Page 76 of A Slipper in the Smoke
Pip.
It was accompanied by a perfectly drawn map leading to the centre of the maze. Elena clutched it to her chest. The note even smelled like him—clean, slightly lemony, with undercurrents of peppermint.
Inside the small parcel was a miniscule cake composed of several layers of delicate sponge, drizzled with pink icing and topped with dried fruit. All attempts to savour it failed.
She hoped he brought more at lunch.
She propped his note up as she worked, trying not to get distracted with thoughts of him or thoughts of the slippers. She wished she’d been able to work longer on them last night, but after a full day’s work, a walk through the outer ring, and dance practice, she’d barely had the energy.
She wasn’t worried about not finishing them in time for the ball. She was worried about losing her evenings with Pip.
Pip.How strange that she knew everything and nothing about him—not even his last name.
Lunch came, and Elena slipped away into the gardens, unfolding Pip’s map to guide herself through the winding hedgerows. She reached the centre in no time at all. A blanket and pillows had been laid out beside the fountain, together with plates of food—delicate finger sandwiches, strawberries and cream, and more of the cake she’d been served in the morning, now in four different colours.
A hand closed around her wrist. Elena turned just as Pip’s mouth came crashing down towards her, his hands closing around her hair and back, pulling her close to him. They stumbled backwards, falling to the grass, and kissed until they both felt breathless and Elena’s insides tingled hotly. She didn’t want to let him go. Her body ached to claim him. Why had her courage failed her the night of the midnight feast? She could sneak into a general’s private quarters but lost her wits about the possibility of intimacy with Pip? What a fool she was.
Pip finally drew back. “Ah, hello,” he said, face broadening into a smile. “Lovely to see you.”
Elena stroked his cheek. “How lovely to be seen.” She drew his mouth back to hers.
“I missed you yesterday,” he murmured between kisses.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered back. “This project—it shouldn’t take more than another couple of days.”
“A couple of days…” His gaze drifted for a moment, lost on some thought. Elena suspected it was the same one she kept having.
“I know we don’t have much longer,” she told him. “If this project wasn’t essential, I wouldn’t be doing it. Trust me. There is nowhere I would rather be than with you.”
Pip kissed her with his smiling mouth. “You are the greatest peace I’ve ever known,” he said. “I’m rather worried that…”
“Yes?”
“I’m worried that this is it,” he said, winding his fingers into hers. “I’m worried that this is the greatest I’m ever going to feel, and I can’t…”
“You can’t what?”
“Prolong it,” he said stiffly. “Take you with me.”
Elena’s heart leapt, murmuring beneath his words. She wanted to follow him. She wanted to go with him until the earth ended, forsaking all other homes but his. She felt, if it were possible, that she’d do anything to achieve it—anything to preserve that dream.
“Elena?” Pip prompted.
She grabbed his face and kissed him again. “I would go with you, if I could,” she told him, breaking the kiss just long enough to utter the words. “I’d follow you wherever. If there wasn’t… if I could…”
The words dissolved on her tongue, and his vanished too. They tied themselves together with touches and kisses, precious and feverish, sweet and painful. Gears and Gods, how she wanted him, how deep the ache for him went.
He hasn’t gone yet.
Her hands slid to the front of his jacket, prying open brass buttons, sliding to the silk shirt beneath. Her fingers splayed against the smooth flatness of his stomach. He wasn’t muscular, but his skin danced beneath her own like a firework. He moaned into her mouth.
She eased back, still kissing him, helping him with the stays on her bodice and half ripping it off, letting him sink his palms into her flesh, gasping as his hands moved up to her buttons and explored her breasts with trembling, expert attention.
“Pip,” she called his name as if she were drowning.
“Elena.”
A bell went off in the distance.
