Page 19 of A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street
But the height’s right. And there’s a streak of grey at the temple of his otherwise dark hair. He said he wore glasses and this man is wearing glasses. He also has unusually long arms. And his voice… His voice sounds odd this morning. Shaky and laboured, as though he’s nervous, but there’s the same deep timbre that sounds like the voice I’ve been replaying in my head since last night.
It couldn’t be… could it?
‘Hello, what can we do for you?’ Scarlett says in her usual bubbly way.
He ums and ahs for a minute, and glances towards the door as though he’s considering making a run for it. ‘Were either of you at the ball last night?’
‘No!’ I yelp so abruptly that I’m fairly sure a slate tile just fell off the roof in fright, and rush around him to get behind the counter before Scarlett says something she shouldn’t.
‘Ah, right. Well, I was, and there was this girl… A remarkable girl. We had the most perfect night.’ He’s obviously flustered. He keeps wiping his palms on his trousers like they might be sweating, he’s barely lifted his gaze from the floor, and I’m hardly paying attention to what he’s saying because I’m trying to scrutinise his face for signs I remember.
I’d remember his eyes, if he looked up. I’d remember his smile, if he smiled. I’d remember his voice, but he sounds as though he’s fighting to get every word out and nothing like the relaxed ease of last night. I focus on his hands. His hands and his height are two things that stood out, and… they’re both a perfect match.
‘And then she ran away.’
What does it feel like to hyperventilate? How can he have found me already? Did he somehow manage to follow me through the forest after all?
‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ he says quickly, and then reconsiders. ‘At least, I don’t think I did. At the stroke of midnight, she said she had to go.’
‘Was her carriage about to turn back into a pumpkin?’ Scarlett laughs, not taking this seriously.
‘As she was running away, she lost her shoe.’ His hand plunges into his satchel and returns with a midnight-blue satin and lace wedge heel.
My shoe. Myothershoe, the partner of the one I hid in my bedside drawer last night. It never occurred to me thathewould pick it up. I have got to be the world’s biggest idiot. Ofcoursehe picked it up. That’s what princes do with glass slippers left on palace stairs – theyalwayspick them up!
He’s here! This incredible guy has somehow garnered enough info from my shoe to track me down. Maybe he has a pet Bloodhound he didn’t mention. Sniffer dogs on standby? The fear of Ebony finding out about my lie last night is obliterated by the sheer joy that he’s found me. That he cared enough to come looking. It really was as special to him as it was to me.
Excitement is fluttering in my belly as I wait for him to turn to me. Hand over the shoe. Ask why I left so hastily.
He doesn’t.
‘It comes from your shop.’ He points out the ‘Cinderella Shop’ label sewn inside. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘Do you want to try it on the foot of every fair maiden in all the land?’ Scarlett’s mocking him.
‘No, I hoped you might remember who you sold it to.’
‘Sold it to?’ I splutter, and he looks at me blankly. Wait… what?
Hehasn’ttracked me down. Heisn’there because he’s found me. And he hasn’t realised that Iamme.
‘I don’t know how else to find her.’ He’s looking directly at me and I’m looking directly at him, except Iknowand he… doesn’t. ‘This shoe is the only clue I’ve got. She never told me her name or anything about her.’
Scarlett, who’s been stifling giggles all along, suddenly sobers up. ‘Oh, are you actually for real? Seriously?’
‘Yes. I thought this was the ideal place to come with this Cinderella-esque situation.’ His light eyes focus on Scarlett, who is bouncy and confident and always sparks up conversations with ease, whereas I’m more of a background person, but for once, I wish I wasn’t invisible tohim.
There isn’t even a flicker of recognition. Absolutely nothing. Something seemed familiar about him from the moment I shook his hand, but I’m clearly not that memorable, am I?
‘I don’t know what you expect us to be able to tell from a shoe,’ I say coldly, but instead of backing me up, Scarlett holds her hand out for it, and he hands it over and adjusts his glasses.
I should say something. I obviously didn’t mean that much to him if he doesn’t even recognise me this morning, glasses or no glasses. All right, he said everything was fuzzy without them, and my hair was straightened and much longer than it looks now, and the blonde clip-in hair pieces made my colour look much brighter than usual, but is that all he can recognise me by? I’m wearing combat trousers and a black T-shirt with a cream holey-knit crochet tunic over the top, which is about the furthest thing you can get from a ballgown, but I have eyes, a voice, a general presence… don’t I?
Of all the ways I imagined what it would be like when I met him again, himnotrecognising me was not one of the options I considered. There were visions of our eyes meeting across a crowded street. Of him somehow finding out who I was and riding up to the shop door on a white stallion and whisking me away. Of some heroic gesture in which I fell into his arms and our eyes widened amid cries of ‘It’s you! You’re the one I’ve been looking for!’ Our eyes meeting across the width of the counter and him not even realising… Yeah,thatdidn’t play out in my fantasies.
‘I’m Witt, by the way.’
‘Wit?’ Scarlett asks uninterestedly, not looking up from the shoe.
