| |
Ivy sighed as she finished helping Ruth into her extravagant white dress.
Her wedding dress.
Every time she let herself think about the fact that she was about to be married, she felt her chest constrict with panic. She probably wouldn’t have minded marrying Michel in order to secure her peace from others, but not like this. Not while she was being threatened with the truth and forced to pervert her creations.
Marrying Michel felt like committing to making weapons, as much as signing the contract had, if not more. At least signing the contract had only lasted a moment. The wedding was a day for her to wallow in her choice.
“You don’t seem happy,” Ivy said as Ruth spun in front of the mirror to get a better look at her dress.
At least she looked good.
“No, I suppose I don’t,” Ruth agreed as she examined her tired face in the mirror.
“You’re supposed to be happy on your wedding day,” Ivy told her. “My mother always said, if nothing else, when it comes to choosing a man, make sure that you’re happy on your wedding day. If you’re not, then it’s not worth it.”
“I guess that sounds like good advice.”
“I guess it does, but Michel’s not the problem, is he?”
Ruth snorted. “How could he be? I built him to be everything I need out of a husband; a friend and a mask for me to hide behind. I would always have independence while married to Michel, but not while James holds a noose around my neck.”
Ivy gave her a sympathetic smile, but didn’t have anything more to say. There was no answer. The situation simply was what it was.
“They’re waiting for you,” Ivy said after a while, reminding Ruth that everyone was waiting in the main part of the church.
Ruth nodded before following Ivy out of the room, to where Thomas was waiting for her. Her parents hadn’t been able to organise coming down to London to see her married, which didn’t really surprise her. They knew that Ruth had been The Owl all along, so they must have known that her marrying him was just a ruse. She doubted her mother approved, no matter what she thought the situation was. She definitely wouldn’t if she knew the truth.
With her parents absent, Thomas was the one who had the job of walking her down the aisle.
“How are you feeling?” Thomas asked her.
“Like someone who has been forced into making a terrible mistake,” she said, completely devoid of the inflection that should have indicated that her words were intended as a joke.
Thomas didn’t try to lie, telling her that she had other options, and she was grateful for that as he offered his arm out to her.
She took it and focused on keeping her breathing steady as she walked forward.
The doors in front of her opened to show a sea of faces she didn’t recognise. She didn’t know any of these people, and she assumed that they were all acquaintances of Thomas.
In the centre of it all stood Michel in impeccable dress, waiting for her.
She focused on him and blocked out everything else.
He was her greatest creation and, even if no one else knew it, he was the thing she was proudest of.
And now James had the plans for him. More would be built and Michel’s siblings would become machines of war. Expendable soldiers that could easily overwhelm an enemy with no loss of human life for the Empire.
How efficiently brutal they would be.
She almost didn’t realise that they had reached the end of the line.
Thomas detached his arm from hers and left her facing Michel.
Her prototype friend-turned-soldier-turned-husband.
“Can we have just a moment?” he said to the priest, surprising her. What was he up to?
The priest looked surprised, but Michel ignored that as he stepped closer to Ruth.
“What is it?” she asked, very aware of everyone watching them with curiosity.
“You asked me a few days ago what I would do in your position and I just now figured it out.”
“Michel-”
“Ruth, please. You can’t go through with this. I wouldn’t.”
She blinked, surprised.
“I thought making that decision was outside your parameters,” she eventually managed.
“So did I. I guess I’m more flexible than either of us thought.”
“I suppose so,” she managed.
Her friend-turned-soldier-turned-husband.
Turned-person.
If Michel was operating outside of his parameters, so might any others made from his designs.
They were people, and they were going to be used as expendable cannon fodder.
“If I don’t, James will tell everyone. My whole family will be ruined.”
Michel took her hands in his gloved ones. “Then tell them first.” He nodded to the crowd in front of them, telling her exactly what he meant. “Tell them how you are such a great inventor that you built a person. That their rules made you hide behind your creation, but no more. They will understand. You are, after all, the Greatest Inventor in Britain.”
Ruth nodded, realising that he was right.
She didn’t have to play by James’ rules.
“You truly are the greatest thing I ever created,” she told him.
“Then let’s show them.”
She took a deep breath before turning to face the crowd staring at her with confused frowns.
“I’m afraid I have not been honest,” she said clearly, her voice echoing around the empty room. “There is no Owl. There never was.”
She reached up to Michel’s face and removed his wig and mask, revealing the ceramic face beneath.
The room echoed with gasps. Ruth could have sworn that she saw someone faint out of the corner of her eye.
“Inventing was never seen as a suitable pastime for a lady of my station. My uncle created The Owl so that he could sell my inventions while I retained anonymity.
“However, after arriving in London, I realised that would no longer do. People wanted to meet The Owl, and I was being pursued by numerous suitors, despite the fact that I have never wanted to marry.
“In order to retain my independence and appease those who wanted to meet The Owl, I took to my workshop and built a man to pose as The Owl in my place. But no more. I cannot, in good conscience, keep lying.”
She took another deep breath, completely unable to tell how the crowd in front of was reacting. Their silence gave away nothing.
“My name is Lady Ruth Constance Chapelstone, and I am The Owl. I am Britain’s Greatest Inventor. I built a walking, talking, thinking man out of metal. If you can’t see past my gender and station to appreciate that, then that is your problem, not mine.”
She turned back to Michel.
“Come on,” she said. “I think it’s time for me to return home to my workshop.”
#
AS SOON AS RUTH HAD finished running the few streets back home with Michel in tow, she promptly threw up as the weight of what she had done finally hit her.
She had admitted to being The Owl.
And to building a metal husband.
Would they believe her?
Or would they think that she had made him to satisfy an odd bedroom preference?
She leaned back against the hallway wall as soon as the door closed behind her. She slid to the floor and started to cry.
She had no idea what else to do.
The tears seemed the only sensible thing left.
She waited and waited for Thomas or Ivy to return home.
Michel waited patiently with her as she blubbed in the silence of the house.
Neither Thomas nor Ivy came back. She assumed they were dealing with the mess she had made.
She had no idea how much time had passed when the knock at the door came, only that the room was bathed in the pink glow of sunset.
She wiped away her tears, along with a significant portion of makeup, before answering the door.
She presumably looked like something out of a nightmare, with her smeared face and her wedding dress worn from her run home. The knocker, however, remained stoic as he stood in full military attire.
“I have been sent to fetch you for the Queen,” he told her.
Of course, she thought. She had just publicly announced that she had tried to dupe the Queen. That she had succeeded, really.
She nodded, knowing that fighting would do no good. They were most likely authorised to use force to drag her there if she protested.
“Your mechanical man too,” the man at the door said.
Before she could protest, Michel was at her side.
“Lead on,” Michel said to the man and Ruth smiled a little, glad that he was by her side.