CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
Alix had always thought the monument seemed out of place in the wilds of Balmoral, its stones formed into a triangular pyramid like the ones in Egypt.
She supposed that was the point, to make it stand out from the surrounding landscape so that one couldn’t help but notice it.
The inscription on its side read To the Beloved Memory of Albert, the Great and Good Prince Consort.
“I wonder, sometimes, what my dear Albert would think of all this,” her grandmother said quietly.
Alix’s reply came out sharper than she meant. “What he would think of the cairn, or the fact that you’re forcing us into an engagement?”
“About you and Eddy, of course. Albert would have loved the cairn.” Victoria sighed. “He was always building little ones when we went out on a walk, to mark places he thought we should revisit. He stacked the stones atop one another in the traditional Scottish way, like this.”
Alix watched as her elderly grandmother bent down and stacked three stones in a makeshift tower. It looked surprisingly sturdy.
“The word is Gaelic, you know. Càrn,” the queen went on. “Albert may have been German, but he constantly learned bits and pieces of other languages. He was very intellectually curious, like you.” She sighed. “I know he would have agreed that England needs you.”
“Please, don’t,” Alix cut in helplessly.
“I’m afraid that Eddy isn’t much like Albert.
Neither is Bertie, for that matter,” the queen continued, with shocking bluntness.
“George is the one who inherited Albert’s curiosity, his patience.
The only trace of Albert I can see in Eddy is his love of this place.
Scotland always seems to bring out the best in him.
When he’s here, he’s more decisive, more purposeful. ”
“Perhaps he just needs more to do.” Alix had always been baffled by Eddy’s tendency to spin from one party to the next, but what alternative had he been given?
Grandmama guarded her duties jealously, and refused to share any power with Uncle Bertie, let alone with Eddy.
He wasn’t just in the shadow of the throne, but in the shadow of its shadow.
“Of course Eddy needs more to do. Which is precisely why he should marry you, to keep him from being so…aimless.”
“I’m not a compass,” Alix burst out.
The queen took another step forward, her black skirts swishing heavily. “I beg to differ, my darling. A woman is always a compass, a guiding force, to the man she marries.”
“Grandmama, nothing has changed since last year. Eddy and I are still not suited for each other.”
“This again!” Victoria exclaimed. “Alix, the purpose of the courtship period was to find ways you are suited for each other. Yet the two of you still behave like strangers!”
Alix stared up at the stones of the cairn, its outline a stark gray against the softer gray of the skies. She felt her palms growing damp inside her gloves.
“I know you don’t love Eddy. I’m not asking you to do this for love of him, or even for love of me, as much as I adore you.
” To Alix’s surprise, Victoria’s voice cracked with emotion.
“Do it for your love of England. Eddy will make a wonderful king, as long as he has a woman like you to ground him.”
When Alix said nothing, her grandmother added softly, “You need him, too, you know.”
“I…what?”
“You need his proposal as much as he needs your agreement. Strange rumors have been circulating about you, my dear. Just this morning I heard a ridiculous story about how you suffer from crippling fainting spells—that you passed out at La Traviata last year.”
Alix’s blood ran cold. People were gossiping about her episodes?
“I put a stop to the rumor at once, of course,” Victoria was saying. “It’s nonsense. And I made it very clear that anyone who repeats it risks angering me.”
Well, that was one unmistakable perk of being queen. You could protect the people you cared about. Like Ernie, Alix thought, unbidden. Or her father.
“Thank you, Grandmama. I do occasionally need smelling salts, but that hasn’t happened in quite some time,” she said as calmly as possible.
Her mind whirled back to that night at the opera last year, when she’d dissolved into panic before Hélène d’Orléans. How stupid she’d been to assume that Hélène wouldn’t tell anyone.
Alix had spent her entire life hiding the ugly secret of her condition.
If people found out, she might never marry; no man wanted a wife who came with unknown complications.
And while Alix might not care so much about marriage herself, it would cast such shame upon her family, make things harder for Ernie—even for Ella, all the way in St. Petersburg.
Alix might be an idealist, but she was no fool.
She knew that as much as society adored young women like her—beautiful, highborn princesses—it relished their destruction even more.
If the truth became public, all the people who had once lifted her up would sharpen their knives, just as eager to tear her down.
“Marry Eddy, and you’ll have a powerful shield protecting you from all this nonsense,” Grandmama said urgently.
“Besides, think of the life you can build here in Britain: coming to Balmoral every summer, spending your days surrounded by people you love! Married to Eddy you would hardly have a public role at all. This is England, not Russia,” she added disparagingly.
“Our queen consort isn’t like the tsarina, who takes part in all their ceremonial proceedings.
Look at what a quiet life your aunt Alexandra leads. You could have that, too.”
It sounded like Grandmama realized there was truth to the rumors. Alix should have focused on that, but her mind snagged on the reference to Russia.
“What do you mean, it’s not like being the tsarina?”
Her grandmother made an exasperated pshhh noise. “You think I don’t know about you and Nicholas?”
“There’s nothing to know,” Alix said quickly.
Her grandmother didn’t seem to have heard. “I’m sure that St. Petersburg seemed very glamorous when you visited, that Nicholas was dashing and handsome in his regimental uniform—”
“Please, we don’t need to—”
“Did I ever tell you that the Tsar Alexander came to court me when I was a new queen?”
Nicholas’s grandfather had wooed Victoria? Alix had never heard this story.
“I was your age, just nineteen. Alexander came to London for the Season and squired me about to balls, to the theater, on carriage rides. It was really quite scandalous; he took such liberties when he danced.” The queen sighed wistfully, then blinked as if emerging from a trance.
“And now he’s dead, smashed into pieces by an anarchist’s bomb! ”
“It was tragic,” Alix said cautiously.
“Tragic? It would never have happened in England! My dear, this is precisely why you need to steer clear of Russia!”
“It’s not an issue!” Inadvertently, Alix had raised her voice. “Nicholas has no romantic intentions toward me, of that I can assure you.”
If Victoria heard the implied subtext—that Alix had romantic intentions toward him—she was too tactful to reveal it.
“I see,” the queen said simply, with deliberate calm.
For a long moment they just stared at each other, grandmother and granddaughter, each strong-willed and stubborn. Then Victoria sighed.
“Why don’t you take a moment to collect yourself. I’ll be waiting at the carriage.”
As the queen walked off, admirably steady without her cane, Alix wrapped her arms around her torso and stared at the horizon.
She thought of something her mother used to say: that when you have a question, it’s always best to ask in the morning light, because that’s when answers are easiest to find.
She realized now that her mother had likely said that to stop Alix’s endless questions at bedtime.
Still, it was hard to shake the old belief.
This still counted as morning light, even if was gray and Scottish and damp.
“Mother,” Alix whispered, her eyes stinging with tears. “Please, tell me what to do.”
THE LETTER WAS WAITING IN Alix’s bedroom when they arrived back at Balmoral.
She recognized the seal at once, a double-headed eagle clutching a shield in its talons. Still, she didn’t really believe it was from him until she opened it and saw his signature at the bottom of the page—Nicholas.
Alix let out an actual yelp, dropping the letter as if it had burned her fingers, then scrambled to pick it back up. The note had been forwarded from London and was dated several weeks ago.
Alix,
My mother just told me your joyous news, and I want to be the first to congratulate you. I am so excited for you and my cousin. Eddy is lucky to have you as a wife. I know that he will make you happy, and of course you must be delighted to stay in your beloved England….
There was more in the same vein, but Alix set the letter down, her hands trembling. Beneath her outrage—this was clearly the work of the Princess of Wales, who’d written her sister, Nicholas’s mother, about an engagement that hadn’t even happened yet—she felt a flicker of confused hope.
What did it mean, that Nicholas had written to her about Eddy?
Throwing everything she knew about etiquette and proper behavior to the winds, Alix reached for a sheet of her stationery.
Your Imperial Highness,
No, that felt wrong. He had called her Alix; surely she could use his name.
Nicholas,
I was delighted to receive a letter from you. However, I am afraid I must inform you that your mother has fallen victim to a rumor. There is no news about me and Prince Eddy, except that I am staying at Balmoral with Her Majesty, and the Waleses are also here.
If anything is agreed upon, you will learn of it when a formal announcement is made.
I hope you are in good health and continuing to recite poetry.
Respectfully yours,
Alix
The line about poetry might have been a bit much, but she wanted to remind him that they weren’t strangers. They had a shared history, too: maybe not as extensive as her ties with Eddy, but one that could be built upon. If Nicholas was willing to try.
Alix folded the letter, sealed it with hot wax, and handed it to a maidservant before she could change her mind.
She hadn’t lied to him. Grandmama had tried to coerce her and Eddy into an engagement today, but while Eddy may have consented, Alix had never given her agreement. She didn’t consider herself engaged—at least not yet.
And if Nicholas thought she was, then Alix needed to correct him.