Page 11 of Damsel in Disguise

What lingers isn’t the experiment. It’s the fact that anomalies always present themselves the same way—subtle at first. A variable that refuses correction. A curiosity that sharpens instead of dulling. A presence that watches when it shouldn’t.

I’ve learned to notice such things. To track them. To contain them.

My thoughts drift, uninvited, to an observant shadow behind the bushes of the Oxford University compound. The presence has weight with no clear direction or intention.

My body sensed it first a year ago. It was too consistent to be a coincidence. Always at the same hour. Always from the same distance. A shadow tucked behind hedges and stonework on the Oxford grounds, careful enough to remain unseen, careless enough to linger. It’s watching me, not hiding tendencies. It’s measuring patterns and studying routines.

I haven’t intervened yet.

Curiosity like that deserves observation before correction. Whoever they are, they haven’t crossed the threshold yet, but are idly playing with it.

But I’ll never allow an anomaly, especially one that watches me this closely, to remain unexamined for too long.

Let’s see if they can be our next perfect Synthète.

4. VARIABLE

ariella

Turns out, being a student at Oxford High School doesn’t mean I’d get stolen glances of my Prince Charming whenever fate feels indulgent.

Oxford High is one of those old boarding schools that prides itself on preparing girls for places like Oxford University. By the time you reach sixth form, they loosen the leash. Independent study periods. City library access. Enough freedom to convince everyone we’re responsible adults.

Most of my classmates spend those afternoons buried in cafés or revising for entrance exams.

I spend mine stalking a man who doesn’t know I exist.

If anything, I only ever see him from afar—across streets I’m not meant to cross, slipping in and out of university buildings that still don’t belong to me.

It only worsens my obsession.

Most afternoons, once classes end and the other boarders disappear into the city, I linger longer than I should near Banbury Road, drifting south where the navy blazers of Oxford High gradually vanish into crowds of university students.

Stone replaces hedges. The city grows older.

Somewhere between Parks Road and Broad Street, Oxford University begins to breathe differently.

And that’s where he is.

Every morning, without fail, he arrives just before ten—coat unbuttoned, stride precise, disappearing into the same stretch of university buildings like clockwork.

Every evening, exactly at six, he leaves.

Not a second early. Not a second late.

Thankfully, my classes begin at nine and finish at three-thirty, leaving me just enough time to watch the second half of his day.

Everyone thinks I wander these streets because I dream of studying here.

They’re right. They just don't know my version of Oxford has blue eyes, a pair of glasses, and the surname Hertley.

He never changes the car he loves to drive alone—an Aston Martin DBS Superleggera. A man like him doesn’t share space unless he intends to dominate it.

Watching him has become a ritual—a ritual for which I paid a questionable amount from my trust fund to the bodyguards Dad assigned me to get rid of them from my tail.

I know nobody is going to touch me for my last name. This protection has always felt like both a blessing and a curse wrapped into one.

A few of my classmates have noticed. I shrug it off easily, telling them it’s just my fixation on the university. My ambition. My hunger to get in.