Chapter 36
Charles bursts through the drawing room door like the water out of the geysers at Yellowstone: violently, loudly, and creating a mess that could burn me if I stand too close.
In his hand is a letter which he waves back and forth with an expectant look, like we should know what’s in it and should look suitably impressed.
“A piece of paper?” Victoria’s voice is cold. “You interrupted your monarch’s lovely evening to show me a paper?”
“Your Majesty, I apologize for the interruption.” He gives a belated bow, but his eyes lock on mine on his way down, gleeful in a menacing way that makes me look for every exit in this room.
Shit. Charles has been suspicious of me since I got here and I can only think of one thing that would put that look on his face.
He has proof I’m a liar and a fraud, taking advantage of the monarch next to me.
I mean. There may be other things to put an evil grin on his face: extracting record profits out of India, colonizing some other unsuspecting part of the world, stealing the voice of a young ingenue via a contract containing unfair terms.
Standard villain stuff.
But the evil grin is focused on me, so I’m going to make an educated guess and say this is about me.
Which means I need to get back to an exit strategy.
And after I just decided to give Leo a chance, too.
Because a large part of my most recent plan was to be a marchioness before the letter came.
Or at least talk to Victoria before she could get the news in this way.
There’s no chance she’ll want to protect me, or us, if she hears the news from Charles, made to look even worse than it is, without us easing her into this.
I slide away from Leo and off the couch. Charles, who has been glaring at me since he started to bow, hurries out of the movement so he can get back to pointing and accusing.
“I knew all along she was a fraud and now I have proof!” He shakes the all-important paper again, in case we forgot how important it is to the moment.
“That is quite an ugly accusation to make towards my guest. And so late in the evening.” I don’t know if she’s madder about the accusation or the timing, but I don’t wait to find out.
Instead, I go on the attack.
“I have never been so offended!” I develop a bit of an English accent, as it is the best accent to show deep disdain in any given situation.
I stalk toward the man who interrupted the serenity of my unexpected and very wanted time with Leo.
“To insult my character, nay, my parentage, in this manner is inexcusable. I was led to believe that the English were a civil people.” I barely contain the snort at that assertion, considering what they’re currently doing in the world.
“But this is beyond the bounds of decency. I am a guest in your country, and in this residence.”
Each word brings me closer to Charles, and to the door into the hall behind him. Leo, who hasn’t exactly realized what I’m working up to doing, is laughing at my dressing down of the Secretary of State.
“I do apologize.” Victoria is glaring at Charles. “You may return to your room while I listen to what the very rude government official has to say.”
That won’t help; he’s telling the truth and probably has the letter from the Cooch Behar court to prove it to everyone in this room. But she has given me a way out of the room that isn’t just running away.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. I am certainly not going to sit here and listen to this slander.”
I move quickly, not at a run yet, but as close as I can be without making it obvious to the entire room that I’m fleeing in guilt. I don’t look back as I fast-walk to my room, hearing Charles yelling after me and Victoria yelling at him.
I get the bag with notebooks and money, grateful that Charles or Leo didn’t follow me up (for very different reasons) and that I didn’t bother to unpack this bag after arriving here. Maybe Leo still thinks he can intercede on my behalf and make it all better, but it’s too late to help now.
In all these layers, I flinch with every step I take and sound I make.
I try to hold my breath to minimize the noise I make, attempting to channel a graceful, sneaky cat but probably sounding more like a heavy-breathing, clumsy bulldog instead.
Who is rustling an entire fabric shop worth of clothes.
My muscles tense even more when I get closer to the drawing room door. I don’t know if they stayed in that room to talk, but the eerily quiet house isn’t helping my already paranoid mind and I imagine them jumping out at me from behind every corner and large cabinet.
I wish I had been nosier and done some more investigation of the house before now.
Because I’m sure there are other ways to get out besides crossing where everyone still probably is, but I don’t know what they are.
Since there’s nothing else I can do about it, I begin to cross the dining room’s open doorway.
“There she is! I knew she would try to leave, now that we know she is a liar and a criminal!”
Verbose motherfucker. I abandon all pretense of sneaking, hiking up my dress and petticoat with one hand, the other tightening on my bag with books in it, and start sprinting.
Or as close to sprinting as I can get. Me, who hasn’t run since the sadists who were imprudently allowed to teach PE in middle school made me run the mile. Without ever doing any training or exercises that would actually improve my running time.
But I never had a stuffy, racist aristocrat running after me back then. A shame, because this motivation is working to get me what will probably be my fastest mile time ever.
However little preparation I have for this footrace, it seems that Charles is even less ready. At least I have to walk around my hilly college campus every day to get to the lecture hall from my parking lot. Charles looks like he’s carried everywhere by his chairmen.
I’m running to the front door and freedom, but Charles calls out to the footmen there, who move to block my path.
I don’t know if they’re listening to him or just confused at the sudden, yelled instructions, but I don’t wait to find out.
I immediately turn to my left and head toward the main wing of Osborne House, where the public rooms are.
I push through the first door I come across at the end of the grand corridor, which leads to the back gardens of the house, running blindly into the poorly lit space.
The sun, betrayer that she is, leaves me to help people on the other side of the world who probably aren’t even fleeing for their lives.
And leaves me to navigate the rapidly darkening garden.
“Meera!” Leo calls out for me, but I don’t stop or look back to see where he is. It’s too hard, and will lead me to do something I’ll regret, like staying and dealing with the consequences of my lie, ruining both of our lives.
Leo’s yells get closer, and he must be in better shape than all of us, because he overtakes Charles and catches up to me, when he visibly slows down to match my pace. And where did he get all this athleticism?
“What’s happening?” He’s not even out of breath. Ass.
“Charles…knows…lying…fleeing.” Each word is forced out through a chest too tight, through lungs that are punishing me for taking precious, life-giving air from the act of breathing while running to form unnecessary words.
“Stay, Meera. Stay and marry me. I’ll make this right with Her Majesty. And we will work to support ourselves. Really do work, to get my family out of debt. It will all be okay. Just choose to stay. Choose me.”
What, is he going to recite Shakespeare’s complete works next? We get it, his respiratory system is functioning at an optimal level.
“Can’t…” I push out. Meaning both I can’t stay and I can’t talk right now. No matter how much I want to do both.
“Stop…running. Footmen…coming,” Charles yells, just as out of breath as me. At least that’s something, in the slowest foot chase in history.
I ignore them both and focus on the darkness in front of me.
All it will take is a stumble or one trip, and then I’ll have a chance to break free.
I could either run onto the beach which I can follow to a town, or directly into East Cowes.
Either way, I should be able to find a place here or get on a ferry to London, and then disappear into history.
I’m so consumed with avoiding the men behind me and planning the life in front of me, that I don’t notice I’m at the top of the steps that brought me here and began this entire adventure. Since I don’t notice they exist, I definitely don’t notice the ledge of the first step.
The one that my right foot rolls right over. I have a moment where I teeter on the edge, and Leo reaches out his hand, in slow motion, to try to stop the inevitable.
“I love you, Leo,” I yell out as my body loses the battle with gravity and rolls down those stairs, tumbling head over feet, a flurry of dress and petticoat and a bag that I clutch against my chest.
Not this again.