Page 28 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
“No, I just…”
“I suppose Iama little ripe from the exercise…”
“That’s not it!” he said tersely. “I just… I thought you could do with a rest, that’s all. You haven’t taken a break all day.”
Adeline frowned, confused. “Allof today has been a break! You really aren’t the chore you think you are.”
“You’re literally smearing lotion onto my skin.”
Adeline sighed. She took his good hand, pressed it into the tub, and took his fingers to her cheek.
His blue eye widened, the other still half-shut. “What… what are you doing?”
“Rub it in.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
Dimitri sighed, but did as she suggested. “I said you could boss others around,” he told her. “I didn’t mean me…”
She smiled, and touched the fingers against her face. “Does this feel like a chore to you?”
“I… no,” he said, another bit of colour bubbling up in his cheek.
“Well, there you go.”
“Your cheeks are nicer than mine.”
“Now thatwasa compliment.” She smiled at him brightly and finished clearing away.
“I used to go out into the gardens a lot,” said Dimitri, while her back was turned. “Even after the curse. Despite the light. I loved it. Then one day I collapsed and couldn’t get back inside by myself. I was out there for hours until someone found me. After that I was told I wasn’t allowed to be alone in the gardens. But when I asked someone else to go with me… it wasn’t the same. They didn’t enjoy it. And I didn’t enjoy itbecausethey didn’t.” He paused. “I’d like to go out again with you, I think.”
Adeline paused, the weight of his words swirling around her. She saw a glint of the boy Mrs Minton talked of, the sweet one, the one who thought of other people and buried his pain to spare them. “There are certainly worse ways to spend the day.”
After dinner, she dismissed herself and went to the servants’ bathing hall to scrub away the day’s sweat and grime, delivering her uniform to the laundry room afterwards. The scent of summer blossoms clung to her hair, even after her bath. A lightness folded over her as she slipped into her thin cotton nightgown, towel-dried her locks, and braided them loosely for bed. Her flowers sat in a small vase on her desk, the sight of them warming her chest, almost as if they’d been a gift.
She read until dark, the slow blanket of sleep creeping up from her toes.
She was just about to drift off when the bell rang.
Dumbly, she waited for a moment for someone to attend it, before realising that only Dimitri would be using it and that it was her job to attend him.
He’d never called for her in the night before, and she realised she was quite unsure what the protocol was supposed to be. Was she to get dressed first?
Deciding that it could be an emergency and it was worth risking embarrassment, she collected her dressing gown and an oil lamp and hurried up before he could grow impatient.
“Dimitri?” she said, stepping into the room. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I’m just—” he stopped as she came closer, his eyes going wide as saucers at her attire. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. What do you need?”
“I can’t… I can’t sleep,” he said. “I was hoping… maybe… you would read to me?”
Adeline smiled, warmed by the softness of his voice, the flustered request. “You needn’t ask like that.”
“Earlier you told me I wasn’t much of a chore. I am hoping not to convince you otherwise.”
