Page 97 of A Queen's Match
Alix could picture the love she might feel someday for Maximilian: the kind of love where two people pass a wailing baby back and forth, smiling over its head; where their lives grow so entwined that they know each other’s sleeping patterns, how they like their coffee. The kind of love you couldrelyon.
“Perhaps that kind of love is enough, if you never know the other kind,” Hélène said at last. “But you do, Alix. You have felt it—the combustible, overwhelming, heartbreaking kind. Which means you can’t give up on Nicholas.”
Alix ran her fingers over the tracery on the crystal tumbler. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew how much we’ve hurt each other. It’s hopeless.”
“You think Eddy and I didn’t hurt each other?” Hélène exclaimed. “We made all kinds of mistakes! But I would give anything, would feel all that hurt a million times over, for just five more minutes with him.”
Alix felt her eyes burning with tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t apologize,” Hélène said heavily. “You want to do something for me? Go find Nicholas, tell him how you feel. I know he hurt you—but maybe, when you love that hard, some pain is inevitable. Maybe that kind of joyhasto be balanced by heartache and grief. I don’t know,” Hélène said helplessly. “All I know for certain is thatyoustill have a chance at that kind of love, because Nicholas still walks this earth. Eddy is gone forever! So don’t go telling me that you and Nicholas are hopeless, because you’re both very much alive.”
When Alix returned to BuckinghamPalace, where she and Ernie would be staying until the funeral, Ernie greeted her carriage. “What’s wrong?” he asked, perceptive as always.
“I saw Hélène. She said some things that I can’t stop thinking about,” Alix admitted.
Her friend’s words kept echoing in her mind:I would give anything for just five more minutes with EddyandYou still have a chance at that kind of love, because you’re both very much alive.
Alix used to be so certain of her and Nicholas. She had been ready to give up everything for him, to move to Russia and change her religion and her language, to say farewell to all she knew and loved.
Now there was Maximilian, and the feelings that were growing between them. The life they built together would beso easy, so familiar. Alix wouldn’t have to change anything for him.
“I’m sure Hélène is heartbroken,” Ernie murmured sympathetically.
Through wordless agreement, the siblings started up the stairs, lowering their voices. “She’s devastated. It made me wonder…”
“About Maximilian?” Ernie prompted.
“No, about Nicholas.” Alix sighed. “I never told you that I saw the tsar in Baden-Baden.”
She explained how she’d run into the tsar and his wife in Baden-Baden on holiday, taking the waters. How they had offered her a small fortune to write Nicholas a letter, telling him that she had moved on, and he should, too.
“Now I’ve seen Hélène, and hearing her talk about Eddy…” Alix trailed off.
Ernie filled in the blanks. “It made you realize that life is short and unpredictable, and you need to fight for true love?”
“She reminded me that Nicholas and I are not impossible. No matter how hard it might feel.” Alix glanced down. “I wish I knew what he’d written in all those letters he sent after the regatta. But we burned them all.”
Ernie looked distinctly sheepish. “I wouldn’t sayallof them.”
“What?”Alix demanded.
“I saved two of them, in case you changed your mind. Do you want to see them?”
“They’re here?”
“Yes. I’ve been keeping them in my writing case, on the off chance you would—”
He hadn’t even finished the sentence before Alix was running up the stairs two at a time. She heard Ernie’s footsteps behind her as she reached his room and began tugging open his writing case, revealing loose papers, a wax seal, scatteredpens.
“And you said you didn’t want to hear from him ever again,” Ernie declared from the doorway, watching her.
“I don’twantto feel like this, all right? But I do!” Alix’s voice shook as she found a pair of envelopes stamped with the distinctive red and white of the Greek mail system.
“Looks like they were posted from Greece,” Ernie explained. “My guess is that Nicholas enclosed the letters in a larger note to Tino, and Tino reposted them.”
“He was forbidden to write me.” And yet he’d still managed to send the letters. In his own way, Nicholas had fought for them, tried to vanquish the obstacles between them.
She sank onto Ernie’s rug, her skirts pooling around her in ripples of charcoal-colored silk, and tore open the first letter.
