So much had changed since the first night they had met in secret.
Hélène had waited until the house was still: the fires in the kitchen banked, footsteps creaking along the upstairs corridor as the last few maids went to sleep. Then she’d slipped into one of her simplest gowns, a charcoal-colored one that laced up the front instead of the back, and padded on silent feet down the servants’ staircase. It was eerily similar to what she used to do when she’d visited Laurent, except that instead of turning toward the barn, Hélène started toward the front of the house. In her dark gown, a heavy cloak swirling around her, she was as fleeting and insubstantial as the wraiths her oldgoverness used to tell stories about.
The carriage Eddy had sent was waiting around the bend in the road. When Hélène slipped into it, the driver said nothing, just clucked at the horses and started off.
The apartments he took her to were surprisingly simple: just a room that served as both kitchen and footman’s quarters, which led to a massive bedroom. Hélène darted her gaze from the four-poster bed with gold-fringed hangings that dominated the space. The purpose of these apartments was abundantly clear, especially now that Hélène had seen how smoothly it all went—the carriage pickup, the bottle of red wine waiting on a side table with two glasses.
Eddy was in an armchair by the stone fireplace; at the sound of her footsteps he hurried to stand.
“Hélène. You came.”
“Yes,” she said softly, twisting her hands together to fiddle with her rings. Eddy’s gaze drifted from the gesture to the pulse that must be fluttering wildly at her neck. He took a step forward and caught one of her hands in his, lacing their fingers.
“You’re nervous,” he observed.
Hélène’s protests died in her throat. Shewasnervous, a ridiculous emotion since this was hardly her first time, yet this felt more monumental than anything she’d done with Laurent. Eddy was a futureking.
He let go, and Hélène resisted the urge to snatch his hand back; somehow she felt braver and more centered when he was touching her. He poured two glasses of wine and handed one to her, then gestured to the opposite armchair.
Confused, she glanced toward the bed. “You don’t wantto…”
“Would you mind if we sat for a moment?” He phrased it as if she’d be doing him a favor, though she suspected that he was slowing down for her sake. “And I should have asked—when do you need the carriage to take you home?”
“The kitchen maids wake at dawn. I just need to be upstairs before that.”
“Perfect. Dawn is hours away.”
Hélène leaned back and took a sip of her wine. Already this encounter was drastically different from her hurried, frantic couplings with Laurent. If she hadn’t known better, she might have said that Eddy waswooingher, but she was already here, ready to bed him, so that didn’t make sense.
To her shock, the prince leaned down to grab one of her feet. He tugged it up onto his lap, and then—slowly, with great gentleness—unlaced her boot and tossed it aside.
Hélène went very still as his hands skimmed beneath her dress, all the way up to her inner thigh. She let out an involuntary gasp of pleasure, yet Eddy didn’t venture higher. He grabbed her garter and peeled off her stocking.
“What are you doing?” Her words came out in a whispered gasp.
“Setting us both at ease.” Eddy began massaging the arch of her foot, almost absently. His eyes gleamed in the firelight.
“I hardly think this is settingyouat ease.” It should have been impossible for Hélène to relax, with a prince massaging her feet the way a lady’s maid would after a long evening. Yet the tension was, in fact, seeping from her body.
“I don’t make a habit of taking women to bed when they’re wary of me.”
Hélène couldn’t hold back the giggle that escaped her lips. “I’m not a skittish horse, Eddy. You don’t need to groom me before you ride me.”
A lady should never havethoughtsuch a sentence, let alone spoken it aloud, yet Eddy just gave an appreciative laugh. “I never underestimate the importance of grooming. Sebastian—my father’s Master of Horse—taught me how to stable my ponies when I was five. He said that if you can’t care for an animal, you have no business being its master.”
“My father’s groom said the same thing! He was always trying to teach my brother how to pick out hooves or use a round brush. Philippe never had the patience for it, but I did. I was sneaking out to the stables and braiding the horses’ tails long before I learned to ride.”
Eddy’s expression softened. “Do you miss France?”
It was the type of question that no one ever asked in society, because no one ever talked about anythingreal.Yet Eddy had cut straight to the paradox that dominated Hélène’s existence. France was everything to her, yet at the same time nothing at all—a cipher, a symbol, a repository of half-forgottenmemories that often felt like they belonged to someone else.
“Sometimes,” she admitted.
Eddy waited for her to continue. He’d pulled his chair closer and let his hands slide higher, gently massaging her calf muscles. His fingers were rougher than she would have guessed, scratchy with calluses, but his grip was warm and certain.
“When I miss Paris, it’s mostly the small things. The scent of rosemary outside my window, the sound of the church bells all chiming the hour at the same moment,” she recalled. “But more than that, it’s the haunting feeling that there is this other life I could have led, if things had gone differently. I would have been arealprincess, one whose father was a true acting king.”
Eddy’s fingers fell still. “I can’t pretend to understand what you and your family went through, being forced to flee your homeland. But I know that feeling of rootlessness, of not knowing where you belong.”
