Free The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trenow

kiss on the cheek. I nearly jumped away with the shock of it.
    ‘There,’ he said. ‘A prince’s kiss to make Miss Romano even more beautiful.’
    ‘Oh sir,’ I gasped, blushing to the tips of my toes.
    He lifted my chin with his finger and turned my face towards him, then planted another kiss – this time on my lips. It was my first proper kiss, imagine that, and so delicious. He tasted of marshmallows, vanilla and icing sugar, and I wanted it to last for ever, but after a few seconds he pulled away, stood up suddenly and walked over to the fireplace, stopping with his back to me. I must have been holding my breath the whole time, for my head started to swim and I thought I might faint clean away, so I kept my eyes to my lap to stop the room from spinning round.
    After a long moment he spoke. ‘I am so sorry, I got carried away. Please forgive me.’
    ‘There’s nothing to apologise for, sir. It’s surely
my
fault for being so impertinent, sitting here and going on about my ordinary little life.’
    ‘But that’s just it, don’t you see?’ he said, walking back across the room towards me, taking my hands in his and shaking them with every emphasis. ‘I
want
to know what ordinary lives are like. My family is not
normal
, never will be. But I want to know how it
could
be.’
    He let go of my hands and suddenly pulled me to my feet, wrapping his arms around me so as our bodies were touching from top to toe. My hands seemed to take matters into their own, clasping themselves around his waist. Though he wasn’t a tall boy my cheek rested on his chest, and I breathed in his smell of expensive shaving soap and clean-washed tweed and tried to get my head around this extraordinary turn of events.
    I could hear his heart beating and feel his breathing, fast and strong. As his fingers stroked the back of my neck my legs went to jelly with the joy of it all. I wanted to stay there, close to him, for the rest of my life. Apart from Nora, he was the only person in the world who had ever held me so tight.
    After a very long time he drew away. ‘You had better go, little one,’ he said, ‘or I might be tempted to kiss you again. You know, don’t you, that you must not whisper a word about this evening to anyone, even your friend Nora? Rumours get about like wildfires in this place.’
    ‘Yes sir,’ I said, remembering who he was, and made a little curtsey even though it seemed too formal, when moments before we had been so close as to feel each other’s heartbeats.
    He went to the door. ‘Go left, then right, along the corridor to the third door on the left, down the stairs, turn right again and you will be back in the servants’ hall.’ He smiled, ‘Got that?’ and as I turned to go out of the door he caught my hand again and kissed it.
    ‘Sweet dreams, little one,’ he said. ‘You will come to see me again, won’t you?’
    My hand burned with the lingering touch of his lips. That night I climbed into bed and tried to relive every blissful moment of that encounter – the easy conversation, his laughter, the sweetness of our kiss and the long, tender embrace. Each time I thought of it, my body ached with longing to be close to him once more, and I became almost choked with the fear that it might never happen again, might have been a one-off.
    But I need not have worried. He asked for me several times after that, sometimes during the day, and the footmen came to recognise me, as I made my way along the palace corridors to his chamber. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I felt important.
    Each time, when I walked in, his smile bathed us in its sunshine, and he made me feel as though I was the most special person in the world. We would have a small sherry while we were talking, and though the taste of alcohol was strange and tart at first, I soon began to enjoy the way it helped me to forget the oddness of our situation. We talked for hours, he held my hand, we kissed and a bit more besides, if you get my