“I’d love for you to come read aloud during one of our sewing sessions. It would certainly help pass the time,” she agreed.
Surely Hélène’s offer had to do with Eddy? Hélène was already friends with Eddy’s other sister; or at least, she and Louise had seemed close at Balmoral. Perhaps Hélène was trying to win over Maud now, too, just as Agnes had suggested that May do last year.
If May’s suspicions about Hélène and Eddy were correct,then gaining his family’s support was a smart move. They would certainly need all the help they could get.
May decided to cast a line, see if Hélène took the bait. She lowered her voice and asked, “Is Alix of Hesse here? I was wondering if she and Eddy had announced their engagement yet. Surely the news will come soon, don’t you think?”
There it was: a telltale flicker of significance on Hélène’s face. She caught herself and smoothed it over, so quickly that a casual observer might not have noticed.
But May was no casual observer.
“I’ve heard that rumor too, and I think it might be just that. A rumor,” Hélène declared. “Eddy and Alix do not seem particularly attached, don’t you agree?”
May heard the proprietary pride in Hélène’s voice as she spoke of Eddy. It was the tone you used when describing someone you cared about—someone you were bound to.
She nodded in cautious agreement. “Perhaps not. Are the princes here today?” Belatedly she realized it was an abrupt question, and strove to explain. “I need to find Prince George, to thank him for a service he rendered me. He recently rescued my hat.” She reached up to touch the brim.
Hélène noticed the gesture. “The hat you’re wearing?”
“Yes, it blew away at Hyde Park, and George fetched it back from the duck pond.”
“It is quite a charming hat. I am glad for your sake that it did not become fodder for ducks. But…” Hélène hesitated, then reached her hands questioningly toward May’s face. “Do you mind?”
Before May could reply, Hélène tipped the hat slightly forward, then reached up to comb a finger softly through the feathers. “That’s better. It looks more…”
May glanced at a mirror that hung on the wall and nearly gasped. That subtle shift had changed the way the hat framed her face, softening the lines of her jaw and bringing out the gleam in her eyes.
“More sophisticated,” she murmured, just as Hélène declared, “MoreFrench.”
They both let out a tentative laugh. “I suppose those are the same thing, aren’t they?” May asked, and Hélène gave an amused shrug.
“I would say so, but I’m hardly impartial.”
May studied her reflection a moment longer. She had been startled when Hélène reached out to touch her, but that was what other young women did, wasn’t it? They fussed over each other, plaited each other’s hair while sharing secrets. And though Hélène hadn’t technically confessed to a relationship with Eddy, May felt as convinced as if she had.
She found herself wondering what she would say to Hélène, if this moment of tentative friendship became something more—if Hélène confessed to the romance and asked May’s advice.
Until recently, May would have said that Hélène was gambling dangerously with her future. She’d put her reputation on the line for…what, exactly? Passion? Love? Only fools believed in love, May reminded herself. Getting involved with Eddy was reckless of Hélène, and ill-advised.
Yet some unexpected part of May, a part that had newly stirred to life, couldn’t help thinking that Hélène was also brave.
Braver than May had ever dared to be.
“I’m afraid that I must leave. I’ll see you at Tino and Sophie’s wedding?” Hélène said, with a little wave of farewell.May murmured goodbye and stepped back toward the center of the gallery.
Then she met George’s gaze across the room, and her heart skipped.
He took in her hat, newly French and sophisticated the way Hélène had styled it, and smiled in recognition. Eddy stood behind him, but for once, May didn’t really notice much about the heir to the throne.
She thought of the sisterly way Hélène had tugged at her hat and felt a burst of sudden fondness. Maybe this was the way things were always meant to play out, Eddy with Hélène and May with George.
Maybe someday the four of them would all be friends—hosting events together, leading parades—Hélène as the Queen of England, May as Duchess of York.
Why not? Stranger things had happened than princes marrying for love.
“MAY, THANK GOD YOU’VE COME!”Agnes greeted her, when May arrived at the Endicotts’ house the following week. “We have so much to discuss!”
“It looks like you had fun in Paris,” May replied, glancing around Agnes’s bedroom with a mixture of amusement and envy. Her friend had been out of town for ten days, on a jaunt to Paris with her parents for no apparent reason except to shop. Her bedroom rug was currently hidden beneath an ocean of striped boxes, each marked with the coveted labelRue de La Paix. Clothes were strewn over the four-poster bedand hanging from hooks along the wardrobe in extravagant, blithe disorder.
