Page 4 of A Queen's Match
“Electrically powered iceboxes. Can you imagine?” Maud murmured, reaching for a cup of ice cream.
May couldn’t imagine. Her family was down to a singleicebox. The ice delivery cart—laden with slabs of ice packed in straw, which were chiseled off at each house and charged by weight—now only drove by White Lodge once a week. The Tecks had to store all their perishables in the same tiny icebox, cramming the dairy alongside the meats. It was one of her father’s many complaints that their butter smelled likefish.
She turned to Maud, ignoring the man’s offer of ice cream. “You must be so excited for your parents’ party next month. To be married twenty-five years! What a milestone.”
May’s parents had celebrated their own silver anniversary with a luncheon they couldn’t afford. They hadn’t given each other gifts—they had long ago stopped doing so—but Her Majesty had given a lovely watch bracelet to Mary Adelaide. May sometimes caught her father staring at it with a sour expression, as if he blamed the bracelet for everything that had gone wrong in his marriage.
By contrast, the Waleses would mark their quarter century of marriage with a formal ball at Marlborough House, which half of Europe’s royalty would probably attend.
“It’s always quite awful when Mother throws a ball,” Maud admitted. “Just yesterday she and Father were arguing about how big the tent should be.”
May doubted that Maud would call her parents’ discussion anargumentif she knew what went on in the Teck house. Then she registered the rest of Maud’s sentence. A tent, for an evening party? The Waleses must be planning an even larger guest list than she’d realized.
For a fleeting moment, May missed her friend Agnes, an American heiress with a wicked sense of humor and a closetfull of breathtaking gowns. Agnes would have lent her the perfect dress for this party.
Except that Agnes wasn’t actually May’s friend. From the beginning Agnes had been using her as a stepping stone: hoping May could propel her upward in her endless, relentless social climb.
“If there’s a tent, your parents must be expecting guests from out of town,” she said carefully. This was what she really wanted to know—which other princesses would be in attendance at the silver anniversary.
In other words, who her competition for Eddy might be.
“Mormor and Morfar,” Maud replied, using awful Danish nicknames for her maternal grandparents, the King and Queen of Denmark. “Aunt Minnie said she hopes to come, but I’m afraid she’ll end up stuck in St.Petersburg. And of course there’s no chance of Uncle Sasha making the journey.”
May felt a stab of jealousy, hearing Maud refer to the Tsar Alexander asUncle Sasha.She wasn’t as excruciatingly royal as Maud, but she was part of the royal family, too—her great-grandfather was King George III! Yet she felt excluded from the network that Maud spoke of so effortlessly, this skein of intertwined connections that gave Maud access to every crowned head in Europe.
“What about Alix?” May asked.
Maud handed her empty bowl and spoon back to the ice cream man, who dropped them into a tub of soapy water. She shrugged. “Perhaps? No one ever knows when Alix and her brother are coming from Darmstadt.”
May wasn’t especially worried about Alix. Last year, she had ensured that the Hessian princess would never marryEddy by spreading word about Alix’s fainting spells. A harsh move, perhaps, but Alix did suffer from a weak constitution. It didn’t count as gossip if it was true…. Right?
May knew she wasn’t anyone’s first choice as future queen. Queen Victoria would have preferred Alix; Eddy had wanted Hélène. But neither princess was currently in London. Her Majesty had already slid further down the list of eligible brides than she’d expected—surely, eventually, she would remember that May was an option too?
Of course, it all came down to the question of Hélène.
May hadn’t seen her in months, since the wedding of Princess Sophie and Prince Constantine. She suspected that Hélène was hiding with one of her relatives, probably her sister, worried that May would reveal her explosive secret.
May hadn’t actually been the one to blackmail Hélène; Agnes had written the letter without telling her. But now it was done. Given Hélène’s continued absence from London, May couldn’t help feeling just the slightest bit grateful for Agnes’s interference.
At the sound of a commotion, May and Maud glanced over. A man with a thick mustache waved enthusiastically from a platform several feet above the ground.
“The Otis elevator! The safest lift in the world, as seen at the World’s Fair in Paris!” The man gestured to the machine on his left. It resembled a closet with three walls, connected to a series of pulleys and ropes and wheels.
“I’ve heard of elevators! They are like dumbwaiters, but for people,” May exclaimed, momentarily forgetting to hide the fact that she read the newspapers. Luckily, Maud didn’t seem to notice.
“What a strange contraption.” Maud tilted her head, studying it. “I can’t imagine anyone would choose that box over a staircase. It looks quite devoid of air.”
May could have pointed out that one side of the elevator box was open, letting in plenty of air, or that many people found it impossible to walk up a staircase. In fact, Queen Victoria had taken to riding in her wheelchair more often lately.
But May was distracted by a flash of dark hair near the elevator. “Your brother is here?”
“I didn’t know George was coming!” Maud followed May’s gaze, and cast her a puzzled look. “I’m sorry, did you mean Eddy?”
“Yes, Eddy,” May said awkwardly. She must not have been very discreet last year, when she and George had developed a friendship—which May had, for a foolish moment, thought was more.
At least George himself seemed ignorant of her feelings. He had made it abundantly clear that his inclinations toward May were strictly friendly, that he wanted to marry his younger cousin Missy once she came of age. And he would almost certainly get permission to do so. George was a second son, and could follow his heart.
Eddy, on the other hand, would have to marry whomever his grandmother selected for him. May just needed to ensure that Queen Victoria choseher.
