It must have been the brandy that made her blurt out, “You should know that you aren’t the only one to blame for our broken engagement. I have also given my heart to someone else.”
“Ah. Well, that explains why you marched in here demanding to see me.” Eddy grinned and sprawled back in his oversized armchair. “Who is it? Can we expect an engagement announcement soon?”
“I highly doubt it.”
She must have looked forlorn, because Eddy’s smile faded. “You haven’t fallen for an American, have you? Or a Catholic?”
“Possibly worse.” She hesitated, but she’d already told him about her episodes. What was one more confession? “It’s Nicholas.”
There was no need to specify which Nicholas she meant.
Eddy was silent for a moment, then posed the same question that Alix had asked him; which, she supposed, was only fair. “You want to marry him?”
“Yes.”
Alix hadn’t even dared admit that aloud. All she knew was that Nicholas had stolen his way into her heart and mind, that she wanted to see him first thing in the morning and last thing at night. To share his hopes and his dreams and his innermost fears.
Eddy shifted. “Surely it’s not impossible. Didn’t your sister marry Nicholas’s cousin?”
“His uncle. A very young uncle,” she clarified, not that Eddy would care.
“So what is the issue? You don’t want to move to Russia?”
“Nicholas hasn’t asked,” Alix admitted. “I do think he cares for me, but he hasn’t proposed. And even if he did, Grandmama would not give her permission.”
She couldn’t believe she was saying these things aloud, and to Eddy, of all people. Yet Alix found that she quite liked this new honesty between them. It was refreshing—bracing, even, like a gulp of clean air after you had been shut in a stuffy room.
“Not to mention that you’ll have Nicholas’s parents to deal with,” Eddy added.
“You think the tsar and tsarina will be an obstacle?”
“Aunt Minnie isn’t friendly under the best of circumstances. She will have plans of her own for Nicholas—plans that don’t involve you, or else you’d know about them.” Eddy looked Alix square in the eye. “Which means that you’ll need to convince her otherwise.”
“How?”
“The way you did today! You marched in here, hackles raised, and demanded a straight answer about our engagement. Harness that energy, and show Aunt Minnie what a great tsarinayoucould be.”
“I don’t think Idemandedanything,” Alix protested.
“Trust me, I’ve been in the military. You could lead men into battle with that glare. You should use it more often.”
They weren’t flirtatious words, yet Alix couldn’t help thinking that it was the greatest compliment Eddy had ever paid her.
Since propriety already lay in shreds around them, she kicked her dress unceremoniously to one side and tucked her feet up onto the leather armchair. It was too bad that women weren’t ordinarily allowed to sit in furniture this comfortable.
“You need to tell Grandmama about you and Hélène,” Alix mused aloud. An idea was forming in her mind, of a way that they just might get what they wanted—all of them.
“And have her forbid us from ever seeing each other?” Eddy set down his glass of brandy. “There are too many reasons for her to say no: Hélène’s religion, her family’s complicated status, the fact that France keeps havingrevolutions.”
“Those are all valid, logical obstacles,” Alix agreed, “which is precisely why you cannot use logic to sway Grandmama. You need to appeal to her sense of romance.”
She thought of the cairn at Balmoral, of the queen’s incessant black mourning, of the catch in her voice whenever she mentioned Albert. “You know that Grandmama was deeply in love with Grandpapa.Thatis the side of her that you need to appeal to. Speak to her as your grandmother, not as the queen. Tell her that you and Hélène never planned to fall inlove—”
“We didn’t!” Eddy cut in.
“Explain that you couldn’t help falling for Hélène, that you can’t imagine life without Hélène. Isn’t that what Louise did when she asked for permission to marry the Duke ofFife?”
“Louise was just a princess. I’m the heir to the throne,” Eddy pointed out, stating the obvious.
