“What do you think? For an accusation like this, you need proof! And now I have it.” Agnes walked over to a drawer in her bedside table, which she unlocked with a key from her pocket. Then she whirled around, brandishing a letter like a weapon. “Wait until you readthis.”
The letter was written in French, in a rough hand. May scanned the text and felt her cheeks grow hot. Laurent certainly didn’t hold back; he referenced a night when he and Hélène had slept together in the back of a carriage, and were almost caught. He said he could not bear the thought of her with anyone else—
“I told him that I was a friend of Hélène’s, delivering a note from her,” Agnes explained, with distinct pride. “I said that she had asked me to wait for a reply. He immediately went off and wrote this. Isn’t it incredible?”
It took a moment for Agnes’s words to sink in. When they did, May felt slightly nauseous. “You forged a letter from Hélène?”
“It was simple; I knew the coachman wouldn’t recognize Hélène’s handwriting! I highly doubt they were in the habit of exchanging love notes.” Agnes shrugged. “I told him thatHélène was betrothed to someone else but having second thoughts. It worked like a charm—Laurent tried so hard to woo her back! Look at all the incriminating things he wrote!” She leaned forward to read over May’s shoulder. “Have you gotten to the part where he mentions the birthmark on Hélène’s shoulder?”
“Agnes. If you spread this around, it will ruin her.” May was still staring at the letter in numb shock.
Agnes stepped forward and snatched it from her grasp, an eyebrow raised. “Don’t be melodramatic. I’m not saying we have to ruin her.”
May didn’t like the sound of thatwe.“I don’t want to be involved in this.”
“But I’ve already done the hard part! All that’s left is for you to pay Hélène a visit. Remind her that queens of England do not sleep with coachmen—that she should be wary of getting engaged to Prince Eddy, lest her sordid past come back to haunt her.”
“You want me toblackmailher?”
Agnes walked to the side table and locked the letter back in its drawer. The skirts of her dress contorted around her body as she moved, making her look like a figure from a painting.
“Blackmailis such a terrible word. I’m just suggesting that you show Hélène this letter from Laurent,” she said. “Let her know that a future queen must be beyond reproach, that it would be easier for everyone involved if she ended things with Prince Eddy. Then, with Prince Constantine’s wedding in Greece coming up, you’ll have the perfect opportunity to show Eddy what a good choiceyouare!”
In other circumstances, May would have corrected Agnesfor calling Prince Eddy by his first name, but she was too stunned.
“I won’t do that to Hélène. She’s a good person.”
“And Alix isn’t?” Agnes challenged. “How is this any different than when you told Maud about Alix’s fainting spells? Hélène reallydidsleep with Laurent; she did this to herself.”
May thought of Hélène’s buoyant smile as she’d tugged May’s hat forward, the way a friend might.
“No,” she said firmly.
Agnes’s green eyes widened. “You don’t want to be queen?”
“Not if it means destroying innocent people along theway.”
“Hélène is far from innocent! Come on, May,” Agnes said emphatically. “We both know that the marriage market isn’t some childhood game where everyone gets a prize ribbon at the end. For one young woman to succeed, there are inevitably others who lose.”
Wasn’t that precisely how May had always thought? Yet the mentality now struck her as callous, and senselessly cruel.
“It still doesn’t mean I should tear someone else down for my own gain.”
She and Agnes stared at each other for a long moment; then Agnes gave a heavy, disappointed sigh.
“Fine. If you want to give up when you arethisclose to achieving what you want, I can’t stop you. It’s your own future you’re throwing away.”
There was no possible reply except to say, simply, “Goodbye, Agnes,” and head toward the door.
May knew she was doing the right thing, refusing to act on the explosive secret that Agnes had uncovered. She focused on that, to keep Agnes’s words—it’s your own future you’re throwing away—from echoing insidiously in her mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Hélène
EDDY LEANED BACK ON THEsofa opposite her, one arm flung carelessly across its top. “Grandmother wants us to hold the wedding ceremony in St.James’s Palace; it’s where she married Grandfather. Though she also said that we could use Westminster Abbey. I assumed you might prefer that, since it’s a cathedral?” he added, phrasing it like a question.
“I would love that. Thank you,” Hélène replied, touched by his thoughtfulness. With its soaring Gothic arches and stained-glass windows, Westminster Abbey looked more like the Catholic churches of France than it did the post-Reformation British chapels of Christopher Wren. Which made sense, since it had been a Catholic church for four hundred years before King Henry VIII seized it as Crown property.
