Page 98 of A Queen's Match
Alix,
I know you said to forget you, but I cannot. Send just a word, I beg you, so that I may know whether or not to hope. I have told my parents that I will not marry Hélène, that in fact I won’t marry anyone except you, and that if I cannot have you then I will remain unwed until the end of my days. It might be enough to convince them, intime….
The second letter was more of the same, but Nicholas’s normally precise handwriting had disintegrated into a frantic scrawl. There were smudges in the ink, thumbprints.
“Was I wrong to keep them?” Ernie sank onto the floor next to her and looped his arms around his knees.
“No, I’m glad you did. It’s just…” Alix lowered the letter, carefully smoothing the wrinkles from the page. “Remember the fairy tales Mother used to tell us when we were little?”
“About handsome princes and love that defies the odds?” Ernie asked, only a little teasing.
“Exactly. In stories, the lovers always end up together, no matter how hard it seems.” Alix’s voice fell as she added, “Do you think it’s the same in real life? That true love finds a way, no matter what?”
“I don’t know.”
They both sat with that for a moment; then Ernie blew out a breath. “I do know this, Alix. Hélène was right; you and Nicholas are not impossible. She haslostthe man she loves, and as for me and the man I love…I can never be with him, not in any real sense. But Nicholas is still alive, and he loves you. You have a chance at happiness. Don’t squander it.”
Alix shifted closer, opening her arms to hug Ernie—but he paused, wrinkling his nose. “Alix. Have you been drinking brandy?”
“Hélène and I opened some,” she admitted. Perhaps that explained why her emotions felt so close to the surface right now, hope and hurt and love all swirling about.
Ernie chuckled. “I’m telling Grannie that you’re indisposed. Then I’m bringing you some bread and cheese, maybe some tea, and you are going to bed.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve never had brandy before, and if we don’t act now, you’ll be facing a rather brutal morning tomorrow. Come on.” Ernie stood, holding out a hand.
Alix let him pull her to her feet. Then, still holding her two letters from Nicholas, she followed her brother to her room.
It was quite nice, actually, being taken care of like a child. Ernie brought her food, as he’d promised, and called a lady’s maid to help Alix into her nightgown.
She went to sleep, the pages of Nicholas’s letters crinkling beneath her pillow.
Chapter Thirty-Six
May
May should have been wearingbridal white. Instead she was dressed in a high-necked black gown, a black veil covering her features, her hands—in their black gloves—clasped in her lap. She was inside St.George’s Chapel, at Windsor, but not for her wedding to Eddy. For his funeral.
Everything had happened so fast: his illness, his sudden death. The entire nation still felt thunderstruck by it all. The fact that Eddy had gotten engaged, and then died, in the span of a few months—it felt like a storyline from a novel, the sort of melodramatic thing that Alix would read.
Except that May was living it.
A winter sunbeam arced through the stained-glass windows, falling on the wooden floors of the chapel. May shivered. It was cold in here, and protocol didn’t allow heavy coats at a funeral.
Today had felt endless. The procession, with all those soldiers and drummers and gun salutes, and Eddy’s beloved horse—what was its name, again?—walking in a black harness, with Eddy’s boots and spurs reversed in the stirrups. May had ridden in a carriage after the coffin, behind George and Uncle Bertie, who walked the whole way.
May forced herself to swallow a yawn; she couldn’t let anyone see her disrespecting Eddy like that. But lately it had been impossible to sleep, her dreams full of shadows and accusations.
I didn’t kill him,May reminded herself yet again. Just because she’d sat in the church of St.Mary Magdalene and thought that things would be easier without Eddy…She hadn’tprayedfor his death, not technically. She wasn’t some medieval witch cursing her enemies. It was coincidence.
Of course, everyone assumed she was devastated. They were all watching her with furtive glances, wondering what she would do now. May suspected that some of them—the ones who’d been slightly resentful of her rise, the ones who’d never thought she deserved to marry Eddy—were secretly glad to see her brought low. Not that they were glad of Eddy’s death, but they were pleased that May would never be queen.
She was right back where she’d started: an unmarried woman, stuck under her father’s roof. Except that wasn’t quite true anymore. Now that Francis was gone, White Lodge was, unofficially speaking, Mary Adelaide’s house.
May kept worrying that her father might reappear. What if he realized that Eddy’s death meant May’s political influence had dwindled, and he came back to torture her? But so far, at least, he had stayed away. She’d heard he was currently in Württemberg, pretending to lord it over his distant German cousins.
Without him, White Lodge felt almost cozy. May spent a lot of time with her mother now, quietly working through the mountain of condolence letters that had arrived, many from complete strangers.
