CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hélène
SEVERAL WEEKS LATER, HéLèNE WALKED slowly through the gallery, snatches of conversation floating around her.
I never imagined that photography might be an acceptable hobby, but I suppose if the Princess of Wales is doing it…
What are you wearing to the Cadogans’ ball? I was thinking of going as Madame de Pompadour, except there are sure to be so many of those…
Her Royal Highness really captured the spirit of the dogs, don’t you think?
Hélène paused before the portrait in question: a photograph of a mournful-looking basset hound, nestled on a tasseled and fringed pillow.
Lockey at Home, by Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, read a plaque below the photo.
If she weren’t in such a rotten mood, Hélène might have burst out laughing.
Her parents had dragged her to today’s gathering at an art gallery on Regent Street. Though they weren’t in the palace, this was to all intents and purposes a court function: the unveiling of a series of photographs taken by Alexandra, Princess of Wales.
So far, Hélène had successfully managed to avoid a conversation with Prince Eddy, as she’d done ever since their return from Balmoral.
Belatedly, she realized that the Princess of Wales was approaching, and sank into a curtsy. “Your Royal Highness.”
Alexandra looked impeccable as usual in a dusky pink dress, her smile bland. “Thank you for coming. What do you think of the photographs?”
“Oh! Your work is so…” Hélène scrambled to find a fitting adjective. “So interesting! I’d love to hear more about the process. Have you set up a darkroom at Marlborough House?”
“I don’t actually develop the photographs. That would be the work of Mr. Helsby.”
At his name, a man with a black mustache stepped forward and bobbed his head. “Thomas Helsby, of the London Stereoscopic Society, at your service.”
“Mr. Helsby has been giving me private photography lessons, and of course, he handles the development process. I find that it’s more pleasant just to take the images.”
“Silver nitrate solution is quite noxious. Hardly appropriate for a lady to be handling,” Mr. Helsby said officiously. “And of course I help Her Royal Highness to carry the camera and the tripod.”
“Yes, the implements are quite heavy,” Alexandra agreed.
It sounded like the Princess of Wales hadn’t done much to produce these images at all, except perhaps to arrange her various dogs in front of Mr. Helsby and his tripod.
Eddy’s mother turned aside to greet someone else, leaving the photographer with Hélène.
“Are you interested in photography, miss?” he asked politely.
“We’ve had a number of young ladies of quality taking lessons at the institute, as a modern alternative to painting and sketching.
And we have the loveliest garden out back. ”
“A garden?” Hélène repeated.
“So that you can photograph the flowers.” He gave what he probably thought was an encouraging smile. “The Countess of Erroll is quite enamored of our rosebush. She took a charming series of pictures there, featuring her Siamese cat.”
Her cat. Of course.
“Mr. Helsby, are all the cameras very heavy, or is there one that I could carry on my own?” At his blank look, Hélène added, “There must be some research into reducing the camera size. I would love to be able to bring a camera with me.”
“Bring it with you? Where?” he asked, bewildered. “Surely you have a manservant or a brother who can assist you with the tripod, even at your country home.”
Mr. Helsby probably thought he was being tactful, avoiding any mention of a husband or fiancé, but it didn’t matter. He’d made his point. Photography was yet another activity that a woman couldn’t engage in without the help of a man.
Hélène had no desire to sit placidly in a garden, photographing rosebushes.
She wanted to sail down the Nile and drink tea in Ceylon and ride horses across a sand dune, wearing the outfit Eddy had given her.
And she wanted a camera that could record it all, so that when she was old and bedridden she could look at the images and remember how full and adventurous her life had been.
Not that such a life was even an option for her.
Hélène murmured a goodbye to Mr. Helsby and started to turn aside—only to freeze at the sight of Prince Eddy. He was over by the windows with his father and Alix of Hesse.
Hélène’s body felt still, and cold, and heavy, as if she’d plunged into a frozen lake and was being dragged down into its icy depths.
Alix and Eddy looked so maddeningly perfect together, like the set of matched dolls that Hélène had been given as a child.
Alix’s docile sweetness, her perfect blond hair, the way her every gesture was underscored with etiquette and forethought—she was exactly what a future queen should be, as if she had been custom-designed to stand next to Eddy and show off his kingliness.
Alix looked up, apparently feeling the weight of Hélène’s gaze. Then, to Hélène’s surprise, she said something to Eddy and started over.
God, it would be so much simpler if Hélène could hate her.
She wanted to hate her. Yet there was a good-natured earnestness to Alix, a sweetness that shone through her shy reserve.
Ever since that episode at the opera last year, Hélène had felt oddly protective of Alix: the way an older sister might feel, though Hélène was hardly a year older.
In other circumstances—if Alix weren’t publicly courting the man Hélène secretly loved—perhaps they could have been friends.
“I’m glad to see you today, Miss d’Orléans,” Alix began, a bit coolly. “There is something I’d like to ask your advice on.”
Hélène nodded, caught off guard. “How can I help?”
The two young women drew aside, away from the photographs that lined the walls. Hélène realized that Alix was thrumming with tension like a newly strung bow.
“What would you do,” Alix demanded, “if someone betrayed your trust in a cruel and hurtful way?”
Oh. This was no rhetorical question; it was an accusation.
Alix knew about Hélène and Eddy.
Hélène’s mind whirled. She could deny it, of course: insist that Alix had the story all wrong. But that would only add a lie to the wounds she’d already inflicted.
“I’m sure that the person in question didn’t set out to hurt you,” she said swiftly. “Any damage done must have been inadvertent, not malicious.”
“Then this person was thoughtless, which is as condemnable as outright cruelty.”
So much for Alix being a shy wallflower. It would seem that when push came to shove, she was ready to defend her ground.
Hélène nodded, chastened. “You are right. A lack of foresight is no excuse for harming others, no matter how unintentional the damage was.”
At that, the anger seemed to deflate from Alix, and she gave a weary sigh. “I just…I had hoped you might be more discreet.”
Before Hélène could reply, Alix turned and walked away, her face smooth and sphinxlike. You would never know from looking at her that she’d just confronted her fiancé’s lover.
Hélène stared after her, regret curling in her stomach.
She needed to find Eddy. But she wasn’t like Alix; she had no claim on him, couldn’t just march over and grab his elbow.
Hélène was forced to head over slowly, chatting with other guests along the way, weaving around swishing petticoats as various people pretended to admire the Princess of Wales’s handiwork.
When he saw her approach, Eddy nodded to a picture of Alexandra with her daughter Louise. The two of them had posed on the terrace at Sandringham, parasols perched over their shoulders.
“I must say, I’m not sure Mother should get credit for this one.”
Hélène’s breath caught. She couldn’t help it; the moment she saw him, the old familiar longing pulsed through her body, to pool warm and hungry in her core.
Unaware of her distress, Eddy kept talking. “She can’t have taken the picture if she’s in it. Which raises the question: what does self-portraiture mean in photography?”
“Eddy…” Hélène meant it as a warning, or a reprimand, but it sounded more like a sigh.
He took an imperceptible step closer. It was reckless, having him this near to her—so close that she could almost feel the heat of his body.
“You haven’t come over since Balmoral,” he whispered. “Is everything all right?”
“Of course not!”
It came out harsher than she’d meant, but the image of Eddy and Alix together was still branded onto the back of her eyelids like the aftermath of a photographic flash.
Eddy stiffened. “So it’s true? You’ve been avoiding me?”
Yes, she’d been avoiding him since Balmoral, stung by the way he’d publicly courted Alix—dancing with her, sitting next to her at every meal, marrying her onstage—then giving wildflowers to Hélène in secret, as if an illicit flower could somehow fix everything.
And that was before she’d realized that Alix knew about them.
“Eddy, we need to talk,” Hélène said heavily.
The change that came over him was swift and awful: his eyes darkened, his body tensed with anxiety. “Who told you?”
“What?” she asked, confused.
“Never mind.” Seeming relieved, Eddy nodded toward a doorway that led to an alcove: an extension of the gallery, technically speaking, but no one had ventured in there because the walls weren’t hung with the Princess of Wales’s portraits.
It was half-lit and empty and certainly not where a young woman should walk with a prince unchaperoned.
Hélène nodded, letting Eddy lead her into the shadowed silence.
When they were alone, he spun her around to face him. “I’ve missed you,” he murmured gruffly.
“Me too.”
Even though she shouldn’t, Hélène let herself nestle closer. When Eddy lowered his mouth to hers, she kissed him automatically, unthinkingly.
Then she tore away and took a step back.
“Eddy—did you tell Alix about us?”
The shock on his face was genuine. “Of course not.”
“If you didn’t tell her, then someone did. She knows. Her exact words were, ‘I wish you had been more discreet’!”
“I trust Jonathan, and you said that Violette would never betray you. Who else knows?”
“No one! But maybe Alix saw us together at Balmoral, or figured it out somehow?”
“We’ve been careful—”
“Not careful enough!” Hélène shook her head. “All I know is that she just confronted me, accused me of betraying her trust.”
Eddy had the grace to look deeply uncomfortable. “I’m sorry. I can speak to her if you like.” He sounded like he would rather go into battle unarmed.
Hélène remembered what he’d said earlier—Who told you?—and a horrible, sinking feeling seized her in its grip.
“What is the exact nature of things between you and Alix?”
His expression fell, confirming her worst fears. Her throat closed up, and she wanted to scream, but somehow, impossibly, she held his gaze. “Are you engaged?”
The bleak truth was written on his face. She nodded and turned away, but Eddy caught her wrist in his grip.
“Hélène, please! Don’t leave me because of who I am—because of what’s expected of me.”
She tugged her hand away, stung. “Congratulations. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”
“You must know that I don’t want to—”
“It’s quite all right; you don’t owe me any explanation.” Her words were wooden, stilted with formality. “We both knew this would end eventually.”
“No,” he said swiftly. “Nothing has to change. We can continue just as before!”
“Until when? Until you are married?” Hélène challenged. “What are you going to do, sleep with Alix for an heir and then come to my bed straight from hers?”
He winced at her bluntness. “We could find a way to make things work.”
“Alix would hate us for it.”
“If she knew—”
“Eddy. The wife always knows.”
They fell silent, both of them thinking of Eddy’s long-suffering mother. Most recently, the Prince of Wales had gotten involved with the Countess of Warwick—and the count was one of his close friends. It was a pattern that Bertie seemed to prefer, sleeping with his friends’ wives.
Was that what Eddy planned to do with Hélène? Marry her off to one of his friends to make their affair more convenient?
“I’m so sorry,” Eddy said softly.
She knew what he meant by those words. He was sorry he was a prince, and not free to follow his heart; he was sorry that she wasn’t an appropriate choice for a future Queen of England. She knew, too, that he didn’t say I’m sorry very often in his life.
Hélène looked back up at Eddy and saw her heartache mirrored on his features. He reached up to graze her cheek with his fingertips, and the sensation shivered through her whole body.
How deeply foolish she’d been, going to Balmoral, letting herself fall in love with him. Because she did love him, despite all her promises to herself.
It would hurt to leave him, yet this affair would end in hurt no matter which road she chose.
The only thing Hélène could do now was protect herself as best she could.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said, before walking away from the future King of England.