CHAPTER TEN
Hélène
IT WASN’T EASY IGNORING THE guest of honor at his own party, but if anyone could, it was Hélène.
She’d been in the ballroom of Marlborough House for most of the night, and she’d managed not to make eye contact with Prince Eddy once. Even if some stupid part of her wanted to talk to him, just to find out what he’d meant by his mysterious gift.
After the opera, Hélène had done her best to forget about Prince Eddy. He was a rogue and a libertine, and there was no use getting entangled with him when it would end in heartache. She had almost convinced herself of this—until the package arrived at Sheen House.
Her lady’s maid, Violette, had brought it to Hélène’s room with evident confusion.
The packages her mistress received were usually tied with the silk ribbon of a high-end boutique, not wrapped in unmarked brown paper.
Violette had stood in the doorway, clearly hoping Hélène would open it in front of her, but Hélène could tell that this was private.
She waited for Violette to leave before ripping off the paper.
Inside was a folded plum-colored outfit, the likes of which Hélène had never seen. She’d hurriedly unhooked her day dress and shimmed out of her petticoats to try it on.
The first piece—she supposed they were trousers, though they certainly looked nothing like the ones men wore—was loose and billowing, gathering at the ankles with gold-stitched cuffs that matched the cuffs at her wrists.
The blouse was the same rich material, its hem falling to just above the waist of the pants, leaving a pale strip of her stomach bare.
Looking at her reflection, Hélène almost didn’t recognize herself. She felt feminine and beautiful—yet also powerful, and a bit dangerous.
It was a heady, intoxicating sensation.
She’d fumbled in the box, wondering who could have possibly sent her something so gorgeous and exotic. The enclosed note was only a single line of text.
Now you have something to wear the next time you ride without your sidesaddle.
Hélène had reread the note a hundred times since that day, wondering what Eddy meant by it. Tonight was the first time she’d been in a room with him since.
The music ended. Hélène smiled and took a step back from her partner, whose name she’d already forgotten, and glanced toward the front of the ballroom.
In a wooden armchair sat Queen Victoria, several ladies-in-waiting hovering around her like a cloud of moths.
Her Majesty was dressed as usual in all black, though half a dozen strands of pearls hung from her neck: and then, as if she had too many pearls to know what to do with, she had also hung a few from her chest, fastened with an enormous diamond pin.
She didn’t wear a tiara (in her old age, she complained of the weight of it), but the profusion of so many milky pearls against her black silk gown was striking enough to remind everyone she was queen.
As if they were in any danger of forgetting.
Beyond her stood Prince Eddy, still wearing his uniform from today’s investiture ceremony.
He was talking with May of Teck, who gazed up at him with wide, worshipful eyes—the same way most women had been looking at him all night.
Apparently Eddy was even more appealing now that he had a few more meaningless titles to string onto the end of his name.
“I’m getting some air,” Hélène told her dance partner, and headed onto the back patio of Marlborough House.
Technically she wasn’t doing anything illicit; the terrace was in full view of the ballroom, with gas torches along the wall.
It was just too cold for anyone to have bothered lighting those torches.
Hélène wandered to the railing and leaned her gloved forearms on it, kicking one heel behind the other.
Several minutes later, a voice sounded behind her.
“I should have known I’d find you hiding out here.”
“I don’t hide from anything,” she insisted.
Eddy came to stand next to her, staring out at the dark gardens. “Well, that makes one of us. I came outside to hide from everyone.”
She clucked her tongue in mock sympathy. “You gained two new titles today, the eligible young women of London are fighting over you, and still you’re having a bad night? Should I be worried?”
“The eligible, utterly boring young women,” Eddy corrected. “As for the titles, they don’t mean much, do they? It’s not as if I did anything to earn them.”
Hélène was so startled by that remark that she opened her mouth, then closed it again. “That was a rather tedious ceremony,” she said at last. “So much bowing and protocol, so many ermine-trimmed capes. I would be tired, too.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
A silence fell between them, but it felt less hostile than before. Hélène cleared her throat.
“Thank you for the outfit, by the way.”
A smile teased the corner of Eddy’s lips. “You like it?”
“It’s beautiful. It feels like something a real princess would wear,” she exclaimed, at which he chuckled. “And it fits perfectly.”
“Oh, good. I had to, um…guess at the size.”
“You guessed accurately,” Hélène said drily. “Where did you find clothing like that?”
“The Shah of Persia visited last month. When he told me that his wives wear trousers every day, I asked if I could trouble him for a set.”
“His wives? How many does he have?”
“I didn’t ask him for the exact number, Hélène.”
She drummed her fingers over the iron railing. “I suppose all men wish they could have multiple wives. Just trade one woman for the next whenever you tire of one, is that it?”
“Not me,” Eddy said adamantly. “I’m daunted enough at the prospect of marrying just once, thank you.”
Hélène glanced over, but his expression was unreadable. “What did the shah say when you asked for a set of women’s clothes? Did he wonder who it was for?”
“Of course not.” Eddy sounded horrified. “Men don’t get involved in one another’s affairs, if they can help it.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “This is hardly an affair, Your Royal Highness.”
“I’m well aware. In an affair, I wouldn’t have to constantly dodge your insults.”
“But the insults come so naturally to me—” Hélène began, as a door opened on the terrace behind them.
“Your Royal Highness? Are you out here?” someone called.
Eddy grabbed Hélène around the waist and tugged her swiftly downward, so that they were both crouching behind a massive stone urn.
“Hiding from your adoring public?” she whispered sarcastically.
“We’re hiding for your sake! I’m trying to protect your reputation.”
Hélène said nothing, because she knew he was right. It was one thing to have been standing on the terrace alone, another thing entirely to be out here with a man, unchaperoned.
When the door to the ballroom had shut again, they rose reluctantly to their feet. “We should go back inside,” Eddy murmured.
But a wild, eager restlessness prickled through Hélène. The night seemed to unfurl before her, full of possibility.
“Let’s take a walk through the gardens first.”
Eddy frowned down at the pathways between the hedges. “We can’t go in there.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” he spluttered.
“Because of convention? Because of propriety? As you’ve gathered, I’m not particularly fond of either.” She shrugged, causing the sleeve of her dress—a deep blue velvet with resplendent silver detail—to slip lower. “I’m taking a tour of your family’s gardens. Feel free to join me or not.”
Hélène spun on one heel, wondering just how many people in Prince Eddy’s life had turned their back on him. Probably not many.
She trotted down the curved staircase and turned onto a gravel path. The limestone fountains and sculptures glowed eerily in the shadows, like ghosts.
Eddy rushed down the steps after her. “Hélène, you can’t just run around in the dark like this.”
“I wasn’t running, but that’s an excellent idea. See if you can catch me.” She cast him a gleeful smile, then grabbed two handfuls of her heavy skirts and took off.
After a moment, Eddy laughed and followed.
She marveled that she’d never seen it before: his bold vitality, his streak of childlike joy.
Running around the garden like this, she wondered how much of Eddy’s libertine reputation was real and how much was just that—a reputation.
He’d had affairs, yes, but she sensed now that he wasn’t malicious or callous about it, as some men could be. He was just passionate.
Perhaps that was why Her Majesty had sent Eddy into the military. She’d seen the uncontrollable spark within Eddy and wanted to stamp it out. A future king cannot act like a child, Hélène imagined her saying.
It was essentially what Hélène’s governess used to say about her.
She kept running, aware that Eddy could have caught her long ago. He let her reach the farthest corner of the garden, near the stone wall that marked the edge of the Waleses’ property, before he finally sprinted forward to touch her shoulder.
“Tag. You’re it,” he teased, and Hélène fell still.
They were both breathing heavily. Eddy stared down at her, his blue eyes luminous. Hélène curled her hand into the lapel of his jacket and tugged him close.
This time, she was the one who kissed him.
His tongue slid into her mouth and she moaned, arching her back.
His hands skimmed slowly downward, caressing the sides of her breasts and her waist before settling around her hips to pull her closer.
Hélène released his jacket and looped her arms around him, tangling her fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
God, she wanted him. She had wanted him since that moment he’d picked her up in the rain-soaked forest and held her against his chest. She didn’t want to want him, but she did, and her reasons for telling herself no felt increasingly flimsy.
Eddy must have sensed the direction of her thoughts, because his breath caught.
Their kisses grew faster, almost mindless.
Hélène’s thoughts dissolved into shadows and Eddy’s pulse and the heat radiating from his body and the urgency of his mouth on hers.
When his thigh pressed between her legs, she opened them without a second thought.
To her surprise, and delight, Eddy reached around her buttocks to hitch her up closer to him.
Hélène felt the stone of the garden wall against her back, as hard and unyielding as Eddy felt pressed against her.
Small noises escaped her lips as she pulled him closer, kissing his jaw, his neck, the corner of his mouth.
Hélène tugged at her skirts, pulling them higher up around her waist, her intent unmistakable. She had never felt this way with Laurent, like her entire body was molten and aching all at once. Laurent had always been so careful with her, almost hesitant, handling her as if she were made of glass.
She liked that Eddy didn’t seem to think of her as fragile or delicate, that he seemed untroubled when her desire roared up to match his.
When Eddy pulled away, Hélène blinked in confusion.
He took a careful step back, unhooking her legs from around his back and gently lowering her to the ground. The cool air felt sharp on her skin.
“Hélène.” His voice was hoarse. “We can’t do this.”
Though her experience was limited to a single man, she knew enough to know that men rarely turned down a willing woman.
“But I want you,” she said baldly.
“You think I don’t want you? God, Hélène, you’re driving me to distraction.” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it at the edges. “I take responsibility for all the lines that were crossed tonight. I’m sorry.”
Hadn’t she chastised Eddy at the opera—expecting him to be sorry, angry when he wasn’t? Now he’d given her an apology, and Hélène had no idea what to do with it.
Eddy laced his fingers in hers, and she looked up to meet his eyes.
“I spoke to my grandmother about you,” he confessed.
Hélène’s heart skipped a beat. “And…”
“And she told me that courting you was out of the question. She said that marrying a Catholic would provoke a constitutional crisis, and I was a fool to even consider it. She still wants me to—”
He broke off, but Hélène could guess the rest of the sentence. Victoria still wanted Eddy to marry Alix.
“I suppose that settles that.” She tried to sound nonchalant, but failed.
“I keep thinking there must be another way. I could talk to Lord Salisbury,” Eddy began, but Hélène just sighed.
It surprised her, how upset she was at the prospect of giving him up.
But she was an Orléans; she knew a lost cause when she saw one.
Her country had been in quiet, desperate conflict, republicans versus monarchists, for her entire life.
She’d been in exile since she was fifteen.
She had always known that she was a princess without a throne, a princess whose entire worth would be determined by one single thing—the man she married.
She was a living, breathing parcel that her parents would send to some other family, hoping to gain more allies for the Orléans cause.
Princesses were born to be pawns in their parents’ political ambitions. They didn’t get to marry according to their own desires.
But that didn’t mean they never felt those desires.
Eddy turned toward her one last time. He brushed a kiss over Hélène’s lips—a featherlight, tender kiss that felt like an apology, filled with yearning and regret—and then he stepped back.
“I’ll walk around the side of the house to the kitchen entrance. You can go through the terrace without anyone seeing us together. Again, I’m sorry,” Eddy said gruffly.
It was the sight of his retreating back that made Hélène cry out, “Wait!”
Eddy turned around slowly.
She swallowed. “I’d like to see you again. In private,” she clarified.
There was a beat of silence as they both processed the magnitude of what she’d suggested.
“Are you sure?” Eddy asked, eyes fixed on hers.
There was no way they could court formally. No chance that they could get married. They had no future together—but they could have something now, in the present. If Hélène was willing to risk it.
“I’m sure,” she assured him, wondering if she was out of her mind. It had been dangerous enough getting involved with her family’s coachman. Having an affair with a future king was something else entirely.
“When?” Eddy asked, and Hélène smiled in relief.
“Soon. But it can’t be at my house—”
“Of course not,” he cut in. “Don’t worry, my valet will arrange everything. Can you find a way to leave the house undetected if I send a carriage?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll see you soon.” Eddy reached for her hand.
Hélène laced her fingers in his, tugged him closer, and planted one more kiss on the side of his jaw. “Soon can’t come soon enough,” she told him.