MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 32 - Thirty-Two: Escaping

//CLARA//

I woke to the sound of paper sliding under my door.

I was on my feet before I was fully awake, crossing the room in three strides. A folded note lay on the carpet with a wax seal I recognized instantly.

Meet me at the workshop. The address is below. There’s something I want to show you. — O

I stared at it for a long moment, a smile tugging at my lips despite everything. Oliver wasn’t giving up. Neither was I.

I tucked the note into my sleeve and started planning my escape.

Getting out of the manor unnoticed required strategy. Aunt Cornelia had eyes everywhere, and after yesterday, she was watching me like a hawk watches a particularly troublesome mouse.

I waited until the old spider was safely occupied with her afternoon calls. Something about whose daughter eloped with a footman and whether the family would ever recover. Some spoiler, they would not. The moment her voice hit that particular shrill pitch that meant she’d be at least forty-five minutes, I moved.

I grabbed the hooded cloak I’d stashed behind my wardrobe for exactly this occasion. My Gilded Age incognito mode. I told Hattie I needed air, then slipped down the back stairs and out through the garden gate.

The address led to a narrow building near the river, the kind of place respectable women didn’t visit. Thank God surveillance cameras hadn’t been invented yet. Perfect.

I knocked twice. The door opened. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Oliver stood there, sleeves rolled up, smudges of ink on his fingers, looking like he hadn’t slept.

"You came," he said.

"Not even a flood could stop me. Or Aunt Cornelia’s death glare." I stepped inside. "Now show me what you’ve been hiding."

The space was cramped and glorious. Blueprints covered every surface. Tools hung from hooks on the walls. The air smelled of metal and oil.

In the center of the room sat the machine.

It wasn’t the full Linotype, but a smaller version. Gears and levers and intricate brass fittings caught the weak light from the single window. Oliver watched me take it in, nervous and excited all at once.

"I built a smaller version first," he explained, moving to stand beside it. "To test the mechanism before committing to full scale."

He pulled up a stool and gestured for me to come closer. I leaned in as his hands moved over the machine with the easy confidence of someone who had taken it apart and put it back together a hundred times.

"This is the magazine," he said, pointing to a vertical compartment. "It holds the matrices—the molds for each letter. When the operator presses a key, the corresponding matrix is released and slides down here." He traced the path with his finger. "They assemble in a line, one after another, until you’ve built an entire row of text."

I watched, fascinated, as he demonstrated. His hands were steady and precise, nothing like the nervous energy he carried when discussing finances or society.

"Then the machine does this." He pulled a lever. The line of matrices shifted, and a stream of molten metal poured into the molds. "The type is cast instantly. One solid line of text, ready for the printing press."

He lifted the finished piece and handed it to me. A thin strip of metal, still warm, with raised letters along its edge. I turned it over in my hands and read the line aloud.

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

"Every letter of the alphabet," Oliver said, grinning. "It’s what typesetters use to test a new font. I thought it fitting for the first run."

I stared at the tiny letters, perfectly formed, and felt something shift in my chest. This was real. This was happening. Forty-three seconds to print what would take a compositor ten minutes.

"Oliver." I met his eyes. "This is going to make us very, very rich."

He laughed. "That’s your takeaway?"

"That’s my only takeaway." I grinned. "Now show me everything."

We fell into rhythm easily, the way we always did.

He explained the mechanical improvements he was planning for the full version. I asked about production costs, scalability, patent protection. He showed me sketches of the final design. I calculated potential profit margins in my head.

Hours passed. The light turned from gray to gold.

At one point, Oliver looked at me and something shifted in his expression.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing." He shook his head. "It’s just... you actually understand this. The business side. Most people see the machine and think it’s clever. You see the machine and think about what it could become."

"That’s because I’m smarter than most people."

He laughed. "Modest, too."

"I’m a woman of many talents."

He held my gaze for a moment longer than necessary, but I pretended not to notice.

Just then the door slammed open.

A young man stumbled in. Oliver’s apprentice, ink-stained and wide-eyed.

"Mr. Whitfield! There’s a man outside. Demanding to see Miss Thorne. He says—" The apprentice swallowed hard. "He says if she doesn’t come out in five minutes, he’ll burn this place to the ground."

Oliver stepped forward. "Who—"

But I already knew.

I moved toward the door. Oliver caught my arm.

"Eleanor, wait. You don’t have to—"

"Yes, I do." I pulled free. "If I don’t, he’ll do exactly what he said. Trust me."

I paused at the threshold, just for a second, and turned my head just enough to catch his eye.

"I’ll write to you soon."

Then I walked out without looking back.

Casimir stood in the street like a storm cloud in expensive tailoring. His carriage waited behind him, horses stamping, driver looking anywhere but at the scene unfolding.

I walked past him without a word and climbed into the carriage.

He followed. The door slammed and the carriage lurched forward.

The silence was suffocating.

He sat across from me, jaw tight, hands gripping his knees like he was holding himself back from something. I watched the buildings pass through the window and said nothing. I couldn’t look at him. Not yet. Not when I was still so tired of fighting.

"You left the manor without permission," he said finally. "Without an escort. Without telling anyone where you were going."

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back against the cushioned seat.

"I went to see my business partner. The man your aunt banned from the house for the crime of existing."

"You went to a workshop near the river. Alone."

"How did you find me?" I opened my eyes and looked at him. The question came out flat, curious despite myself. "I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. Not Hattie. Not a servant. No one."

He didn’t answer. His jaw tightened further.

"Let me guess." I studied his face. "You bullied someone—no, don’t answer that. I don’t care who you terrorized just to track me down. I care that you did it at all."

He leaned forward, his voice dropping. "You’re a woman alone in a part of the city where—"

"I’m aware of the dangers, Casimir." Exhaustion bled through every word. "I’m also aware that I have a business to run, a partner who relies on me, and an invention that could change everything. None of which cares about your aunt’s approval or your need to control every breath I take."

His jaw tightened. "I’m not trying to control you."

"Aren’t you?" I sat forward, meeting him halfway.

"Every time I step outside those gates, you come after me. Every time I make a decision you don’t like, you find a way to undo it. You stood in that drawing room and watched them circle me, and when I fought back, you made me apologize." My voice stayed quiet, tired, stripped of its usual fire.

"What am I supposed to call that, Casimir?"

Something moved behind his eyes, but I was too exhausted to decode it.

"Casimir." I used his name softly, the way I used to when we were alone and the walls came down. "I need you to hear me. Really hear me."

He didn’t speak, but he was listening.

"I have a mind of my own. I have plans that don’t fit inside the box your aunt wants to put me in. And I’m not going to stop." I held his gaze. "If you could just trust me. Let me do this. Let me see it through. Don’t stand in my way. Don’t play the guardian when it’s convenient for you."

His jaw worked. "And if I did? If I trusted you?"

"Then maybe." I let the word hang between us. "Maybe we could start over. Not as guardian and ward. Not this constant war we’ve been fighting. But something else."

The silence stretched. The carriage wheels turned and the city passed by outside.

He didn’t answer, but I saw the war he had been fighting since the beginning.

I leaned back and closed my eyes again.

"But if you keep trying to control me," I added quietly, "I’ll make everyone’s life around me miserable. Starting with yours. And I promise you, Casimir—I’m very, very good at it."

Neither of us spoke for the rest of the ride.