Midnight Falls: A Thrilling Retelling of Cinderella (43 page)

Even under torture, you had such dignity about you. It is ironic really. Benjamin was nothing like that.

Then Gabriel saw Ella’s bruised face and torn gown. He enclosed Thurlow’s neck in his hands and began squeezing the life from his body. He watched, possessed, as his mortal enemy endeavored to claw away at his attacker’s hands in a futile attempt to save his own life.

Until you are willing to face the light with someone who loves you…then you will always been in exile. Thurlow may have tortured your body, Gabriel. But you have been doing it to your soul ever since.

Gabriel saw Ella; he
heard
her. He wanted to call to her but knew she would never hear it. They were too far from one another. She was lying there in a pile of broken glass and the man that professed to love her was not there with her. That was all Ella had ever really asked: just for him to be there.

Gabriel’s hands loosened, relinquishing their fatal hold. He looked down at Thurlow’s beaten face. His enemy’s eyes were bloodshot, bulging from their sockets and his lips were swollen and bloody, his teeth broken. He was struggling to breathe, more dead than alive. Gabriel opened his mouth to gloat triumphantly. He could have killed the man, but had chosen not to. He was the victor and could destroy Thurlow whenever he wanted. He’d proven it. Gabriel was itching to proclaim the rite of privilege that was born when someone was imbued with authority to annihilate life but chose to disregard it. Mercy: the ultimate power. Thurlow had been reduced to blood-soaked dust. Gabriel wanted to relish the moment, to own it. But something prevented him from following through with his glorious taunt. Instead Gabriel, almost mechanically, uttered words he never believed he would say to his greatest enemy.

“I’m sorry.”

It couldn’t be possible. Thurlow was a murderer, a monster. He would have killed both Gabriel and Ella without a second thought. He was even willing to slay his own brother. How could Gabriel apologize to a man he could not even forgive? It made no sense. If he wasn’t sorry to Thurlow, then whom? He did not understand it; he wondered if he ever would.

Gabriel stood. His own body was throbbing terribly but still he turned and began running as quickly as he could back to Ella. After only a few seconds, Prince Leopold rounded a corner and almost collided with Gabriel. The prince—the
King
—commanded the stranger to halt. The man did not comply.

Miles Gamely and the rest of his garrison rounded the same corner, just seconds after Leopold. They’d come, per Sergeant Halsty’s unsolicited instructions, to apprehend Captain Thurlow. Like Leopold, Miles was stopped short in his steps when he saw Thurlow, the object of his hunt, toiling to make it to his own feet.

Thurlow clutched the wall to aid in his ascent. Once standing, he beheld Leopold, his brother, watching him. Thurlow could not think. He could not feel. There was only confusion and anguish. The captain reached into his jacket and pulled out, for the second time, a crumpled-up parchment. It had once been rolled meticulously and emblazoned with the royal seal of Gwent but had been almost thrashed during his and Gabriel’s epic battle.

He could not think. He could not feel. He was broken. Thurlow looked down at the document that was supposed to have been his voucher into a world he’d dreamed of since childhood. Instead, it was an anvil to his final destination. Gazing one last time at Leopold, the King of Gwent, Thurlow tossed the parchment to the ground.

“For you, Brother,” he pronounced as Leopold eyed the crumpled parchment on the ground. Thurlow looked down at it too, one last time; it was his own deathbed confession.

With an uncanny lift to his step, he turned toward the window at the end of the thoroughfare and ran. He did not slow at the staircase. He simply ran. When he hit the tall, wide window with his entire body, the glass did not resist. It split first and then shattered, granting Thurlow unfettered access to his next life in Heaven or in Hell.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Ella blinked her eyes a few times before they truly opened. Her head ached, her knee was mercilessly sore. But that was not all. There was
more
. She felt like something was clasping the right side of her face and with each second it was getting tighter. Ella raised her fingertips to the source of the peculiar sting. She felt coolness, a twinge of discomfort, and hastily withdrew her fingers. She held them in front of her eyes. They were red with blood. Ella screamed.

Then Gabriel was there and he held her in his arms.

To my son, William Leopold Hoffeline II;

Just one of my punishments, my son, is my inability to utter these words aloud to you. God knows, I tried. But it is as though they are damned somewhere within my spirit. And thus my spirit is destroyed because of it.

I am sorry I was not a better father. To either you or your brother Wilhelm Thurlow DeGent. You will no doubt have learned this truth before you read my confession. I am sorry. I am a coward. I never knew how to tell you.

And I am a fool. He saved my life and I still did not know how to claim him as my son. So I did the only thing I could think that came close. I gave him my kingdom as a playground. When I began to see the man that he was becoming, a wicked man, I felt I owed it to him to believe he could be better than he was. And he would have been better, my son, if he had ever known you, if you had been allowed to be his brother and friend. Of that I am certain.

I will be meeting God soon. I will meet all the prophets and apostles of old. Didn’t the prophet Isaac have two sons who both coveted their birthright? Did Isaac fail by favoring Jacob? Perhaps the good Lord had mercy on a man like Isaac. Perhaps he will grant such pardon to me. I suppose not. I can’t imagine a less deserving creature of divine mercy than a failed father.

I love you, my son. Please forgive me.

Your Father

Leopold returned again to his private chamber, clutching his sorrow in his hand.

For you, my brother.

Leopold prayed Aislinn was still there. Mercifully, she was.

Who else could he talk to? He squeezed the thick letter in his hand. He could not hold it tightly enough. No matter how hard he compressed, it did not disappear. Who else could he talk to that didn’t already know all the sordid details of the broken, devastated monarch within the vast postern gate of Gwent’s citadel?

“Are you all right, Your Highness?” Her voice was gentle and inviting.

“No,” he replied, “as a matter of fact, I am not.”

“Should I leave?”

“No! Please stay. And please call me Leopold.”

She was sitting on a cushioned window seat. Leopold partly expected her to stand and approach him. She did not. Instead, she scooted over as far as she could and patted the seat next to her. There was scarcely enough space for them both to rest comfortably, but Leopold took the seat beside her anyway. For several moments, neither of them spoke. Finally, the swelling in his chest was too profound for him to ignore.

“This entire show that we put on tonight,” he said, “you know, with the army and everything. That was all because of Thurlow. I knew he was…a bad man. But once I became king, I owed it to my subjects and my father not to dismiss him simply because I did not like him or because of gossip. I had to get something definitive. I had to trap not only Thurlow, but also the Hussars. Both Commander Gamely and I were sure it would be Thurlow that entered the room to kill me. Then that whole charade with Sergeant Halsty would not have been necessary. Thurlow would be exposed in his treachery and there would be no more question of his guilt. But Miles Gamely and I devised a strategy just in case Thurlow didn’t come. Halsty was the sacrificial lamb. Well, he deserved it. At least now
that
criminal is in prison.”

“Why did you want to speak with Ella tonight, Your Highness, if you already knew all of it? Do you…fancy her?”

Leopold looked at her and the swelling in his chest returned. He would not ignore it this time. “It is true. Ella had not shared anything with me that I did not already know,” Leopold explained, “but she said there was some man that I needed to speak with, that could tell me more. That was why I summoned her, Aislinn.”

“What did you mean when you said you had already staked your life on what Ella told you?”

“It was because of her that we staged the entrapment at all. Before Ella’s declamation, and before my father’s death, Miles and I were prepared to simply wait out the night and watch Thurlow and the Hussars carefully, waiting for them to provide an opportunity to justly seize them.”

“I see.”

“But none of it really matters anymore.” Leopold looked down.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the crushed paper in his fist.

“It is my crutch. It is a sorrow I have carried all my life but only now know why.”

She gazed up at him, spellbound.

“It is a letter from my father,” he went on, opening up the paper though he knew she would not try to read it. “In it he tells me that he is sorry. He states all his regrets. He says he is a terrible father, a coward, and a man who never learned how to make amends. He only ever made things worse.”

“How sad for him to believe that about himself.”

“But it’s true, Aislinn. Everything to which he confessed was truth.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he lied to me. He hid something from me that he had no right to conceal!” Leopold felt tears well up in his eyes. He was ashamed to have her see it.

“I had a brother, Aislinn,” he said, his emotions getting the better of him. “I had a brother that I hated without knowing it. I had a brother that I never got a chance to meet. Not for real. I never had a chance to…help him. It was Thurlow, Aislinn. Captain Thurlow was my brother. And now he is dead. He killed himself.”

She gasped. “I am sorry, Leopold,” she said, trying to remain unruffled though the weightiness of Leopold’s saga was indeed a hauntingly suspenseful tale.

“It’s not your fault,” he said quietly.

She did not respond for several seconds. She hardly knew what she could say to him to allay his grief.

“I’m still sorry,” she said, finally.

Leopold looked over to her methodically. Would she be his second rescuer that evening? “Aislinn,” he said, inviting her attention, “can I request something of you?”

“Of course.”

“Tell me how you imagine the most perfect first encounter to go with the man who would become your husband?”

She felt her heart flutter. “Oh goodness, I don’t know,” she lied. “I have not given it much thought.”

“I have.”

“Oh?”

“But not in the way that most people would, I think.”

“Well, I am a person. Try me.”

“Let me see if I can put it to words. I’ve only ever gathered these notions in my mind. I would never have known whom to share them with. I suppose I would want to see her, my wife, be more than she was born to be. I would like her to have the courage to step outside the expectations of her birth and society. It sounds trite, even clichéd, I know.”

“No it doesn’t. It is not as simple as we would like it to be. To many, Thurlow was a hero, in fact a pioneer of sorts. But you would call him misguided. You would have tried to help him. Perhaps that makes you heroic. I don’t know; I am a little out of my element here.”

“I am not heroic, Aislinn. Wishing I had been able to know my brother before his descent into malevolence is not courageous.”

“It is to me. At least it would have been a promising first step.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Life is just steps, Your Highness.” she said, forming her words only the second before she uttered them. “Steps are all we are capable of. I don’t believe bravery is anything more than a step, one meager step by someone who performed an extraordinary act. Just once. But the next day, with the next step, they react differently and become a villain, simply because their intentions were self-serving or misguided. It is a teetering pendulum, Your Highness. We all bounce all around, dodging the pendulum like it won’t just come back, perpetually testing us.”

“And?”

“Well, it sounds to me like you want a woman, a wife, who is a good stepper. Who doesn’t try so hard to be heroic, just steps well and is willing to accept the consequences of where she ends up. I’ve never thought about it much until now. It is kind of childish and asinine in a way. Oh well; it’s late and I am quite tired.”

“Everything important in life is just steps, huh?”

“Well, that or the
destination
. Where all the steps lead. Choose your mantra; it’s all semantics anyway.”

“How do you know so much?”

“I know nothing. I am quite dumb, in truth, but once in a while I say smart things.”

“I think I believe in heroes, even after what you’ve just proposed.”

“Oh?

“I think you’ve just convinced me that a heroine is exactly what I want.”

“I have?”

She did not realize how close they had come to one another physically….but more than just their bodies. He took her face in his hands. His breath was so warm and intoxicating.

“I want to marry you,” he whispered.