Page 107 of A Queen's Match
There was a pause as the queen considered her next words. “I see that beneath your placid surface, May, you are a fighter. As I have been my whole life. A difficult childhood will do that to you,” she added under her breath.
May suspected, then, that the queen knew about Francis. Perhaps she didn’t know the extent of it, but she sensed his true nature.
“I aspire to be as strong as Your Majesty,” she replied softly.
The queen nodded, and it seemed to May that a moment of kinship passed between them—across the generations, bridging rank and wealth and love and loss. They both knew what it was to be a woman with her own mind, in a world shaped by men.
Even a queen had to fight for what was hers.
“There has been too much upheaval of late,” Victoria mused aloud. “Eddy’s death has shaken the nation to the core. To lose a young man who would have been king, uprooting theline of succession…Our role as the royal family is to maintain stability, to be steady and immutable even when the world changes around us. Now that Eddy is gone, we cannot afford any more disruption.”
“Of course,” May replied, though she didn’t quite see what this had to do with her.
A knock sounded at the door, and satisfaction settled over Victoria’s features. “Oh, good. He’s right on time.”
May turned to look, and her heart skipped a beat. Standing in the doorway was George.
“Georgie, dear. Come join us,” the queen requested.
May tried to catch his gaze, but George was deliberately looking anywhere but at her as he settled into a nearby armchair. He didn’t reach for a tea mug, just leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I shall, as Lord Salisbury would say, get to the point,” Victoria declared. “You two now have my permission to court.”
May’s heart soared in delight—but before she could say anything, George let out a strangled cry of protest.
“Grannie, you can’t mean that. It would be disrespectful to Eddy.”
“On the contrary, it would be disrespectful not to! She didn’tmarryhim, after all,” the queen pointed out, with brutal practicality. She frowned at her grandson. “I thought you’d be thrilled, given that you asked to court May first.”
“You asked to court me?” May blurted out, eyes on George. He still didn’t acknowledge her.
“Yes, back at Osborne, the day before you got engaged to Eddy. George came to me and asked for my permission to court you. I would have granted his request, except that Eddydeclared the very next morning that he would marry you or no one else.” Victoria shrugged. “Naturally, since Eddy was the older brother, his desires came first. I told George that he had to step aside. He was very dutiful, of course, and obeyedme.”
Eddy’s desires came first—this was said so matter-of-factly that May winced. She tried again to meet George’s gaze, but he was staring down at his shoes, jaw clenched.
George had wanted to court her. If only he’d asked his grandmother’s permission a day earlier. If May had known, she would never have gotten engaged to Eddy.
They could have all been spared so much hurt: her, Eddy. Hélène.
“May, your engagement to Eddy, short as it was, introduced you to the nation,” the queen went on briskly. “People already think of you as a future queen. It’s quite a touching story: you and George, sharing your mutual grief at Eddy’s death, slowly realizing that you care for each other. The nation will love it.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” George said flatly. “I regret to say that I no longer feel about May as I once did.”
It stung, hearing that.
The queen sniffed. “I don’t see why. Really, Georgie, you and May are far better suited than she ever was with Eddy. And if I’m being honest, she’s better for you than Missy—”
“What happened to Missy is May’s fault!”
There was utter silence, broken only by the sound of Victoria tapping her spoon against her teacup. May knew she had mere seconds before the queen decided her fate.
She sensed that a lie, however clever, would hurt her cause.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” May said quickly, turning to the queen. “Missy had once told me about Prince Ferdinand—that he was flirtatious with her. She giggled, and seemed quite fond of his attention.” May hung her head in shame. “I mentioned this to Her Royal Highness the Queen of Prussia, and I fear that she may have related it to Ferdinand, who acted on it.”
George finally looked up, his blue eyes bright, but he said nothing.
The queen sighed. “So, you relayed a bit of gossip to my daughter Vicky.”
