Looking at her reflection, Hélène almost didn’t recognize herself. She felt feminine and beautiful—yet also powerful, and a bit dangerous.
It was a heady, intoxicating sensation.
She’d fumbled in the box, wondering who could have possibly sent her something so gorgeous and exotic. The enclosed note was only a single line of text.
Now you have something to wear the next time you ride without your sidesaddle.
Hélène had reread the note a hundred times since that day, wondering what Eddy meant by it. Tonight was the first time she’d been in a room with him since.
The music ended. Hélène smiled and took a step back from her partner, whose name she’d already forgotten, and glanced toward the front of the ballroom.
In a wooden armchair sat Queen Victoria, several ladies-in-waiting hovering around her like a cloud of moths. Her Majesty was dressed as usual in all black, though half a dozen strands of pearls hung from her neck: and then, as if she had too many pearls to know what to do with, she had also hung a few from her chest, fastened with an enormous diamond pin. She didn’t wear a tiara (in her old age, she complained of the weight of it), but the profusion of so many milky pearls against her black silk gown was striking enough to remind everyone she was queen. As if they were in any danger of forgetting.
Beyond her stood Prince Eddy, still wearing his uniform from today’s investiture ceremony. He was talking with May of Teck, who gazed up at him with wide, worshipful eyes—the same way most women had been looking at him all night. Apparently Eddy was even more appealing now that he had a few more meaningless titles to string onto the end of his name.
“I’m getting some air,” Hélène told her dance partner, and headed onto the back patio of Marlborough House. Technically she wasn’t doing anything illicit; the terrace was in full view of the ballroom, with gas torches along the wall. It was just too cold for anyone to have bothered lighting those torches.
Hélène wandered to the railing and leaned her gloved forearms on it, kicking one heel behind the other.
Several minutes later, a voice sounded behind her.
“I should have known I’d find you hiding out here.”
“I don’t hide from anything,” she insisted.
Eddy came to stand next to her, staring out at the dark gardens. “Well, that makes one of us. I came outside to hide from everyone.”
She clucked her tongue in mock sympathy. “You gained two new titles today, the eligible young women of London are fighting over you, and still you’re having a bad night? Should I be worried?”
“The eligible, utterlyboringyoung women,” Eddy corrected. “As for the titles, they don’t mean much, do they? It’s not as if I did anything to earn them.”
Hélène was so startled by that remark that she opened her mouth, then closed it again. “That was a rather tediousceremony,” she said at last. “So much bowing and protocol, so many ermine-trimmed capes. I would be tired, too.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
A silence fell between them, but it felt less hostile than before. Hélène cleared her throat.
“Thank you for the outfit, by the way.”
A smile teased the corner of Eddy’s lips. “You like it?”
“It’s beautiful. It feels like something arealprincess would wear,” she exclaimed, at which he chuckled. “And it fits perfectly.”
“Oh, good. I had to, um…guess at the size.”
“You guessed accurately,” Hélène said drily. “Where did you find clothing like that?”
“The Shah of Persia visited last month. When he told me that his wives wear trousers every day, I asked if I could trouble him for a set.”
“Hiswives? How many does he have?”
“I didn’t ask him for the exact number, Hélène.”
She drummed her fingers over the iron railing. “I suppose all men wish they could have multiple wives. Just trade one woman for the next whenever you tire of one, is that it?”
“Not me,” Eddy said adamantly. “I’m daunted enough at the prospect of marrying just once, thank you.”
Hélène glanced over, but his expression was unreadable. “What did the shah say when you asked for a set of women’s clothes? Did he wonder who it was for?”
