Chapter Twenty Hélène
Chapter Twenty
Hélène
Another night, another room in an unfamiliar house.
At least the Quirinal Palace had wonderful bedcovers, so soft that Hélène felt like she was drifting on a cloud. The Italians had always been good at creature comforts—food, fine linens, wine—perhaps as a counterweight to the constant spirituality of living so near the pope.
Not that Hélène was currently able to enjoy any of those creature comforts.
She kept alternating between anguish, and self-recrimination, and anger: at herself, and at Eddy.
Clearly, she should have risked the consequences and let him in on her plans.
But what had Eddy been thinking, getting engaged to May?
The queen was threatening him with a three-year tour, yes, but he was hardly about to be shipped off in the middle of the regatta.
What had prompted him to make that announcement?
The morning after that party, Nicholas had come to breakfast and announced that he and Vladimir were returning to Russia.
“I’m so sorry, but we need to leave the regatta straightaway,” he’d told Hélène’s parents.
“The Polar Star will be going to Calais, to let us disembark so we can travel overland. Please feel free to stay aboard; the yacht is heading to the Black Sea, if you’d like to make some stops along the way. ”
Hélène’s parents had been so delighted at the prospect of a Mediterranean cruise that they weren’t even upset about anchoring in Calais, where they would have to stare mournfully at the forbidden shores of France.
“What happened?” Hélène had whispered the moment she was alone with Nicholas.
He looked utterly heartbroken as he replied, “Alix ended things.”
“But why?”
“She worried that my parents would never let us marry.” He sighed. “I don’t think I realized how hard it was on her—meeting up in secret, hiding how we really felt. And the longer it went on, the more it seemed to crush her.”
It hadn’t gone on that long, Hélène thought. She and Eddy had been sneaking around far longer. But then, that sort of behavior would weigh on a girl like Alix.
“I’m so sorry, Nicholas,” she told him.
“I just…I need to get off this boat,” he said morosely. Well, that explained why he was taking the train to St. Petersburg instead of going by yacht. “I’m sorry, too, for what it’s worth. About Eddy,” he added.
“What a sad pair we are. Leaving the regatta early, wallowing in our sorrow while everyone else is celebrating.” Hélène had meant to be flippant, but the words didn’t quite come out right.
“We deserve each other, I suppose.” There was a beat of silence, and then Nicholas said, “Perhaps we should just get married after all.”
His words hung in the air between them. Hélène waited for Nicholas to take it back, but he was staring out at the horizon, his jaw clenched.
“I don’t think you’re serious,” she said at last.
“We both have to marry eventually. If I can’t have Alix…Believe me when I say that of all the princesses I’ve met, you are by far the most preferable.”
“Of course I am,” Hélène couldn’t help saying. “But Nicholas, you aren’t thinking clearly. You don’t want to do this to Alix.”
Nicholas hung his head in his hands. “You’re right. When I get back to St. Petersburg, I’ll tell my parents that you and I cannot get engaged.”
“Thank you.” Such an announcement could never come from Hélène. In this circumstance, only the man could end things.
“Hélène—know that you will always have a friend in Russia, should you need one.”
She had reached for his hand then, to give it one last squeeze. “You will always have a friend in me, too.”
Hélène’s parents had been blissfully unaware that the two were ending their supposed courtship. They’d clearly assumed that Nicholas had granted them use of the yacht as a gift to his future wife, and Hélène hadn’t disabused them of the notion.
So for the past week, Hélène and her parents had been on a pleasure cruise through the Mediterranean.
At every port they pulled into, they stopped for dinner—and often stayed overnight—with whatever royal relatives or friends lived nearby.
So far they had seen Hélène’s sister in Lisbon and her mother’s family in Malaga, and skirted around the French Riviera to visit Livorno before arriving in Rome.
Now they were at the Quirinal Palace with King Umberto and Queen Margherita.
Hélène slid out of bed and began searching the room for a dressing gown and slippers. She needed some tea. Look how English she’d become, craving tea when upset. Eddy would have teased her for it.
The palace was quiet, with the rustling stillness of a building where dozens of people currently slept.
Hélène’s hand skimmed over the iron railing as she descended the staircase.
Moonlight fell through the arched windows overhead, pooling on the parquet floors.
At the bottom she hesitated, uncertain in which direction lay the kitchens.
“You seem lost.”
Hélène whirled about, heart racing. It was too dark to fully make out the young man behind her; though he’d spoken in French, which implied that he knew who she was.
“I was looking for the kitchens. Could you direct me there…?” Hélène trailed off, waiting for him to provide his name.
“Emanuele. You don’t remember me, Your Royal Highness? I’m hurt,” he teased, putting a hand on his chest in mock sorrow.
He’d used her formal title instead of calling her Miss d’Orléans, as everyone in London did. But of course, Emanuele was a Savoy, and they recognized her father as King of France.
“Of course I remember.” They had met at Sophie and Tino’s wedding in Athens, the night that Hélène had ended things with Eddy.
Emanuele, the Duke of Aosta, was King Umberto’s nephew.
Because the king only had one, rather sickly teenage son, and because Emanuele’s father had died years earlier, Emanuele was second in line to the throne of Italy.
Though it would have been in poor taste to say so aloud, many people expected him to be king someday.
“Why weren’t you at dinner?” Hélène asked, curious.
“If I’d known you were here, I would have rushed back,” Emanuele said smoothly. “Alas, I was at the Grand Prix in Turin.”
“Oh, who won?” Hélène hadn’t heard of Turin’s Grand Prix, but there were so many horse races these days, especially on the Continent.
“A Daimler.” Emanuele sighed. “At least it wasn’t a Peugeot; the French drivers are intolerable when they win. No offense, Your Royal Highness,” he added with a wink.
Hélène stared as comprehension sank in. “You’re talking about a motorcar race?”
“Just wait, these races are the future of Europe. Far more exciting than horses.”
“A horse is far grander, far more noble and more interesting to watch, than a bunch of gears and a wheel,” she said dismissively. “How fast can your cars go? Five miles per hour?”
“Fifteen, actually.”
“A horse can go up to thirty at a gallop!”
“But can your horse sustain this gallop for a hundred miles?” Emanuele shook his head. “If you ever visit Turin, I promise to take you out in my motorcar, and you’ll see what I mean.”
“Thank you, but I’ll pass,” Hélène said crisply.
“On the motorcar ride, or on more time with me?”
He really was an incorrigible flirt, the sort of man who charmed and teased as naturally as breathing. Hélène deliberately walked past him. “Do you know where the kitchens are? I should like some tea.”
“Of course I know where the kitchens are.” Emanuele hurried to keep pace with her. “I spent much of my childhood in this palace, you know.”
Hélène knew the story. After Emanuele’s father died, his uncle had begun sending for him every summer, quietly preparing Emanuele to be king—just in case.
“I’m sorry about your father,” she said clumsily. “It must have been hard for you, growing up without him.”
They had paused halfway down the corridor. Massive windows revealed the gardens behind the house, full of shadowed hedges and white marble statues.
“I loved going out in those gardens. I used to hide there, actually,” Emanuele admitted.
“From your tutor?”
“Oh yes. He had this awful habit of trying to teach me arithmetic.” Emanuele shuddered.
“For me, it was the dictées. My brother Philippe and I loved climbing the old oak in our garden to escape them. My governess would eventually find us there, but we just pelted her with acorns until she went to get my father. Poor Madame de Morsier,” Hélène added, “I don’t think she liked the dictées any more than we did. ”
“Forgive my ignorance, but what is a dictée?” Emanuele asked.
“You never had to do dictées? Sentences designed to be purposefully hard to spell. Like, Charlotte et son chat chantent dans leur chambre?” She glanced over at Emanuele’s profile. “Is there no such thing in Italian?”
“Not in the Italian I speak, but more than half of Italy speaks a regional dialect. That is why French is our court language, because at least we can all understand each other.” He grinned. “Perhaps I should make everyone start doing these dictées you speak of.”
“Prepare to be wildly unpopular,” Hélène warned.
She should have guessed that the Italian language was as unruly and disorganized as its various regions.
After all, the nation that Emanuele’s uncle ruled was only a generation old.
The political movement known as the Risorgimento had united all the Italian kingdoms, Lombardy and Veneto and the Two Sicilies and the Papal States, into a single entity under the Savoys, who had previously been the Kings of Piedmont.
Rome might be one of the most ancient cities in Europe, but it was part of one of the newest countries.
“You know what?” Emanuele declared, turning to her. “I think we should climb a tree.”
“Now? Are you mad?”
He unlocked the doors and stepped onto the palace’s back terrace. “Why not? You just said that you used to love it.”