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Thirty-Seven

Brighton, England – August 14, 1862

By secret royal decree, the newspapers did not print the letter that would indict the Queen for her part in Ade’s death. They

were too preoccupied with the spectacle of Sarah Forbes Bonetta’s wedding to Captain James Davies. They surrounded St. Nicholas

Church—outside and inside—chatting to each other as they soaked in the sight of strangest wedding, by their estimation, they’d

ever seen.

“Do you see them?” one journalist said to another. “Four bridesmaids of dark color and four fair bridesmaids. African and

English bridesmaids in similar attire. What pleasing confusion...”

“Yes, yes.” Oh, I recognized that journalist from the Islington Gazette . “White ladies with African gentlemen, and African ladies with white gentlemen...”

“Personally,” said a man with a mustache, “I see a distinct absence of that abruptness in the features often seen in the females

of the African race, which gives the air of ferocity. Look at her. Her eyes are expressive and tender, beaming with intelligence.

Ladylike in the extreme....”

“I hope you now know,” hissed Uncle George in my ear as he led me down the aisle of St. Nicholas Church in my opulent white wedding dress, “what it feels like to be confined against your will.”

Perhaps he meant my marriage. Or perhaps he meant the days I spent in a Scottish prison. It was all done very quietly so as

to not embarrass the Queen, and very quickly so as to not delay my wedding any further. For three days, I sat in the cold

cell with my back against the brick, staring at the little rat scurrying past my feet and into a corner of the wall. For three

days I thought of my journey. Every step, every decision that brought me to that dank hole.

And I regretted nothing.

I told the Queen this as she peered at me through the iron bars of my cell. I told her with a smile on my face and a song

in my heart.

“Your feelings towards me are irrelevant, Sally. You will become Captain Davies’s wife. You will go with him to your homeland

and be a dutiful mother. You will be remembered as my brilliant, loving goddaughter.” She straightened her back. “And the

empire’s reputation will remain.”

“We’ll see about that, you old hag.”

Uncle George walked me down the aisle to Captain Davies, who waited for me by the altar. No one else but him saw the look

I gave George before I left myself—a look that could strike down a god. He let out a terrified yelp, stumbled back, and fell

onto his backside.

His mother rushed to his side. “George! George, what are you doing?” he said as the man trembled on the ground, gazing up

at me with fear. As he should.

“Maybe we released you from the hospital to soon,” I said. The groomsmen and bridesmaids whispered and gasped. Mrs. Forbes

sniveled in dismay, grabbed her son, and dragged him to the back end of the church.

“Are you ready, Sally?” Captain Davies asked me while the bishop who had just arrived from Sierra Leone began officiating

the ceremony.

I beamed at him. “Indeed, James. The future rests on the horizon. It’s time to begin.”

Everyone had to make a choice. We exchanged knowing glances and clasped hands in this blooming, ornate white chapel, the sunlight

beaming through the arched windows, before a congregation of eager celebrants.

Bertie was not among them. He sent me his regards: a bouquet of fresh flowers and a card. One of Princess Alice’s bridesmaids,

Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, had delivered it and gave me her congratulations. I quickly threw it onto the side of the street.

I suppose my assault on his mother, for all her crimes, was too far. But I knew as well as he did it wasn’t his mother he

was protecting. It was his own inheritance, the promise of his reign and power, which he wouldn’t give up even if it meant

his death. I was sure he’d find others ways to rebel against his mother in the coming days and weeks. This, no doubt, would

be in women other than his fiancée. Like the incompetent and spineless coward he was, Bertie would surely bury his face in

their necks when the reality of his own became too much to bear.

Harriet wasn’t here either. Her family heritage alone ensured her lifelong job at the Queen’s side, but nobody would ever

forget her treachery and cowardice. Certainly not her mother, who, I heard, spent her days weeping and drinking alone.

“Do you, Captain Forbes, take Sarah Forbes Bonetta to be your lawfully—” The bishop stopped and cleared his throat.

The captain and I looked over at Mama Schoen, who was crying loudly on the front pew. Gowramma was next to her with a handkerchief,

trying to calm her down. I shook my head with a laugh. How delighted she was to see how much money the Queen had spent on

the wedding. How proud of her own hand in this historical event. She too would be remembered as the caretaker of the Queen’s

dutiful adopted African daughter.

History. I did wonder how history would record these events. What would they include and what would they leave out all for the sake of the Queen, the Crown, and the empire’s reputation? Sarah Forbes Bonetta’s likeness as a bride would be forever captured in Camille Silvy’s photographs. Silvy, who had struck up a friendship with Captain Davies during the art gala, had me stand in the center of his neoclassical backdrop in my wedding gown, looking at his lens over my right shoulder. Against another backdrop he took the happy couple. The Greek columns of my solo shot were replaced by African palm trees as I was made to sit down holding a book with Davies in his tuxedo standing beside his wife, the proud groom.

He was proud today indeed. For he’d finally found an answer to the question I’d asked him that day in Balmoral Castle.

What will you do, Captain James Davies?

“I now pronounce you man and wife!”

The congregation cheered. The journalists jotted down their notes. The Queen didn’t attend my wedding. She was still in mourning

and thus opposed to public gatherings where possible. But she sent me her regards.

I sent my regards as well, in my own way. As Captain Davies and I signed our marriage certificate for the church’s records,

beneath Davies’s name I signed my name. My true name: Ina Sarah Forbes Bonetta.

Captain Davies and I walked out of the church arm in arm as people threw rice over our heads. Just before entering our fairy-tale-like

white carriage, a man bumped into me. He hadn’t been invited to the wedding. I knew that the moment I caught a flash of the

X mark over his left eye.

“I’m sorry, miss,” he said, slipping a paper into my hand.

Captain Davies sneered at the man’s rudeness and lifted me into the carriage. And when the door closed, we spoke in hushed

tones.

“The preparations are complete, I suspect?” I slipped on a pair of black gloves, sighing with relief that the wedding was finally over.

“Everything’s done just as I promised.” Davies moved to squeeze my hand, but, thinking better of it, nodded his head instead.

“It was an honor to meet you, Ina.”

I unfolded the paper in my hand.

Meet me at tonight at the docks of Blackwater Basin.

Promptly at midnight. We have much to discuss. —R

If there was anything I truly regretted, it was my misconception of loneliness. There was nothing wrong with being alone.

As exhilarating as romance was, it had blinded me from the truth—from the fallacy of finding companionship in someone who

I thought was “similar to me.” I was Omoba Ina. There was no one like me. No one who deserved me.

What little flutter of disappointment I felt remembering Rui’s betrayal died when I tore the paper in my hands. Each long,

unforgiving rip sent a flutter of pleasure through me.

Love is conditional, Rui. I threw pieces out the window. Men. I spat.

“An honor indeed,” I said. “I’ll remember that, Captain Davies.”

The true honor came later that night. It was the honor I gave myself as I stood at the docks in front of a ship. Smaller than

that of a trader’s, its sails billowed in the cold wind that rippled through my hair. The Queen had prepared it for me and

my husband. It was to take us back to Africa, where we belonged. Captain Davies’s bribes had changed the plan.

I lifted up my chin, soaking in the cold night, breathing in the air. Then I boarded the ship.

“Are you ready, Miss Bonetta?” asked the ship’s captain as he walked up to me, wrapping his long gray frock coat around himself.

I nodded under the stars. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Nobody in England would ever find out that this was the night Omoba Ina disappeared, her ship carrying her and her alone to destinations unknown to anyone but herself.

The feeling of some kind of accomplishment I allowed myself as I fought for and won my freedom. A small compensation, perhaps.

Something I could relish in place of the British Crown’s ruin. But even that would come one day. Everything in its own time.

Yes. Queen Victoria would eventually learn that a lady’s lust for revenge cannot so easily die.

The woman known as Sarah Forbes Bonetta had married her prince, Captain Davies, and disappeared from England. But Captain

Davies would return to Lagos alone. He’d find his wife, I was sure. They’d keep things quiet. What he did from now on was

his problem to bear. He’d made his decision. And he’d done it, finally understanding the meaning of freedom.

As for my freedom...

Aboard the ship, I smelled the sea air, closed my eyes.

“Now,” I said as the ship sailed under the moonlight, “I wonder where I’ll travel to first.”