Midnight Falls: A Thrilling Retelling of Cinderella (39 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Quarter to Midnight

Leopold paced the floor in front of the large, wall-length window that framed gloriously the mountainous region of northern Gwent. His gait was calculated and stern; his eyes forward in complete unawareness of his beautiful kingdom. A kingdom he loved with all of his heart.

There was a gentle tap at the door. She was early. What was her name again? How could Leopold not recall the maiden’s name when he so definitively remembered her deceased mother’s name: Isabella.

“Enter,” he called out.

The thick door opened and a small, feminine figure bowed her head into the room when the door was only half ajar. Shrouded in darkness, the petite silhouette stepped into the chamber completely. Something about her presence seemed … changed. But what did he know? He’d only spoken to her for a few minutes.

“Come in, please,” he said warmly, trying to reassure the woman that he meant her no harm, “and close the door behind you.”

She complied but tarried at the threshold. Why was she so afraid? Did she fear she was being punished?

“I mean you no harm, I promise,” Leopold remarked, “but please step forward into the light. It is important that we complete the discourse we began this evening.”

The woman in pink stepped into the light. Leopold was stunned. She was not the maiden he’d met earlier that night, at least not
officially
. If he’d had his way, she would have been the first woman he greeted. She was still enchanting as she stood timidly before him, even without her striking yellow gown and diamond tiara.

“What are
you
doing here?” he implored.

“Forgive me, Your Highness,” she said. “I mean no disrespect by being here. I come in Ella’s place. She asked me to.”

Ella! That’s right. The short version of her mother’s name.

“What do you mean ‘she asked you to’? Who are you; what is your name?”

“I am Ella’s cousin, Your Highness. Aislinn. My name is Aislinn.”

Ella had navigated most of the castle’s inner sanctum without assistance. It was unsettling. Hours before there had been too many people to count. Now…where was everyone? Weren’t there supposed to be servants, and guards, and even castle mice scuttling through the halls? Ella reminded herself that King William was dead. The kingdom was, for all intents and purposes, in a state of mourning. Ella conjectured that must have included those that lived and worked within the castle as well. Isolda had given vague information. It was only as she was exiting Ella’s home that Isolda turned and specified just where the prince wanted to conduct their meeting.

The Prince’s private chamber in the eastern wing of the castle.

Ella knew better than to trust her aunt or any information the woman may have gleaned from the Duchess of Timmelin. Still, Ella knew no other option. And she did not have sufficient time to investigate Isolda’s claims as she would have liked.

“Young lady, may I help you?”

Ella, startled, turned around and saw a striking man with a wide chest and short blond hair approach her. He was not a castle guard, or at least his uniform was not the same as the rest of the guards she’d seen that night. Would he still expel her for trespassing?

“Yes, sir,” she said, her pulse racing. “I know this may seem crazy, but I seem to be lost. This is a maze. Am I in the eastern wing?”

The man chuckled. “It is not crazy,” he assured her. “It is a grand castle. The largest of its kind. Might I ask what you are in need of in the eastern wing?”

Ella would not have thought it possible, but her heartbeat accelerated yet again.

Do I lie? What legitimate reason could I give for my presence here?

“I was told by my good friend the Duchess of Timmelin,” Ella began, “that I might find the prince and our beloved queen in this part of the castle. She told me that Prince Leopold had summoned me.”

“The Duchess of Timmelin?”

“Yes.”

“Very well then. Come with me. You are actually quite far from your destination.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Ella followed the man. She’d sworn to Marion that she would be careful. Walking mere centimeters behind a large, slightly menacing man in a darkened hallway without another soul in sight was the antithesis of being careful. However, once again, it was not like she’d perused a variety of options and simply chosen, just for the hell of it, the most absurd, reckless, and unpromising course of action. She did not know what else to do.

“Thank you again…” Ella said, phrasing her speech so as to invite her guide to complete the sentence.

“Halsty,” he said, without glancing in her direction, “Sergeant James Halsty, miss.”

The man named Halsty led Ella down one last hallway toward white double doors with gold-plated knobs. It was certainly an ornate entryway. There was no reason why the doors wouldn’t lead into the prince’s private dormitory. Would he already be there? She was a little early. Slivers of light peeked out from the space where the door’s edge skimmed the floor. Any light was a welcome change to the bleak atmosphere that caked the air. Halsty opened the left door and motioned for Ella to enter. She complied. The room was enormous and well lit. There were items of furniture everywhere. Wouldn’t Leopold want privacy? Though the room would most certainly only be occupied by him and Ella that night, it still sang its presence to those who might have passed the hallways that cut to the center of the double doors like a ‘T’. And it was most certainly not discreet to those who might peer from the city streets at the gaping fenestra for a quick look-see.

Ella entered nonetheless. She jumped when the door slammed behind her. Where was Leopold? She was early, yes, but he should have been there.
Someone
should have been there. The walls gawked at Ella like she had just entered a sporting arena they’d already been watching for hours. She neared the center of the room, where sat a long conference-like table with many chairs tucked nicely below its planking top.

What is this place?

Ella didn’t know. She did know, however, in the chambers of her heart saved only for the crudest forms of survival said that she should not stay. She knew not where she would go.

Just go.

“How wonderful it is to see again this evening, Ella.”

His voice spliced her nerves so violently that Ella experienced, in a second, what it might have felt like to have currents of frigid water drown her skin from the inside. She did not turn. She was so paralyzed in fear, just the cool breeze against the hairs of her arm invoked pain. It even throbbed in her fingertips. Besides, she did not need to look. He was behind her, standing between her and the door through which she’d entered, the only way out.

“Come now,” Thurlow said gallantly, “you act as though you’ve never met me before in your life. We are old friends in a way, wouldn’t you say? I’ve told you again and again that you have nothing to fear from me. Yet you don’t believe me. I asked you earlier tonight if you were ready. Do you remember that, Ella? No? Then I will ask you again: Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” she said, trembling.

“Revolution, my dear. Time for a change.”

Ella said nothing.

“You know what?” Thurlow went on. “You deserve better than this. You are not just some aimless, unrefined army grunt that I need to butter up to for my garrison. My apologies, Ella. From now on, you will get only the truth from me.”

“What do you want from me?” Ella demanded. Why had she wasted her fleeting strength to pose a question to which she already knew the answer?

“Before tonight, it was quite simple what I wanted. You were to be my bride, Ella. The mother of my heir. My queen. Before those people outside of that window even blink, their beloved Prince Leopold will be lying alongside his dead father and I will be the one to claim the throne in his place. I need a queen; that was where you were going to come in, Ella. But now…”

“What do you mean Prince Leopold will be lying alongside his father?” Ella said, mustering the courage to turn around and face the monster that had haunted her dreams and even her nightmares for two years. “Are you saying you intend to kill him?”

“Not me. I am sworn to protect him. One of your friends will kill him.”

“What?”

“You are fond of the Gypsies in Kersley, no? Of course you are. And of course you know that they are a defiant people. They mock our way of life, our laws, and the status quo. Everything that good Christian men and women stand for. King William ordered their expulsion from Kersley and the hinterlands of Gwent only weeks ago. Why, if I were a Gypsy, that would make me insanely angry. I might even want the very despot that uprooted my family to be wiped from the face of the earth. So I conspire to kill him myself. But no. The tyrant succumbs to death before I have a chance to dispatch him. My wrath is left unsatisfied. Then I remember that his son, an elitist son of a bitch like his father, will take the throne. What better way to ensure my revenge on the one and only child of my greatest enemy?”

“You’re mad! How will you ever force anyone to kill a prince?”

“Don’t make things more complicated than they need to be. We, by which I mean my men and myself, will do the killing. Then we will leave the scene to our most worthy candidate, a Gypsy man you may or may not know. The guards enter. They find a murdered prince and bloody Gypsy with the murder weapon on his person. Of course he will deny it. No one will believe him. They are all, of course, liars and thieves. Still, he will undoubtedly try to escape. My men will have no choice but to capture and interrogate him in our own special prison we call
the lair
. Under severe ‘coercion’, the assassin will finally confess that not only did he kill the prince, but that he did so under the tutelage of our supposed allies, the Earls of Hedensburg. Well, we will have no choice but to defend our land and our honor.”

“You would start a war?” Ella cried. For the first time ever she was shocked by the scope of Thurlow’s wickedness.

“We are already at war, Ella,” Thurlow professed, for once the smug expression that had all but crystallized across his bearded face vanishing. “We are simply moving the players around, like a chess board. Hedensburg is not our main target, though we will pretend it is. No. It is a means to an end. Our true target is…” He stopped.

“What is it, you bastard?”

“Perhaps I have said too much already.”

“Too much? You are like a spoiled, petulant twelve-year-old girl when it comes to blathering. Why stop now? You know you can’t resist.”

“Well, now I know I have said too much. You know me all too well, Ella. Try hard enough and it won’t be too difficult to solve your own query.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Captain Thurlow, but I am not well versed in warfare and the hedonistic measures one might take to inflict it upon the world.”

“Well, let me enlighten you. Hedensburg will attack us. We will fight back. Our superior army will prevail, but not before the forces of Hedensburg attack the cities of Gwent, raping and pillaging as they go. If they elect not to take that course, the Hussars will do it in their place. The nobility of Gwent will be eviscerated with the invisible hand that all will believe belongs the earls. Only then will we conquer our enemies and reintroduce our kingdom into the age of socialism. Do you understand now, Ella? There will be no more elitism or class distinction. Every man will be equal to his neighbor. And I will be the king to them all. It sounds strange to say, but I suppose our true target is Gwent itself.”

Just go; you have to try.

Ella jumped toward the table directly to her right. She hadn’t the slightest inkling of how she was going to leap over it or if she would try to delve beneath it. She simply lunged. He would undoubtedly catch her; there was no way he could allow her to live after all he’d just copped to.

Instead of attempting to escape by either topside or underneath the table, Ella avoided it all together. She sprinted toward the far northern portion of the large chamber. Maybe there was another door she had yet to see. Either the force of Thurlow’s body against her back or being crushed beneath him as they plummeted to the ground left Ella without breath. She gasped, her mouth pressed against the cold floor. Thurlow took a handful of her hair and forced her to turn over so that she could see that he was there, hovering over her, weighing her down with his mere presence. Ella clawed at his face. Her right hand caught the skin at the corner of his left eyes and she dug her nails as mercilessly as she could against the surface, trying to reach his eyes. Thurlow cursed and ripped her hand away from his face. His fist struck her across her check. Ella cried. She’d never experienced such stabbing pain to her body. Then he hit her again, in her left eye. Her entire head began throbbing.

“Don’t you realize what you could have had?” He yelled at her, a thick droplet of blood rolling down his cheek. “I was offering you the world. Then you go and ruin everything by plotting to kill me.”

“I was trying to save you,” Ella sobbed, wishing more than anything that the weak but still beating heart of her strong self could penetrate her voice and steal away from Thurlow the pleasure of hearing her cry. But she could not do it. The throbbing was too intense, the terror too overpowering.