“For the ball tomorrow night. Madame Irmina told us it was to be in your honor, so I thought you might want to try on your gown in advance—”
“Not now, Cindergirl. I will tell you when I need a gown fitted. You do not decide.”
Thinking it would be wise to change topics, Cinderella said, “Did you have an enjoyable ride out into town yesterday?”
She almost added “with the prince,” but she bit her tongue.
Genevieve powdered her nose, then snapped the compact shut. “What didyoudo during your morning off, Cindergirl?”
“Me?” she stammered. “I... I went to the library.”
“What for? I didn’t ask for any books.”
“For myself, ma’am.” Cinderella bit her tongue. Much as she liked the duchess, she didn’t dare tell her she’d been trying to learn more about magic to help her fairy godmother. “Now that I’m working in the palace, I wanted to learn more about Aurelais’s history, and about the people in the portraits I’ve seen in all the halls.”
“Bah. My family is hardly worth reading about.”
“Is that what’s been bothering you, ma’am?”
“What’s bothering me is my own business. Let me be. No, wait.” A sigh. “I’m not rankled atyou.”
Is it the Grand Duke?Cinderella wondered. But she didn’t dare ask.
“I would have thought that after ten years the palace would have changed. Honestly, had I known that everyone here was still churlish and narrow-minded, I would never have come. Even George... oh, he’s been cordial enough to me and I to him, but we’ve been dancing around our past, as if it never happened.”
“Maybe you should talk to him about it.”
“I should.” She gave a morose smile. “But pride has always been my strong suit, you see, and George’s, too. I don’t even remember who started the argument, not that it matters. Thankfully, Charles is more like his mother. He will make a fine husband and father one day.”
Cinderella’s heart quickened a beat, but she said nothing.
“One day soon,” added the duchess. “George is eager to have his son wed. Maybe tonight Charles will meet someone.”
Cinderella looked up at the duchess. Summoning her courage, she asked, “Do you think the girl with the glass slipper will return? Do you think she...shouldreturn?”
The duchess wrinkled her nose. “If you ask me, it’d be best if my nephew never saw that girl again.”
The words stung Cinderella. Yet how could she blame the duchess? To her—toeveryone—the identity of the elusive young lady dressed in a moonlight-blue gown and glass slippers, who had riveted the entire ball and captured the heart of the prince, was a mystery. And the greater puzzle was why she—Cinderella—had vanished, leaving the prince heartbroken.
Even Louisa was fascinated by the runaway princess. Fascinated, and also incredulous.
“She must be very rich and very powerful,” she’d said one evening while Cinderella was helping her finish some mending in the servants’ quarters. “Who else would run away from a chance to marry the prince of Aurelais?”
“Maybe she isn’t either of those things,” Cinderella reasoned. “Maybe she was just a regular girl—like you or me—who stumbled upon the chance of a lifetime to go to a royal ball.”
“Regular girls like you or me don’t have a gown so fine, especially not one that fits so perfectly,” said Louisa sensibly, taking a seamstress’s point of view.
“Someone could have given it to her.”
“Ha!” Then Louisa tilted her head, considering. “Let’s imagine you’re right. Let’s say she’s a common girl like us. Maybe she fled because she was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“It’d be the only reasonable explanation. Say the prince fell in love with me... I’d be thrilled beyond all measure, but well, I’m not so naive as to think it would amount to anything. A prince marries a princess, not some palace seamstress.”
Cinderella couldn’t think of a response, so she’d simply nodded, her neck wooden as her head bobbed up and down.
Only she knew the truth. She’d fled because of what her fairy godmother had told her: that magic only lasted so long and her magnificent clothes and carriage would become rags and a pumpkin upon the stroke of midnight.
