Page 7 of A Queen's Match
May’s skirts swooped upward, her stomach flying up to somewhere in her throat. She closed her eyes, scrabbling for anything to grab hold of—
The box shuddered to a screeching halt, and May realized that her body was pressed against Eddy’s, her hands grabbing the walls to either side of his waist.
“It’s perfectly safe!” the elevator man boomed. “Even if the cord is damaged, the safety brakes will engage, ensuring that no one falls to the ground….”
May rapidly disentangled herself from Eddy and took a step back, only to realize with surprise that he was smiling. Inexplicably, he’d thought that wasfun.
Hélène would probably have thought the same thing.
“I take it the safety brakes were more than you bargained for?” His voice was teasing, but gently so.
“A little,” she admitted. “But I’m glad I did it.”
When the elevator car descended, everyone swept forward, peppering them with questions and exclaiming how brave they’d been. Eddy’s identity must have been revealed while he and May were in the air, because there was also a lot of bowing andYour Royal Highnessing. Eddy’s little adventure had, May thought, helped deflect attention from how useless the Prince of Wales was as a royal scientific patron.
“You were up so high! How did it feel?” Maud asked, hurrying toward May. “Did it give you a new perspective onthings?”
May stole a glance back at Eddy. As if he felt her eyes on him, he met her gaze and grinned knowingly. There was nothing romantic or intimate about it; it was the sort of look you might give a friend, someone with whom you had shared ajoke.
Well, she had to start somewhere.
May turned to answer Maud’s question. “How astute of you. Yes, being in the elevator gave me an entirely new perspective.”
Chapter Three
Alix
“Can I join you?”
Alix of Hesse set aside the sketchbook she’d been holding. “Of course,” she told her brother, who dropped down to sit next to her. Insects buzzed in the air around them, which was filled with the fresh growing scents of spring, tender green shoots peeking up through the earth.
“How long have you been out here?” Ernie asked.
“A few hours?” When she’d come into the gardens, the sun had hovered above the ivy-covered brick wall; now it was nearly overhead. But then, Alix was always losing track of time. She would fall headfirst into whatever she was doing, a novel or a sketch or a piece on the piano, and the hours melted away like candle wax.
That must be one of the reasons she’d made a poor impression at the Russian court. Everything there ran on such a regimented schedule: meals served at the stroke of the hour, appointments carved into little thirty-minute blocks. It was maddening.
Ernie leaned over to study her sketch. “Did you start this last night?”
Belatedly, Alix realized that she’d drawn the scene beforeher with heavy strokes of charcoal. Moody shadows crept across its surface, a bruised sky looming overhead—nothing like the sunny garden that surrounded them.
“I wanted to draw a stormy day,” she replied, though Ernie wasn’t fooled. He knew the reason her mind felt turbulent, alternating between hope and despair.
Alix hurried to change the subject, nodding in the direction of the stables. “Were you out riding this morning?”
“Oh—no,” Ernie said, almost evasively. “But I might go later, if you want to join.”
“Maybe.” Alix fiddled with her charcoal stub, leaving gray streaks across the back of her knuckles. Her grandmother—Queen Victoria, the most powerful monarch in all the world, except, perhaps, the Russian tsar—would have scolded Alix for her messy hands. But Grandmama and all her advice, not to mention her meddling, were far off in England.
Church bells clanged from the Stadtkirche just across the road. Alix always felt at ease here in Darmstadt, with its cobblestone streets and gabled roofs. Her family’s “palace” was really just a spacious home, no more ostentatious than any of the massive residences in London’s new fashionable neighborhood of Mayfair. But then, as grand duke of the minor German territory of Hesse, Alix’s father wielded little political influence.
Ernie was staring at the row of linden trees along the far wall. He looked so much like Alix; they both had their mother’s blond hair and sky-blue eyes. But their similarity was more than physical. It was a dreaminess in their expressions, the distracted way they both moved through the world, as if their interior dialogues were more interesting than what others had to say.
“Don’t move,” Alix commanded, crossing her legs beneath her dress in a distinctly unladylike manner.
Ernie gave a beleaguered sigh. “Must I be your modelnow?”
“I’m sorry, did you have other plans for the afternoon?” Alix had already pulled out a new sheet of paper.
