“EDDY!”
Hélène thundered after him, her horse’s hooves kicking up dirt as they galloped around the pine and birch trees. In the distance rose heather-covered hills that turned to mountains, their craggy peaks still capped with snow. Emerald lochs gleamed in the afternoon sunshine, occasionally narrowing into the frothing ribbon of a waterfall.
The rest of the group—the Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess Louise and Alexander Fife, and a few neighbors from the surrounding countryside—had gone uphill, hoping to scout locations for tomorrow’s stag hunt. Hélène and Eddy had drifted away from the others and met up down here, far below the rest of the group.
Hélène loved riding alone with Eddy. It was thrilling, getting to race as fast as she could—which was surprisingly fast, given that she had to ride sidesaddle in polite company. She felt unbound and electric, as free as if she’d released every last hook in her corset and let the whole wretched thing fall to the floor.
Finally Eddy slowed to a walk, and she followed suit, letting her mare amble alongside his. Both horses were breathingheavily through their nostrils, their necks gleaming with a sheen of sweat.
“I’m so glad you agreed to come,” Eddy declared.
“Me too.” Hélène had been here a week, and already the trip was slipping by too quickly. Eddy had been right when he’d claimed she would love Scotland. It was wonderful and harsh, with a wildness that called to that answering wildness within Hélène: to that part of her that she always tried, unsuccessfully, to keep hidden.
So far the Fifes had proven ideal hosts. They wanted to spend each day outdoors, and didn’t stand on ceremony for meals. It made Hélène wonder why she and the Princess Louise—now Duchess of Fife—hadn’t been friends before. Louise was bright and exuberant in a way that young women rarely were, an avid participant in the typically male pursuits of hunting and fishing. And while she’d never said anything to Hélène, she kept finding ways to leave her alone with Eddy: pairing them together on the hunt, or asking Eddy to show Hélène the paintings in the gallery, though he clearly had no idea who the paintings were of. Hélène couldn’t help wondering, sometimes, whether Louise would be so indulgent if she knew the extent of their affair—because of course Eddy hadn’t told hereverything,just that they’d fallen in love despite Queen Victoria’s wishes.
Louise may have loved someone unbefitting her station, but Hélène doubted the princess had given her virginity to Alexander Fife before they were married, let alone that she’d slept with anyone else.
Hélène and Eddy had only discussed Laurent once—and even then, she knew better than to admit the whole truth. Itcame up one night while they lay in bed, her palm on Eddy’s chest, feeling it rise and fall with his breath.
“Who was he?” Eddy had asked, very softly. When Hélène flinched, he turned on his side to study her with those intense blue eyes. “I’m sorry; you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s just…I have been worrying that you…”
“What?” she had whispered, confused. Eddy had known all along that he wasn’t her first; that had been clear from the beginning, hadn’t it?
“Was it of your choosing, everything that happened between you?”
Hélène blinked, and Eddy drew in a nervous breath. “You’re experienced, but you’ve never even been engaged. If you were harmed…”
Hélène found that she was oddly touched by his protectiveness, by the careful but determined way he’d brought up the subject.
“We did not part amicably, but no, I was not harmed. Everything that we did, I wanted to do,” Hélène assured him.
Eddy relaxed. “I’m glad. I was about to offer to have him killed, and that would have been messy to deal with.” He was teasing now, but she heard the affection beating beneath his words.
Hélène strove to match his light tone. “No need. And anyway, he’s French, which would make killing him rather complicated.”
She immediately longed to swallow back the words—what was she thinking, revealing any kind of detail about Laurent? But Eddy only laughed softly.
“That’s hardly fair. I can’t compete with some French prince who wooed you with macarons and châteaux.”
“I assure you, neither of those was involved—”
“Does he have a mustache? I bet he curls it with tongs, and wears heeled shoes, and—”
Hélène reached for a pillow and began pummeling Eddy before he could say more. She was laughing, a bright, easy laugh that fizzed up from her chest like champagne, and to her delight Eddy was laughing too.
Then he flipped his body atop hers, and they both fell silent.
“Don’t give him another thought. I never do,” Hélène had whispered.
Now Eddy reached over to lay a hand on her horse’s reins, interrupting her thoughts. “Should we stop?” He gestured ahead, to where an offshoot of the River Dee trickled over uneven stones.
Hélène nodded and slid down from the saddle.
“You look like the goddess Diana,” Eddy observed, which made her smile.
“And what does that make you, a hunter attempting to seduce me in a woodland grove?”
“I’m not the most assiduous pupil of mythology, but I’m quite certain that Diana was never seduced. If anything, she did the seducing.”
