Chapter Twenty-One May
Chapter Twenty-One
May
“May, I need a moment with you,” her father growled.
May willed her smile not to slip as she murmured an excuse to the society women who were cooing over her. It was shallow, obviously, but she couldn’t help enjoying the new attention, after so many years of being shunted to the side. She was only human, after all.
“Of course, Father.”
Francis grunted in response, then grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the reception room. May tried not to wince as the boning of her stays cut into her side.
She should have guessed that Francis would be in a black mood.
This party—the queen refused to call it a ball, though almost two hundred guests were in attendance—was for Eddy and May, to celebrate that their engagement had been officially proclaimed in Parliament.
And Francis detested anything that honored other people, especially May.
Things had been a whirlwind since May’s return from Osborne several weeks earlier.
White Lodge, normally so drab and dreary, was bursting with activity: full of dresses and hats and delicate squares of lace, sent by merchants all over England vying to make the royal trousseau.
Invitations arrived by the dozens, to balls and charity bazaars and private boxes at the opera.
So many telegrams were pouring in that the local post office had taken over part of the schoolroom, with its own staff of telegraphers, to handle the volume of messages.
There were practical matters to consider, too.
May needed to start interviewing candidates for the posts of private secretary, and lady’s maid, and housekeeper.
She’d begun selecting wallpaper for the rooms that she and Eddy had been granted at St. James’s Palace.
And just yesterday they had met with the Archbishop of Canterbury to begin discussing the wedding ceremony—except that Eddy had left after a mere ten minutes, claiming a sore throat.
The only thing he’d actually made it to all week was their engagement photo shoot, where they had posed for a picture that would soon be reprinted in newspapers around the world.
It was fine. May was used to doing things on her own.
“Did you see the announcement?” Francis demanded, once he and May had reached the corridor. Thankfully, it was empty, the sounds of the party muffled behind great double doors.
“Yes, Father,” May said carefully.
“They listed me after your mother! Without a Royal Highness!”
Because you don’t have one! May didn’t dare say.
The official text had read, Her Majesty is delighted to announce the engagement of His Royal Highness Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and of Avondale, to Princess Victoria Mary, Daughter of Her Royal Highness Princess Mary Adelaide and of His Highness the Duke of Teck.
Which was quite correct. May’s mother was the royal one.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, which only seemed to irritate her father more.
“Sorry? You should have done something to prevent my embarrassment!”
“Can’t you just enjoy this moment of triumph for our family?”
Francis’s eyes narrowed at her audacity. His hand curled as if he meant to strike her.
May flinched, and her father saw it.
He stretched his fingers, releasing the fist. “Some family triumph, if it means your father is humiliated.”
“I promise it won’t happen again,” May hastened to assure him.
“I’m afraid you’ll need to do better than that.
Once you’re married, you will ensure that I get the dignities and styling of a Royal Highness.
And I think, as father of the future queen, I am due an official post. Nothing that requires work, of course,” he added, with a sharp-edged smile.
“But one of those made-up positions that have a great income attached. The kind that you can only get by being intimate with the royal family.”
“I’m not sure I can—”
“I think I’d like to be Earl Marshal,” he announced. “Or something even greater. Keeper of the Privy Seal, perhaps?”
The nerve of him. “I wouldn’t know how to ask for such a thing.”
Her father barked out a caustic laugh, rocking back on his heels and looping his thumbs into his belt. “You’re a clever girl, May. I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else I’ll make sure it all comes crashing down around you,” he threatened.
“Do you think Victoria would want you in the family if she knew the truth of how you got here? The way you clung around like a snail, slimy and ugly and toxic. Not to mention that you threw yourself at Maud last year, begging for her friendship,” he said dismissively.
“As pathetic as when you took cast-off clothes from that American brat.”
For a moment May just stared at her father. He never seemed to pay any attention to her—how much did he really know? Or was this all just guesswork? “You wouldn’t risk it. Not when our family is so close to the throne,” she said, but she wasn’t certain.
“That’s just the thing, May. You’re the one marrying Eddy. If our family is about to be close to the throne, it needs to be all of us.” He smiled bitterly. “Not just you.”
He would do it. Looking at his expression, twisted by years of resentment and jealousy—by whatever hopes had long ago been shattered—May knew he would. Francis was far past being ruled by logic.
If he didn’t get what he wanted, he would gleefully watch his daughter’s life burn instead.
“These things take time,” she said quickly. “I’m hardly in a position to ask favors of Her Majesty just yet. Perhaps in a few years—”
“A few years?” he bellowed.
May winced and glanced down the corridor in both directions, though luckily, no one seemed to have noticed. “When I’ve provided an heir. Then I’ll be in a stronger negotiating position, and can help you get what you deserve.”
“An heir.” Francis paused at the thought that his grandchild would someday be King of England.
Then he shook his head, brows furrowed. “You still must correct the announcement before it reaches the papers. It will be reprinted throughout Europe! What would my cousins in Württemberg think if they saw it worded thus?”
May highly doubted that they thought of him at all.
“Of course, Father,” she said placatingly.
He was still angry, his rage coiling like a snake about to strike, but at least his ire was no longer directed at her.
“Perhaps we should return to the party?” she ventured. Francis grunted in assent, and she hurried back into the ballroom.
When May reappeared, the conversations nearest her broke off.
A few guests cast her ingratiating smiles; others looked at her with something like surprise, as if they were still trying to puzzle out how she’d done it.
May was too rattled from her father’s threats to enjoy their jealousy.
She scanned the dance floor, rising on tiptoe to see through the crowds.
“Are you looking for Eddy?” Queen Victoria asked, coming to stand near May.
May must have been more flustered than she realized, because as she sank into a quick curtsy, she told the truth without a second thought. “For George.”
The queen blinked in surprise.
May hurried to fabricate an explanation. “I need to ask him something. I’m planning a gift for Eddy, and would like his advice.”
Victoria smiled wistfully. Thank heavens she was too sentimental to realize how illogical that was. Why would May seek George at an engagement party to discuss a wedding present, which was hardly an urgent problem?
“Albert gave me a lovely brooch when we were married,” Victoria reminisced. “He designed it himself. He commissioned dozens of pieces for me over the years—using the baby teeth of our children, pebbles we’d collected on the beach at Osborne, antlers from the first deer he hunted at Balmoral.”
“How lovely,” May replied, though it was ludicrous. The ruler of the entire British Empire, who had access to some of the most spectacular jewels in the world, wearing seaside pebbles around her neck?
Victoria nodded to the middle of the dance floor. “I’m afraid George is with Missy. They make a lovely pair, don’t you agree?”
May’s stomach soured as she watched the two of them. There was no denying that they looked handsome together. She saw George murmur something, at which Missy tipped her head back and laughed, before he spun Missy in an effortless twirl.
“I don’t know. Missy is so young,” May said daringly, over the hammering of her heart. “And a bit impetuous for such a great role.”
“She doesn’t have what it takes to be queen, of course,” Victoria observed, with her typical bluntness. “But it is hardly the same, marrying the younger son.”
The woman who married George would need to accept coming in second.
Wearing the smaller crown jewels at state occasions, attending foreign weddings in the duller, more out-of-the-way countries while May and Eddy represented Britain at the big events.
Taking on the obscure patronages that May had rejected.
Somehow May didn’t see Missy being totally content out of the spotlight.
“I think Missy could be good for George. He’s so withdrawn, so quiet,” Victoria went on. “Missy is headstrong, certainly; but she will push him to be bolder. Just as you will push Eddy to be more serious.”
“I’m worried they aren’t a good match.” May knew she was overstepping but couldn’t help herself; the words seemed to pour from her mouth of their own volition.
It wasn’t that May wanted George for herself. She was going to marry his brother. But she knew, with certainty, that Missy was wrong for him.
Everyone assumed George was shy, but he was really just wise in his choice of words, and careful to whom he spoke. He was so unlike his red-faced, spoiled, overgrown child of a father. So unlike May’s own father, with his petty vindictiveness and cruelty.