Midnight Falls: A Thrilling Retelling of Cinderella (9 page)

The young maid bowed and promptly obeyed.

“Wait, Mother,” Bethany said, dropping her feet to the floor, “what about me? I want try the yellow one.”

“Hah! Don’t make me laugh,” Aislinn said snidely.

“Then don’t look back in that mirror,” Bethany riposted, gleefully.

“Both of you, stop this nonsense at once,” Isolda commanded. “You are much too old to be bickering back and forth like that. It is murder on my nerves!”

“I would like to try the yellow one, Mother,” Bethany repeated, polite to excess.

“Darling, I heard you, but it is late. Besides, if you want to know how these dresses would look on you, it is simple. They would look the same as they did on your sister. Your bodies are identical.”

Bethany tried to quell her disappointment. She had become better at it over time. When she had been a young teenager and Aislinn would get to do everything first or be given the nicer items on the condition that she “share them with her little sister”, Bethany would throw fits and flail her arms until she would get what Aislinn had. Isolda assumed Bethany would be the more difficult teenager because of her tantrums, but she was incorrect. At some point, Bethany figured out that, while crying uncontrollably eventually got her whatever Aislinn had, it was not what she really wanted. Bethany had wanted to be first. She hated how secondary and almost expendable she was to her mother. Isolda spent more time doting on Aislinn’s appearance and her wardrobe then she did with any of Bethany’s artwork or her music. In the beginning, Bethany felt that Aislinn must be at a disadvantage. Their mother was constantly nitpicking everything about her. Isolda never was that way with Bethany. She would make suggestions; sometimes even scold her daughter’s aesthetic choices, but it was never more than an afterthought. Bethany came to believe it was because she was perfect the way she was and Aislinn needed all the improvement.

When the sisters turned sixteen years old, however, Bethany finally grasped the reality of her second-class citizenship. Aislinn was a stunning teenager. Physically, some would even say she was quite flawless. But it was still not enough for her mother. Isolda never failed to prod Aislinn for more attention to the specifics of beauty and decorum. Bethany, on the other hand, was becoming less and less elegant with each day. She’d spend more time outdoors and inside reading than with her appearance. One day, she noticed that her mother did not mind. And it was then that Bethany learned the truth. Aislinn was the one that needed to be improved because she was the one with potential. Bethany was simply just…present. Isolda troubled herself very little with Bethany’s wants and desires, but humored her with gifts and periodic attention simply to avoid her temper. Isolda was invested in Aislinn; she simply endured Bethany.

Bethany had not yet learned the reason for such, even in her early adulthood. She wasn’t entirely convinced she wasn’t overreacting. She held out hope that her mother was indeed, at least in the important ways, a good mother.

“Mother,” Bethany said, “before Aislinn has a chance to gloat that she is considerably more endowed than I, I want a chance to try the gown on before a royal ball that may not actually happen.”

“Yes, of course, fine, Bethany,” Isolda said quickly, tired of her daughter’s relentlessness. “And let me state clearly that there
will
be a ball upon Prince Leopold’s return from his service. The queen is adamant about those kinds of things. She wants grandchildren and she intends to give her son no alternative but to choose a wife from the aristocracy of Gwent. It is conjecture, yes, but in this case, and from my source, conjecture might as well be fact.”

“She doesn’t just want grandchildren,” Bethany said, “she wants a daughter; a daughter she can mold into any person she likes and live through vicariously.”

“Why do you think you know so much?” Aislinn asked while undressing.

“When you go to all those tea parties and social functions, Aislinn, do you even bother to listen?” Bethany petitioned. “I do not attend as often as you do but I certainly observe a great deal when I am there.”

“So what?” Aislinn said, throwing her dress to the floor.

“Aislinn,” Isolda shouted, “do not treat your gowns this way! My goodness, take heed at how much these ensembles cost.”

“So they are Aislinn’s gowns that she must share with me?” Bethany asked, though it was not really an inquiry.

Isolda shook her head and held her forehead in her palm. “Bethany,
please
,” she begged, “not right now. I simply am too tired for it. Yes, you may wear the yellow dress! Wear it to bed if it makes you happy. Just stop pestering me.”

Bethany hid the painful sting as best she could but she could not ignore the impulse to bite back. What did she have to lose? Her mother’s respect? You must actually have something before you can lose it.

“I imagine Ella will be at this impending gala,” Bethany said, sliding back on the bed until she sunk into the sea of pillows. “She is as exquisite as the day is long if I do say so myself. It seems foolish to think the prince won’t be interested in getting to know her.”

Aislinn stopped moving, the bodice of her last gown just barely over her slender shoulders. Isolda was stunned by Bethany’s tone, but was quick to buoy Aislinn’s confidence back to where it should be.

“Bethany,” Isolda said slowly, “it seems it has been too long since you have visited your cousin. If you saw her as of late, what with the audience she’s been keeping and the callousness she imparts on each person she meets, you would not be confident in the slightest that she will be welcome at any royal function. Furthermore, even if she were invited, her beauty is nothing like Aislinn’s. Ella is a cutout, a formulaic combination of desirable physical elements in a woman. But she is nothing more than that. She does not radiate light; she is not a wisp of fresh air against your skin. She is stale. We have nothing to fear in Ella.”

“We would be unwise to assume that she is not pining for the throne, Bethany,” Aislinn contended. “I’ve known since we were all children that she craves attention and believes herself above everyone.”

“I’ve known her as long as you have, Sister,” Bethany asserted, “and I’ve only ever seen her resist most attention from others.”

“She is a glutton for the approval of others. Especially men,” Aislinn countered.

“Don’t be foolish,” Bethany said frankly, “you know that can’t be true. Ella could not stray fast or far enough to avoid Father’s
approval
.”

It was if the room was suddenly being crushed from the inside out. Bethany’s heart began pounding. She shot up from the pillows and climbed off her mother’s bed as quickly as she could. How could she have said such a thing in her mother’s presence? How could she have even said it at all? Isolda’s face went white. Aislinn stood with her mouth gaping. Even Greta was motionless. Bethany prayed for the miracle of rewound time. She berated herself, figuring she had never really grown out of her old tantrums; they had just morphed into brutal sarcasm.

“Mother,” Bethany stuttered, “I—I don’t—“

Isolda didn’t wait to hear her daughter’s excruciating attempt at apology. She stood and hustled toward the door. Both Aislinn and Bethany called for her as she exited the room. There was no reply.

“How could you?” Aislinn chided.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Bethany replied, tears welling in her eyes.

“You want to know why Mother distrusts you? It is because you act as callous toward her feelings as she does.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Ella. Our ‘exquisite’ cousin!”

Chapter Seven

Ella did not typically run out of things to do on an average day. She enjoyed reading, drawing, sewing, and visiting with friends, few as they were. She woke up and went to bed early. She said her prayers and read her Bible faithfully. It was a structured existence; Ella didn’t mind it. Or at least she had thought as much until Gabriel came into her life. In two days, her routine changed from reading, walking, and sewing to educating Gabriel on every nuance of her Uncle Peter, her relationships with her family including her less-than-congenial Aunt Isolda, and reviewing the fellow members of her aristocratic community from whom she was estranged. Almost every item Gabriel had requested of Ella required, to that point, little sacrifice on her part. With one exception: instead of walking, Gabriel insisted Ella learn to ride a horse.

“No thank you,” Ella said as Gabriel trotted over to her on his own horse, whom he introduced as Seely. He towed with him one of the horses that Ella owned. Ella had named the stallion Fitzpatrick and she indeed fancied the horse. But she never rode him, only fed him and allowed others to ride him at their leisure. (Though it had been years since anyone had taken her up on the offer.)

“It is utterly insane that you have a splendid, albeit overweight, horse as this and yet you insist on walking everywhere you go, even if it is miles away,” Gabriel said, dismounting.

“Fitzpatrick is splendid, you are correct, but I prefer walking,” Ella replied, smoothing the horse’s mane. “I have not ridden since I was eight years old.”

“Oh? What happened when you were eight years old?”

“I had an accident is what happened, and broke my arm, my collarbone, and two fingers.”

Ella recalled the day vividly. Her father was riding closely behind her and, with his watchful gaze, she felt more than competent to jump over a fallen tree branch. When the horse bucked instead of leaping, Ella remembered only the sound of her father’s hollering and the inability to breathe as soon as she hit the ground.

“That certainly does sound traumatic for a small child,” Gabriel said, walking to Ella’s side and joining her as she continued petting Fitzpatrick. “Is that the most painful thing you’ve endured, physically?”

The question shocked Ella.

“Why do you want to know that?” she asked.

“Well I am just curious as to what a person in your social class endures in terms of physical pain.”

“About as much as any other person,” Ella responded, slightly perturbed by his innuendo that she knew little of what it meant to endure pain. “You would agree breaking a bone hurts no matter who your parents are or where you live.”

Gabriel laughed. “Quite so,” he said, “I am just trying to learn more about you and your kind of people.”

“My kind of people?” Ella said, taking Fitzpatrick by the bit and walking him toward the yard. “Isn’t it my kind of people that you are so keen to be become acquainted with,
Uncle
Peter
?”

“You mustn’t be so sensitive, Ella,” he said, escorting Seely and himself behind her. “I am just making conversation. I imagine this contentiousness is one of the reasons you are not always invited to social functions.”

Ella huffed. “Well,” she said haughtily, “I suppose you are here to correct me of that habit. You best get started!”

“If such a thing were possible,” Gabriel replied, “then my tasks would be impossible as it was your complicated rapport with said societal conventions that made me choose you at all. How else would I have been able to convince you to help me? You think a debutante like your aunt would even consider hearing out a lunatic ex-soldier like me? No. Save some of your passion for the stage, Ella. All I want at this particular juncture is a small ride around the fields.”

“Why?”

“Because it is a good skill, I am dying for some exercise, and I think your being several feet away from me on a horse would keep me safe during the remainder of our conference this morning.”

Ella stopped and dropped her head. She laughed a little under her breath. “Very well,” she said, pulling Fitzpatrick to her side, “but only a stroll.” Ella pulled up the skirt of her dress and lifted her foot to the stirrup. It took her several tries to finally get her toe in and by the time she was able to lift herself into the saddle, Gabriel was mounted and revving to depart. Her skirt was bunched awkwardly between her body and the pommel. She tried to straighten it but the activity caused Fitzpatrick to lurch forward and begin walking. She was stuck in her ineptness. Gabriel waited for her to catch up and could not help but smile when he noticed her clumsiness. Ella saw his sentiment and it was all she could do not to…to…

Damn it! I am stuck on this blasted horse,
Ella thought,
I can’t do a blasted thing
!

“You’re not too bad,” Gabriel said, “just try to relax.” Ella didn’t feel like talking so she avoided it as long as she could. After a few minutes she was a less finicky. The movement had caused her skirt fabric to untangle and she was able to concentrate on the real reason she was supposed to be out there at all.

“So, do you or do you not want me to fit in with Gwent’s aristocracy?” she asked.

“Ella,” Gabriel said, glancing over at her, “I would never presume to change you. Though I do, personally, find your combative nature somewhat…trying, I am confident that you have legitimate reasons you are the way you are.”

“Thank you… I suppose,” Ella muttered, irritated that she was never quite sure his statements were sincere or sarcastic.

“I am only asking you to play a part. Everything I need from you is predicated upon your talents as an actress.”

“And yours, let’s not forget. Aren’t you supposed to be learning more about my Uncle Peter?”

Gabriel’s face lifted, almost startled. Had he been enjoying his ride with her so much he forgot about everything he was there to accomplish? Another error on his part.

“Yes, of course. Go ahead; tell me everything I need to know about him.”

“Well, what do you want to know, exactly?”

“Let’s start with his mannerisms. What does he look like? How old is he? What are his talents?”

“Well, let me stop you there and remind you that I have little to no memory of the man. These are questions that would best be answered by Marion. But I can tell you that he was many years younger than my mother, probably only a few years older than you are now. He had brown hair, and was on the short side.”

“Well, I can manage two of those things, I suppose.”