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.Chooseme.”
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.
CHAPTER37
Ishould have been more specific onwhoI wanted to trip.I understand that now; I was ambiguous, and the universe acted accordingly.
I lie still at the landing in the middle of the steps, where the staircase changes direction.I don’t bother getting up until the world stops spinning.And until the pain stops hammering at various body parts enough that I can do something other than breathe through it.If the pursuers want to drag me up and carry me back into the house to arrest me, they’re going to have to do the heavy lifting.
Literally.
But as the pain recedes, light filters in through my consciousness.
And it’swrong.
The light has suddenly gotten better, even though it appears to be later at night than it was just before my fall.
