CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hélène
“WOULD YOU CARE TO DANCE?”
Hélène noted impassively that the young man who’d spoken was handsome, with dark hair and gleaming hazel eyes. A forest-green uniform with epaulettes and a gold sash set off his broad shoulders.
“I’m sorry, I’m not dancing tonight” was her automatic reply. “However, I’m sure there are plenty of young women who would be eager to oblige.”
He sighed, a bit performatively. “Ah yes. All the royal cousins, at yet another family reunion.”
He was right, of course. All these kings and queens and princesses, in their embroidered gowns and jeweled coronets, had come to Athens to socialize in the same suffocatingly exclusive circles as always.
To gossip about each other, then greet the people they’d just been gossiping about with cries of delight.
It was a bit eerie, hearing this young man speak thoughts Hélène had harbored for years.
The music changed, and Hélène glanced around the ballroom. Seeing her look, the stranger added, “Are you sure you don’t want to dance?”
“I find that I lack the energy,” she said half-heartedly.
The stranger frowned, studying her for a moment. “But I see—it is an affair of the heart! What has your beloved done to anger you?” A mischievous gleam entered his eyes as he added, “Perhaps you should dance with me, just once, so that he will see how wrong he was.”
Something about this man broke through Hélène’s self-pity. “You’re very bold…” She trailed off, not sure of his name.
“Emanuele Filiberto, at your service.” Before she could protest, he lifted her hand and placed a kiss on her wrist. A chivalrous gesture, except that Hélène was wearing wrist-length gloves instead of elbow-length, so his lips landed on her bare skin.
He hadn’t used his titles, a lack of pretension that Hélène always found refreshing, but she knew who he was.
Emanuele Filiberto, the nephew of King Umberto of Italy, and second in line for the Italian throne.
Emanuele’s father, the king’s younger brother, had died tragically years ago; Emanuele lived in Piedmont with his mother and siblings.
In other words, he was exactly the sort of good Catholic prince her parents had wanted her to marry, before she got entangled with Eddy.
“Hélène of France,” she said, belatedly remembering to introduce herself.
“Yes, I know.” He winked and released her hand.
If she weren’t so depressed, Hélène might have enjoyed talking to Emanuele.
He had a restless energy that crackled just below the surface—it reminded her of Eddy, except that Eddy was never so overtly irreverent.
But then, Emanuele was only a spare, not an heir; he was allowed liberties that Eddy could only dream of.
Would she ever stop doing this, comparing every man she met to Eddy?
Probably not. Hélène would always regret the way things had ended with Eddy. She would always hate herself for her own carelessness, for the fact that she hadn’t figured out a way to protect them both.
“I’m sorry,” she told Emanuele, before grabbing her skirts with both hands and fleeing the ballroom.
Hélène blinked back angry tears as she ran, hardly looking where she was going.
Her heeled slippers left scuff marks on the polished wood floors, but she didn’t slow down; her heart beat wildly against her chest. The faces of various Greek ancestors stared disapprovingly down at her from portraits on the walls, matching the very real, shocked faces of staff members who stepped aside as she whirled past.
It wasn’t until she burst out the front doors that Hélène realized where she’d been headed. Apparently her feet had carried her here, to where the carriages were—where the horses were.
As always, the sound of their shuffling hooves was calming.
Hélène took a step forward, studying the eclectic mix of carriages that lined the great paving stones of the palace’s circle drive.
While there were still a few people gathered outside the gates, most of the crowds from earlier had dispersed, heading toward the waterfront to watch the upcoming pyrotechnics.
The sky overhead was turning a deep purple, fireflies winking in the dusk.
Except that they weren’t fireflies at all, she realized: the orange glow came from several dozen cigarettes.
That was the nice thing about coachmen. No matter what country you were in, you could always count on them to smoke.
“Excuse me,” Hélène called out, starting toward the nearest cluster of drivers. “Could I have a cigarette?”
One of them turned to her with a lopsided grin. He said something in Greek and lifted his hands in a universal gesture of confusion. Hélène tried French, then gave up and tried to convey her meaning with gestures.
“Ah! éna tsigáro!” He laughed, seemingly delighted by the incongruity of the situation—of Hélène, in her lavish cranberry-colored gown, asking him for a cigarette.
He handed one over and leaned forward to light it. Hélène inhaled deeply, relishing the small act of rebellion, though the smoke was sharper than she’d expected. This was a cheap, factory-produced paper cigarette, nothing like the cigars she’d stolen from her father’s office.
“Hélène?”
She turned around slowly, shocked beyond belief that Alix of Hesse was out here.
Behind Alix, the windows of the palace were ablaze with the light of countless gas lamps. The honeycombed light gilded Alix from behind, casting her face in shadow.
“What are you doing here, Alix?”
“I saw you in the ballroom. You seemed distraught.” Alix’s hair was falling loose from its twist; she tucked a strand nervously behind one ear. “Forgive me if I overstepped, following you. I was just worried.”
Hélène knew she should say something to make the other girl go away. Yet she felt dangerously like she might shatter into a million pieces.
Holding out the cigarette, she heard herself ask, “Want to smoke?”
Alix’s eyes widened, and Hélène stifled a bizarre urge to laugh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shock you.”
“Actually, I find that I am quite unshockable right now.”
To Hélène’s surprise, Alix accepted the proffered cigarette and drew in a breath—only to immediately burst into a fit of coughing.
“Here, let’s sit.” Hélène wrapped an arm around Alix and pulled her down to sit on the uppermost stone step. At least now they were out of sight of the front door, should anyone open it.
“Sorry,” Alix rasped, when the coughing had subsided. “I’ve never smoked before.”
“I gathered as much,” Hélène said drily.
Silence fell between them, but it was a relaxed, almost friendly silence. Hélène took the cigarette back and inhaled again, staring out at the scattered lights of the city.
“Did the Duke of Aosta do something to offend you?” Alix ventured.
Oh, right; that was Emanuele’s title. Hélène shook her head. “I wasn’t upset with him; it was about—”
She broke off, but Alix finished the sentence for her. “About Eddy.”
“I’m sorry. This must be strange for you, talking about him. With me, I mean.”
“Not really. Or at least, not any stranger than the rest of this mess.” Alix pulled her legs toward her, wrapping her arms around her knees.
Her gown—a beautiful silver-blue, the color of glaciers or winter stars—was probably getting dirt stains along the rear.
“Things with me and Eddy have been over for a very long time. If they ever even began in the first place.”
Hélène said nothing. After a beat, Alix added mournfully, “I’ve actually had a proposal from someone else.”
“Someone awful?” It sounded that way, from the bleakness of Alix’s tone.
“Oh no! I love him! But it doesn’t matter.” Alix tipped her head onto her knees. “His parents won’t let us marry. They hate me.”
“Hate you?” Hélène repeated incredulously. “That’s impossible.”
“They flat-out denied us permission to marry.”
“On what grounds? You’re every parent’s dream daughter-in-law—you’re perfect!”
Alix went rigid, and Hélène knew at once that she’d said the wrong thing. “I assure you, I’m far from perfect,” Alix finally answered, in a very small voice.
Hélène stole another glance at her. There was something different about Alix tonight: an angular swiftness to her movements, spots of color in her cheeks. Her normally pale blue eyes seemed mercurial, and darker than normal, as if the evening light had turned them almost violet.
“Did the same thing happen between you and Eddy?” Alix ventured. “You weren’t able to get permission to marry him?”
“Not exactly. It’s complicated.”
“If you want to talk about it, I’m happy to listen. After everything we’ve been through, I would hope that we can trust each other.” Alix smiled sadly. “I spoke with Eddy, and I know you didn’t spread those rumors about me fainting.”
“I would never do that!” Hélène exclaimed. “When you accused me of being indiscreet, I assumed you meant that I—well—”
“That you loved the man I was supposed to marry?”
“Yes, that.” Again Hélène felt an incongruous urge to laugh. Never in a lifetime would she have expected to find herself here: sharing a cigarette with Alix of Hesse, talking about the man they had both been linked to, each in her own way.
We can trust each other, Alix had claimed. Maybe she was right. Hélène had already seen Alix’s shameful secret, the way Alix had dissolved into a helpless fit that night at the opera. Maybe she could afford to let Alix in on her own problems.
“You were right, though, when you said I’ve been indiscreet,” she began, which was quite the understatement.
Haltingly, Hélène told Alix about Laurent, and then about Eddy.
She tried to sketch over the logistics of their encounters, since Alix, unlike her, was as sheltered and proper as a princess should be.
Still, there was no judgment in Alix’s expression.
She just nodded and listened, letting Hélène talk until the cigarette had wound down to an orange stub in her hand.
When she got to the part about May, and the blackmail letter, Alix gasped in indignation.
“May of Teck? But she’s so sweet!”
“I used to think so, too. Clearly I was mistaken.”
Alix shook her head incredulously. “And here I thought she was in love with George.”
“Maybe she’s just in love with the idea of marrying a prince.”
Alix started to rise to her feet. “I’m going to talk to her. Or better yet, I’ll talk to Grandmama—”
Hélène reached up to yank the other princess back down. “Don’t, please! That’s exactly why I haven’t mentioned this to Eddy.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“I broke things off with him. I had no choice!” Hélène burst out, helpless.
“Eddy would have fought for us, but no matter what he did, it would end in my losing him. Even if he revealed the blackmail, May could still show everyone that letter. And we both know that I could never marry him once it got out.”
Alix didn’t argue with that. She stared out at the horizon, tapping her fingers absent-mindedly against her leg.
“You know, I never figured out who did spread gossip about my fainting spell. Now I wonder…”
Hélène caught on at once. “You think May did it?”
“She’s already proven that she’ll resort to blackmail. If she wanted to get you out of the way, hoping she might win Eddy for herself, it stands to reason she would have tried to get rid of me, too.”
“She was at the opera that night! She could easily have seen you and not said anything,” Hélène agreed. It struck her as unbearably cruel, to find a young woman in the grips of utter panic and do nothing but walk away. To hoard the secret like currency that you would spend for your own gain.
“You’re right; we shouldn’t tell Eddy. He would want to solve this problem head-on, the way I did at first. No, if you’re going to beat May, you’ll have to fight dirty,” Alix insisted.
Her perfect veneer seemed to have cracked, revealing an Alix that surprised Hélène—a passionate Alix, with a rough edge to her voice.
Hélène found that she preferred Alix this way.
“What do you mean, ‘fight dirty’?” she asked.
“Didn’t you play games as a child where someone cheated? That’s what May is doing,” Alix said vehemently, “so it’s what you’ll need to do in return.”
Something sparked, then, in the pool of grief at Hélène’s core. It was as if a light had flicked on and let in hope.
“I don’t understand.”
“You told Eddy the engagement was off, which will keep May satisfied while you figure out your counterattack. To beat her, you’re going to have to find her weakness, or secret: a way to escape her control. You won’t be safe until you’ve got a hold over her, like the one she has over you.”
“How will I do that?”
“I don’t know,” Alix admitted. “But you have to try. If you love Eddy the way you say you do, then you must fight for him.”
Hélène sat with that for a long moment. May had certainly fought dirty—digging through her past, getting hold of Laurent’s letter. Even her threats had been veiled and carefully drawn. Hélène much preferred an open attack, but she wouldn’t beat May on a clear field of battle.
She would have to be cunning, the way May was. To listen at keyholes and bribe servants and hide her intentions behind a demure smile.
Hélène turned to Alix. “Promise me you will take your own advice. The man you love, the one whose parents forbade you to marry? Don’t give up on him.”
“My situation is different.”
“Not that different! If you love him the way you say you do, then you must fight for him,” Hélène exclaimed, echoing Alix’s words.
To her surprise, Alix put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her, tipping her head onto Hélène’s shoulder the way Amélie would.
“All right, then,” Alix agreed. “We’ll fight for them.”
As if on cue, a whistle cut through the darkening night. Both young women looked up to see the opening burst of pyrotechnics exploding in the sky.
They stood, still leaning on each other, and walked around to the side of the palace that looked over ocean.
Fireworks shot up into the stars, a vivid tapestry of red and green and blue that dissolved into sparks.
Moonlight glittered on the water, reflecting the burning wheels and fiery stars on the ocean’s surface.
It was magnificent but deadly. The way Hélène felt. A new determination roared up in her as she thought of everything she would have to do to get Eddy back.
But that was tomorrow’s problem. For now she was content to stand here with Alix, watching as the sky burst into flames, both of them wondering what would come next—and how it would all end.