Page 53 of A Queen's Match
There were practical matters to consider, too. May needed to start interviewing candidates for the posts of private secretary, and lady’s maid, and housekeeper. She’d begun selecting wallpaper for the rooms that she and Eddy had been granted at St.James’s Palace. And just yesterday they had met with the Archbishop of Canterbury to begin discussing the wedding ceremony—except that Eddy had left after a mere ten minutes, claiming a sore throat. The only thing he’d actually made it to all week was their engagement photo shoot, where they had posed for a picture that would soon be reprinted in newspapers around the world.
It was fine. May was used to doing things on her own.
“Did you see the announcement?” Francis demanded, once he and May had reached the corridor. Thankfully, it was empty, the sounds of the party muffled behind great double doors.
“Yes, Father,” May said carefully.
“They listed me after your mother! Without a Royal Highness!”
Because you don’thaveone!May didn’t dare say. The official text had read,Her Majesty is delighted to announce the engagement of His Royal Highness Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and of Avondale, to Princess Victoria Mary, Daughter of Her Royal Highness Princess Mary Adelaide and of His Highness the Duke of Teck.
Which was quite correct. May’s mother was the royal one.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, which only seemed to irritate her father more.
“Sorry?You should havedonesomething to prevent my embarrassment!”
“Can’t you just enjoy this moment of triumph for our family?”
Francis’s eyes narrowed at her audacity. His hand curled as if he meant to strike her.
May flinched, and her father saw it.
He stretched his fingers, releasing the fist. “Some family triumph, if it means your father is humiliated.”
“I promise it won’t happen again,” May hastened to assure him.
“I’m afraid you’ll need to do better than that. Once you’re married, you will ensure that I get the dignities and styling of a Royal Highness. And I think, as father of the future queen, I am due an official post. Nothing that requires work, of course,” he added, with a sharp-edged smile. “But one of those made-up positions that have a great income attached. The kind that you can only get by being intimate with the royal family.”
“I’m not sure I can—”
“I think I’d like to be Earl Marshal,” he announced. “Or something even greater. Keeper of the Privy Seal, perhaps?”
The nerve of him. “I wouldn’t know how to ask for such a thing.”
Her father barked out a caustic laugh, rocking back on his heels and looping his thumbs into his belt. “You’re a clever girl, May. I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else I’ll make sure it all comes crashing down around you,” he threatened. “Do you think Victoria would want you in the family if she knew the truth of how you got here? The way you clung around like a snail, slimy and ugly and toxic. Not to mention that you threw yourself at Maud last year, begging for her friendship,” he said dismissively. “As pathetic as when you took cast-off clothes from that American brat.”
For a moment May just stared at her father. He never seemed to pay any attention to her—how much did he really know? Or was this all just guesswork? “You wouldn’t risk it. Not when our family is so close to the throne,” she said, but she wasn’t certain.
“That’s just the thing, May.You’rethe one marrying Eddy. If our family is about to be close to the throne, it needs to be all of us.” He smiled bitterly. “Not just you.”
He would do it. Looking at his expression, twisted by years of resentment and jealousy—by whatever hopes had long ago been shattered—May knew he would. Francis was far past being ruled by logic.
If he didn’t get what he wanted, he would gleefully watch his daughter’s life burn instead.
“These things take time,” she said quickly. “I’m hardly in a position to ask favors of Her Majesty just yet. Perhaps in a few years—”
“A fewyears?” he bellowed.
May winced and glanced down the corridor in both directions, though luckily, no one seemed to have noticed. “When I’ve provided an heir. Then I’ll be in a stronger negotiating position, and can help you get what you deserve.”
“An heir.” Francis paused at the thought that his grandchild would someday be King of England. Then he shook his head, brows furrowed. “You still must correct the announcement before it reaches the papers. It will be reprinted throughout Europe! What would my cousins in Württemberg think if they saw it worded thus?”
May highly doubted that they thought of him at all.
