Chapter Twenty-Eight May
Chapter Twenty-Eight
May
May froze halfway down the stairs. Her father stood in the entrance hall, glaring at the carriage in the driveway—one marked with the queen’s crest, pulled by a pair of perfectly matched white horses.
“You are heading to Buckingham Palace?” Francis demanded.
May started tentatively down the stairs again. “Today is the first sitting for my official portrait with Eddy.”
“I will join you,” her father declared, crossing his arms over his chest.
To May’s surprise, her mother strode in from the drawing room. “Come now, Francis, May can go alone. After all, you’re not the one sitting for the portrait.”
“Neither are you,” Francis said viciously. “As if anyone would even want a portrait of you, you cow.”
Mary Adelaide sagged a little. The morning light fell on her face, underscoring the lines around her mouth, the weariness on her features.
The sight of it broke something in May. Before she could think twice, she clattered down the last few steps, throwing up an arm as if to shield Mary Adelaide.
“Don’t talk to Mother that way.”
Like some ancient predator that had stumbled across a new victim, Francis turned his head slowly in May’s direction.
Behind him, May saw Mary Adelaide shaking her head in warning. Don’t do it, her eyes pleaded. Don’t provoke him.
But May was done cowering. Why else had she done all this, schemed and plotted and left a trail of hurt in her wake, if not to become stronger than her father? To protect herself, and her mother, from his cruelty?
Adopting her boldest, most imperious voice—the one Agnes used, the one Victoria used—she stared her father down. “You will not be joining me at my portrait sitting. And now you will apologize to Mother.”
An excruciating silence echoed through the house.
Francis stared at May; then slowly he smiled. Somehow it was more chilling than all his blustering anger. “Well, well. Look who learned to fight back. I wondered if you would ever be brave enough to turn on me, or whether you would stick to terrorizing other young women.”
May felt the blood drain from her face. “I have not terrorized anyone. I have tried to plan ahead, to be clever—”
“Do you deny that you went after other young women, tore them down in order to pave your rise?” he bellowed.
May said nothing, and he nodded. “I knew you did something to that Hessian girl. And you and your tawdry American friend were always whispering together. Whose life did you destroy? That cousin of Eddy’s, the one from Coburg?
No,” he mused, watching May’s face. “You might have gotten rid of her, too, but you also did something else. Something bigger.”
So he did know the truth. Her father had discovered her sabotage of Alix, and had guessed at her blackmail of Hélène, even if he didn’t know precisely what it was.
“May, what is he talking about?” Mary Adelaide asked shakily. May ignored her.
Icy fear snaked through her core. How had Francis figured out what she’d done?
Had he seen right through May because, deep down, they were the same?
“You will not repeat such things ever again, to me or to anyone else,” May insisted, though her voice shook a little.
“Don’t forget that I can still hurt you,” Francis threatened.
“You wouldn’t dare! I am the future Queen of England. Someday my son will be king!” May took a step forward—and to her surprise, her father retreated. Just a few inches, but it gave her the courage to keep going.
“I am the one who can hurt you now. Which is why I insist that you leave the country,” she commanded.
May heard her mother’s shocked intake of breath. Francis went dangerously still.
“You will leave, Father,” May continued, her voice hot. “Go to Rumpenheim, to Württemberg, to Mecklenburg-Strelitz—I don’t care, as long as you are far from me and Mother.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, their eyes locked. May swallowed, refusing to lower her chin, even to blink.
Finally Francis growled, but she saw now that he was more like a caged bear than a wild lion. Embittered, defeated, all teeth and no bite. “Fine. It’s not as if I want to stay here, anyway.”
He spun on one heel and was halfway to the door when May’s next words stopped him cold.
“You still haven’t apologized to Mother.”
A roaring silence seemed to echo through the room. Francis didn’t turn around, but he did mumble, “I’m sorry I ever married you, Mary Adelaide.”
It was probably the only apology they would ever get from him.
When he’d gone, May’s mother turned, her expression torn between gratitude and confusion. “May, you shouldn’t have— Thank you for sending him away,” she said haltingly. “But those things Francis said about you, what was he—”
“I’m sorry, Mother. I’m late.” May averted her gaze, hurrying out before her mother could ask any more questions.
Safely inside the waiting coach, May sank her head into her hands. She was trembling as if she’d survived an earthquake. I’m nothing like Father, she told herself. He and I are not the same.
It wasn’t as convincing as she’d hoped.
She had grown up conditioned by Francis’s cruelty. What if, unwittingly, her own mind had adopted the same shape?
May wanted to be proud of herself for making him leave, but she couldn’t shake the sense that she’d succeeded only because her teeth were sharper than his.
Because he was no longer the greatest monster living at White Lodge.
Sir John Lavery, the queen’s official portrait painter, frowned in concentration. Then he stepped forward to adjust May’s ermine cape, letting it fall dramatically over the arm of the chair. “Perfect,” he muttered.
They were in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace. Sir John had painted all of Her Majesty’s portraits here, insisting that it offered the best natural light. May had arrived an hour earlier to sit for her and Eddy’s official engagement portrait.
So far, the groom hadn’t shown up.
No one had dared remark upon it. A bevy of maidservants whirled about May, smoothing her hair, adjusting the skirts of her white-and-gold gown, helping Sir John set up his easel. May was just wondering if they would begin the painting without Eddy when the sitting room’s door burst open.
“Your Majesty!” Sir John bowed, flipping a paintbrush behind his back with a flourish. “As always, it is an honor to commemorate these historic moments for your family.”
May hurried to stand and curtsy at the queen’s arrival, knowing that Sir John would have to restage her entire pose.
“We are still waiting for His Royal Highness Prince Eddy,” the painter apologized.
Then another pair of footsteps approached the door. “Don’t worry, I’ll be standing in for him.”
George strode into the room, wearing the Robe of State—a massive thing of purple velvet, embroidered and trimmed in ermine, linked across his chest by a heavy gold chain.
Underneath, he had on a gold brocade waistcoat of the same fabric as May’s gown.
The garment was a bit long on him and straining at the shoulders; it had been cut for Eddy, and George had always been the stockier brother.
Beneath all those layers of fur and chain, his chest was broader than Eddy’s.
May flushed a little at the realization that she was thinking about George’s bare chest.
“I’m afraid Eddy won’t be joining us.” Queen Victoria said this carelessly, as if she were remarking upon the weather, but May sensed her annoyance. As Eddy’s fiancée, she probably should have been irritated, too. But May didn’t care all that much—not when George had come instead.
“Georgie has agreed to fill in for his brother,” the queen explained. “John, I trust this won’t present a problem?”
“Not at all. I’m just beginning initial sketches today,” the artist assured her.
Victoria nodded. “As we discussed, our jeweler will arrive later with the Imperial State Crowns.”
May didn’t mean to gasp. When the queen turned to her, one eyebrow raised expectantly, May stammered a reply. “I’m sorry, I just—I didn’t know we were to be painted in crowns.”
Victoria eyed May with unmistakable disapproval.
“Sir John here will study the crowns so that he can sketch them atop your heads, but under no circumstances will you or Eddy wear the Imperial State Crowns. A crown is not a bonnet, May, to be tried on at a milliner’s shop.
It is a sign of the divine power that God grants you through the sacrament of coronation, and only after you have been anointed with sacred oil may you put it on your brow. ”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” May looked down, her cheeks flaming.
Victoria stared at her a moment longer, then shook her head and turned back to the painter.
“Sir John, please leave your sketches on the easel before you depart. I will stop by this afternoon to review them and ensure your progress is satisfactory. Do make sure that Eddy”—she hesitated—“that is, George, is standing. I despise portraits of kings sitting on thrones. I’d like to see him in a commanding frontal pose, with a hand on a table.
Or holding a saber, as my own dear Albert did in his first portrait. ”
Sir John bowed in silent obeisance, and the queen swept from the room.
There was a flurry of hushed murmurs as the various attendants helped May sit back down, adjusting her skirts and the fall of her robe.
Sir John attempted several poses for George before settling on one that was surprisingly intimate: standing behind May with a hand on the back of her armchair.
Then the artist retreated behind his easel, and the only sound was the scrape of charcoal over paper.
May kept her gaze resolutely forward, though she was hyperaware of George standing just behind her. She imagined that she could hear the rhythm of his breaths, could feel his hand mere inches from her head, close enough to play with a few strands of her hair.