Once more, she glanced over at Alix’s face—pale, strained, uncertain. It lent her the resolve she needed.
“Alix suffers from the vapors,” May explained. “Or, really, it’s like the vapors but far worse. I saw it happen last year at the opera. Her hands were paralyzed, clenched into fists so tight that she couldn’t open them. She couldn’t eventalk.”
Maud lifted a hand to her mouth in surprise. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“And then, of course, there’s the bleeding disease.”
“The bleeding disease?” Maud repeated, in a near whisper.
“You know it runs in her family. A disease that causes uncontrolled bleeding.”It runs inourfamily,May could have said; it had killed Queen Victoria’s youngest son, Leopold. Though no one ever, ever mentioned that.
“Alix’s brother Friedrich died of it,” May went on. “And the doctors say it’s carried through the female line.”
“Really?” It was a mark of Maud’s inexperience, or perhaps her privilege, that she didn’t pause to consider whether she might be a carrier of that same disease.
May had wondered, of course. That was how she’d come by this highly sensitive information in the first place: she’d eavesdropped on her parents as they discussed the family curse, debating whether May might pass it on to her own children.
But unlike Alix, May didn’t have a brother who had bled to death. Her own brother was in perfect health.
“Alix is troubled, and…” May hesitated, then spoke the word Agnes had used. “And damaged.”
That word had sounded so perfect in her head—so confident, so definitive—but falling from her lips, it seemed unbearably harsh. May thought of Alix, smiling at her across the railcar, and felt queasy with regret.
Maud’s eyes widened. “How terrible for Alix. Do you think Grandmama knows?”
“Probably not.” May had always sensed that Alix’s family was tight-knit. Especially after Alix’s mother died, the Hesse siblings had closed ranks against the rest of the world, even their own cousins. They would have gone to great lengths to keep Alix’s paralyzing episodes a secret.
Thanks to May, it was a secret no longer.
“I’m so glad that you told me, May. I just want what’s best for Eddy.” Maud shook her head in concern.
Now that she’d dealt her blow, May felt the energy that had coursed through her rapidly drain away. She had beenhelpingAlix, she reminded herself, because Alix wasn’t bold enough to help herself.
But the fact remained that she had also traded Alix’s secret for her own gain.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Alix
THE NEXT MORNING, ALIX STUDIEDEddy across the breakfast table. He tucked heartily into a Scottish breakfast—eggs, smoked haddock, roasted tomatoes—while deep in conversation with his father. From the sound of things, they hoped to ride out hunting later this morning with Louise and her husband, who were hosting a small party down the road at Mar Lodge.
Alix wondered what Eddy thought of their prospective engagement. They hadn’t discussed it, not even after that awful fake wedding.
For her part, she’d half forgotten that they were supposed to be courting, until she arrived back in England at the start of the summer. It wasn’t as if she and Eddy had been assiduous correspondents. What was she going to write him about—the blankets she’d helped stitch for the local hospital, her thoughts on the various books she’d read?
Those were things she would have loved to share with Nicholas, if they were in the habit of exchanging letters. When she’d finishedLe roman du prince Eugène,her fingers had itched to write the tsarevich and ask if he’d read it—the novel raised so many questions about family, abouthow to respect your parents while still escaping the shadow theycast.
Of course, she didn’t dare write to him. They hadn’t spoken since that almost kiss, or whatever it was, the night of thebal noir.
“What is everyone planning for today?” George asked, glancing around the table.
“Maud and I were just saying that we’d love to sit in the garden and work on our cross-stitching,” May declared. “Alix, will you be joining us?”
“I will be riding out to Glassalt Shiel this morning, and would like some company,” the queen cut in, before Alix could reply.
Everyone stared down at their plates or out the window, like children willing a schoolteacher not to call on them. Most of the queen’s family considered her carriage rides unbearably tedious. She went out every day, no matter the weather, stopping at various places of interest on the Balmoral property or delivering gifts to nearby farmers. Occasionally she ventured into the neighboring town, where she would purchase sweetmeats or a new quill pen from the flustered clerk at the general store.
“Alix, you will come, won’t you?”
