Page 79 of A Queen's Match
George might understand, but George was probably lost to her too.
“I am sorry” was all May replied.
Eddy shook his head and walked out, leaving her in the White Drawing Room in her queenly robe and gown.
May let her head fall back onto the sofa, tears pricking at her eyes. Just half an hour earlier she had been electrified with the possibility of kissing George, and now this? Eddy wanted toexileher?
For so many years she’d been certain of what she wanted—a marriage that would provide an escape. A safe haven. She had used deception and cruelty and betrayal, and now, on thebrink of getting what she’d wanted, she saw that she could have so much more. She didn’t have to settle for safety; she could have affection, trust.
As foolish as it was to think it, she could havelove.
May couldn’t leave England. That would mean leaving George.
Which meant that she had two weeks to find a way out of this mess.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hélène
Hélène was no stranger tobreaking the rules and risking her reputation. She had slipped out at night plenty of times to see Eddy, had dressed as a maid at the Endicotts’ house, but this—going into London in disguise, simply for fun—was Eddy’s idea.
“Thanks for agreeing to this,” he murmured, looping an arm around her shoulders as they navigated through the crowds.
“Of course. We’re celebrating!” Hélène smiled at him, positively giddy with relief.
She had seen the look on May’s face the other day. May had no more ideas, no more schemes to pull. Finally, they had beaten her.
It was an occasion worth marking in a very memorable way, Eddy had declared.
Which was why they’d come to Greenwich Fair tonight, dressed like ordinary workers. Eddy had borrowed clothes from his manservant, a simple shirt and pants beneath a plain wool coat, and Hélène wore the same maid’s uniform as the day she’d stolen back Laurent’s letter.
The streets were flooded with ordinary people: men whoworked at the docks or in stables, women who labored behind sewing machines or as maids. They held hands, laughed, clutched cups of ale. A Harlequin danced past, his costume a patchwork of colorful diamonds; a man with a scar along one cheek juggled flaming torches. Women in form-fitting clothes contorted their bodies, tying their legs and arms into shocking knots. Vendors proclaimed their wares above the din of the crowds—oysters, sweet buns, gingerbread. Amateur theater troupes used squares of dingy carpet as a stage, acting out sword fights or scenes of romance. It was a riot of sound and color and some distinctly pungent odors.
Hélène adored it. She had never been anywhere this vivid, this gloriously alive.
She tugged Eddy toward the river, where a cluster of musicians performed popular drinking songs. Couples danced in an open space nearby. Hélène didn’t recognize the dance—a polka, perhaps, or something imported from America?
Eddy grinned. “Care to dance?”
“But we don’t know the steps.” Hélène faltered, nervous at how quickly the dancers were moving. And there was a lot of jumping.
“Since when has that stopped us? We can fake our way through!” Eddy insisted.
And then Hélène was laughing, spinning in the wrong direction, stepping on her neighbors’ feet and mostly on Eddy’s. None of her dancing master’s training proved useful here. This resembled the Scottish dancing she’d done at Balmoral last summer far more than the staid quadrilles of a Londonballroom.
At some point she realized the dancers were forming two lines, hands clasped overhead to make a sort of tunnel. Couples ducked their heads to race down the tunnel amid raucous cheers.
When it was her and Eddy’s turn, they ran so fast that Hélène nearly stumbled, until Eddy reached his hands around her waist to steady her. Her breath caught. She thought back to that long-ago afternoon in Richmond Park when she’d been out in a storm, and Eddy had lifted her into the saddle.
That was the very first time Hélène had felt it—this insistent, combustible, impossible attraction between them.
Eddy must have been thinking along the same lines, because he leaned down to kiss her. An unhurried, easy kiss; not rushed or hidden behind the closed doors of Eddy’s apartment.It will be like this from now on,Hélène thought, and wanted to cry out with joy. They had the letter from Laurent; there was no way May—or anyone else—could blackmail her now. It wouldn’t stick without proof.
In two weeks’ time May would be out of their lives for good. Eddy would tell Queen Victoria that he was marrying Hélène after all. And eventually, when the hubbub over his broken engagement to May had died down, Hélène would stand up in a church and proclaim it before everyone: that she was Eddy’s, and Eddy was hers.
When the song ended and the dancers all paused to catch their breath, Eddy drew her to one side. He looked so handsome like this—happy, carefree, damp with exertion.
Feeling bold, Hélène let her hand drift under his coat and beneath the loose hem of his shirt, to skim over his abdomen. It was so easy to touch him without all the normalhindrances of gentlemanly attire, waistcoats and shirtfronts and cuff links snapping everything together. “I rather like these clothes. Normally, you’re so bundled up.”
