CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO #3
She needed to see George. Not that she could tell him what had just happened, of course. But he would steady her, would remind her that she wasn’t unwanted trash: that she was a person, and deserved to be loved.
Back in the palace’s ballroom, May began scanning the crowds.
She saw Sophie and Tino swaying at the center of the dance floor; they were now titled the Duke and Duchess of Sparta, which sounded oddly antiquated to May, but that was Greece for you.
She kept looking through the guests, past Danish and German and Russian royals… and then she found George.
He was with his cousin Missy.
They weren’t dancing. Honestly, if they’d been dancing, May could have talked herself into ignoring it, but this was so much worse. They were tucked into a far corner of the room, their heads tipped together in light, conspiratorial laughter.
May’s hatred of her father spilled over to hatred of Missy without any effort at all.
She resented Missy for being fresh-faced and beautiful and young.
May had never in her life looked like that—glowing with the carefree radiance of someone who has faced no obstacles or hardships.
Unlike Missy, who’d been indulged and spoiled and loved by both her parents, May had grown up starved of affection.
She was several years older than Missy, and oh how she looked it, her features stamped with the weariness of always being on the fringes of royalty.
As she watched, George brushed an invisible fleck off the shoulder of Missy’s champagne-colored gown. There was something undeniably intimate about the gesture. The dagger of pain in May’s heart twisted itself deeper.
“I’m sorry,” a voice near her murmured.
May looked up, startled, to see Alix of Hesse. “What did you say?” she asked, a bit defensively.
Alix bit her lip. May couldn’t help noting that Alix didn’t look quite right—she was still as beautiful as ever, but flushed and oddly tense.
“Forgive me if I’m mistaken; I thought you and George…that is, I saw you dancing at the Cadogans’ ball, and…” Alix followed May’s gaze to George and Missy, her blue eyes brimming with concern. “I know how it feels to lose the person you care about.”
Somehow, May knew that Alix wasn’t talking about Eddy. Normally she would have homed in on that fact, would have tried to figure out who Alix did have feelings for, but she lacked the energy right now.
“They’re only talking,” she said, not bothering to deny her feelings for George.
“I thought you knew. I’m sorry, forget I said anything—”
“Knew what?” May hated begging Alix for information, but couldn’t help herself.
Alix paused. “From what I heard, he spent the entire trip down here paying court to Missy. Supposedly their parents have already planned the wedding.”
May cast her mind back over all her interactions with George. She had hoped that there might be something between them…yet if she was being honest with herself, George had never crossed the bounds of friendship into romance, not once.
He’d certainly never looked at her the way he was now looking at Missy, with overt adoration.
She swallowed; her throat felt dry as sand. “Thank you for telling me. I just…I need a moment to myself.”
May fled, ignoring the glittering guests in their crowns and jewels, and stumbled into a hallway. Staff members glided past with trays of empty wineglasses or platters of food.
Not caring how she looked, she leaned back against the wall, the bodice of Agnes’s old gown heaving with her breaths. Her eyes burned with unshed tears.
Her father had always been cruel; she should have been numb to his rage by now. But it still stung.
The revelation about George and Missy hurt far more.
May hated that Agnes had been proven right.
What a fool she’d been, thinking that George might care for her as anything more than a friend.
Of course he’d chosen Missy. That was the way of the world, brutal and unforgiving: a world where some girls were born with everything and some girls inherited only misery.
At least she hadn’t been foolish enough to declare her feelings for George. Thank god she’d spared herself that embarrassment.
As her mind came to terms with her loss, May felt her sense of control returning to her, melting the shards of ice in her chest. So, George didn’t care for her. That didn’t change the fact that she needed to marry—and marry well.
George might not be an option, but Eddy still was. Thanks to Agnes.
She would have to tread carefully, May thought, with the hardness that was already calcifying around her heart. She needed to confirm that Hélène had ended things with Eddy, and then, assuming the way was clear, May would begin her campaign.
It wouldn’t be easy. She would have to draw Queen Victoria’s attention to her slowly, remind everyone that she was an appropriate royal consort: that she, too, had been raised with grand destinations in mind, before her parents let their family sink so low.
This would be a long road, but if May’s childhood had given her anything, it was endurance—and a stubborn, indefatigable strength.
So her friendship with Agnes hadn’t been real, and she’d lost her budding relationship with Alix.
So what? May didn’t mind loneliness. In fact, loneliness had long ago been braided into the very fibers of her being.
She would go it alone, the way she always had.