Chapter Twenty Hélène #2
Because she couldn’t. Hélène had pushed the boundaries of ladylike behavior so many times: riding with the men, taking off her gloves more often than she should, eating too much dessert. Climbing a tree was so far beyond appropriate, it was like…
Like sleeping with a man for over a year, and falling in love with him against your better judgment, and then losing him to a scheming manipulator?
What did it matter if someone saw Hélène climbing a tree? What punishment could she possibly be given that was worse than losing Eddy?
“You’re right,” she declared, and strode outside.
Emanuele looked momentarily surprised by her agreement; then he grinned. The moonlight gilded his handsome features, his aquiline nose and bright hazel eyes. “Excellent.”
They headed into the grove of leafy trees—magnolias, perhaps, though Hélène wasn’t much of a gardener. Emanuele interlaced his fingers and held out his hands in a makeshift stirrup, like a groom offering to lift her into the saddle. “May I help, Your Royal Highness?”
“Thanks, but no.” Hélène reached around the trunk, getting a solid grip, before placing her foot on one of the knots of the tree. Her thin slippers were surprisingly good for climbing, letting her curl her toes for balance. She stretched a hand toward a lower branch and hoisted herself up.
Emanuele chuckled approvingly and headed to a neighboring tree. “I’ll see you up there.”
Hélène only glanced over once on the way up.
Emanuele was making faster progress than she was, his movements brisk and deliberate.
Well, perhaps he’d climbed a tree more recently than she had; she moved slowly, choosing her handholds with care.
The last thing she needed on this sea journey was a broken leg.
But then, Hélène felt herself settling into the movement.
Her thighs were sore, her hands covered in small scrapes from the bark.
It was glorious. She’d forgotten how liberating it was to do something entirely physical.
Her brain was too absorbed to think or wonder or fret about anything, even Eddy.
When she reached a strong branch, Hélène sat back, leaning against the trunk, one leg to either side.
The skirts of her nightgown were past repair.
This was undoubtedly scandalous, and probably quite dangerous, too, but she didn’t care.
It felt so good to do something, to push through the anger and sorrow that had numbed her these past weeks.
“How are you feeling?” Emanuele asked, perched on a branch of his own. Behind him Hélène saw the palace, moonlight winking on its great glass windows.
“I’m enjoying myself, actually.”
For a moment there was just the sound of wind raking through the leaves, branches rustling around her. Then Emanuele cleared his throat.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Hélène’s heart skipped. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said quickly.
He leaned back, bracing both hands behind his head as if he were lying on a chaise, not on a tree branch suspended in midair. He was so cavalier, so at home there, that it struck Hélène as vaguely piratical. The way a marauder might look while poised up high in the ship’s rigging.
“Very well, we don’t have to discuss whatever has upset you.
We can just talk as our families do, discussing things that do not truly matter.
What did you hear about at dinner?” Emanuele asked flippantly.
“The weather? The size of your yacht? Or perhaps you’d like to debate the merits of Verdi’s operas? ”
Hélène’s grip on the branch tightened. It was unnerving, hearing Emanuele voice the things she had thought so many times.
“It’s not my yacht,” she replied, matching his nonchalance. “It belongs to the Romanovs.”
“Are the Romanovs the ones who made you so angry?”
Emanuele clearly hadn’t heard the rumors about her and Nicholas. Perhaps word of their flirtation hadn’t spread as far as Hélène had thought. Or perhaps Emanuele simply didn’t care about gossip.
“I don’t know you. Why do you even care?” she asked bluntly.
“Because you are a beautiful woman in distress. I wouldn’t be Italian if I didn’t want to help.” The words were flippant, but Hélène heard the genuine concern, and curiosity, beneath.
“Besides,” Emanuele went on, “it’s because you don’t know me that I should be easy to talk to. Just as confession is easier when you can’t see the priest’s face.”
“Confession up in the trees,” Hélène muttered. “The Church could learn a thing or two from you.”
“Alas, I am too sinful to become a priest,” Emanuele quipped.
Hélène’s gaze drifted downward. Her feet dangled in the open air, giving her an unnerving sense of vertigo. Perhaps that was why this all felt as surreal as a dream.
“I made some mistakes,” she admitted.
“Haven’t we all?”
“Perhaps, but did yours cost you the person you love?”
Emanuele drew in a breath. “I am sorry. Affairs of the heart are indeed serious.” He hesitated, then added, “May I ask of whom we are speaking?”
“Prince Eddy.”
“Prince Eddy. Of England,” Emanuele said slowly, as if to be sure. “You and he were—”
“We aren’t anymore.”
“Because you made these mistakes you spoke of, and he disapproved?”
“No, he wouldn’t care. But the world would disapprove.”
Emanuele waited for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
How could she phrase this without giving away her secret? “Somehow May of Teck learned what I had done.”
“She’s that relative no one has ever heard of, the one with the German father? The distant cousin Eddy got engaged to?”
Hélène was quite pleased to hear May spoken of so vaguely. “Exactly. May learned of my mistakes, and told me that if I didn’t end things with Eddy, she would tell the queen. She has proof,” she added, so he would understand how dire things were. “An incriminating letter.”
“What?” Emanuele demanded, so loudly that Hélène looked over at him. He was staring at her in shock. “Are you saying you’ve been blackmailed?”
“Yes.” Hélène held tight to the branch beneath her, though the bark was angrily biting her palms. Good thing she could hide her hands beneath gloves.
“You can’t let her get away with it,” Emanuele said indignantly. “If there’s a letter, then you need to steal it back.”
“I tried that! I snooped through May’s room, but she doesn’t have it!”
“Well then, who does have it?”
“I don’t know. But…” Hélène fell silent, thoughtful.
“But what?” Emanuele prompted.
“But there is someone who might know,” she said slowly. Why hadn’t she realized this before?
Because she didn’t like thinking of him. Because it reminded her of her own foolish, costly, devastating mistake.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Emanuele swung his legs off the branch. “Shall we go talk to this person?”
“He’s in France.”
“Then you must write him!”
“Yes,” Hélène agreed, shaking her head in surprise, or perhaps in disbelief. “I need to write him.”
“I’ll get paper and pen,” Emanuele promised, already halfway down the tree.
As Hélène started back down, the silk of her dressing gown snagged and torn past repair, she felt something in her chest, like a soap bubble that might burst at any moment. It was, she realized, the feeling of hope.