Chapter Twenty-Nine Hélène
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hélène
Hélène was no stranger to breaking the rules and risking her reputation. She had slipped out at night plenty of times to see Eddy, had dressed as a maid at the Endicotts’ house, but this—going into London in disguise, simply for fun—was Eddy’s idea.
“Thanks for agreeing to this,” he murmured, looping an arm around her shoulders as they navigated through the crowds.
“Of course. We’re celebrating!” Hélène smiled at him, positively giddy with relief.
She had seen the look on May’s face the other day. May had no more ideas, no more schemes to pull. Finally, they had beaten her.
It was an occasion worth marking in a very memorable way, Eddy had declared.
Which was why they’d come to Greenwich Fair tonight, dressed like ordinary workers. Eddy had borrowed clothes from his manservant, a simple shirt and pants beneath a plain wool coat, and Hélène wore the same maid’s uniform as the day she’d stolen back Laurent’s letter.
The streets were flooded with ordinary people: men who worked at the docks or in stables, women who labored behind sewing machines or as maids.
They held hands, laughed, clutched cups of ale.
A Harlequin danced past, his costume a patchwork of colorful diamonds; a man with a scar along one cheek juggled flaming torches.
Women in form-fitting clothes contorted their bodies, tying their legs and arms into shocking knots.
Vendors proclaimed their wares above the din of the crowds—oysters, sweet buns, gingerbread.
Amateur theater troupes used squares of dingy carpet as a stage, acting out sword fights or scenes of romance.
It was a riot of sound and color and some distinctly pungent odors.
Hélène adored it. She had never been anywhere this vivid, this gloriously alive.
She tugged Eddy toward the river, where a cluster of musicians performed popular drinking songs. Couples danced in an open space nearby. Hélène didn’t recognize the dance—a polka, perhaps, or something imported from America?
Eddy grinned. “Care to dance?”
“But we don’t know the steps.” Hélène faltered, nervous at how quickly the dancers were moving. And there was a lot of jumping.
“Since when has that stopped us? We can fake our way through!” Eddy insisted.
And then Hélène was laughing, spinning in the wrong direction, stepping on her neighbors’ feet and mostly on Eddy’s.
None of her dancing master’s training proved useful here.
This resembled the Scottish dancing she’d done at Balmoral last summer far more than the staid quadrilles of a London ballroom.
At some point she realized the dancers were forming two lines, hands clasped overhead to make a sort of tunnel. Couples ducked their heads to race down the tunnel amid raucous cheers.
When it was her and Eddy’s turn, they ran so fast that Hélène nearly stumbled, until Eddy reached his hands around her waist to steady her. Her breath caught. She thought back to that long-ago afternoon in Richmond Park when she’d been out in a storm, and Eddy had lifted her into the saddle.
That was the very first time Hélène had felt it—this insistent, combustible, impossible attraction between them.
Eddy must have been thinking along the same lines, because he leaned down to kiss her.
An unhurried, easy kiss; not rushed or hidden behind the closed doors of Eddy’s apartment.
It will be like this from now on, Hélène thought, and wanted to cry out with joy.
They had the letter from Laurent; there was no way May—or anyone else—could blackmail her now. It wouldn’t stick without proof.
In two weeks’ time May would be out of their lives for good.
Eddy would tell Queen Victoria that he was marrying Hélène after all.
And eventually, when the hubbub over his broken engagement to May had died down, Hélène would stand up in a church and proclaim it before everyone: that she was Eddy’s, and Eddy was hers.
When the song ended and the dancers all paused to catch their breath, Eddy drew her to one side. He looked so handsome like this—happy, carefree, damp with exertion.
Feeling bold, Hélène let her hand drift under his coat and beneath the loose hem of his shirt, to skim over his abdomen.
It was so easy to touch him without all the normal hindrances of gentlemanly attire, waistcoats and shirtfronts and cuff links snapping everything together.
“I rather like these clothes. Normally, you’re so bundled up. ”
“I’m so bundled up? You’re the one in corsets.” Eddy tugged at the ribbon along the neckline of her white blouse. “You should dress like this more often. Far more convenient.”
Hélène swatted playfully at his hand, and Eddy caught hers, lacing their fingers. Then he lifted her hand to his mouth and placed a gentle kiss on her palm. It was such an uncharacteristically tender gesture that she felt a strange urge to cry.
He released her hand as the band struck up another song. Soon everyone around them was singing, clinking glasses as they belted out the words. Hélène hurried to join in.
“ ‘Oh, the boy I love is up in the gallery! The boy I love is looking at me!’ ” When he remained silent, she hissed, “Eddy, can’t you sing along? You’re ruining the mood, standing there frowning during a drinking song.”
“I would sing if I knew the words!” he whispered back. “This is hardly the national anthem, Hélène.”
“Yes, it’s a bit more fun than your stodgy anthem.”
Eddy chuckled at that—then suddenly his laugh dissolved into a cough. Hélène looked at him in concern. When the cough deepened, she drew him farther away from the crowds, into a relatively quiet corner near a side street.
“Eddy, are you all right?”
“Yes, of course. Just a bit of a cold. You know, the change in weather.” His voice was still hoarse, his eyes glassy.
“Perhaps we should get a drink.” Maybe some ale would bring the color back to his face.
“I’ll do it. You stay here.” Already Eddy sounded better. Nothing to worry about, Hélène told herself.
Hélène watched him retreat toward one of the stalls that sold wine and warm ale.
Even in his plain-spun jacket, he looked like a prince: it was clear in the way he walked, the bold directness of his gaze.
The crowds around him seemed to part instinctively, as if they, too, knew on some level that he was different.
“Excuse me, miss!” a voice chirped behind her.
Hélène turned to see a young woman near her own age. Her heart-shaped face was flushed with exertion, probably from the dancing. “I had to ask—I heard your accent—are you French?”
“I am.” Hélène smiled and gestured down to her clothes. “I’m a lady’s maid, in a house off Belgrave Square.” Many lady’s maids were French, after all; it was quite fashionable to have one’s hair styled by a Frenchwoman.
The girl’s eyes widened. “In Belgravia! Oh, but you must work for a countess at least!”
Before Hélène could reply, a young man stepped forward. “Frances is a milliner, and dreams of making hats for duchesses someday.” He cast an affectionate smile in Frances’s direction.
“I work at Mrs. Astley’s shop. Do you know it? Just last week I made a hat that the mayor’s sister wore!” Frances sighed wistfully. “It was trimmed with real ostrich feathers. Someday I’m going to open my own shop.”
“I have no doubt that you will,” Hélène agreed, smiling. She caught sight of Eddy coming back toward them and hurried to exclaim, “Anthony! There you are!”
She doubted that anyone here would recognize Eddy; the closest they would have ever gotten to him, after all, was at a parade. And he didn’t exactly resemble the pictures that had been printed in the newspapers, not dressed like this. Still, it was better not to call him by his real name.
“Violette,” Eddy greeted her, his eyes bright with amusement. The ale he handed her was a dark amber color, with foam along the top. Hélène took an eager sip.
When she looked back up, she realized that Frances was staring at Eddy with marked interest. “Do I know you? You seem so familiar….”
Eddy gave a theatrical bow, flipping out his jacket behind him as if it were a cape. “You must have seen my performance earlier today,” he said without missing a beat. “I was in one of the tents, doing Romeo and Juliet.”
Hélène nearly choked on a laugh, then took a quick sip of beer to hide it.
“An actor,” the young man with Frances scoffed.
Ignoring him, Eddy fixed his eyes on Frances as he recited, “ ‘With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do, that dares love attempt.’ ”
“Oh my.” Frances looked as dazed as Hélène felt.
The young man held out a hand. Eddy hesitated just a fraction of an instant—no one ever presumed to shake his hand—then took it with a hearty smile.
“John Sheffield,” the man introduced himself. “I work as an engineer on the London and North Western Railway.”
“He once saw the queen’s private car!” Frances cut in.
“That’s incredible. What was it like?” Eddy’s question sounded sincere, but Hélène saw the twitch of his lips. He was fighting back a smile.
“Ah. Well, I couldn’t see much past the blue curtains.” John cleared his throat and nodded at Hélène. “I wonder sometimes if we should follow your country’s example. Exile the royal family and stop paying for all their nonsense.”
“Why do you say that?” Eddy asked carefully.
“The queen is, of course, exemplary,” John insisted.
“But what will happen when she dies? We all know the Prince of Wales is dissolute and lazy. It’s too early to know about his son, but my guess is that the young prince will be more of the same.
” John shrugged as if none of this mattered to him all that much.
“And that young woman he got engaged to; who is she? No one had even heard of her before this month.”
Hélène cast a worried glance at Eddy, who seemed like he was about to say something he might regret. “If you’ll excuse us, this is my favorite song! It was good meeting you,” she added, tugging Eddy away.
They skirted the edge of the dance floor, reemerging into the main streets of Greenwich Fair. It was getting late. The vendors’ stalls were now lit by torchlight, which fell over towers of boiled oranges, cheap glass beads, and bottles of wine. Eddy was uncharacteristically silent.
“Eddy, you can’t worry about what John was saying.”
“I should worry, if that’s what people really think about my family.”
“About your father,” Hélène corrected him. “You are not your father, or your grandmother. You are going to be a different sort of king, the kind that can talk to ordinary people, and dance at a fair, and recite Shakespeare! How did you even know that speech?”
Eddy shrugged. “You know I can never remember things I read, but hearing them is different. And I went to the theater a good bit with George, back before you—back when I thought I’d lost you. He said I was sulking, and needed to get out.”
“You do have an unfortunate tendency to sulk,” Hélène teased.
“Well, I missed you.”
The raw grief in Eddy’s tone took her aback. She leaned closer, nuzzling her head into his neck. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s just, facing a life without you…”
“You don’t have to. I’m here now,” Hélène assured him. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. I swear it.”