Page 30 of The Phoenix Bride
“I’ll wait outside the door,” she repeats.
There’s little I can do to protest. Margaret lays the dress upon the desk, making it a promise of her return. Then she walks out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
Unmarried,I think.Unmarried, unmarried.Who knows how old this man is; he’s likely a widower himself, to be willing to court me after Will’s death. My mind conjures images of a grizzled gentleman with a gold-tipped cane and wooden teeth, the sort of relic so often installed in earldoms these days, eager for a young bride to put on display: leering and wealthy and domineering. Another set of shackles, and yet my sister expects me to offer my wrists eagerly, to smile at my jailer as he turns the key.
I spin around. The sensation of panic has reached a sort of icy threshold, where suddenly all is very cold and slow and quiet. I stare at the window. There seems little communication between the frantic terror of my thoughts and the slow, deliberate movements of my hand, which reaches forward to press its palm flat against the glass. Outside, the weather is perfectly fair. The sun hangs low in the sky. A songbird rests on the windowsill of the floor below, chirping. Perhaps a maid has left it crumbs.
It feels as if I am watching my gallows being built. In a matter of minutes, I have measured every decision I have ever made, and found all of them wanting. My sister no longer wants mehere, clearly. But I have nowhere to go except to the arms of a stranger—to be kept in his townhouse, to play bridge with courtiers and make babies and scrub all memory of my past away from me, to forget Will and kill him again.
I push against the window with greater strength. It swings open. The afternoon air is warm and muggy. The noise of the hinges scares the bird below, which speeds like musket shot into the sky. I swing myself sideways to sit upon the windowsill, my legs dangling against the outside wall.
I am only on the first floor; the fall would hardly kill me, but it is a decent enough drop. Below lies a patch of blackthorn. It grows a fine halo of frothy white flowers that look almost welcoming. Beyond it, there is a short section of lawn, and then the iron fence that surrounds the townhouse. The street is quiet. The gate lies waiting.
Once I discover the possibility of the jump, it feels like cowardice not to accomplish it. I stare downward at my feet in their fine silk slippers, floating above the clouds of blackthorn. My blush-colored petticoat blooms outward in the wind. The air stinks of the summer, dung and humanity, but also of dry grass and something brackish from the river. Mendes came all the way here from Portugal; there must besomethingin this city to cause him to make such a journey. Something worth wanting. Something worth seeing, beyond the glass panes of a window, and an empty road I have never walked.
I push myself off the windowsill. I had imagined the fall would occur slowly, but instead it is so quick that I don’t experience it: I am at the window, and then I hit the ground. I keel forward in a tangled knot of limbs, silk, and hair, rebounding off the blackthorn. The sharp twigs beneath the flowers score lines across my palms, and the jarring impact causes a sharp stab inmy abdomen, which is aching from lack of food. My knees slam against the ground, but they are saved from shattering by my skirts. The most painful result of the fall is my scratched hands, which sting terribly. When I stand, I wipe them on the wall. They leave thin trails of blood behind them.
Despite my wounds, I giggle in the triumph of my unsupervised escape. Then my stomach cramps painfully with hunger, as if to humble me. Wincing, I look down at my bloodied palms and my dirtied skirts. My body seems so pitiful I wish I could shuck it off of me, like shelling a pea.
No matter: I am committed now. My sister will be furious once I am found. I might as well use my freedom while I have it. I rush away from the blackthorn, heading directly toward the gate and the setting sun. The footman at the fence notices me—he cries out in alarm—but he is prevented from seizing me by propriety, and the gate has been left open just enough that I can inch my way through. He watches me, horrified, as I take off down the road. As I reach the main street, to hear the trundle of carriages and the cries of voices, I realize that—after months of captivity—I have left the townhouse entirely.
I will have to return eventually. I have nothing with me. I am directionless, without coin nor purpose, and even the exertion of running down the street has left me light-headed. But, for the moment, I am unfettered, remade. I stand by the side of the main road and greet the world with wide eyes.
London is madness, even here, in a well-to-do neighborhood. The road is teeming with people and animals. I see one man driving a pair of pigs down an alleyway; three boys are rolling barrels past me—they turn to stare—and in the middle of the road, directly in the way of the horses and carriages, there is a man and woman shrieking at each other in argument. Shesmacks him with her glove. He stomps the cobblestone with a mud-worn boot.
There is a flower stall on the other side of the street. The girl in charge of the stall has a tangle of red-brown hair and large, dark eyes. She can’t be older than fifteen. As she rearranges posies, she sings in a loud, clear voice:Sweet peas for your sweet, roses for your rose,over and over, hitting a piercing high note onrosewithout fail each round.
I want to cross, but I dally so long in fear of stumbling into a horse that some passersby laugh at me. Eventually, I muster the courage, and I approach the stall, marveling at the variety of the blooms.
The girl pauses in her singing to smile at me. “Summer flowers, mistress?” she asks.
“I have no money,” I reply. “Forgive me.”
She glances at my gown, seeming surprised by the response; it is brocade, as are the slippers now suffering in the muck of the road. I must look quite wealthy. That is an irony, I suppose, as every penny to my name is in the charge of my sister. “Very well,” she says. “ ’Haps another time.”
She turns back to the bouquet she is arranging. “Perhaps,” I agree, charmed by her, and her turnip-shaped nose, and her utter lack of interest in me. “What is your name?”
“Katherine, mistress.”
“I must request your advice, Katherine,” I say. “If you had one day in London, before you were gone forever, what would you do?”
“Goodness.” Invigorated by the puzzle, she pauses in herwork, furrowing her brow in concentration. “Without any money?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes you can sneak into a play without the beadlesnoticing.” She shrugs. “And the park is nearby. The king opened it recently. They have a canal there now.”
“A canal? In apark?”
“Yes. It’s pretty.”
I open my mouth to respond, and then I hear cries from farther down the street, alongside a parade of stomping boots. Catching a glimpse of red livery, I realize that it is the Eden footmen—sent out, no doubt, to bring me back. I gasp, say to Katherine, “Forgive me,” and duck behind her stall.
Katherine squawks in consternation, but I don’t have time to explain. I am crouched on the filthy pavement, skirts gathered up in my hands, desperately trying not to keel over. Meanwhile, I hear footsteps approaching from the other side of the wooden boards concealing me from view.
“Pardon, mistress,” comes a man’s voice. “We are searching for a gentlewoman—blond, slight, dressed in a pink gown. Have you caught sight of her?”
My heart is beating like a war drum, my breaths short; it’s absurd, but I feel as if I might never leave the townhouse again if I am discovered.
