CHAPTER TWO
Hélène
PRINCESS HéLèNE LOUISE HENRIETTE D’ORLéANS glanced across the ballroom of Marlborough House to where the footmen kept entering with champagne. The best thing she could say about this wedding was that the wine was good, and there was plenty of it.
She sighed, and her sister Amélie cast her a knowing look. “Shall we take a turn around the room?”
“Perhaps,” muttered Hélène, though the one person she longed to see wasn’t in this ballroom.
“Oh, you must take a turn about the room if you haven’t yet.” May of Teck, who was seated in a neighboring chair, clapped her hands in a silly show of enthusiasm. Oddly, her eyes were on Alix of Hesse, though she was speaking to Amélie. “Have you seen the flowers near the cake? They are divine.”
Alix blinked as if waking from a daydream. “Hmm?”
“We were just saying how lovely the wedding is,” Amélie said gently.
“Oh yes!” Alix beamed at her. “How long are you in town, Your Royal Highness? You must come over for tea before you leave. All of you,” she added, including Hélène and May in the invitation.
Hélène refrained from rolling her eyes, but only just. You must come over for tea. As if she had nothing better to do than nibble at scones and exchange gossip.
These noblewomen were all the same, not an original thought in any of their heads.
When Hélène had learned that the Princess Louise was marrying for love—and not even a prince, but a mere aristocrat!
—she’d actually thought this wedding might be interesting.
But, as usual, her imagination had outpaced reality.
“That sounds lovely,” Amélie agreed, when it was clear Hélène wouldn’t say anything.
May smiled at Amélie. “This must bring back such joyous memories from your own wedding day.”
Two years ago Amélie had married Carlos, the Crown Prince of Portugal.
The two of them genuinely cared for each other, which was a rare gift in a royal marriage.
Of course Hélène wanted her sister to be happy.
Yet she missed the old version of Amélie, who used to follow along in Hélène’s schemes and giggle at inappropriate jokes.
She missed the closeness they had shared before marriage and motherhood came between them.
This trip was Amélie’s first time away from her two-year-old son, Luis Filipe.
Prince Carlos, clearly besotted with Amélie, had insisted she come home to see her family—or more accurately, come back to England, since home would forever be France for the Orléans family. They were still very much in exile.
It had happened long before Hélène was even born, when her father was just ten years old. His grandfather, King Louis Philippe, had been forced to abdicate as King of France. At least he’d had it better than the king in the other French Revolution, who’d died on the guillotine.
Hélène had grown up in Paris, in a townhouse that was beautiful, but certainly not a palace, her family treated like any other wealthy family—save the white roses that were occasionally strewn over their doorstep, a sign of illicit support from monarchists who wanted to see Hélène’s father restored to his throne.
Perhaps the monarchists had been growing in number, because when Hélène was fifteen, the tides of the Third Republic shifted, and her family was informed that they must leave France and never return.
They had lived here in England ever since.
Ridiculously, no one ever spoke of what had happened.
The British aristocrats who ran in their social circles addressed Hélène’s parents as the Count and Countess of Paris, a title that Queen Victoria had invented when she offered them asylum.
Hélène’s father had been forced to smile and thank her, no matter how galling it was to be a made-up count when he should have been king.
A murmur arose among the young women as Prince Eddy approached, his brother George trailing along in his wake.
Hélène had known Eddy long enough to remember when he’d been a boisterous, enthusiastic child.
He was a young man now, but there was still something boyish about him—in his floppy hair and carefree smile and the coltish way he moved, as if he’d grown in a sudden spurt and wasn’t yet used to his long limbs.
The other girls smiled and tossed their heads coquettishly, but not Hélène. And, she realized, not Alix of Hesse. Alix was staring out the window again, lost in a world of her own making.
Eddy’s eyes trailed over the line of women before him. When his gaze met Hélène’s, she cut hers away in cool dismissal, as if the very sight of him bored her. He stiffened, then turned to Alix.
“May I have the honor of a dance?”
Of course Alix was who he wanted. That porcelain doll of a girl whom his grandmother had set him up with.
Hélène watched as Prince George asked May of Teck to dance. He was like a muted version of his older brother: his hair a deeper brown, his eyes a darker blue. George was stocky and solid where Eddy was lean and athletic, calm and even-tempered where Eddy was restless and loud.
A few of the other ladies, visibly disappointed that they hadn’t been chosen, ventured off for glasses of lemonade, leaving Amélie and Hélène alone.
“Did you just roll your eyes at Prince Eddy?” Amélie whispered.
“So what if I did?”
“You can’t keep frightening off eligible young men, especially not princes. How will you ever get married?”
“It doesn’t matter; we both know that Eddy isn’t an option.” As future head of the Church of England, Eddy would need to marry a nice Protestant princess, and the Orléans family was exceedingly Catholic. “Besides,” Hélène added flippantly, “I don’t want to marry at all.”
Amélie gasped. “Stop saying that! You’re too pretty not to marry!”
Actually, Amélie was the prettier of the pair—or at least, she was softer and more delicate, which seemed to be what men preferred.
There was something too bold and decisive about Hélène’s beauty: her long dark hair and full lips and most of all her eyes, which were dangerously expressive, flashing a fierce golden-brown with her moods.
Hélène could only hope that since Amélie had married a crown prince, recruiting a powerful new ally to the Orléans cause, Hélène’s parents wouldn’t rush to find their other daughter a husband. She wasn’t looking forward to being an item for trade.
It was all that princesses, and aristocratic women in general, lived for—all they ever seemed to talk about. They worried about marriage and having children and then, eventually, getting their children and grandchildren married. It was just an endless cycle that always came back to marriage.
When Hélène was younger, her governess had fought to make her one of those young ladies, the kind whose daydreams ended at the altar.
But Hélène had lacked the patience for piano, singing, watercolor: all the things that made a woman ornamental and utterly useless.
She’d escaped her lessons and fled to the stables so many times that her parents eventually told the governess not to bother.
Now she had other reasons for visiting the stables.
Feeling provocative, she turned back to Amélie. “If I ever do marry, it will be to someone adventurous, like a soldier.”
“A soldier! Why?”
“I could travel with him, see the world.”
Amélie’s brow furrowed. “But you can see the world.”
Hélène didn’t share her sister’s definition of the world, which was limited to fashionable society retreats and cloistered palaces.
Back when they’d lived in France, she used to love their summer visits to their Normandy estate, the Chateau d’Eu.
Hélène would plead with her father to take her to the quays—where she stood transfixed, inhaling the scents of tar and salt air, watching the sailors unload the various ships.
Imagining the beautiful, distant places they had visited, full of magic and adventure.
Her brother Philippe got to lead that sort of life.
He’d joined the British military and taken a position at an outpost in the Himalayas.
According to his latest letter, he’d been mountain climbing in Tibet and hunting in Nepal and had met fortune tellers in Ceylon.
That was the world Hélène longed to see.
“Of course, you’re right about Prince Eddy. You could never convert to the Church of England.” Undaunted, Amélie glanced back at the dance floor. “There are other princes here. What about Christian of Schleswig-Holstein or Frederick of Denmark? We should go say hello.”
Hélène followed her sister’s gaze to the couples moving in steps as narrow and choreographed as their narrow, choreographed lives. Jewels and champagne flutes gleamed in the afternoon light. Her blood felt suddenly hot, her skin prickly.
“I don’t feel well,” Hélène blurted out. Before Amélie could protest, she started toward the front door.
The driveway that led to Marlborough House was crowded with carriages, all of them emblazoned with their owners’ coats of arms. Coachmen loitered near the steps, looking more disheveled than usual with their vests tossed aside, shirtsleeves rolled up in the heat.
Most of them loosely clutched cigarettes, killing time until their employers were ready to head home.
It was so hot out; Hélène felt a bead of sweat sliding down her back. Still, it felt less stifling out here than in the crush of that ballroom.
Her eyes cut instinctively to the gold and blue of her family’s carriage, and there he was—the man she couldn’t stop thinking about. Her family’s coachman.
Laurent Guérard was certainly not the type of young man she should be alone with, though really, Hélène shouldn’t be alone with any young man.
He’d come with her family when they crossed over from France three years ago, along with their entire household: their ladies’ maids and butler and chef, all the way down to their scullery maids.
Royals, even those in exile, didn’t travel without a full retinue.
Laurent reddened adorably at the sight of her.
He was so handsome, with his sand-colored hair and shy smile, but it was his voice that had captivated Hélène.
He’d been soothing the horses during a storm, his tone low and husky as he crooned songs she’d never heard: shockingly inappropriate songs that should have scandalized her, but only made her want more.
She remembered standing in the shadowed stables as thunder cracked overhead, the air heavy with the warm, familiar smells of hay and horses.
Hélène had listened, entranced, as Laurent’s voice wove around her like a spell.
Even though she’d never done so much as kiss a man before that night, it had felt impossible not to go to him, to whisper his name in the enchanted darkness while rain pounded overhead.
That was over a year ago, when Hélène had just turned seventeen.
“Mademoiselle. Shouldn’t you be at the reception?” Laurent spoke in French, as he always did when alone with Hélène.
She held out a hand so that he could help her into the carriage. “I don’t feel well. I told Amélie that I’m heading home.” It was only half a lie.
He hesitated. “Are you sure? This party will last for several more hours.”
“Which means we have several hours to ourselves.” Hélène smiled, a bit wickedly. “As I said, I don’t feel well. I need to be taken straight to bed.”
An unfamiliar emotion—confusion, or maybe regret—flickered over Laurent’s face, but then he nodded and opened the carriage’s gilded door.
When they reached Sheen House, Laurent steered the horses past the main front drive, heading directly to the stables. Hélène opened the door herself and went eagerly inside.
Laurent stared at her for a moment, eyes wide. “You look very…royal.”
She realized that he rarely saw her like this, fully dressed as her princess self. Her bright blue gown was embroidered with shimmering silver thread. Diamonds blazed at her ears and throat, and her unruly dark hair had been coaxed into an intricate knot, atop which sat a tiara.
She reached for the pins that held her tiara in place and tugged it off, then set it on a hay bale. Sunshine sliced through the open window to catch on the diamonds, sending a spray of light over the walls.
“How about now?” Hélène tugged at her hair until it fell in a wild tumble over her shoulders.
Laurent swallowed. “There’s something I need to tell you…that is, I…”
She started up the narrow staircase that led to the loft. “Tell me after you’ve helped me out of this gown.”
He clattered up the stairs after her. They fell back onto the mattress he kept in the corner, beneath the swooping wooden rafters where small birds built their nests.
Laurent’s fingers fumbled with the intricate hooks and fastenings of her elaborate court dress, until Hélène impatiently yanked it, causing a delicate pearl button to fly into the hay.
Oh well—Violette would have to sew it back on tomorrow.
She tugged Laurent’s gold-braided jacket over his shoulders and flung it impatiently to the floor, then reached for his belt buckle.
He was saying her name over and over, and the desire in his voice felt so thrilling; it felt right.
Hélène tightened her arms around him as he fisted a hand in the curtain of her hair.
She was aware of different sensations all at once: the brush of Laurent’s stubble against her cheek, the strength of his torso as he settled over her.
Warmth seemed to ignite everywhere he touched, spreading from her limbs and collarbone to spool deep in her core.
Up here in the loft, Hélène wished her life could always be this simple. That there were no obligations or restrictions, no gowns or tiaras—nothing but her and this man who held her, who loved her.
She felt certain that he loved her, even if neither of them dared speak the words aloud.
It wasn’t until later, when Hélène lay nestled in the warmth of Laurent’s arms, that she remembered.
She propped herself up on one elbow. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”
Laurent’s lips twitched, as if he was about to speak, only to decide against it.
“It’s not important,” he assured her, and leaned over to kiss her again.
His hand crept beneath the blanket to skim over Hélène’s body, and she stopped thinking about whatever confession he’d decided not to make.
There was room in her mind for nothing in that moment but him.