Chapter Twenty-Eight May #3
May jumped from the couch and turned as the door opened once more.
Hélène d’Orléans walked into the room.
For a moment they were all still, as utterly immobile as the charcoal figures in that sketch. Hélène looked well, May thought dazedly. Her eyes were bright, and there was angry color in her cheeks, setting off the magenta stripes of her tea gown.
Moving slowly, Hélène came and took the seat next to Eddy, putting a hand on his arm in an unmistakably proprietary gesture.
It struck May, then, how completely Hélène had outwitted her—making her think she had moved on, that she wanted that letter for the Romanovs’ sake.
“You’re not getting engaged to Nicholas, are you?” May said into the silence.
Eddy replied on Hélène’s behalf. “You should refer to him as His Imperial Highness the tsarevich, and no, she isn’t. She’s already engaged. To me.”
A bit blasphemous of you, being engaged to two women at once, May longed to say. But she didn’t dare.
She looked at Hélène instead, her stomach churning. “Agnes told me you stole back the letter—”
“I’d hardly call it stealing, since it was mine to begin with!”
Eddy squeezed Hélène’s hand in support, then glowered at May. “May, I can’t believe the things you did. Digging into Hélène’s past, blackmailing her? It’s despicable.”
“That was Agnes!” May met Eddy’s gaze, pleading. “I would never have done something like that, truly.”
“But you just admitted that you knew about the letter! Even if what you claim is true, and you didn’t send it, you still let the blackmail unfold. You let Hélène leave England, then manipulated me into an engagement!”
“I didn’t manipulate you!” May exclaimed. “All I did was offer you what all men want—a relationship with no expectations and no consequences! You’re the one who signed up for a marriage where you had permission to sleep around, just like your father!”
She would pay for that dig at Bertie, most assuredly. But May was gratified to see Hélène flinch. Clearly, Eddy hadn’t told his beloved all the details of their engagement.
“What about Alix?” Hélène cut in. “Do you deny that you spread rumors about her?”
“They aren’t rumors! Alix really is sick!”
“And Ducky!” Hélène continued ruthlessly. “You gave her atrocious advice, telling her that she should be whining and weak, when you knew it would push Eddy away!”
“Wait—that was you?” Now it was Eddy’s turn to look surprised. He stared at May, brow furrowed. “I wondered what was going on; Ducky had never been so dull-witted before.”
“She asked for my help!” May spluttered. “Ducky didn’t want to marry you because she’s in love with her cousin!”
“She’s in love with Ernie?” Eddy shook his head. “Why didn’t she just say so?”
May bit her lip to keep from explaining that she’d meant Kiril. For whatever reason, Ducky had chosen to get engaged to Ernie. May might not understand it, but the least she could do was keep Ducky’s secret.
“Even if that’s true, and Ducky didn’t want to marry Eddy, you have still behaved deplorably. Toward Alix, toward Eddy, and toward me,” Hélène cut in.
Eddy nodded in agreement. “May. It goes without saying that I no longer consider us engaged.”
“Yes, of course. I understand,” May said swiftly.
Both Eddy and Hélène seemed startled by her rapid agreement. They couldn’t have known that May was already thinking along these very lines—wondering if she could break off her engagement to Eddy and pursue her feelings for George.
“I apologize for all the damage I caused. Please know that I heartily regret it, and I will do whatever you ask in order to call off our engagement,” May assured him. “I am as eager as you are to put this all behind us.”
Eddy leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “We will indeed be putting it behind us. Because you are going to leave the country.”
May’s blood stilled. “Excuse me?”
“As Hélène said, your behavior has been unconscionable. By all rights I should tell Grandmother everything you’ve done.”
May stifled a cry of outrage. Eddy saw this, and lifted an eyebrow.
“But I am not going to tell Grandmother, because Hélène has persuaded me otherwise. She has shown you far more mercy than you ever showed her. I will let you leave this whole sordid situation with your reputation intact, which is more than you deserve.” He shook his head.
“You are going to leave England and never come back.”
“No!” May said automatically. “You cannot exile me as if I’m a medieval traitor!”
Eddy rose to his feet, fists clenched. “Then don’t consider it a formal exile. Consider it a promise that if you stay here, I will personally ensure that you and your family are ruined.”
There was a cruel, dramatic irony in this, May thought over the roar in her ears. Now that she’d finally mustered up the courage to challenge her father, told him to get out of England—the very same thing was happening to her.
“Leave, May.” Hélène didn’t sound angry anymore, only weary.
“Go to Austria, Greece, I don’t care. Just get out of this country.
We will tell everyone that you are in poor health and have decided not to marry Eddy.
” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “If you find a European prince someday, none of us will stop you. We’ll all proclaim how grateful we are for your miraculous recovery. ”
May felt empty with shock, as if a shard of glass had scraped out all her insides, carved out her tongue.
She should speak. She should fight back.
Yet she could do nothing. She wondered if this was how men felt when they were struck down in battle, a sort of hollow bewilderment—knowing they were wounded but not how acutely. Wondering if they would die.
Perhaps she and Francis could leave together. They could drift together from one royal court to the next, belittling each other, feeding off each other’s relentless cruelty.
Then May thought of George, and something inside her stiffened.
She might have been shaped by her father, but she had not become him—not yet. She would see this through somehow. There had to be a way.
May inclined her head to Hélène as if bowing before a queen. “I would just ask one favor of you.”
“You are hardly in a position to ask favors,” Hélène snapped.
“Do not forget, I still know about you and your coachman,” May warned. “Agnes may not have the letter anymore, but you and I both know that even a rumor could do you immeasurable damage. Especially a rumor based in fact. Especially if you and Eddy plan to announce an engagement soon.”
Hélène’s entire body stiffened. Eddy’s voice was low and dangerous as he asked, “What do you want, May?”
“Please, can we keep this between us for a month? Let me sort out my next steps, figure out how to tell my parents. After that, I swear I’ll go quietly. You’ll never hear a word from me again.”
Hélène and Eddy exchanged a glance. Then Eddy turned back to May.
“Two weeks,” he warned. “Grandmother is meeting us at Sandringham in two weeks’ time. If you haven’t left town by then, I will tell her everything.”
Hélène looked at Eddy with unmistakable annoyance. Clearly, she hadn’t wanted to grant May any concessions.
“Two weeks,” Hélène warned, before walking angrily into the hall.
Eddy started to follow Hélène, then paused. “May…I am angry with you, but also confused. I can’t help thinking that you are a better person than this situation would indicate. What happened?”
May’s lips parted. For a wild moment, she considered telling Eddy everything—her father’s hateful behavior, the narrow confines of her quiet, constricting life.
The sensation of waking up each morning gasping for air.
Knowing that she was only a woman, and getting older, and that her options were narrowing by the day.
Realizing that she was utterly and completely alone.
She wished she could tell Eddy how much things had changed for her, and for Mary Adelaide, since his proposal.
But Eddy wouldn’t understand. He was a man, and a future king. From the moment he was born, he’d lived a charmed life. He had been protected, valued. Loved.
George might understand, but George was probably lost to her too.
“I am sorry” was all May replied.
Eddy shook his head and walked out, leaving her in the White Drawing Room in her queenly robe and gown.
May let her head fall back onto the sofa, tears pricking at her eyes. Just half an hour earlier she had been electrified with the possibility of kissing George, and now this? Eddy wanted to exile her?
For so many years she’d been certain of what she wanted—a marriage that would provide an escape.
A safe haven. She had used deception and cruelty and betrayal, and now, on the brink of getting what she’d wanted, she saw that she could have so much more.
She didn’t have to settle for safety; she could have affection, trust.
As foolish as it was to think it, she could have love.
May couldn’t leave England. That would mean leaving George.
Which meant that she had two weeks to find a way out of this mess.