Chapter 1

One

LONDON – NOVEMBER, 1816

Nobody understood the beautiful symmetry of a perfect skull the way Lady Minerva Llewellyn did. That was, perhaps, what was wrong with the world in these shallow, unimaginative times. More value was seen in lace and frippery than in the solid bone and haunting memory of a life that had been well and truly lived, and in the remnants that had been left behind. A skull was an echo of someone’s entire life story that could be held in one’s hands.

Minnie contemplated all these things and more as she stood before her bed in her room at the Oxford Society Club, holding Clarence, the skull she’d acquired twenty years ago, when she’d been in attendance at Oxford University. Clarence had been such a stalwart companion through the years, and Minnie wondered whether she should take him with her in her bid to escape the world of lace and frippery to flee into a new life.

“On the one hand, Clarence,” she addressed the skull, “you would take up a great deal of space in my valise, and I may need to run to evade pursuers at some point.”

She frowned at Clarence, already plotting how she might leap from a carriage or dart between wagons in traffic to avoid being seen as she dodged the forces of evil that pursued her. A bulky traveling bag would not help with her flight at all.

“On the other,” she continued, tilting her head, “you do not weigh much at all, and therefore, you would not add encumbrance.”

Minnie smiled and set Clarence atop the pile of her clothing and other belongings in her traveling bag, which lay open on the bed.

“And then there is the simple fact that I could not bear to part with you,” she said, leaning down and kissing Clarence’s frontal bone. “You and I have been through too much for this to be our final parting.”

She reached to the side for a pile of her underthings that she’d taken from the wardrobe and folded earlier, lovingly nestling them around Clarence’s bulbous form.

As she did, a knock sounded at her door. Minnie tensed on instinct, then let out a breath, pressing a hand to her stomach. Owen could not have found her there at the club. Even if he had discovered her exact location, which was not particularly difficult to do, even for someone of Owen’s astoundingly unimpressive intellect, men were not permitted at the Oxford Society Club.

“Come in?” Minnie called over her shoulder, anxious nonetheless. It did not matter whether Owen was forbidden entry into the club or not, if anyone who shouldn’t have discovered her plan, they might dissuade her from it.

The door opened, and the club’s butler, Regina, stepped into the room with a bright smile.

“Good morning, Lady Minerva,” she said, carrying the coat she held to Minnie. “Your traveling coat has been cleaned and repaired.

Minnie breathed out a huge sigh of relief. If she could trust anyone in the world, other than her dearest friends, Muriel, Bernadette, and Kat, then she could trust Regina Vickers.

“Thank you, Genie,” she said, taking the thick, black wool coat from Regina’s arms and slipping right into it. “This will come in quite handy, since it is bound to be cold where I am headed.”

“The Kingdom of Wales?” Regina asked, a clever sparkle to her eyes, as if she knew more than she was letting on.

“Yes, that’s it precisely,” Minnie said. “The Kingdom of Wales .”

Regina’s mouth twitched as she glanced past Minnie to the collection of items that were yet to be packed lying atop her bed. “I was unaware that the currency of choice for the Kingdom of Wales was the Swedish riksdaler.”

Minnie whipped back to the bed, biting her lip at the small pile of coins she’d accidentally left out. They were a dead giveaway to her true plans for the next few weeks.

“I do not know what you mean,” she fumbled, attempting to save face and keep her plans secret a little longer. “I’m heading home to Wales for the Christmas holidays, and to spread the word to our fellow sisters there that the Mercian Plan has been introduced to Joint Parliament for discussion, and that it is only a matter of time before Britannia is united under Mercian law. Lord Lawrence Godwin is escorting me home himself.”

Everything had been arranged the day before at the opening of Joint Parliament. Her friend Kat, Lady Katherine Balmor, soon to be Lady Katherine Godwin, as soon as she married Waldorf Godwin, had achieved a major victory in convincing the First Minister, Lord Walsingham, to bring the topic forward for debate. It was the first step in achieving the unity of Britannia under Mercian law, which was deeply favorable toward women and would prevent them from becoming subjects to their husbands in their own home.

And that was a topic of particular importance to Minnie, as the fate of becoming a subject to a husband she could not like in a home that would feel like a prison to her if she did not take matters into her own hands was closer than any of her friends thought.

Regina seemed to read her thoughts and crossed her arms, arching one eyebrow, as if she did not believe a word Minnie had just said.

“Forgive me for overstepping my place, Lady Minerva, but I know you to be too clever and too determined by far to simply return to Wales, whether to rally for the cause or not, when the center of activity is in London at present,” she said. “And besides,” she added as Minnie scrambled to think of what to say, “You’ve packed nearly everything of import in your room, as if you’ve no intention of returning to it.”

Again, Regina arched one eyebrow. The woman was incredibly sharp and alarmingly bold, which was, perhaps, why she made such an excellent butler for the club.

Minnie gave up whatever intention she’d had of keeping secrets. She blew out a breath and said, “Alright, I will confess. I have no intention of returning to the Kingdom of Wales.”

“I thought not,” Regina said, eyeing the pile of riksdaler again.

Minnie delayed a few seconds more by buttoning her coat and stepping to her dressing table to fetch her black velvet bonnet and her reticule. There was no use delaying forever, though, particularly since Regina stood between her and the door.

“If you must know,” she said, attempting to sound confident, and perhaps a bit put out, when what she actually felt was excitement and terror over her plan, “I am indeed about to leave the country, the entire island. I…I plan to debark for the Kingdom of Sweden, where I shall take up a new name and a new life, nevermore to return to these hostile shores.”

She took a step toward the door, more than ready to attend to her final errand before departing.

Regina shifted to block her way. “There’s more to it, my lady. I can tell. Is there something else you might like to tell me? Something that would enable me to assist your flight?”

Again, Minnie bit her lip and debated how much she wished to share. Not even her three dear friends knew what she was planning. If they did, they would surely attempt to convince her not to take the particular course of action she had planned.

“Alright,” Minnie sighed. “But you cannot tell a soul.”

“My lady, you know I am the soul of discretion,” Regina said, as stiff and powerful as any male butler. Perhaps more so.

Minnie peeked to Clarence, whose eye sockets were just visible above the edge of her valise, surrounded by frilly underthings, then glanced back to Regina.

“My parents have arranged a marriage for me,” she said, speaking as though the fact were a humiliation. To Minnie, at her age of nearly forty, it absolutely was. “I have evaded their marital plots for what I thought was long enough for me to be considered an eccentric, unmarriageable spinster, but then a friend of my father’s somehow produced a son who was widowed a few years ago, one Lord Owen Scurloch, and it was agreed by everyone but me that the two of us should wed to affirm some sort of ridiculous land pact or commercial deal, or whatever those men deem more important than a woman’s autonomy.”

“This is precisely why the Mercian Plan must succeed,” Regina sighed, looking much more sympathetic.

“Yes, well, there’s more to the story,” Minnie told her with a wary side-eye, fetching her gloves from her dressing table and putting them on. “The wedding nearly took place last month.”

“Did it?” Regina asked, surprised and clearly drawn in by the story.

“It did,” Minnie said gravely. “In fact, I may have fled the church on the morning of the wedding and bundled myself straight off to London.”

Regina looked impressed. “You escaped your unwanted fiancé at the altar ?”

“Yes,” Minnie said, desperate to run her errand and moving toward the door again. This time, Regina stepped aside and accompanied her out into the hallway as Minnie continued with, “I managed to make it to London and the safety of the club, as you know, but unless I take drastic action, I will have no option but to hide forever within the walls of the Oxford Society Club. And while that is amenable to some of our dear, unfortunate sisters, it is not the life I want.”

Indeed, the Oxford Society Club was the permanent home and self-imposed prison of at least two younger women who knew that if they left the shelter of the club’s walls and were caught on the street by various family members, who stalked the streets outside as if they would lay siege, they would be abducted back to their own kingdoms and forced into marriages they did not want.

Unless Britannia was united under Mercian law.

“And so you plan to flee to Sweden to be free?” Regina asked.

Minnie sent her a sidelong look as they descended the stairs to the ground floor. “I plan to do more than that,” she whispered.

They reached the front hall, and she turned this way and that, making certain no one was near enough to overhear her. Then she leaned closer to Regina.

“I plan to feign my tragic demise,” she whispered, feeling a thrill in her gut as she spoke the words.

Regina pulled back and stared at her with wide eyes. Then she glanced up and down Minnie’s black-clad form and smiled.

“If anyone can accomplish that mad task, it will be you, my lady,” she said.

Minnie wasn’t certain she approved of the way Regina beamed as if they were about to attend a drama. “You mustn’t tell anyone,” she hissed. “Although I will tell my dearest friends. Eventually. Once I am established in Stockholm.”

“Do you propose to meet your tragic end on this journey to Wales?” Regina asked quietly.

“Yes,” Minnie whispered. “I’ve arranged passage on a fishing vessel in Bristol that will take me to Ireland. From there, I will assume a new name and identity and travel on to Stockholm.”

“Does Lord Lawrence know about this plot, my lady?” Regina asked.

Minnie pinched her face in frustration for a moment. Lord Lawrence was the vehicle to aid her in reaching Bristol, but he did not know that she had no intention of traveling to Wales at all.

“He will not know until the last possible moment,” she said, marching on toward the outside door. “If fortune favors me, he will not have to know at all.”

“It is always better to let your coconspirator in on any plots you wish to hatch,” Regina counselled, opening the door for Minnie and letting in a blast of frosty air as she did.

“I suppose I shall have to tell him something at some point,” Minnie said with a sigh. “But with any luck, I will not.”

“Very good, my lady,” Regina said with a perfectly stiff bow.

Minnie sent her a final, cautious smile, then stepped out into the cold, November morning.

Really, she knew her plan was a bit of a mad one. Chances were that she would not be able to add the additional, magnificent detail of feigning her own death in order to escape. She desperately hoped that all would unfold according to plan, though. Despite the excitement of beginning a new life in a new country, she thrilled at the idea of her family mourning her, of them holding a funeral for her. Perhaps she could even visit her own gravestone one day. Her family would certainly spring for a fine, elaborate headstone in the family plot, even if her body would never be found.

That would be the tricky bit, she thought to herself as she marched along the crowded street toward the seamstress she had entrusted with the construction of a particular gown she would need once the wheels of her plan had been set into motion. The idea was that she would find an appropriate body of water near a cliff or ledge of some sort when they had almost reached Bristol. She would tell Lord Lawrence that she wished to go for a solitary walk in the dark. It would be even better if the weather were foul and the winds fierce on that particular night. She would venture out alone and never return, and in the morning, nothing but her inky, black dress and her bonnet would be found.

Which was why she needed a dress of an entirely different sort. She had commissioned a discreet seamstress to construct a simple, blue gown for her in the Swedish style. She would conceal that gown under her regular clothing when she went out for her walk. Once she located the perfect cliff, she would remove her black gown and reveal the blue, Swedish one. As soon as the evidence was hurled off the cliff and into the ocean, she would run for the docks of Bristol, board the boat she’d arranged passage on, and?—

Minnie caught her breath at the sight of a man stepping behind a corner at the end of the street ahead of her. He was gone as soon as she’d spotted him, but she knew Lord Owen Scurloch when she saw him.

At least, she thought she did. London was devilishly crowded, now that Joint Parliament had begun. The streets were so crowded that some of the lesser folk were being compelled to walk in the mucky streets rather than on the cleaner sidewalks. Owen was tall and broad, but with a quick glance, Minnie saw half a dozen other tall, broad men.

She picked up her pace, hurrying to the corner Owen had disappeared around, then cautiously glancing down that side street as she crossed it.

There was no one resembling Owen’s description at all within sight down that street. The traffic was thick with people dressed in the slight variation of costume of all the kingdoms of the New Heptarchy, but not a one of them looked remotely Welsh, let alone like Owen.

“I’m imagining things,” Minnie sighed and walked on, shaking her head.

She could not blame herself, really. She had legitimate cause to worry, as her parents had sent a letter addressed to her at the Oxford Society Club, where they knew she stayed in London, saying that if she was in London, she needed to return home immediately to face the altar or she would be fetched. She had not replied, so her parents could have no certainty that she was even in London. But if they had sent Owen to check….

Minnie put those thoughts out of her mind and hurried on to the seamstress. She was fortunate in that her commissioned gown was completed and already wrapped in brown paper and ready to go. She paid handsomely for not only the gown, but for the silence of everyone in the shop, then clutched her parcel tightly and headed out to return to the club.

Before she was halfway there, the creeping sensation that she was being observed, and perhaps followed, grabbed hold of her. It made her tense and clumsy, and she nearly crashed into one of the errand boys rushing about with deliveries more times than she could count. The way she kept continually glancing down side streets and looking over her shoulder caused more trouble than it brought relief.

It all seemed worthwhile when she spotted what she knew in her heart was Owen’s tall, broad form stepping into a pub across the street from her. Her rational mind tried to tell her that if Owen was in London and if he was following her, he would not be ahead of her on the street, and he most certainly would not step into a pub rather than confront her. Her active and expansive imagination was very much running away from her.

That did not stop her from ducking into the entrance of a haberdasher across the street from the pub and leaning against the window so she could observe the pub for several long moments to see if Owen emerged and went after her. It also didn’t stop her from taking a circuitous route back to the Oxford Society Club once she grew tired of watching the pub’s door. If Owen had come to London and if he’d found her, she would do everything in her power to avoid him and thwart whatever plans he had to capture her and force her into what amounted to indentured servitude.

By the time she finally made it back to the street where the Oxford Society Club stood, she was anxious and restless. The skies had clouded over, and raindrops were beginning to fall. She clung close to the sides of buildings as she walked, constantly glancing over her shoulder and trying to hide.

That was why, when Lord Lawrence stepped down from one of the carriages parked along the street in front of the club and greeted her with, “Good day, Lady Minerva. Aren’t you looking fetching this fine morning,” Minnie nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Hurry! Hurry!” she said, grabbing the sleeve of Lord Lawrence’s coat with her free hand and tugging him toward the entrance to the club. “We mustn’t be seen at all.”

Lord Lawrence smiled and moved quickly with her, as if he found the whole attempt at secrecy to be a game of some sort. Indeed, as they ducked into the club’s door when one of the footmen held it open for them, he asked, “Are we escaping from the law today or evading some criminal gang?”

As soon as the door was shut safely behind them, Minnie straightened from her hunched posture and sent him a scathing look. If Lord Lawrence was going to be spritely and clever through the entire journey west, and if he thought he could tease her and she would laugh and titter like the rest of the vapid young ladies of the ton who merely wanted an older, distinguished husband with silver hair at his temples, then he had another think coming.