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Miss Pollitt’s School for Young Ladies,

F reedom was so close for Regina.

A few hundred feet ahead was her school, an unexpected sanctuary from her mother’s expectations and her responsibility as a role model to her little sister.

This school meant a chance to be a young girl with her friends.

She could see them now, Adelaide and Elodia, standing just outside the school waiting for her to be released from her mother’s clutches.

But there was no way her mother would allow her daughter out of their carriage without a few warnings and instructions.

“Make sure to behave well,” Mrs. Madhavi Mason repeated to Regina as she brushed an errant curl back from her forehead. “Remember you are here to make connections with other daughters of the ton.”

“Yes aai,” Regina replied.

“You have to behave like they do, or you will not be able to fulfill your role of baroness when the time comes.”

That godforsaken role. The noose her parents tied to lift her prospects was, in fact, choking the life out of her.

Seventeen and her future already decided.

What on earth would she do among a class of people who didn’t even believe she had the right to be wealthy let alone entitled?

How would she survive it? What would decades of that torture do to her?

The prospect of a life in an illustrious golden cage, bereft of hope or kindness, filled her with dread.

“And don’t go out in the sun! You are getting darker and darker.”

That advice had her struggling not to roll her eyes. “Yes aai .”

As if the ton would like her better with lighter brown skin. As if it would make her more acceptable in their eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that. We made you a good match, but barons don’t like girls with dark skin, Regina.”

It was always “Regina” with her mother, now.

Not her given name, Rajani. Not since her father had struck a deal with a baron and moved their small family from Bombay to England when she was fourteen.

From then on she was a baroness in training and a baroness couldn’t have a name like Rajani.

It was strange the first time she’d been introduced as Regina.

Now it was instinctive. Rajani had been left behind in India.

Regina was who she would need to be from now on.

Regina, for Queen Victoria. The queen regent.

The figurehead of the empire devouring her native land state by state.

There was only one place where her name didn’t hurt.

Elodia and Ada had taken to calling her ‘Gigi’.

They were the first to give her that name and Regina hadn’t objected.

It was the only name that fit her at this point.

Halfway between Regina and Rajani. Part way between England and India, just as she was.

“Then I hope you match me to a French man aai.” She was sick to death of that marriage contract, and she wasn’t even engaged yet.

Technically. She’d been party to the legal contract since she was thirteen, but the bans had yet to be read.

The obsession of her marrying into the nobility had been a constant drumbeat in her life.

A beat that was only silenced by the laughter of her friends.

For now, she could be herself with Ada and Elodia.

She could leave that ominous future where it was for a year or two.

Her mother frowned at her and shook her head, but just as she opened her mouth to say more, her father interjected.

“My dear,” he said with his blue eyes twinkling, “I think it’s time for Regina to go.” He opened the carriage door and ordered the porter to take her trunk down.

“Make sure to practice your dancing,” her mother instructed as tears began to flood the dark eyes she’d given to Regina.

“I will.” A dull ache pulsed to life in her chest and throat. She wouldn’t miss the nagging or the suffocating weight of expectation, but there was nothing like her mother’s warmth. For all her mother’s ambition, Regina had never doubted her love.

“Stay away from those girls who bully you.”

Regina took her hand and smiled thinking of Elodia and Ada. “I told you it’s not like before. I have friends now aai. I’m not alone anymore.”

“Mājhē badaka,” she paused and touched her cheek gently.

Her duckling . She’d been calling her that since before Regina could remember.

“I love you too aai ,” she said before leaning in to embrace her, breathing in her scent of cardamom and jasmine.

Then she leaned down to touch her mother’s feet and felt that gentle hand pass over her head to give her blessing. “I’ll write to you and baba.”

“Don’t forget Lillian. She misses you.”

Regina smiled at the thought of her little sister. She was a sweet little sprite who wanted nothing more than to attach herself to Regina at all times. “I will be sure to send her something as well.”

“You have the anarsa?”

“Yes aai,” she hopped down from the carriage, turning to catch one last glimpse of her mother’s tearful face before shutting the carriage door and turning to face her father.

He took one look at her and smiled fondly. “She’ll be fine. She just hates having you so far away.”

“Whereas you can’t wait to see me leave,” she replied taking his arm and leaning against his firm shoulder as he walked her to the front entrance.

He was a cheerful man of average height and build, with bright eyes, pale freckled skin, and light brown hair. He was always ready with a cuddle or a kind word for his family, but that kindness carried a spine of steel.

“I know, my choti rani,” he replied wryly, kissing the thick dark curls that her maid had wrestled into a low bun. “They need protecting from you not the other way around.”

He always called her that. Choti rani , his ‘little queen’.

He always joked that he’d known her mother had chosen the correct name for her when he noticed her love of swords.

Most girls her age had wanted to be Guinivere caught between a good king and a devoted knight.

Regina wanted to be Rudrama Devi, the warrior queen of Kakatiya.

Or Rajmata Ahilyabai and Maharani Tarabai, warrior queens of the former Maratha Empire.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“As you should, also I have something for you.”

She glanced up at him in excitement as she recalled what she’d asked him for. “You got it?”

“Just yesterday.” He replied, handing her a slim twelve-inch-long box.

She let out an undignified squeal as she snatched it out of his hands.

“Shh, you want your mother to get suspicious?” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder at the carriage.

“Don’t look at her,” she said jerking his arm, “now she knows we are colluding.”

He wrinkled his nose at her, and she grinned before kissing his whiskered cheek. “Thank you, baba .”

“Don’t get in trouble with those. If they are confiscated and shown to your mother, I can no longer help you.”

“Yes, baba .” He always allowed her more than her mother did, but only on the condition that it remained a secret. Regina knew from experience that Colonel Mason wasn’t prepared to risk his happy marriage for anything or anyone, not even his children.

“This marriage…” he continued.

“Oh lord not you as well,” she grumbled. If she never heard another word about this marriage for the rest of her life it would be too soon.

“Regina.” The note of steel in his voice was unusual and indicated that she was speaking to her mother’s husband, not simply her father.

“This marriage is important to both your mother and me. We have a rare opportunity to see our daughter break a barrier we have never managed ourselves. You are fulfilling a dream we never got to. It isn’t a game. ”

“I know, baba ,” she murmured.

Marriage to her father had given her mother a happy life, but even marriage to a white British officer had given little in the way of protection from the cruel remarks of the ton.

There would never be perfect protection from that, but people would exercise more caution snubbing the mother of a baroness than the wife of an officer and a gentleman.

“Listen to your mother, she is trying to ensure your success.”

Success . Success would mean abandonment to smug cold faces and humiliation. Public regard and private desolation. “Yes, baba,” she muttered.

He nodded and kissed her forehead firmly. “Now be a good girl, and if you can’t be good—”

“Be careful,” she finished.

He grinned broadly, nodding toward the school building, “Off with you.”

She nodded and turned away, clutching the box in her hands.

Marriage wasn’t worth thinking about anymore.

For the next six months, she didn’t have to think about anything but the world within the confines of the gray brick building looming before her.

She caught sight of Elodia and Ada waving enthusiastically at her, as if she could miss the Chinese and African girls in a sea of white English ones.

With a smile, she ran towards them until she was caught in a tight embrace full of laughter.

This was her sanctuary. No matter what happened, she would always fight to keep this.

“You’re here!” Ada said bouncing with excitement.

“I thought she’d never let me leave, it’s always a near thing.”

“She loves you,” Ellie pulled back, rubbing a gloved hand up and down her back briskly.

Regina rolled her eyes, “I know. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without her. But it’s school. Hardly a voyage into terra incognita.”

“Gigi,” Elodia shook her head with a laugh.

“She’ll be fine. My father will coddle her all the way home, and she has my little sister to occupy her.” She glanced over her shoulder to check for her parents’ carriage and noted it was missing. “I have something for us,” she said, turning to face them again.

“What?” Ada asked.

“Let’s go to our rooms first.”

“What is it, Gigi?” Ellie asked.

She opened the box and showed them three ten-inch hairpins with silver filigreed tops. “Papa had these made for me, for us.”

Ada’s eyes widened with delight as she ran a finger over one engraved top. “Is that an ‘a’?” she asked, peering carefully.

“Our initials are hidden in the pattern.”

Ellie reached in and took one out, turning it over in her hands. “Is this…” her voice trailed off as she pulled on the handle, revealing the wickedly sharp blade hidden in the makeshift scabbard.

“Oh, my goodness,” Ada breathed out as her eyes widened in excitement.

“Ladies should always have protection,” Regina said, echoing a sentiment she’d heard from her father a thousand times.

He’d said it when he taught her to shoot, when he’d taken her fencing, and when he’d taught her the basics of wrestling.

With or without a weapon, a lady should never be without protection.

“They are perfect,” Ellie said with a mischievous grin, snapping the blade back into its hiding place.