Hélène started toward the back of the box as if she wereheaded to the lavatories. No one questioned her; within moments she’d clattered down the staircase, holding the hem of her skirts to keep from tripping, and surged out into the crowds at the back of the stands.
As she’d expected, Laurent was there, waiting for her. The collar of his shirt had fallen open, revealing that his neck was sunburned. Hélène looked away.
It was strange: the version of herself that had loved him, or thought she loved him, felt so young. Seeing him again was like trying on a gown from last Season that no longer fit, constricting and itchy.
“I’m surprised to see you,” she admitted.
“The Marquis deBreteuil is thinking of buying one of the horses from today’s race. Or, failing that, of putting one of his mares to stud with the winner.”
Of course. The marquis was a notorious racing fanatic; Hélène should have seen this coming. It showed how little thought she’d given to Laurent over the past months that she hadn’t even considered the possibility of seeing him.
“Hélène,” he added—then, at her glare, quickly amended, “Your Royal Highness. May I have a moment?”
She gave a reluctant nod, allowing him to lead her in the direction of the stables. While this wasn’t ideal, it was a public enough setting not to be wholly improper, either; there was nothing wrong with a former groom showing her the stables in broad daylight.
Laurent waited until they were sheltered behind a storage shed before clearing his throat. “I’m sorry to do this here, but I don’t know when I’ll see you again.” He stared at her pleadingly. “I miss you. Letting go of you was the biggest mistakeI ever made.”
Hélène felt the blood drain from her face. Taking her silence as encouragement, Laurent kept going.
“I’m sorry I didn’t run away with you last year, when you wanted to elope. If your feelings haven’t changed…” He shocked her by reaching for her hands. “I can’t give you everything you’re accustomed to, but I keep thinking about what you said: that all we needed was each other and a stable full of horses. The life I’ve built in the marquis’s service is a good one. We could be happy there.”
Hélène blinked and tugged her hands away.
“Laurent, no,” she said gently.
“Why not?”
Because she was involved with someone else. And yet, even if nothing had ever happened with Eddy, Hélène knew she wouldn’t have gone back to Laurent. She couldn’t trust someone who had left her so carelessly, so callously.
“It’s too late for us, Laurent. I gave my heart into your keeping and you treated it carelessly.”
“It’s never too late.” He hesitated. “Unless you have fallen for someone else.”
Wasshe falling for Eddy? It was something Hélène didn’t dare admit, not even in the privacy of her own mind.Affair, relationship, liaison—she used all kinds of words to explain it to herself, everything but that single, infinitely dangerous word.Love.
Laurent must have seen the truth on her face. “This man…does he know about you and me?”
“He knows enough, but not the details.”Not who you are,Hélène didn’t need to say. Eddy was aware that there had been someone else before him, but he was too much a gentleman to probe.
Laurent let out a breath, understanding. If Hélène was involved with someone who knew she was no innocent, then either that man didn’t especially care about her—or he loved her enough not to be bothered by it.
“Who is he?”
“You can hardly expect me to tell you that.”
“I’m sorry.” Laurent braced a palm on a hay bale, tugging absently at a few strands of straw. “Well…I suppose this is goodbye.”
Hélène looked at him then: the sort of searching look that takes inventory of a person’s strengths as well as their flaws. She and Laurent had been over for a long time, yet there was something bittersweet about hearing him say the wordgoodbye,as if she were closing a chapter of her past. So much had changed since they parted. Back then she’d been such a child. What was that Bible verse?For then I saw through a glass darkly, but now face to face.
Hélène wasn’t a child anymore; she was woman enough to look at her past, face to face, without flinching. And then to let it go.
“Goodbye, Laurent,” she said simply.
He nodded and started toward the stables. Hélène stood there for a moment, watching him walk away, letting her heart settle back into its normal rhythm. She hadn’t anticipated how much it would unsettle her, confronting the ghosts of her past. And yet, as she made her way back to the box where Eddy waited, she couldn’t help feeling that she was moving toward her future.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
May
