The Girl on the Kitchen Steps

By the third week, Sera knew the route to Alex's study better than the route to her own rooms.

She knew which step creaked, where the afternoon sun fell, and how Alex looked when she had slept badly.

The last discovery troubled her.

At lunch Alex had laughed at Julian's story in all the right places, but she had also rubbed her eyes when she thought nobody was watching. During their walk she had forgotten a question Sera had just answered.

She apologized so earnestly that Sera almost pretended not to mind.

Instead, that night, she went downstairs.

The study door was half open. Alex sat at the desk surrounded by correspondence, one hand pressed to the back of her neck.

Sera knocked against the frame.

Alex straightened at once.

"I thought you'd gone to bed."

"I thought you occasionally did."

The smile that followed was too tired to convince her.

"Just a few things to finish."

Sera looked at the unlit fire and the untouched plate beside the inkstand.

"Have those things prevented dinner?"

"I wasn't hungry earlier."

"And now?"

Alex glanced at the plate.

"I may have forgotten."

Sera went to the kitchen. Ten minutes later she returned carrying a tray, with a footman behind her to light the fire.

She set down soup, fresh bread, and two bowls. The footman withdrew, leaving the room pleasantly warmer.

"You're very determined," Alex said.

"You knew that when you retrieved me from the railing."

Alex put her pen aside.

They moved to the little table. Sera waited until Alex had eaten several spoonfuls before asking how long she had been working after everyone else went to sleep.

"Not every night."

"How many?"

Alex's silence answered.

Sera looked at the papers on the desk, remembering the afternoons Alex had kept free, the carriage, the archery lawn, the mornings when tea was waiting.

"You moved everything so you could see me."

"I wanted the time."

"So did I. I also want you awake for it."

Alex looked down, chastened.

Sera touched her wrist.

"I'm not scolding you for wanting to be with me."

"I know."

"You may be bored in a meeting while I read a book in another room. I won't evaporate."

That drew a small laugh.

"It doesn't sound very romantic."

Sera considered the soup, the fire, Alex's face without its usual practiced composure.

"This feels romantic to me."

Alex looked up.

"Dinner?"

"You letting me see you when you're tired. You telling me you need something. I'd like to be good at looking after you too."

The expression that crossed Alex's face made Sera's chest ache.

After supper she persuaded Alex to leave the letters until morning. They settled on the narrow sofa beside the fire, Alex leaning back with a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere deep.

Sera removed the little tie at the back of Alex's hair, which had been pulled away from her face for work.

"Your head hurts."

"A little."

Sera worked her fingers gently through the dark strands, rubbing the tense place above her neck.

Alex's eyes closed.

"There?"

"Yes."

After a moment, Alex rested her temple against Sera's shoulder.

Sera kept her hand moving. She had been kissed and complimented and chosen for dances. Somehow this felt just as intimate: the weight of a person allowing herself to be held.

"You can ask," she said softly.

Alex's voice was muffled against her sleeve.

"For what?"

"This. You don't have to become exhausted first."

Alex turned her face enough for Sera to see the hesitant smile.

"Would you hold me a little longer?"

Sera put both arms around her.

"Gladly."

The fire settled. Somewhere beyond the door a clock marked the quarter hour. Neither moved.

Eventually Alex lifted her head. Sera kissed her forehead, then paused with her hand against Alex's cheek.

Alex looked at her mouth.

Sera bent and kissed her slowly.

It felt different without the rush of discovery. She knew how Alex would tilt her head, how the hand at her back would draw her nearer. Knowing made it sweeter.

When they parted, Alex kept her cheek resting against Sera's palm.

"I used to wonder what it would be like," Alex said.

"Kissing me?"

A flush warmed Alex's face.

Sera smiled. Then she noticed that Alex hadn't answered.

"How long did you wonder?"

For a moment there was only the fire.

"Do you remember the spring reception at Ashford four years ago?" Alex asked.

Sera thought of crowded rooms, stiff sleeves, and a very long evening celebrating a treaty anniversary.

"Vaguely."

"A young maid dropped a tray near the kitchen door. Lemon cakes. You helped her pick them up."

Something stirred in Sera's memory: a white apron, tears, icing on the stone steps.

"Lucy. She'd only been there a week. She was terrified of the housekeeper."

"You sat beside her and said the broken ones still tasted perfectly good."

Sera stared at Alex.

"You were there?"

"My mother had brought me. I'd escaped a discussion about grain tariffs."

The memory sharpened. A quiet guest in a dark traveling coat. Very fine eyes. Sera offering half a cake because it was awkward eating in front of someone who hadn't any.

"You sat on the bottom step."

Alex nodded.

"You said you'd been trying to get outside all evening," Sera recalled.

"You told me the kitchen door was the only sensible exit."

Sera laughed in wonder. "I'd forgotten."

"You had no reason to remember. We weren't introduced. I heard somebody call you back inside. That was how I learned who you were."

"And you remembered the cakes?"

Alex looked at her.

"I remembered you."

Sera's breath caught.

Alex's fingers curled lightly around hers.

"You were eighteen. I was twenty-one and thought I'd become very grown-up. Then you smiled at a frightened girl as though there were nothing more important than helping her feel less alone. I thought about it all the way home."

"Alex."

"I saw you at the midsummer procession the following year. And I read the letter you wrote thanking my mother for the winter books. You'd added a note about a story you thought she might enjoy."

Sera remembered writing that note. She had wondered afterward whether it was too informal.

"I kept finding reasons to be interested," Alex said. "I knew it wasn't the same as knowing you. When our parents suggested the match, I hoped there might finally be a chance."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were already being asked for so much. I didn't want my feelings to become another obligation."

Sera moved closer until their knees touched.

"Did you recognize me on the terrace?"

"Immediately."

Sera covered her mouth, remembering everything she had said.

"Oh, how dreadful."

"You were wonderfully rude. It was a relief."

She lowered her hand.

"A relief?"

"I'd worried I'd made you into someone too perfect to be real. Then you accused the railing of structural failure and called me insufferable over cheese."

Sera laughed, eyes stinging.

Alex brushed a tear away before it quite escaped.

"I've loved learning the rest of you. The impatient parts. The ridiculous parts. You, when you forget anybody is watching."

Sera had thought she was discovering a new feeling alone. All this time, Alex had been holding something precious and trying not to ask too much of it.

She drew Alex's hand against her heart.

"I'm not kissing you because of four years ago," she said. "I'm kissing you because I love who you are now."

Alex's lips parted.

Sera kissed her before nervousness could steal the words back.

When she lifted her head, Alex's eyes were bright.

"I love you," Alex whispered.

Sera smiled through an unexpected tear.

"I was hoping you'd say that."

They stayed on the sofa until the fire burned low. This time, when Alex asked her to remain a little longer, Sera didn't have to guess what the request cost.

She tucked Alex's head beneath her chin and held her.