that letter is making its way back to the Queen while I get no closer to finding out how to get home.
“Thank you.” I tuck the money in my purse.
Leo’s brown eyes get brighter. Or maybe they just get closer and I can see them better in the dim light of the night, only illuminated by the flickering candles on the exterior of the house. “I enjoyed—”
“Good evening, Lord Basildon. Lovely night. So glad you could come.” Victoria sweeps between us, forcing us apart as she gets into the carriage.
“I should go. Can’t keep the Queen of England waiting.” I just said that without any irony.
“Probably for the best. I will call on you tomorrow.”
“I look forward to it.”
As the carriage gets going, I peek out the window to see Leo still standing outside the house, watching us get eaten up by the London evening fog.
Which happens after about twenty feet, because the London evening fog is no joke.
“He’s a good boy, that one. Shame about his father. But a lovely boy.” Victoria drags my attention inside the carriage instead of trying to see through fog to catch a few more glances at Leo.
“Yes. He is rather lovely.” But I don’t want her to think badly of him when he inevitably dumps me and marries an heiress.
So the least I can do is some preemptive damage control.
“But he does have responsibilities to his title. I won’t be surprised if he ends up with…
well, you know.” I hope she can pick up on my subtext while I avoid saying “a rich bitch.”
“I do know. But I do not like it. Any of it. You two get along so well, and you are perfectly matched.” I’m reminded again of how lonely Victoria felt throughout her life, after Albert’s death of course, but even before she met him.
It’s hard to have friends when you’re meant to be above everyone, I guess.
“It’s probably better this way.” What with me being a future-lady.
“Hmm. Well, we will not give up. I am certain we can find someone for you. Victor, Duleep Singh’s son, is unmarried. That would be a good match.”
I laugh nervously. “That is incredibly generous, Your Majesty.” But he is going to marry Lady Anne Coventry in three years, and I think that would qualify as changing history if I married him instead.
Also, she knows nothing about him other than we’re both Indian and sort of royal, which might be enough for these people, but I would like to get to know my partner better than that.
Maybe share some interests. Maybe enjoy spending time with them, before I marry them for life.
Like I have been with Leo. But no, that is not an option for so many reasons. For one thing, he needs money and I have nothing. For another, any interest he has in me is solely because I’m so different from everyone else he knows. There’s nothing special about me.
I’m going to have to have to avoid matchmaking, while not offending Victoria who is housing and feeding me.
She smiles at me, the same smile I’ve seen directed at me that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. It probably gets closest to a full smile around Abdul. The way it probably did around John and Albert.
The way I’m worried mine does around Leo, damn it.
* * *
The next morning, I wake up with a plan. I need to walk around London.
Okay, it’s not the most specific of plans. But I defy anyone else to come up with a more specific plan on how to figure out time travel.
Maybe I can find someone who won’t think I need to go to Bedlam. Maybe this is something that happens more than everyone thinks. Of course, no one knows about it, so any time travelers are good at hiding their secrets. That’ll be a hard point to get around.
But I have a plan which, despite how vague it is, is more than I had last night. And if I get to see some more of Victorian London, then the trip won’t be a waste no matter what I find. Or don’t find.
Anne comes into my room to help me dress.
“Do you have anything…not as nice?” I ask.
Anne replies with a look full of meaning. Mostly judgment, wondering why I would turn down the beauty in front of me.
Because I have places to be. Places I want to blend into.
I answer her unasked question, because I’m a people pleaser at heart. “I want to take a walk, and I’d feel bad if I got dirt on the princess’s clothes.”
That reduces the judgement. “But miss, you have a lot of callers. Maybe we can put on one of the nicer dresses first, and later I can find something for you to walk around in?”
“I’m sorry. Callers? More than one?”
“Many more than one.”
“What is going on?” The plan might be working too well if people feel the need to visit me. Unless callers is a ruse, and it’s people coming to arrest me.
“Everyone is excited to meet you, miss. What with you stayin’ with Her Majesty, and…”
Being more exotic than a box of chai. Yeah, she doesn’t need to finish that one for me; I can get there myself. And it won’t help to piss anyone off, at least not at this stage.
Unless that person is Charles. Seriously, fuck that guy.
But I do look out the window to gaze longingly at the trees and sigh, thwarted again from my plan to find a way home by this gilded cage I’m trapped in.
“Let’s do your plan.” I let Anne work her magic, my own fairy godmother transforming me into a respectable Victorian lady. She’s very good at it and doesn’t comment at all when I get giddy at being able to touch the items she brings forward.
Like the shoes. Not only are there no gloves between me and the material, but I also get to put my feet in them!
And then walk around in them! A historian’s dream.
Minus being trapped in the past and in danger of being found out every second.
And my period will happen at some point, and I would prefer not to experience diaper-like belt contraptions or rudimentary tampons.
Even this historian has a line on how real she wants to get in the name of research.
I follow Anne down the stairs and into the drawing room, where a small crowd of people are waiting to chat with me, all in various states of getting tea from a tray or drinking said tea.
“Good morning,” I say tentatively. A sea of feathered and floral hats turns toward me as one, letting me know all my visitors are women today.
I stifle my disappointment that Leo isn’t here.
He isn’t actually courting me; he’s allowed to sleep in.
“It’s so nice to see you all,” I say, despite me wishing they would all go away so I could get shit done.
The seven people in the room all start talking at once, giving me a headache from trying to figure out who I should be paying attention too. Probably the one with the biggest, oldest title is the one I need to make sure is on my side.
Where’s a copy of Debrett’s Peerage some hostile, some curious; most in between.
“Hot. Sometimes rainy and hot. The food is good. With like spices and stuff. Um. There’s nice architecture.
Lots of domes and sculptural reliefs. A lot of monkeys.
And cows.” I try to remember my last trip to India, which was when I was in high school.
Mom’s been wanting to go back, especially during Diwali or maybe Holi, but there never seems to be any time.
Also, it is very difficult to distill an entire country into a succinct answer.
“Lots of interesting history. The first civilization with a plumbing system.”
The women continue to grill me like a prosecutor in a highly publicized murder trial. I can feel the handcuffs tightening around my wrists with all of their questions, but then they finally get bored and leave.
None of them yelled “fraud” at me, and I only wanted to punch one of them when she smugly told me about her uncle in the military who was stationed in India. Instead, I ground out a “Good for him” through clenched teeth and a hint of a snarl.
But now they’re finally gone. I run back up the stairs to my room, then freeze when I realize that I can’t get undressed without help. Anne, a paragon of maids, appears before I can frustrated cry at my lack of ability to be independent.
I’m grateful. It would have sucked to have kept it mostly together through actual time travel and then have a breakdown over a dress.
Anne helps me into another dress, this one still not what I would have picked if someone had told me they were going to go traipsing through the dirt, but at least it’s not made of silk.
Anne walks with me through the palace hallways until we make it the patio overlooking the back garden.
Lush green trees sway in the gentle breeze and provide privacy for the outdoor space in the middle of a city while a lake in the background draws birds to the area.
Dense shrubberies dot the landscape, and the focus is a more naturalistic looking garden than the formal gardens of the eighteenth century.
“You don’t need to come with me. I’m just going on a walk in the gardens. And it’s gated around here, so I think I should be safe.” I slowly back away from Anne and toward the garden space. “How much trouble could I possibly get in while I’m in the gardens?”
It’s a good thing TV hasn’t been invented yet, because if Anne had ever seen a sitcom, she would know that is the cue to not leave me alone.
That would be the cue to lock me up in a tower and throw the key away, because I just signaled to her that I was most definitely going to be getting into some trouble.
Luckily for me, Anne isn’t up on her sitcoms, so she shrugs and stays where she is while I walk into the gardens. I give her a few more minutes to make sure she’s not going to change her mind and come back out, and then I sneak around the side of the palace, running as quietly as I can.
But it’s a giant building, with very long sides.
And I’m wearing so many layers. Which means my sneaky run quickly descends into a fast walk.
And even quicker, that deteriorates into a regular walk where I’m panting but still trying very hard not to make too much noise.
Which makes the panting louder, because of course it does.
I’m in academia. I do not break out of palaces or evade the Queen’s Guard; I read books. This is new to me.
But I shouldn’t have been worried. I passed some guards and they didn’t even bat an eye at me wandering around the place.
I can see how that kid snuck in and sat on the throne, early in Victoria’s reign.
Then again, I would assume news has spread that I’m a guest, and guests can walk around the gardens when they want.
When step one of the escape plan is done, I turn to step two: finding transportation.
I could lie to the stable workers and say Victoria gave me permission to take a carriage out. I’m getting so good at lying lately.
Then I remember that the stables are behind the palace.
Closer to where I started from. I turn to make the slow walk back, sad at the unnecessary cardio, when someone grabs my arm from behind.
I scream and throw both hands up as I turn, ready to defend myself from whatever fresh hell this time wants to throw at me now.