“I feel exposed,” said Cinderella as Reina and Tiernan could only look at her with open-mouthed wonder.
Since this was where Tiernan usually said a semi-lewd comment, habit had Reina smacking his arm in warning. “You are truly a sight, and Henry will be known far and wide as the luckiest man who ever lived,” Reina told her.
Strong arms wrapped themselves around Reina, pulling her back into an embrace. “Second luckiest man, my love. Second luckiest.”
Reina’s cheeks heated, and Cinderella let out a giggle at her expression, both women calming down with that bit of normalcy.
Chapter Eleven
The ball was truly amazing, Cinderella thought, taking in the pageantry that surrounded her. It was nice to see the people in their finery, to hear the music and smell the food and enjoy everyone’s happiness.
Someone mentioned dancing, and her stomach turned over on itself. That was what she was truly looking forward to, dancing with Henry this night.
“Why, Cinderella, I would have never taken you for that type of woman.”
Cinderella turned to see an older woman from the village. She was titled, but amongst the peerage, her importance was negligible. She had only seen the woman a few times but didn’t remember her eyes to be so dark, the color almost as black as the center. Her tone, sly and insinuating, set Cinderella’s shoulders back. “What type, Madam? I don’t understand your meaning.”
“Looking like that, you are trying to pretend truly to not know?” When Cinderella, didn’t answer, the woman continued, “Well, no matter. Keep your front. To answer your question, I never took you as a woman looking for a benefactor.”
“A… no,” Cinderella whispered, her stepsister’s earlier conversation rampaging through her mind.
“What do think the purpose of this ball is? All unmarried maidens invited? True, some marriages will be brokered, but it because the Prince himself is looking for a mistress.”
“No, the Prince would never throw a ball for such a reprehensible purpose. Our Prince is not even married.”
Cinderella was treated to a look implying she was a simpleton. She continued on, the s of the words pronounced as if a snake made human were speaking “He has a wife… well, I should say, he will have a wife. The very credible rumor is treaty papers have been signed with a neighboring king, with marriage promised on both sides. However, as their princess is not highly attractive, our prince must find someone to meet his needs.”
Cinderella couldn’t stand to hear any more. “If you will excuse me, Madam, I must find my Stepmother.”
Both her stomach and her thoughts were roiling. Cinderella couldn’t believe such disgusting people could truly exist. How they could stand there and smile, talking about such things? Did they truly have no shame?
She didn’t want to see this prince, or any of these other men here who thought of women only as things to satisfy their lust.
Henry, she just wanted Henry. She wanted Henry to engulf her in his arms, let her know that decency still existed, that love was real.
Then she spotted him, in a corner, looking at the people in the ball, not having spotted her yet, and suddenly she could breathe again.
He was beautiful, sharply tailored, his clothing nicely displaying broad shoulders and thick legs.
She needed to be by his side, now. She needed to tell him how much she loved him, how much she appreciated his decency and honor, especially here, surrounded by such people.
Then his eyes found hers.
His gaze took her in, from the long tresses to the nicely displayed curves to the shoes peeping from underneath the hem.
Then he looked into her eyes again, and the heat in his made her take a step back. Having seen Tiernan with Reina, Cinderella now knew what that look meant, and she was sure he was going to sweep her in his arms and take her to the nearest bedchamber.
“Your Highness!”
Henry jumped, looking in the direction the voice came from. To Cinderella’s ears, it sounded similar to her stepsister.
The voice’s owner was nowhere to be found, but the commotion it caused turned all gazes to Henry.
A steward from the castle rushed over. “Your Highness, there you are. Your father is asking for you.”
While those who lived in the town looked on with confused eyes, other royals came over to greet Henry, speaking to him as if it was a common occurrence.
Somehow, the news wasn’t a surprise. Somehow, it seemed right that Henry, always so regal, so beautiful, it never fit that he was a mere messenger, of course he would be the prince. Of course he was not meant for someone like her.
Cinderella looked around, saw the women covered with jewels and the finest cloth. Saw, without even knowing their names, the pedigree each of them brought to the ball, the family names they clothed themselves in.
Her stepsister was correct. Yes, she was comely enough to attract a prince, comely enough that he had groomed her with years of lies to get her to this point, but she saw, standing here amongst those who were truly suitable to become queen, that he never had any intention of making her a wife.
She turned on her heel and fled.
“Cinderella!”
“What happened?” cried Reina as she saw Cinderella fleeing the ball.
They were invisible to the humans around them. They had just come back from a perimeter check to make sure none of the Elf King’s subjects were laying in wait when they saw Cinderella flee from Henry. This was most assuredly not how this night was supposed to end.
“Trip,” Tiernan said, letting the magic flow to Cinderella. Unfortunately, Cinderella was spry on her feet, and though she ended up losing a shoe, she kept going. Too many people surrounded Henry, including eventually his own father, and by the time he escaped their clutches she was long gone. He grabbed her shoe, holding onto it as though it were his last link to happiness.
“What do we do now?” asked Reina.
“Find out what happened,” Tiernan replied, voice and expression grim.
“The stepsister, the skinny one, she’s the key, I felt it earlier,” Reina said, self-loathing twisting her stomach. “I dismissed her. I was too sure she was nothing but a jealous twit, and I didn’t stay close.”
Tiernan nodded, but said nothing else.
Studying him, Reina realized his anger was not solely directed towards the stepsister or towards her mistake. “Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you,” he denied.
“Then who else beyond the stepsister are you mad at?”
He started to shake his head as if to deny it again, then stopped. “I’m mad at this situation, of your stupid rules that forced me to try for a HEA. If I had been left alone, Henry would have proposed to her several days ago, and right now, they would be announcing their engagement.”
Reina grabbed his shoulders. “Yes, they would be engaged, but it wouldn’t have been a HEA. The king would actively fight the engagement, and without the king’s blessing, the kingdom would never accept her. If that happened, Cinderella, being the person she is, would probably break the engagement off when she saw how it was hurting Henry’s relationship with his father and with his people. And Henry would probably let her. That’s why we needed an HEA.”
Tiernan gave her a look filled with disgust. “Why do you always assume the worst possibility? Henry would fight for her.”
As Tiernan’s anger started to direct towards her, Reina reacted. “How can you be sure of that? Why do you think he wouldn’t let her go? He’s a man of power, and she is a sweet, pretty young woman who has only love to give.”
His lip curled. “Just like once you were nothing but a woman with only love to give?”
Every line of her body tensed. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying not all of us are like your bastard ex!”
She jerked back as if slapped. “That has nothing to do with it.”
“It has everything to do with it,” he roared. “It has to do with you not
giving me a chance for thirty years. It has to do with you now not mentioning anything of our future once we go back. Why? Do you expect me to cast you aside?”
“Why not?” she screamed back at him. “You’ve had me now. There is no more challenge to be had, and you have your entire harem waiting for your return!”
“If all I wanted was meaningless fucks, I wouldn’t have been celibate for the last thirty years!”
The shock at those words nearly caused her knees to give out. “That’s a lie,” she said.
His eyes blazed. “I don’t lie, ever. I have loved you for thirty years, and I have waited for you. I’ve tried every way to get you to notice me. I acted professional, and when that didn’t work, I started flirting. I kept myself away from all the other women, then I feared you thinking I hated the life I was given, so I made friends. No matter which way I went, you blocked me, when every other FG in that compound knew how I felt about you. And if you ever bothered to take your head out of your ass and look at what was in front of you, you would have seen that!” As though he didn’t trust himself to be around her anymore, he abruptly left.
Henry left the ball after Cinderella’s exit, and with his disappearance came the gossip. When it was learned that Cinderella had left in a great upset, most of the villagers rushed from the ball themselves, their only intention to arrive at Cinderella’s home and see if they could help her.
Reina took all this in as the humans rushed past her incorporeal form, but she herself was removed from the situation. Tiernan and his words took up every spare space in her chest, and nothing else, not even worry for Cinderella, could penetrate.
She was barred, forced to do nothing but wait until she got word about Tiernan. It had to be his HEA, and if she did anything now, the Elf King would claim both victory and Tiernan’s life. Used to action and authority, at the time she needed both desperately to keep her mind occupied, and she was reduced to stillness.
With stillness came memory. With memory came doubt, doubt over what she knew. She saw Tiernan’s flirtations so clearly, but never in that time did she see anything romantic between him and any female. Innuendo, yes. Desire and yearning… but only on the part of the women. The only time she ever saw true desire in his eyes was when he looked at her.
She sank onto a bench at the banquet, the room only half filled, if that. Too many had left to check on Cinderella. The Stepmother and her daughters were here. While Reina was gratified they were alone with no one sitting near them, the joy she would have felt at that sight just this morning was absent.
Could she truly have been that great a fool? And a name, a name and face she had pushed away from her thoughts for almost a century, came unbidden.
Charm. Outside of both being beautiful men, charm was the first way Reina connected Tiernan with Denholm. Denholm’s manners were effortless, his smile able to turn women towards him without any words necessary. Certainly it took no effort to convince Reina of his intentions, of his sincerity, of how she was the only woman he wanted in his life and in his bed.
It was that damn charm that had put her defenses up against Tiernan, even more so than his looks. Yes, he had appealed to her physically in a way even Denholm hadn’t touched, but it was that charm that had her determined to erase him from the beginning. She refused to be such a fool, simpering over a man who could smile the same soulful smile at any woman. Who could smile at her in that special way, and then later that night be found in bed with two other women only days before their wedding.
But Tiernan had never done that, had he? His smile never held deceit. She stripped away his charm coloring her memories, and found only a man who honored his commitments, who took care of all those he considered under his care.
He never made a promise he didn’t keep.
He never lied by either word or deed.
He never looked at another woman while he was with her.
Denholm had. Even after their engagement, his eyes were always darting, taking in his surroundings, searching for something, someone. She never knew what exactly he desired. She only knew she never felt she was enough.
However, Tiernan’s eyes had never left her, no matter what their conversation, no matter what surrounded him. He only ever looked at her.
Tiernan said he loved her, and Tiernan never lied.
Her head sank. She felt the hard wood surface beneath her cheek, rough even with the linen covering. She had destroyed everything. She had taken a good man and thrown him away because of pride and willful blindness.
This night, she may not have only destroyed Cinderella’s Happily Ever After, but her own as well.
Chapter Twelve
Cinderella never returned home that night. The house was in an uproar the next day, all the townspeople who loved her having come to the manor after hearing that she had disappeared the night before. Search parties formed, prayers were held at the chapel, and the children cried in the streets.
Tiernan knew where to find Cinderella. It came to him, as his own heart cracked and bled when he left Reina.
He saw this in her file, a field of flowers beside a lake, the place where her parents met and the place she had gone often with them when they were alive. It was a place she associated with happiness, a reminder that even though her own chance at love may be gone, true love really does exist.
He gave her until late morning then appeared to her. She was still wearing the dress she wore the night before, her face still so beautiful even after the effects of a night of crying.
She didn’t show any surprise as he came to sit beside her, as if all her emotions had been drained from her the previous hours. “You found me,” she said, her voice dull.
“Yeah, I did.”
They sat in silence for several minutes, both looking out over the water.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?” Cinderella finally asked.
“I heard that you ran away from Henry,” Tiernan said, and at hearing his name, Cinderella’s eyes started welling up again.
Tiernan put one arm around her shoulders, giving her a comforting squeeze. “I don’t need the details,” Tiernan said. “There is only one thing you need to answer.”
“What’s that?” Cinderella sniffed.
“Is Henry a good man?”
“Before I heard—”
“No,” Tiernan interrupted. “You have a good heart, Cinderella. If you trust it, you’ll know exactly how to read people. So I ask you again, is Henry a good man?”
Cinderella closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Yes,” she answered.
“And you love him.”
“Yes,” she readily agreed. “But he lied to me, and I heard all these things, and I don’t know what to do.”
“You ask Henry, and you hear what your heart tells you,” Tiernan replied simply. “If he’s a good man, then you ask him, you listen to his answers, and you decide after that what happens. If he’s a good man, and you love him, that is the least you can do.”
Cinderella gave a watery laugh, wiping the tears from underneath her eyes. “What if I don’t like his answers?”
“Then you move on, because no one is worth you sacrificing your self-respect for. That way, though, you are moving deliberately with your head held high, not running scared.”
She nodded and sat looking at the water for several more minutes. Finally, she rose. “It’s time to get my answers. Do you want to join me?”
He stood as well and offered his arm. “Let’s go.”
In silence they made the trip from the pond to Cinderella’s home. As they neared the manor, Tiernan saw that the crowd has not dispersed. It had in fact grown larger waiting for Cinderella to return. From the opposite direction, he saw Henry riding up on a horse. Henry jumped off, running towards Cinderella, not stopping until he was in front of her.
“Tiernan,” he said, his eyes not leaving hers, “please let us alone.”
Cinderella took her arm from Tiernan’s and gave a nod of her head. Satisfie
d with that, Tiernan stepped back.
Henry seemed to be fighting himself to keep from reaching out to touch her. “I wanted to see my country as it truly was,” he began. “I had no desire to lie to anyone, but people treat a messenger differently than they treat a prince, at least most do.”
He didn’t stop himself this time. He let his hand come out and stroke her face. “You don’t. You treat everyone as though they are royalty. That’s the first thing I noticed about you, not your beauty. It was your kindness and decency, both things that I find to be in short supply in this world. You are a generous, compassionate, fearless being, and I am privileged in the knowing of you. I may have been born to a king, but you are truly the most royal of souls I have ever known.”
“You lied to me. You are to marry a princess,” Cinderella said, tears coming to her eyes, not daring to believe his words.
His hands gently cupped her face, and his forehead touched hers. “I only lied about my profession. Every other word I have ever spoken to you is truth, I swear on my kingdom. And the only woman I will ever marry is you, because you are the one I love above all others. When I wake up, your smile is the first thing I see in my mind, your name is the last word I speak before I fall asleep. I want it to be that way always, but I want from now on to see your smile with my eyes, and speak your name as you are in my arms.”
Her hands covered his, and her eyes closed as she pressed herself closer to him. “No one will approve, I have no name, no connections. What of His Majesty?”
“My father—”
“Is here,” a voice interrupted, and out from the crowd stepped a short round shape draped in a cloak. Taking it off, the King appeared, and as one, the crowd fell to their knees. “This incognito habit is very interesting, Henry. I realize why you’ve been doing it so long now. Fascinating!”
“Father.” Henry stepped back from Cinderella but grabbed her hand, holding it firmly to keep her by his side as he faced his father.
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