Page 15 of A Queen's Match
“Very well, I’ll inform my father. He’ll be livid,” Nicholas added under his breath. “He really was excited at the prospect of a French alliance.”
“Youdoknow that my father has no throne, right?” Hélène arched an eyebrow. “There was a revolution, and we got sent away. A terrible inconvenience, really.”
“My parents don’t recognize the French Revolution.” Nicholas spoke as if this were a reasonable announcement to make, like deciding to sleep late one morning, or wearing a jacket without a cravat. “They refuse to treat with yournation’s republican government. My father calls them a bunch of peasants, says that your father is the undisputed King ofFrance.”
Well, hadn’t the Romanovs stamped out all anarchy and rebellion in their own territories? It stood to reason that they would willfully ignore it elsewhere.
A sudden prickle of awareness traced down Hélène’s spine. She turned around to see May of Teck standing on the balcony above them.
Irritatingly, May looked better than Hélène had ever seen. She’d twisted her hair up into a knot, leaving a few pieces to fall around her face, and the soft blue-gray color of her gown echoed her eyes. Eyes that currently narrowed on Hélène.
Fine, then. If May wanted to lurk in corners and spy on her, then Hélène would give her something to spy on. Something that suited her own purposes.
“Would you mind if we waited to share this with our parents? If we let everyone think that we really are courting, just for a little while?” Hélène dared another glance at the terrace, but May had vanished.
Nicholas followed her gaze. “You want to make him jealous, don’t you? The man you love.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“I see,” the tsarevich added, though he clearly didn’t. Then he shrugged. “As it happens, I think your proposal might help me, too.”
“Because you want to makeyoursecret lover jealous?”
He winced at her phrasing. “No, because I want my parents to think I’ve forgotten her. They don’t approve.”
Probably a ballerina, Hélène thought. Or a married woman.
“She should be arriving in London soon,” Nicholas went on softly. “If my father thinks I’m here to court you, then I can stay longer. See the woman I love without consequence. Otherwise he’ll drag me back to Russia.”
Drag him back? “Doesn’t your father allow you more freedom than that?”
“He is my tsar much more than my father,” Nicholas said flatly.
Hélène played with the skirts of her gown, folding the crimson fabric over itself. “It seems we are equal in that, then. Both of us subject to the commands of our fathers. Both unable to be with the person we love.”
“For now,” Nicholas pointed out, and those two words heartened her.
A silence fell between them, but it was an easy, amiable silence. Nicholas wasn’t surly at all, Hélène realized. She was just so accustomed to Eddy, whose attention spilled outward, eager and excitable. Nicholas had a stillness that reminded her more of George. His introspection seemed to invite her to join in, to be silentwithhim, rather than shutting her out.
Hélène shifted; though May had disappeared, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. “If we’re going to do this, we might as well put on a good show.”
A bark of startled laughter escaped Nicholas’s chest. She recalled, belatedly, that young women weren’t supposed to speak so bluntly.
“I suppose we should,” he agreed. “I don’t make a habit of doing things by half measure.”
“No, it hardly seems the Romanov way.”
Hélène saw that a few of the guests had noticed themtogether. After all, it wasn’t every day that the princess of an exiled royal house flirted with the man who would someday rule Russia.
Nicholas came to stand behind her, tucking his head over the top of hers—he really was quite tall, taller even than Eddy. Then he ran his hand down her arm to lace their fingers, lifting Hélène’s gloved hand to point into the air.
“What are you doing?” Hélène hissed. She felt rather than saw Nicholas smile in response.
“I’m doing what I told your father I would do. Showing you the stars.” He adjusted the position of her hand. “See that grouping of stars just over your finger? That’s the evil bear.”
“The evil bear?”
“I suppose I could translate the Russian as ‘the merciless bear,’ ” Nicholas amended. “The cruel bear? In any case, he kills the peasant who tries to trick him into eating a turnip.”
