CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
“Thank you.” Eddy looked relieved, but then he sighed again: an angry, helpless sigh. “Though as I said, it’s not as if Hélène and I can get publicly engaged, even once you and I break off our…understanding.”
The future King of England marrying the Catholic princess of a former, deposed throne? No, Alix didn’t see Grandmama agreeing to that.
“You really want to marry Hélène?” she asked.
“I’ve already proposed, and she said yes. I love her.” The frankness of Eddy’s reply caught her off guard.
“If you love her, then you’ll have to find a way.”
“But how? You are the gold standard, Alix. You’re the one that Grandmother wants, and no one else will satisfy her. If only you weren’t so perfect,” he added, with a touch of sarcasm.
“I’m hardly perfect, Eddy.” Hadn’t she just told him about her shameful illness?
“Well, you do a damned good job convincing everyone that you are. Why do you think I originally asked to court you?”
Before she could swallow it back, a laugh bubbled out of Alix’s chest.
She lifted her hands to her mouth, horrified. Eddy stared at her for a moment, and then, to her surprise, he was chuckling too.
It was strange to think of it—the life they might have built together, if they had followed Queen Victoria’s mandates. For a moment that future seemed to shimmer in the air between them, as incandescent as a ghost.
“You’re right. Looking back, it’s clear that I did an appalling job of wooing you,” Eddy agreed.
“I’m sure there have been worse courtships,” Alix quipped, testing a joke.
“Undoubtedly. Uncle Alfred’s, for starters.” Eddy stood and walked to a side table, where he poured amber-colored liquid into two crystal tumblers, then handed one to Alix.
She eyed it with some skepticism. “Is this brandy?” A lady shouldn’t drink anything but wine, or the occasional glass of sherry.
Eddy shrugged. “I know it’s not really proper, but then again, neither are our circumstances.”
“I suppose not.” Stealing a glance toward the half-open door—the hallway seemed mercifully empty—Alix lifted the glass to her lips. The liquid burned down her throat, and she coughed.
“Alix. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I swear, Hélène wouldn’t spread cruel gossip about you,” Eddy said again, his tone low and earnest. “I just…I don’t want there to be bad blood between us. At least, not about that.”
“I do believe you,” Alix decided.
Feeling brave, she took another sip of the brandy. This time its warmth felt almost pleasant, curling like a fire deep within her belly.
It must have been the brandy that made her blurt out, “You should know that you aren’t the only one to blame for our broken engagement. I have also given my heart to someone else.”
“Ah. Well, that explains why you marched in here demanding to see me.” Eddy grinned and sprawled back in his oversized armchair. “Who is it? Can we expect an engagement announcement soon?”
“I highly doubt it.”
She must have looked forlorn, because Eddy’s smile faded. “You haven’t fallen for an American, have you? Or a Catholic?”
“Possibly worse.” She hesitated, but she’d already told him about her episodes. What was one more confession? “It’s Nicholas.”
There was no need to specify which Nicholas she meant.
Eddy was silent for a moment, then posed the same question that Alix had asked him; which, she supposed, was only fair. “You want to marry him?”
“Yes.”
Alix hadn’t even dared admit that aloud. All she knew was that Nicholas had stolen his way into her heart and mind, that she wanted to see him first thing in the morning and last thing at night. To share his hopes and his dreams and his innermost fears.
Eddy shifted. “Surely it’s not impossible. Didn’t your sister marry Nicholas’s cousin?”
“His uncle. A very young uncle,” she clarified, not that Eddy would care.
“So what is the issue? You don’t want to move to Russia?”
“Nicholas hasn’t asked,” Alix admitted. “I do think he cares for me, but he hasn’t proposed. And even if he did, Grandmama would not give her permission.”
She couldn’t believe she was saying these things aloud, and to Eddy, of all people. Yet Alix found that she quite liked this new honesty between them. It was refreshing—bracing, even, like a gulp of clean air after you had been shut in a stuffy room.
“Not to mention that you’ll have Nicholas’s parents to deal with,” Eddy added.
“You think the tsar and tsarina will be an obstacle?”
“Aunt Minnie isn’t friendly under the best of circumstances. She will have plans of her own for Nicholas—plans that don’t involve you, or else you’d know about them.” Eddy looked Alix square in the eye. “Which means that you’ll need to convince her otherwise.”
“How?”
“The way you did today! You marched in here, hackles raised, and demanded a straight answer about our engagement. Harness that energy, and show Aunt Minnie what a great tsarina you could be.”
“I don’t think I demanded anything,” Alix protested.
“Trust me, I’ve been in the military. You could lead men into battle with that glare. You should use it more often.”
They weren’t flirtatious words, yet Alix couldn’t help thinking that it was the greatest compliment Eddy had ever paid her.
Since propriety already lay in shreds around them, she kicked her dress unceremoniously to one side and tucked her feet up onto the leather armchair. It was too bad that women weren’t ordinarily allowed to sit in furniture this comfortable.
“You need to tell Grandmama about you and Hélène,” Alix mused aloud. An idea was forming in her mind, of a way that they just might get what they wanted—all of them.
“And have her forbid us from ever seeing each other?” Eddy set down his glass of brandy. “There are too many reasons for her to say no: Hélène’s religion, her family’s complicated status, the fact that France keeps having revolutions.”
“Those are all valid, logical obstacles,” Alix agreed, “which is precisely why you cannot use logic to sway Grandmama. You need to appeal to her sense of romance.”
She thought of the cairn at Balmoral, of the queen’s incessant black mourning, of the catch in her voice whenever she mentioned Albert.
“You know that Grandmama was deeply in love with Grandpapa. That is the side of her that you need to appeal to. Speak to her as your grandmother, not as the queen. Tell her that you and Hélène never planned to fall in love—”
“We didn’t!” Eddy cut in.
“Explain that you couldn’t help falling for Hélène, that you can’t imagine life without Hélène. Isn’t that what Louise did when she asked for permission to marry the Duke of Fife?”
“Louise was just a princess. I’m the heir to the throne,” Eddy pointed out, stating the obvious.
“Then you’ll need to be twice as persuasive as she was! Beg Grandmama for her permission on bended knee. I mean that literally, not as a figure of speech,” Alix clarified.
Eddy sat there for a moment, digesting her words. Then he shook his head in slow admiration. “It just might work.”
“You could go on Monday,” Alix suggested, thinking of the appointment that she and Eddy already had with the queen. “Grandmama is expecting to discuss your marriage, after all. Just bring Hélène instead of me.”
Eddy lifted an eyebrow, skeptical. “You don’t think Grandmother will be angry? I doubt she likes being ambushed.”
“There is a fine line between an ambush and an impassioned plea, as long as you stick to the romantic script.” Alix suspected that Grandmama might actually respond well to the spontaneity of it all—to the notion that Eddy was showing initiative, taking decisive action.
“It’s worth a shot, if nothing else. Alix…” The prince’s eyes met hers, as earnest as she’d ever seen them. “Thank you.”
How odd that this conversation—where they were putting an end to things between them, once and for all—was the most relaxed Alix had ever been with Eddy.
He must have been thinking along the same lines, because he smiled. “I’m glad you came to see me today. And no matter what happens, I hope that we can stay friends.”
Friends. It was a strange way for things to end, after their almost-engagement had dragged on for so long, yet it felt right.
“Friends,” Alix agreed. “I would like that very much.”