Hélène watched as Prince George asked May of Teck to dance. He was like a muted version of his older brother: his hair a deeper brown, his eyes a darker blue. George was stocky and solid where Eddy was lean and athletic, calm and even-tempered where Eddy was restless and loud.
A few of the other ladies, visibly disappointed that they hadn’t been chosen, ventured off for glasses of lemonade, leaving Amélie and Hélène alone.
“Did you justroll your eyesat Prince Eddy?” Amélie whispered.
“So what if I did?”
“You can’t keep frightening off eligible young men, especially not princes. How will you ever get married?”
“It doesn’t matter; we both know that Eddy isn’t an option.” As future head of the Church of England, Eddy would need to marry a nice Protestant princess, and the Orléans family was exceedingly Catholic. “Besides,” Hélène added flippantly, “I don’t want to marry at all.”
Amélie gasped. “Stop saying that! You’re too pretty not to marry!”
Actually, Amélie was the prettier of the pair—or at least, she was softer and more delicate, which seemed to be what men preferred. There was something too bold and decisive about Hélène’s beauty: her long dark hair and full lips andmost of all her eyes, which were dangerously expressive, flashing a fierce golden-brown with her moods.
Hélène could only hope that since Amélie had married a crown prince, recruiting a powerful new ally to the Orléans cause, Hélène’s parents wouldn’t rush to find their other daughter a husband. She wasn’t looking forward to being anitem for trade.
It was all that princesses, and aristocratic women in general, lived for—all they ever seemed to talk about. They worried about marriage and having children and then, eventually, getting their children and grandchildren married. It was just an endless cycle that always came back to marriage.
When Hélène was younger, her governess had fought to make her one of those young ladies, the kind whose daydreams ended at the altar. But Hélène had lacked the patience for piano, singing, watercolor: all the things that made a woman ornamental and utterly useless. She’d escaped her lessons and fled to the stables so many times that her parents eventually told the governess not to bother.
Now she had other reasons for visiting the stables.
Feeling provocative, she turned back to Amélie. “If I ever do marry, it will be to someone adventurous, like a soldier.”
“Asoldier! Why?”
“I could travel with him, see the world.”
Amélie’s brow furrowed. “But youcansee the world.”
Hélène didn’t share her sister’s definition ofthe world,which was limited to fashionable society retreats and cloistered palaces. Back when they’d lived in France, she used to love their summer visits to their Normandy estate, the Château d’Eu. Hélène would plead with her father to take her to the quays—where she stood transfixed, inhaling the scents oftar and salt air, watching the sailors unload the various ships. Imagining the beautiful, distant places they had visited, full of magic and adventure.
Her brother Philippe got to lead that sort of life. He’d joined the British military and taken a position at an outpost in the Himalayas. According to his latest letter, he’d been mountain climbing in Tibet and hunting in Nepal and had met fortune tellers in Ceylon.Thatwas the world Hélène longed to see.
“Of course, you’re right about Prince Eddy. You could never convert to the Church of England.” Undaunted, Amélie glanced back at the dance floor. “There are other princes here. What about Christian of Schleswig-Holstein or Frederick of Denmark? We should go say hello.”
Hélène followed her sister’s gaze to the couples moving in steps as narrow and choreographed as their narrow, choreographed lives. Jewels and champagne flutes gleamed in the afternoon light. Her blood felt suddenly hot, her skin prickly.
“I don’t feel well,” Hélène blurted out. Before Amélie could protest, she started toward the front door.
The driveway that led to Marlborough House was crowded with carriages, all of them emblazoned with their owners’ coats of arms. Coachmen loitered near the steps, looking more disheveled than usual with their vests tossed aside, shirtsleeves rolled up in the heat. Most of them loosely clutched cigarettes, killing time until their employers were ready to head home.
It was so hot out; Hélène felt a bead of sweat sliding down her back. Still, it felt less stifling out here than in the crush of that ballroom.
Her eyes cut instinctively to the gold and blue of herfamily’s carriage, and there he was—the man she couldn’t stop thinking about. Her family’s coachman.
Laurent Guérard was certainly not the type of young man she should be alone with, though really, Hélène shouldn’t be alone withanyyoung man. He’d come with her family when they crossed over from France three years ago, along with their entire household: their ladies’ maids and butler and chef, all the way down to their scullery maids. Royals, even those in exile, didn’t travel without a full retinue.
Laurent reddened adorably at the sight of her. He was so handsome, with his sand-colored hair and shy smile, but it was his voice that had captivated Hélène. He’d been soothing the horses during a storm, his tone low and husky as he crooned songs she’d never heard: shockingly inappropriate songs that should have scandalized her, but only made her want more.
She remembered standing in the shadowed stables as thunder cracked overhead, the air heavy with the warm, familiar smells of hay and horses. Hélène had listened, entranced, as Laurent’s voice wove around her like a spell. Even though she’d never done so much as kiss a man before that night, it had felt impossiblenotto go to him, to whisper his name in the enchanted darkness while rain pounded overhead.
That was over a year ago, when Hélène had just turned seventeen.
“Mademoiselle. Shouldn’t you be at the reception?” Laurent spoke in French, as he always did when alone with Hélène.
She held out a hand so that he could help her into the carriage. “I don’t feel well. I told Amélie that I’m heading home.” It was only half a lie.
