Chapter Eighteen Alix
Chapter Eighteen
Alix
Alix stood with Maximilian on the deck, glancing from Eddy’s glum expression to May’s hard, polished smile.
This was a disaster. Eddy had clearly gotten engaged to May out of hurt, after he’d seen Nicholas and Hélène together on the deck that morning.
He’d done something drastic, as Alix had known he would.
If only she’d caught up with Eddy and explained that Nicholas and Hélène’s courtship was just for show. She had tried to chase after him—but then she’d found Ernie and Johann, who had both promptly run off. Alix hadn’t seen any of them for the rest of the day.
When Ernie and Eddy had shown up at this engagement party, dragged here by George, it was too late. The engagement was announced, and the damage was done.
Alix supposed she could tell Eddy the truth now…but what if it only made things worse?
“You seem surprised by this engagement,” Maximilian observed, in a low tone. “Are you all right?”
Alix turned to look at Maximilian then. He didn’t resemble the other guests, all painfully glamorous in their petal-soft dresses and glittering jewels.
His clothes felt somewhat dated, his jacket cut too wide, the colors from at least five years ago.
And, of course, he had that distinctly German beard.
Alix found it endearing, almost commendable, that he hadn’t bought new clothes for the regatta—or shaved—in an effort to look like everyone else.
Maximilian colored, sensing her scrutiny. “Sorry if I overstepped. But I’m here, if you’d like to talk about it. As friends.”
He thought that Alix was upset by Eddy and May’s engagement. Come to think of it, many other guests had been shooting her curious glances. They must have all heard her name linked with Eddy’s, back when Grandmama was trying to push the two of them together.
“Thank you,” Alix told Maximilian. “I am surprised, yes. But not for the reasons you think. I do not love Eddy, and I never did.”
He studied her, puzzled. “Her Majesty had told me that you were previously engaged to Eddy. When you told me that you didn’t wish to be courted, I thought— That is, I assumed he had broken your heart.”
“I didn’t wish to be courted because I love someone else,” Alix confessed.
If Maximilian was shocked by her honesty, he didn’t show it. “I see” was all he said, with a solemn nod.
Alix hurried to change the subject. “Do you know where Ernie is? I’m concerned for him.” Maximilian would assume she was worried about Ernie’s drunkenness, but of course it was much bigger.
She wanted to talk to her brother about Johann, to make sure he was all right.
It had startled her, seeing the two of them together.
Alix was not so sheltered as to be completely unaware that there could be romance between two men or two women.
She had read novels, after all, many of which were written in France.
It was just that in books, such men were always ridiculous and foppish, painting their faces with rouge or wearing earrings.
Ernie loved to hunt and ride and drink liquor as much as any other man.
But then, Alix had already learned the hard way that life rarely resembled the world depicted in novels.
“There are some gentlemen on the upper deck smoking cigars. I’ll look for your brother there,” Maximilian promised, seeming grateful to have been given a task.
As he walked off, Alix caught sight of Nicholas. He must have just rejoined the party; he was approaching from the back of the yacht, where rowboats ferried guests to other boats or to shore.
Alix didn’t hesitate. She wove through the crowds, ducking past servers with champagne on silver trays.
“Your Imperial Highness.” She curtsied before him, because they were still in public and she knew enough to be careful.
“I was just escorting the Princess Hélène back to the Polar Star. She felt unwell,” Nicholas explained.
Before Alix could reply, he waved his wrist in the direction of the yacht’s interior. “I’m sorry. I seem to have lost a cuff link inside. Would you help me find it?” He spoke loudly, in case anyone was eavesdropping.
Alix followed him to the yacht’s interior and down a narrow hallway that was clearly meant for staff. Nicholas tried a door, revealing a closet filled with wineglasses and folded cloth napkins. He pulled her inside and quickly shut the door behind them.
The only illumination was a thin golden light that crept in from the hallway. It gleamed on Nicholas’s dark hair, casting a shadow along his jawline.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Alix began, but couldn’t say more because Nicholas’s mouth was on hers.
Her heart thudded wildly as he reached his arms around her.
Within moments they were chest to chest, Alix’s back colliding with the shelves as Nicholas lifted her, his thigh pressing into her skirts.
His hands seemed to be everywhere at once: on the back of her neck, in her hair, around her waist. It was intoxicating and, at the same time, not nearly enough. She wanted all of him, right now—
Alix pulled back with a start, turning her face aside so that Nicholas’s kiss fell on her hairline instead of her mouth.
Slowly, he lowered her and took a step back, running a hand through his hair. They were both breathing heavily.
“I am sorry,” Nicholas said quickly. “I got carried away. It is just that I have thought of you every minute since we were apart.”
“So have I,” Alix whispered.
As her heartbeat slowed, the reality of her situation began to sink in. She was alone, in a closet, with a man. Just as Ernie had been earlier today.
“What are we doing, Nicholas?”
He winced apologetically. “We won’t do this at a crowded event again. I will come back to Osborne House, or we can sneak you onto—”
“No,” she interrupted. “I mean, what are we doing?”
Hélène and Eddy had spent a year in exactly this manner: meeting for flustered, frantic kisses at parties, stealing hours together whenever they could. Living separate lives in public and falling in love in secret, in the middle of the night.
Look where it had gotten them. Eddy was engaged to a woman who only wanted him for his title, and Hélène was heartbroken over it.
“I don’t understand.” Nicholas reached for her hands, and Alix, knowing she shouldn’t, let him take them.
“We need to talk,” she explained.
“If you’re upset about last night, I take full responsibility. We do not have to—I mean, we can go back to the way things were—”
“Please do not think I have any regrets about last night,” Alix whispered fiercely.
“Then what is it?”
“We will never get your parents’ permission to marry, will we.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.
Nicholas’s brow furrowed. “I promise, I will talk with them upon my return.”
“And their opinion will be the same as it has always been! They have only allowed you at the regatta because they think you’re here to court Hélène!
” Alix’s voice quavered as she thought of what she’d seen this morning—that moment between him and Hélène, which both of their families had watched with eager smiles.
Her realization that she would never be the type of princess that Hélène was.
“I intend to tell my parents that Hélène and I are just friends,” Nicholas began, but Alix tore her hands from his grip.
“And they’ll insist you marry her anyway!
They’ll probably be grateful that you consider her a friend, unlike every other princess they have thrown your way!
” Alix tried to step back, though there wasn’t much space.
“Your parents will win in the end. Our mistake was thinking we could change their minds.”
When she’d tugged him into her bed the night before, her heart aching with love, Alix had thought of nothing except Nicholas, that she wanted to be as intensely close to him as possible.
She hadn’t realized that she was making herself into his mistress.
“I don’t know why you’re saying this,” Nicholas argued. “You got out of an engagement to Eddy. Why don’t you think I can do the same with my engagement to Hélène? It’s not even official!”
“Because the only person I had to convince was my grandmother! The Romanov dynastic machine is something else entirely.”
Nicholas’s voice caught on his reply. “What are you saying, Alix?”
“I’m saying that we need to stop seeing each other.”
“No!” he cried out. When she flinched, he lowered his voice. “No, Alix, I refuse to accept this. You said you loved me, and you know I love you.”
“Of course I love you. I’m just no longer convinced that it’s enough. Look at us,” she hissed, gesturing to the shadowed closet. “This is all we’re ever going to be able to do together. If we can’t marry, then—I can’t go on. Not like this.”
Alix was not Hélène, bold and brave and impetuous. She could not live on stolen moments and slivers of time, hoping that somehow, someday, she could be with the man she loved despite the odds.
If she and Nicholas continued down this path, it could ruin her reputation—and it would certainly break her heart.
She had given her whole self to Nicholas, heart and body, and if she kept on doing so, over and over, what would be left when he walked away?
He might not marry Hélène, but it was abundantly clear that he would never be able to marry Alix.
Eventually he would choose someone else as a wife, and it would destroy her.
Alix had to walk away now, out of self-preservation. While there was still enough of her left to save.
She allowed herself one last moment to relish it all: the feel of Nicholas’s breath on her cheek, the murmur of his voice as he begged her not to do this. The way his deep blue eyes fixed on hers, the tears streaking down her own cheeks.
Quietly, deep inside herself, she was letting him go.
“I am leaving,” she declared, and this time Nicholas didn’t try to change her mind.
As she stumbled out into the hallway, wiping at her face, Alix hurt so acutely that she felt like she would die. But of course she knew better. You couldn’t actually die from a broken heart.