Page 12 of A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street
He holds his hand out to pull me up from my stool, and I slip my fingers over his gratefully, loving the way his close around mine with a little squeeze.
It sends another flutter through me because I was hoping for a way for this not to end yet, and maybe he was too.
5
The castle is a maze but he navigates it with ease, through wide echoey hallways and down grand staircases, the music from below gradually getting louder as we get closer to the ground floor again, and then we’re at the top of the stairs I came up, looking down at the main entrance hall. The two ballrooms on either side are still bubbling with people who sound a lot merrier than they were when I left. He stops at the edge of the stairway and puts a finger to his lips, and then peers around the banister as though he doesn’t want us to be spotted, and when the coast is clear, we hurry down the stairs. Instead of going back to the ballrooms, he tugs me alongside the staircase and past the staff kitchen door, and at that exact second, it opens.
‘Run!’ His hand tightens around mine and we take off through an open doorway and down a darkened hallway, leaving the light of the entrance hall behind us, hopefully along with whichever staff member was about to catch us. He opens another door and there’s an actual theatre inside, complete with a stage and rows of seating, and we weave around the edge of it and back into another hallway. His eyes are twinkling when he stumbles to a stop against the wall and I crash into him and fall against his solid chest.
He’s not upright, and his lips areright thereand everything outside of them feels very far away and an adrenaline rush floods my body. His eyes burn into mine, his tongue wets his lips and his head lowers, and my hand automatically uses his chest to push myself up until my lips are level with his, and for just a second, I imagine us kissing. I imagine throwing caution to the wind and pulling his mouth to mine, but then my sensible side kicks in and I stumble backwards.
He pushes himself upright and goes to shove a hand through his hair, but realises at the last minute that the mask is in the way and accidentally clonks himself in the forehead instead. ‘Adrenaline rush.’
‘Adrenaline, yeah.’ I shake my head at myself. I got carried away. I never would have actually kissed him, but for just a moment there, I wanted to. I could have. The possibility that I am someone who would kiss a stranger hangs in the air, and I like it. It makes me feel unrestrained and carefree, the opposite of my usual self.
He walks back to the end of the hallway to double-check we weren’t followed, and then we go across another room, a stately living room-type area with bookcases, a sofa and armchairs. Probably original oil paintings in lavish gold frames line the walls, and a grandfather clock is ticking in the corner, and then we’re in another hallway, this one with honey-coloured brick walls and glass panels in the roof so it’s lit by the moon above, and lined on one side by wall-planters with the dead strings of some once-living plant still spilling from each one, and that feeling of standing still in time prickles again, like if someone only came along and watered them, they’d come back to life, just as they were when they were abandoned.
He seems to be counting as he moves slowly along the corridor, but I’m not sure what – until he stops, presses the flat of his hand against a brick, and sure enough, a part of the wall shifts backwards and he slides it aside on silent runners.
‘Another secret door!’ I say in shock. To the untrained eye, there is absolutely no difference between that part of the wall and every other part, and yet, he knew exactly what he was doing. ‘Where does it lead to?’
‘Secret.’
I raise an eyebrow and then rememberagainthat he can’t see me doing it. I peer in but it doesn’t give anything away. It’s a narrow walkway that looks dark and foreboding.
Should I be honoured? Scared? Slightly wary that he might be a lunatic and is leading me into some kind of hidden dungeon for definitelynotPrince Charming-type purposes?
‘Sorry, I don’t have my phone on me for a torch.’
‘Me neither.’ Phones seemed like the sort of thing best left at home tonight.
He’s smiling again, his lips pressed tightly together and tipping upwards like he’s trying to hold back a laugh. ‘Do you trust me?’
I don’t know. Do I? It’s that moment fromAladdin, right before Jasmine steps onto the magic carpet. In my head, I know the horror stories. The instinct every woman has about going into dark places with strange men when no one knows where you are, but I think I’m generally a good judge of character, and I feel safe with him.
‘It’s not going to be a dungeon, is it?’
‘Nothing so macabre.’ He’s stepped inside the doorway and he holds his arm out, inviting me to slip my hand through the crook of his elbow, and it’s such a nice, chivalrous gesture that I do it. Because even though he’s a bit aloof and cynical, he also seems every inch the gentleman – suave, dapper and polite, and it’s been a long time since anyone treated me like a lady. He’s either a real gent or the world’s most sophisticated serial killer.
He pushes the wall shut behind us and stands for a minute to let our eyes adjust to the darkness. ‘So how does the false wall rate on the list of castle clichés?’
I can’t help laughing. ‘Well, between that and the decoy book, it’s ticking all the boxes. The only disappointing thing so far is that my teacup didn’t blow bubbles when I drank. Secretly hoping we might be on the way to find a torn portrait of a prince-turned-beast though.’
He laughs too. It feels like we’re both a bit nervous, a bit out of our comfort zones and doing something we wouldn’t usually do, but in the best way possible. My hand is curled around his elbow, the back of it held against the smooth material of his suit jacket, and I can sense his eyes on me when he keeps glancing down, and I keep glancing up at him, and every so often we catch each other’s eyes and look away quickly.
Our footsteps echo along the corridor until he stops, takes a jangle of keys from his pocket and unlocks a door, letting in a rush of cool night air.
‘It’s a secret garden!’ I’m surprised as we step outside onto a patio. There’s a wall surrounding half the garden and a waist-high neatly cut hedge fencing us in on the other side, a paving stone patio area with decorative planters all the way around it, each one housing a rose bush with different colour flowers, so perfect that it could be like the Queen of Hearts’ garden inAlice in Wonderlandand someone’s been out here painting them. ‘A secret rose garden. Wow.’ I seem to be incapable of saying any other words to express my delight. ‘How is this still here?’
‘There’s a castle gardener. He’s kept up maintenance of the grounds over the years. The castle’s been locked up but there’s a path down to the lower gardens on the other side of that wall.’
We’re not on ground level; it’s like a private garden to one of the towers, and on the opposite side of the wall he’s pointing to are the upper windows of a ballroom and the music from below is filtering up. There’s a stone fountain burbling in one corner with a single penny in the basin. A wish. Whose? His? The gardener’s? I look over at him, but his mask gives nothing away. I trace my fingers across one of the many roses; this one has pink petals splashed with white and a sweet floral scent. ‘This is the most romantic place I’ve ever seen in my life.’
‘I thought your beautiful dress deserved better than filthy towers and retro kitchens. If there’s any magic in this old castle, I think it would be found here.’ His voice is a whisper that makes me want to whisper in response. It doesn’t feel like the kind of place for talking at normal volume. There’s something so lovely about the way he speaks – slowly and deliberately, as though he’s thinking about every word before it comes out. The kind of princely voice that makes me want to close my eyes and just listen.
‘Your dress is…’ He stutters as if he can’t complete the sentence. His lips move but no words come out, and eventually he shakes his head. ‘It’s rendered me speechless. It’s… a phenomenon.’
Words that could sweep me off my feet. ‘Thank you.’ I can’t tell him why that meanssomuch, but the amount of time it took him to settle on that word makes it feel incredibly meaningful.
