Page 53 of A Slipper in the Smoke
“She’s a mechanic.”
“A mechanic? You’ve fallen for aservant?”
“You’re a servant, Susan, and you’re worth ten of most of the nobles here!” Pip raged. “And I haven’t fallen for her.”
This Susan seemed to find even more incredulous than anything else. Her eyes were wide and livid, a vein throbbing in her temple. “Oh, you broke out of the palace—”
“Bribedmy way out of the palace—”
“Lied to me, got Lucia to cover for you, and put yourself and your country in danger, for afriend?”
Pip paused, realising how all this sounded. “...I like my friends, Susan.”
Susan did not seem convinced.
“I haven’t had many friends, all right?” he added.
“You haven’t had many lovers, either. I’m not surprised you can’t tell the two apart.”
“It isn’t like that!” he insisted. “We haven’t even… I mean, not that I haven’t thought about it, I just…” He sighed, turning away from Susan and running his hands through his hair. “I really like her. Icareabout her. When I heard she might be in trouble… I just had to make sure she was all right.”
Susan regarded him carefully for a moment, taking all of this in. Her lips were still paper-thin. “And how can you be sure she isn’t using you? That this isn’t some ploy for information, or just personal gain?”
Pip winced. “I… may have neglected to mention I’m the prince.”
“Youmay have?”
“Um, I did. I did do that.”
“And you’resureshe doesn’t know who you are?”
“Positive. I don’t feel fabulous about doing it—I really don’t—but no one, and I mean no one, has ever looked at me like she has. No one has ever looked atme.”
Susan did not try to correct him.
“I know what you will say, that my family loves me and always will—that you do too—but sometimes you want someone to like you conditionally. You want to know that theychoseto be with you. You. Not your crown or your title or your money, but you as you are—and that they’d stop loving you if you didn’t earn it.”
Susan sighed, looking like she’d aged about ten years. “She honestly has no idea?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And you’re not going to do anything foolish?”
“Define ‘foolish’?”
“Like run off with her, impregnate her, make her the future queen of—”
“Susan!” Pip said, aghast, trying not to think about each of those possibilities, or how nice and simple the world would be if they could just run off to Navarra together. He’d be absolutely terrible on a farm, but Elena would love it. Maybe he could run a farm shop, make excellent teas for the rest of his days. In the evenings when they were both done with work they could lie in the fields and stargaze and—
Oh. She really wasn’t just a friend.
“Just making sure. If it’s just going to be a simple affair—”
Pip coughed.
“—Orfriendship,then keep seeing this girl, if it makes you happy. Only don’t youdareleave the palace again to see her.”
“You have my word.”
