Page 16 of A Queen's Match
Hélène stepped back and turned, breaking their physical contact. “The Russian bear sounds quite violent.”
“Let me guess, in French stories the bear is sweet and gentle?”
“He’s just a simpleton who gets outwitted by the fox.” At Nicholas’s questioning look, Hélène recounted the fable her childhood nurse had told her. “The fox persuades the bear to go fishing during the winter, by sticking his tail in the lake as bait. When the lake freezes around the bear’s tail, he has to rip it out, leaving half behind. That’s why bears’ tails are so short.”
“Ah. The fox is the hero in French stories, since the French value wit and cleverness.”
He didn’t mean anything by the statement, but it still made Hélène pause. Maybe life was more like that fable than she’d realized. Maybe the people who came out on top were those who used subterfuge, who manipulated others, who were clever and sly and self-centered.
Maybe Hélène needed to be a little more foxlike, if she was going to beat May at the game that May had been playing all along.
She would do it. She would go to every party and social gathering, and smile up at Nicholas as if he’d hung the stars, and let May think she had completely moved on from Eddy.
Footsteps sounded behind them.
Hélène whirled around, and saw the figure standing there—and then she saw the look on Nicholas’s face.
The truth hit her all at once.
She should have figured it out months ago, when she and Alix were at the wedding in Athens, exchanging secrets.His parents won’t let us marry. They hate me,Alix had murmured. Hélène had wondered who could possibly disapprove of Alix as a daughter-in-law.
The Romanovs, of course. The most excruciatingly stuck-up family of them all.
Alix was in love with Nicholas—and now she had walked in on him, alone with Hélène.
Chapter Seven
Alix
Alix had been looking forNicholas for the past half hour, but she hadn’t expected to find him here. In the gardens, leaning close to Hélène, murmuring in her ear.
When she’d arrived in London several days ago, Alix had tried to ask Grandmama about this evening’s guest list, but the queen had brushed off her question.It’s not my party, it’s Bertie’s,Grandmama had sniffed. So Alix hadn’t known for sure whether Nicholas was coming. Not until she arrivedtonight and found Aunt Vicky, always the most loose-lipped of the family. Vicky had been too distracted to notice how pointed Alix’s questions were. She had merely shrugged and said, yes, the tsarevich was attending on his parents’ behalf.
Seeing her, Nicholas and Hélène stumbled apart, both hurrying to explain themselves.
“Alix! I’m so glad you’re here, I didn’t know you were in town—”
“Please don’t think this means anything. We hadn’t realized our parents were in talks, but of course, we will tell themno—”
At Hélène’s words, Alix’s stomach twisted with dread. Hélène’s parents and Nicholas’s parents beingin talkscould only mean one thing. They were arranging a marriage.
Alix remembered hearing how, two hundred years earlier, Peter the Great had repeatedly tried to marry his daughter to the child king Louis XV. The French Regent, Louis’s uncle, had been perfectly content for Peter to send over a wealth of presents—furs, necklaces, slippers stiff with embroidery and jewels—only to laugh and reject the Romanov princess. Perhaps the Russian royal family had never lost this obsession with France, if they still sought a French alliance.
It wouldn’t matter to them that Hélène’s father didn’t have a fortune to bestow on her as a dowry, that he didn’t even have athrone.They already had plenty of money and territory to rule.
The things they sought in Hélène were her unparalleled pedigree, her centuries of royal blood that went back to Charlemagne.
Other guests were streaming from the lawn toward the main house, where gossip and music drifted from the windows. Alix suspected that Uncle Bertie was about to make a speech.
None of their trio moved.
“Alix, I had no idea Nicholas was the man you loved,” Hélène said urgently. “I wish you had told me.”
“You must know that Hélène and I have no intention of doing as our parents ask,” Nicholas added.
“Are you going to tell them, then?” It hurt, asking this; Alix swallowed and tried again. “You’re going to let your parents know that the courtship is off?”
She saw Hélène and Nicholas exchange a glance. Then the tsarevich turned to her, his blue eyes beseeching. “It might help if we let everyone think that Hélène and I trulyarecourting. Just for a little while.”
