CHAPTER FOUR #2
“Oh, May! I’m so glad you could come by!” Alix stood, her dress rippling around her in soft folds. It was a buttery yellow, trimmed in lace at the shoulders and set off by a pair of pearl earrings.
Her smile was so warm, so genuine, that May felt herself thawing a little. Perhaps her idea hadn’t been harebrained after all.
“It’s good to see you,” she said tentatively. “When do you leave for Darmstadt?”
“In two days.” Alix led her to a tea table set up near the windows. Envy stabbed into May’s chest at the sight of the pressed white tablecloth, the fresh-baked scones and ramekins of clotted cream, the silver pot of tea. Everything was embroidered or embossed with the palace’s coat of arms.
“You’re not going to Balmoral this summer?” May asked.
“Not this year.”
Alix took a bite of buttered scone. May broke off a few pieces but didn’t eat any. She had to be constantly vigilant, or she might wake up one day and look like her mother.
“I do love it there, though,” Alix went on. “It’s nice to be secluded, away from the bustle of the city.”
“But the bustle is the best part of the city!” May burst out, unthinking.
Alix smiled. “To you, perhaps. I prefer the quiet.”
May saw it, now: that elusive quality that made everyone trip over themselves falling in love with Alix.
Her shy sweetness wasn’t feigned, the way May’s was.
It almost made May feel protective, except that the very concept was laughable.
How could she help a girl who possessed so much more than she ever would?
To her surprise, May found herself wanting to open up. “I understand what you mean, even if I don’t wholly agree. I used to love the weeks my family spent at Chiswick with the Waleses.”
A shadow passed over Alix’s face at the mention of the Waleses, so quick that May almost didn’t catch it. “Chiswick? Is that near the sea?”
“It’s west of London. There’s a lake, but no ocean.”
Alix nodded distractedly. “I’ve always wanted to visit the ocean. Have you heard of this new trend of sea bathing? They say it cures anything, even—”
She broke off before finishing the sentence, leaving May to wonder what she’d been about to say.
There was an awkward silence; May felt the sudden need to fill it. “Will you come back soon? Perhaps for the holidays?”
“I’m afraid not. I need to be home with my father.”
May twisted her fingers around a fistful of napkin. “I suppose you’ll miss Prince Eddy quite a lot.”
“What do you mean?” Alix asked, blood draining from her face.
This was why May didn’t have any friends; she never quite knew how to phrase things. “I’m sorry if I overstepped,” she fumbled. “I just thought—I mean, isn’t it—don’t you two have an understanding?”
Alix drew in a breath, tucking a strand of light blond hair behind her ear. “It would seem that everyone knew about this understanding except me.”
May paused, sensing that she should give Alix space to continue.
“This morning, after breakfast…Eddy asked to court me,” Alix added softly.
They hadn’t been courting already? “Congratulations,” May began, but her words faltered at the sight of Alix’s face. “Alix—are you all right?”
There was a moment of struggle on Alix’s perfect features, her desire for privacy warring with a need to confide in someone. “I don’t know.” She swallowed. “I hadn’t really considered…When Eddy brought it up, I wasn’t…”
“You don’t want Eddy to court you?”
Her cousin stared down at her delft plate, blue-and-white figures dancing around its rim. “Apparently, Grandmama has always expected us to marry. I don’t know.” Alix swept her gaze downward, her lashes casting shadows on her cheekbones. “We don’t love each other.”
There was a moment of silence that seemed to last a lifetime.
May’s heart skipped, a wild storm of thoughts racing through her head. Was Alix really dismissing Eddy’s courtship because she didn’t love him?
And if Alix had no interest in getting engaged to Eddy—if she, unbelievably, told him no—was there a world in which he might propose to May instead?
It wouldn’t be easy, but stranger things had happened. Anne Boleyn had married a king, and she wasn’t even a little bit royal, just the daughter of a lord.
After all, without Alix in the picture, who was Queen Victoria’s next best option for Eddy?
The only other princesses of their generation worth considering were that Mecklenburg girl and a few scattered cousins—Aunt Vicky’s daughters, or perhaps Uncle Alfred’s?
Princess Hélène of France could have been on the list, except for the major issue of religion.
Queen Victoria might let a younger son marry a Catholic, but it would never do for a future king.
Alix had been the clear choice since they were all children. If she stepped aside, it would be open season on Prince Eddy.
May wasn’t as purely royal as some of the other contenders, but she was royal enough.
And she was demure and soft-spoken, a very active member of the Anglican church, and had an airtight reputation, all of which were crucial requisites for a future queen.
She was like Alix in that regard: both of them rule followers, tea sippers, writers of embossed thank-you notes.
Both were quiet, elegant believers in the Way Things Were Done.
Besides, May had something those other princesses lacked—desperation.
She was determined, and she was here, and she was willing to do what it took to marry Eddy, without letting something as nebulous as love stop her.
May needed to get out from under her father’s roof, and if she could trade it for the roof of a palace, so much the better.
She’d spent her entire life in the shadow of those who were richer or higher born.
But if she could find a way to marry Eddy, everything would change.
And all those people who’d found her wanting?
May would relish the moment they came to her on their knees, begging favors, and she would have the delicious pleasure of telling them no.
She looked back up at Alix, who was watching her closely.
Somehow, May sensed that she could tip this situation one way or the other.
She could reassure Alix that she and Eddy would be good together, convince her to give the courtship a chance.
Certainly that was what Queen Victoria would expect May to do, out of family duty.
Or she could act in her own self-interest.
It was in Alix’s interest too, she reminded herself. If Alix really did want to marry for love, who was May to dissuade her?
She leaned forward. “Are you having reservations because of Eddy’s women?”
“I— What?”
“I’m sorry; I thought everyone knew.” May pretended to hesitate. “Please, forget I said anything.”
“Tell me.” For the first time there was a blade of strength in Alix’s voice.
“Eddy keeps a Gaiety Theatre girl at a flat in Haymarket. And they say he’s been…involved with some of his fellow officers’ wives.” May felt a little guilty, but everything she had said was true, and Alix might as well know sooner rather than later.
“I had no idea,” Alix said faintly.
“Like father, like son, I’m afraid.”
Surely even Alix had heard about their Uncle Bertie.
Throughout his marriage he had juggled an endless cast of aristocratic mistresses, all of them high-ranking: countesses at the very least, if not duchesses.
May had heard that each of the women got an ouroboros tattoo around her wrist, so wisp-thin that she could hide it beneath a diamond bracelet.
The tattoo was her symbol of membership in England’s smallest and most elite club—the club of women who’d slept with the Prince of Wales.
Alix’s mouth fell open in a delicate O of shock. “Uncle Bertie, too?”
She really had no idea? May had underestimated Alix’s naivete.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.
But I imagine that it’s been hard on you, navigating all of this alone.
With your mother gone and your sister in Russia…
I know it’s not the same, but I’m family too. I’m always here if you’d like to talk.”
Honestly, she was doing Alix a good deed. If Alix was frightened off by Eddy’s indiscretions, then she wasn’t cut out to be queen. May was worldly enough to know that you couldn’t marry a prince, ascend to the highest of heights, without any sort of trade-off.
She dared to reach across the table, laying her hand over Alix’s. Shockingly, her cousin didn’t pull away. “Forget about those women. Think of all the other exciting things you’ll do as queen, meeting sultans and leading parades and having your picture on postage stamps!”
May would love all of that, but as she’d expected, shy Alix flinched at the prospect. She was just as dreamy and introspective as she’d been as a child, when she sat outside braiding daisies into a chain.
“If Eddy and I ever do get married, it won’t be for any of those reasons,” Alix said hesitantly.
“Of course. You’ll marry Eddy so that you can spend the rest of your life here in England! Just think,” May added warmly, “when you live in London, we can have tea once a week! You’ll never have to go back to the cold of Darmstadt again!”
At that, Alix’s expression crumpled, and May felt a twinge of guilt. Perhaps she shouldn’t have laid it on so thick; she knew how homesick Alix was in London.
“I love Darmstadt.” Alix’s voice wavered. “I would miss it.”
A clock echoed through the room, chiming twice, thrice, a fourth time. May stood. The table before her was covered in half-empty plates, crumbled scones and smears of butter glinting in the afternoon light. It all had an atmosphere of luxurious exhaustion.
“I should be going,” she announced, ignoring the regret she felt at having manipulated Alix. Did it count as manipulating if all you’d said was the truth?
Alix gave a reflexive smile. “Of course. I’ll see you at the theater tomorrow?”
“The theater?”
“Grandmama is taking us to La Traviata to celebrate our last night in town.”
Grandmama. It struck May yet again how different her reality was from Alix’s. She would never dare call Queen Victoria anything except Your Majesty, especially not a pet name like Grandmama.
“Have a wonderful time at the opera. I wish I could be there.”
Alix’s blue eyes were wide and guileless. “Surely your parents have a box for the Season?”
She might as well admit the truth; it wasn’t much of a secret anyway. “Not anymore. We haven’t taken a box at the opera in years, not since…”
May didn’t complete the sentence, but she saw Alix’s sudden comprehension. Even in far-off Darmstadt, word would have spread of the Tecks’ financial ruin.
“You should come with us—you and your mother,” Alix hurried to add. “I’m sure Grandmama would be happy to see you.”
“Thank you. We would love to join,” May said graciously.
If nothing else, a night at the theater would give her one last chance to dissuade Alix from marrying Eddy.
Maybe May was reaching too high; maybe marrying Eddy was impossible. But she had to at least try. She couldn’t afford to sit back and passively let the future hurtle toward her. She had no grandmother arranging brilliant matches on her behalf, no help from her parents.
If May of Teck wanted something done, she had to do it herself.