Chapter Six
She couldn’t go back to the palace. She knew that. She was in abject misery, and she knew that the only reason her stepmother hadn’t thrown her out into the street was that she was trying to play all of this to the best of her advantage.
She was pregnant with Onyx’s child, and even though her stepmother hadn’t told her stepsisters, she knew that she was weighing how to use it.
That she had realized it. Even without the two of them speaking of it.
When she had arrived home that night after the dreadful encounter with Onyx, where he had accused her of all manner of unfair and unimaginable things, when he had turned not into the cherished lover or beloved king that she had known before, but into a monster, her stepmother had met her at the door.
“I take it that didn’t go to plan.”
“No,” she said, looking her stepmother full in the face because she had no intention of being cowed.
She could not be more humiliated than she already was.
She couldn’t even face Elizabeth. Even though the other woman had known there was a possibility this could happen, even though Birdie had known, it was the vitriol in his voice, in his face, that had truly wounded her.
It was unconscionable to him that she was the mother of his child. That she was the one he’d slept with.
“Poor Birdie. At least you’ll always have your family.”
It had been a threat, not a comfort, and Birdie was simply waiting for exactly what might happen.
Would her stepmother sell her story to the press? Would she attempt to blackmail the palace? Any of those things were possible for her stepmother, also secret, maniacal options that Birdie—as a normal human being—couldn’t fathom.
And so she had been waiting. Until the day the king arrived at her house.
“Go upstairs,” her stepmother said.
“Absolutely not,” Birdie said. “I have to speak to him.”
If he was here, then it meant maybe they could have a reasonable conversation.
Maybe. Even if they couldn’t quite rise to the level of reasonable, as she had been sitting with all of this for the past few days, she knew that she did need to see him again.
Because they had to come to an agreement about how they were going to handle this.
Even though she was bitter at him, hated him almost as much as she’d ever loved him for the way that he had hurt her that night, she knew that they had to have a conversation.
He was a king, and she had very little power.
She also had no money to take care of her child. Her child’s father was a king, and that child was owed his father’s money. Status. It had nothing to do with what Birdie wanted for herself. Everything to do with the fact that as it was in her power, she would make her child comfortable.
Undoubtedly, the king would see that as evidence that she was a gold digger.
She didn’t care. Her own father had left her with nothing to her name.
Her stepmother had control of absolutely everything—such as it was.
It had left Birdie vulnerable to this abuse by her family, and one thing she would never, ever do was leave her child vulnerable.
Nor would she allow a father to dodge his financial responsibility. To put anything before that child.
She loved her father. It was difficult for her to admit to herself that he had let her down.
Easier to blame her stepmother, who was still here, and actively causing harm in her life.
But the truth was, her father could have protected her.
He should have known his wife well enough to have seen that she would give everything to herself, and her own children, that she would never treat Birdie like one of her own.
He hadn’t done that for her. Whether because he was blinded by his love, or because he didn’t want to make waves. Birdie refused to be blinded, and she would make waves. She would make a whole typhoon if she had to.
“I said get upstairs.”
“And I said no.”
“You ungrateful little brat.”
“What do I have to be grateful for? You’ve done nothing but abuse me, treat me like a servant. You’ve done nothing but spend the money that I earn and—”
She grabbed the back of Birdie’s neck, and pinned her arm behind her back, forcing her to begin marching up the stairs. “Stop,” Birdie shouted.
“You will get upstairs. Or I will throw you down them. And then what will happen to your royal meal ticket?”
Stunned by the cruelty, Birdie didn’t fight as she was shoved into the attic room, the door locked firmly behind her.
She could hear her stepmother going back downstairs and she pressed her ear to the door, trying to hear what was going on. She closed her eyes, her heart throbbing in her chest.
It was the strangest thing to be suspended in this moment. Where both the king and her stepmother felt like her adversaries, and she had to root for one of them.
No. You don’t. You root for yourself. Yes.
She was on her own team. Her own side. She cared about her future.
And the future of her child. If Onyx couldn’t be the man that she had dreamed he was, she would be everything that her child needed.
She would be the mother that she had always longed to know.
She would be everything her child needed, but it started now.
It started with facing them both down. She had never considered herself downtrodden.
But over the years, her world had gotten smaller and smaller, and things that should’ve felt outrageous had begun to feel reasonable.
The way that her stepmother treated her.
The way that she locked her away. The way that she had been so controlled.
The way her entire life was situated around other people.
Their desires. Their comfort. She had thought that it was acceptable because they were family.
Because it was the last thing her father had said to her.
And then, she had begun to idolize Onyx.
Because he was beautiful. Because she saw him every day and he treated her with the most basic kindness. But when she had needed him most he had betrayed her. And so now she had clarity.
She would fly with her own wings.
She wouldn’t wait for anyone’s permission; she wouldn’t wait for their acceptance or their kindness.
She had courage. That was all that mattered.
She went into the bathroom and began to dig through her makeup bag.
Inside, she found all of the pins that she used to secure her hair every day for her work at the palace.
She smiled just slightly, because they would be her route to freedom.
She began to fiddle with the lock in the door, bending and twisting and contorting one hairpin, bringing down one of the lock mechanisms, and letting that pin rest there as she grabbed another and twisted it, driving it through the center of the lock until she heard it click.
And then, Birdie freed herself.
She stepped right out of the attic, lifted her chin high and began to walk down the stairs. She heard voices, angry male voices, and the sound of her stepmother, who was also angry, but clearly continuing to try to insert herself into this whole situation with the king.
“She has run away, Your Highness. She is such a treasonous and willful girl. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was trying to pass the child of another man off as yours.
She isn’t faithful. It’s one reason I’ve had to keep such an eye on her all these years.
It’s done her well to work at the palace because it keeps her focused.
Without which I fear she runs about spreading her legs for everyone and everything. ”
Just then, Birdie reached the bottom of the stairs, and rounded the corner to the entryway.
“Isn’t it so nice that I was able to take a break from my whoring to attend to this conversation that seems to be about me.”
Her stepmother whirled around. “What are you doing here?”
“Did you not remember that you locked me in the attic? A couple of hairpins sorted me out just fine.”
“Locked in the attic?”
For the first time, she forced herself to look at Onyx. He was flanked by Andrei, the two of them looking like angels of death. Onyx held one of her shoes in his hand.
“I have come to retrieve you,” he said.
“I don’t recall asking to be retrieved.”
“It is a command. From your king.”
“Your Highness, with no offense meant whatsoever, you had your opportunity for me to go with you willingly. You spoiled it.”
“But I am a king, and so my word will be law, will it not?”
She realized then, that while she didn’t wish to go with him forever, that while she didn’t wish to rely on him, she might need to use him as a getaway car.
She was hardly going to break past him and his head of security.
That was a bit ambitious, even for her. Even for the maternal surge of determination and protectiveness that had risen up in her breast.
“All right. I will go with you. But whether or not I stay with you is another matter.”
His dark eyes flashed with rage. “I don’t think you understand what’s happening here. I am the king. You are in no position to make demands. You are—”
“I know,” she said. “I’m a servant. I mean nothing to you. I am little more than an inconvenience to be dealt with to you. But to me, I am a woman. Entirely. With my own hopes and my own dreams, with my own goals.”
Conviction built within her breast as she spoke, as she found it in her to not only say the words, but to believe them. As she found her own strength, not in promises she made to her father, not in the feelings she’d been carrying for Onyx, but in her own spine of steel, her own desires.