Chapter Two May #2
May had never believed in magic; she’d always rolled her eyes at children’s stories about fairies and mermaids. But rising into the air like this made her think, uncharacteristically, of a magic carpet.
“We’re flying,” she whispered.
“You aren’t frightened?” Eddy must have been talking to May, though his eyes were fixed on the distance.
“Not really.” There were plenty of things in this world to be frightened of. An elevator machine simply wasn’t one of them.
Eddy turned. “Is that why you volunteered to come up, then? Because you wanted to fly?”
I’m here because it gives me an otherwise-impossible opportunity to be alone with you.
“I came for the same reason you did,” she declared. “I was curious.”
Eddy gave a huff of what might have been amusement. “You give me more credit than I deserve. I volunteered to ride the elevator because I wanted to get away from my father.”
They were at least fifteen feet above the ground now. May could see the tops of the gentlemen’s hats, little gleaming black circles when viewed from above, a stark contrast to the women’s bonnets with their curling pastel ribbons.
“Why are you avoiding your father?”
It was a bold question. But something about this situation—looking down on the crowds from the vantage point of birds—made it feel less intrusive than normal.
“He’s been rather hard to deal with lately. He and Grandmother are trying to pin me down on the subject of…” Eddy hesitated. “My future.”
May knew what that meant. They were pushing him to marry.
“I should think your future is rather clear. You’ll be king someday,” she replied, her tone falsely flippant.
“I think the more pressing question is, who will be the queen?”
May couldn’t help a sharp intake of breath at his bluntness.
“There was—there is—someone. But I’m not sure she will have me.” Eddy seemed to have half forgotten that May was here; he was staring into the distance again, his words quiet. “She loves me; I know she does. There are just so many obstacles.”
He was clearly talking about Hélène. May felt a wave of relief that her strategy had worked, and she’d successfully scared off the French princess.
“And now Her Majesty is trying to suggest other…options?” May asked as tactfully as she could.
“Exactly. You know what she can be like.” Eddy flashed her a grateful look.
May resisted the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. I’m right here, she wanted to scream. Don’t you see? But of course, Eddy never saw much of anything, even when it was directly in front of him.
The elevator machine was still ascending. May dared a glance down at the ground, then regretted it.
“It helps if you pick a focal point. Something distant, like that lantern on the far wall,” Eddy suggested. “Don’t look down, or it will only make you more afraid.”
May kept her gaze fixed on the ironwork lantern he’d indicated, trying to ignore her sudden prickling of fear. “Is this something you learned when you climbed the Himalayas?”
“On sailboats. I like climbing up to untie the knots. I’ve never actually climbed the Himalayas,” Eddy added, “though I did climb the pyramids at Giza. From the top you can see the Sphinx.”
“Did she ask you a riddle?”
“Who?”
Once again, May had blundered, letting her cleverness slip out. She should have known a reference to mythology would have been lost on Eddy.
“Are the pyramids haunted?” she asked, rapidly changing tack. “I’ve heard there are ghosts there.”
“You believe in ghosts?” Eddy teased.
“Of course I do. I heard them at Balmoral last summer.”
That startled a laugh from him. “I’m sure it was Grandfather. He haunts the ballroom, where all those deer heads he shot still hang.”
“Are you sure he doesn’t haunt the upstairs corridor? Because my room was absolutely frigid.”
“That’s just how Scotland feels at night.
You’ll get used to it.” Before she could wonder what Eddy meant by that—did he think she’d be invited again this year?
—he sighed. “Sometimes I think this whole country is founded on ghosts. We all seem to be doing things for the benefit of people who are long since dead.”
Now it was May’s turn to glance at him in surprise. That might have been the most eloquent thing she’d ever heard Eddy say.
“When you’re king, everything you do will be for the living. Mostly for people you’ve never met.”
The elevator came to a stop. May tried, and failed, to keep her gaze on the iron lantern Eddy had indicated. They were just so high. Even with walls surrounding three sides of this box, she felt like she might tumble to the ground at any minute.
“Our fearless volunteers are forty feet aboveground!” the elevator man shouted. “And now I will demonstrate the safety brakes that make the Otis model so unique.”
May’s head whipped toward Eddy. “Safety brakes?”
“It’ll be fine,” Eddy said, which wasn’t particularly helpful. “Remember when you thought it was magic?”
“That was when we were still close to the ground!”
May was too high up to see the elevator man, but later she would hear Maud recount how he had drawn a sword (“A real old-fashioned one, like my grandfather used to have!”), waved the sword with a dramatic flourish, and cut the cable holding the elevator aloft.
All she knew in that moment was that the floor had fallen out from beneath her.
May’s skirts swooped upward, her stomach flying up to somewhere in her throat. She closed her eyes, scrabbling for anything to grab hold of—
The box shuddered to a screeching halt, and May realized that her body was pressed against Eddy’s, her hands grabbing the walls to either side of his waist.
“It’s perfectly safe!” the elevator man boomed. “Even if the cord is damaged, the safety brakes will engage, ensuring that no one falls to the ground….”
May rapidly disentangled herself from Eddy and took a step back, only to realize with surprise that he was smiling. Inexplicably, he’d thought that was fun.
Hélène would probably have thought the same thing.
“I take it the safety brakes were more than you bargained for?” His voice was teasing, but gently so.
“A little,” she admitted. “But I’m glad I did it.”
When the elevator car descended, everyone swept forward, peppering them with questions and exclaiming how brave they’d been.
Eddy’s identity must have been revealed while he and May were in the air, because there was also a lot of bowing and Your Royal Highnessing.
Eddy’s little adventure had, May thought, helped deflect attention from how useless the Prince of Wales was as a royal scientific patron.
“You were up so high! How did it feel?” Maud asked, hurrying toward May. “Did it give you a new perspective on things?”
May stole a glance back at Eddy. As if he felt her eyes on him, he met her gaze and grinned knowingly. There was nothing romantic or intimate about it; it was the sort of look you might give a friend, someone with whom you had shared a joke.
Well, she had to start somewhere.
May turned to answer Maud’s question. “How astute of you. Yes, being in the elevator gave me an entirely new perspective.”