Page 31 of A Slipper in the Smoke
She waited for him to finish, but he seemed to have quite forgotten he was speaking. “And have you?” she prompted.
“What?”
“Followed your own heart?”
He sighed. “I have been somewhat lacking in the opportunity…”
Elena caught his gaze. “Me too.”
“No one special in your life?”
She shook her head. “I had a sweetheart back in Navarra, but that was a long time ago.”
A very long time ago. She remembered the details of her courtship with Alejandro as one might a story; like it was something that had happened to another person. Stolen kisses in the barn and not-quite-fumbles in the hay came to her like a hazy dream, a figment of imagination rather than fact.
“I’ve tried my hand at courting, too,” Pip went on. “Never much went anywhere.”
“The job keep you too busy?”
“I suppose. Mostly I never really liked anyone enough to make time for them.”
They sat down on a bench beside the maze in a quiet corner of the grounds, gazing at the stars above.
“How are you finding Petragrad?” she asked him.
He sighed. “I’m concerned the rumours about its origins might be true. I’m concernedallthe rumours might be true.”
Elena froze. She had not expected that reply. She expected him to talk about the food or the climate or the people. Not that. Anything but that.
“And what if they were?” she managed, hoping the dark hid most of her fear.
Pip’s jaw tightened. “I doubt most of the monarchs of the other kingdoms would care much even if they were; most of their coal power comes from Petragrad and they cannot afford a dissolution of the monarchs—”
A sharp voice cut through the night air; someone was calling for Prince Phillippe.
Pip froze. “Oh dear.”
“Why?” Elena raised an eyebrow. “Were you supposed to be watching him?”
“I… I just realised there’s somewhere I’m supposed to be.”
The voice grew louder. Pip almost fell over getting up. “If she comes round that corner, don’t tell her you saw me. Woman’s terrifying.”
“All right.”
Pip started off across the lawn, but stopped shortly, spinning around. “Tomorrow night,” he said. “Can I see you again? Here? Same time.”
Elena’s cheeks warmed. “You shall have to bring me more cake.”
He smiled. “It’s a promise.”
The screeching voice was heard again, breaking off to speak to someone. Pip disappeared into the night.
Elena lay back on the bench, trying not to clutch too hard at the lightness in her chest, lest it be wrenched from her in a moment.
*
As she had done the previous day, Elena went to her garage early in the morning. There was little to do, but it was the only place in the world that really felt like hers, and it was as good a place as any to pass the time. She counted out her coins, trying to recalculate how long it would take her to afford her ticket now with the fee she’d received from the scientist, and created another small roving doll out of her piles of scrap.
