A lanky figure approached her chair from behind, casting a shadow over the dining table. “Alix. Would you walk with me in the gardens?”
She blinked in surprise, as if there might be some other, different Alix here that Eddy was speaking to.
She and Eddy were cousins, yes, but Alix had a lot ofthose: thirty-seven on her mother’s side alone. When they’d been children at Balmoral, Eddy had gravitated toward her siblings and mostly ignored Alix. He and Ernie used to gang up together, playing at pirates or sneaking into the aviary, or pulling some prank on Ella, who responded with gratifying shrieks of outrage. Whenever they had tried to tease Alix, she’d just walked away.
“It’s a lovely day to explore the gardens,” Eddy repeated. As if he needed to explore a landmark that had been familiar to him since childhood.
Alix cast a puzzled glance around the table, but everyone else was deep in conversation or focused on their breakfast plates. A niggling suspicion arose in the corner of her mind; she resolutely ignored it.
“Of course.” Alix stood, the peach-colored fabric of her day dress swishing around her legs.
Eddy’s fingers twitched, almost as if he meant to reach up and tug one of her pigtails, the way he had when they were children, but then he held out a hand. Alix placed her palm in his, letting him lead her into the Marlborough House grounds.
“I’m so glad you and Ernie came for Louise’s wedding,” he began.
“She and Lord Fife seem happy.”
“He’s a lot of fun. We’re going to Scotland soon to visit them. You and Ernie should join us,” Eddy added.
For a moment Alix marveled at the cavalier way he’d invited her to be a guest in someone else’s home. Perhaps when you were going to rule the entire country someday, you felt like the whole thing belonged to you.
“Thank you, but I need to get back to Darmstadt.”
She might be a princess, but Alix’s life was nothing like that of Eddy and George’s sisters. Louise and Maud lived in grand style, while Alix was simply the daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse, a minor German duchy. In Darmstadt she spent her days quietly, managing her father’s household, sewing shirts for the poor.
Yet she was happier there. Alix wasn’t equipped to navigate the hive of gossip and ambition that was the English court. Not to mention the attention that focused on her like a spotlight whenever she entered a ballroom.
Alix was self-aware enough to know that she was beautiful. People had been telling her that her entire life: seamstresses and dressmakers, other young women, and especially men. They had a disconcerting way of staring at her, their eyes unabashed and bold, as if she weren’t a person at all but an object of scenery—a mountain, or a rosebush. As if she had no feelings about their stares, and they were entitled to look at her for as long as they liked.
“Tell me more about Balmoral. I haven’t visited in several years,” Alix said, realizing the silence had gone on for a moment too long.
To her relief, Eddy launched into a story about how he and Alexander Fife had tried to race their horses to Loch Nagar, only to end up at the wrong loch, where they’d befriended a band of local fishermen. He had a jocular, enthusiastic way of recounting things that always made them sound more thrilling than they’d probably been in real life.
Alix smiled and nodded, occasionally making little exclamations of surprise when appropriate. She and Eddy might not have anything in common, but at least he was an avidtalker. Alix was always grateful when someone else bore the conversational load.
They turned deeper into the gardens, and Eddy fell silent. Roses and junipers bloomed around them, their fragrance thick in the summer air.
“Alicky,” Eddy said, and she startled at the old childhood nickname. No one but her siblings called her that anymore. “I’m so glad you’re here, because I want to talk to you about something important.”
Anticipation knotted in Alix’s chest. She walked a little faster, as if to outrun her growing suspicion.
“You know I’ve always admired you. You’re so poised, and elegant, and beautiful. All the things I’m not,” he added ruefully.
“Your Royal Highness,” she said haltingly. Eddy waved away the title, but she’d used it on purpose.
Titles felt safer. Titles meant distance between them, and propriety, and rules.
“Everyone assumes we’re already courting, so, you know…” He looked at her with a self-deprecating smile. “I suppose I should get the formalities aside. May I have permission to court you?”
Alix stared at him. For a wild moment she thought this was another of his outlandish pranks, like when he and Ernie once let two ponies loose in the halls of Sandringham.
“You want to court me?” she asked slowly, numbly.
“We’ve always known that we would get married someday. I think it’s time we made things official, don’t you?” Eddy spoke with indulgent patience, as if explaining something to a small child.
Hadthey known that? Maybe he was right, and everyonein their family—everyone except Alix—had always taken their engagement as a given.
This was the sort of thing a mother would have helped explain to her, except that Alix had lost hers when she was six.
