“I lost mine at a young age, too,” said Charles. He removed his mask, slipping it into his coat pocket.
“I remember,” Cinderella said softly. Though everyone had loved the gentle queen—and no one more than the prince—their mothers had died in the same year, and Cinderella recalled wondering if everyone in the town was wearing black to mourn her mama. “My father used to tell me that my mother was in heaven with the queen. He had a feeling they’d become friends, and they would watch over each other. That helped a little, to think that she was in a good place.”
“Were you very lonely without your mother?”
“Yes,” Cinderella admitted. “We did everything together when she was alive. She’d take me out to the gardens to play on our swing. She could name every bird in the sky and paint them, too. We were supposed to travel Aurelais together and collect flowers from every city, then paint them once we returned home.” She swallowed at the memory, one she had long forgotten until now. “Papa used to tease us for always being lost in our imaginations together. I still have a bad habit of falling into my daydreams.” Before he could ask her more, she said, “Were you... lonely?”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t have thought so if you’d been there. I was always surrounded by people. Tutors, advisers—everyone sought to shape how I thought because I’ll be the future king. There was no one I could really...”
“Talk to?” Cinderella finished for him.
Charles smiled. “Exactly.”
“I understand. Better than you know.”
Shadows flickered across the manicured bushes, and a chill swept over Cinderella. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” Creeping up toward the bushes, the prince surveyed the area. He grimaced. “The Grand Duke again, I’d wager. He must have talked to Pierre and gotten suspicious.” He stood. “Let’s get away from here. Why don’t I show you more of the grounds?”
Cinderella nodded. “I’d like that.”
Little by little, her nervousness faded, and she laughed when the prince told her how he used to run into the garden when he was a little boy, chased after by his tutors.
“I loathed my history lessons,” he confessed. “All the tutors always trying to impress upon me that I was related to these great kings, all of them with the same names. Always a variation of George, Louis, Charles, and George again. At least it made my exams easier.” The prince chuckled. “I must be boring you.”
“You’re not,” she assured him. “Though history was my favorite.”
Her father had hired tutors for her, but soon after he had died, her stepmother had put an end to her education. Sometimes, when she had to dust the library, she’d pore through the books on the shelves when no one was looking. Her stepmother had sold off the valuable ones long ago, but Lady Tremaine recognized that books looked impressive to the few guests they had to the house, so she’d kept them as decoration—at least until she caught Cinderella reading them.
“My father traveled often when he was alive,” Cinderella explained, “and he used to bring me curios from all over the world and tell me their histories. I loved it.”
“Then maybe you’ll appreciate this,” Charles replied as he directed her through the endless maze of marble stairs and pruned hedges. They soon found themselves before a glorious fountain of angels, illuminated by a constellation of silver lanterns and surrounded by a coronet of swans with wreathes of ivy over their elegant necks. Water tinkled steadily from the sides, like soft percussion against the wind’s song.
“This fountain was commissioned by my great-grandfather,” said Prince Charles. “Aurelais had just ended a twenty-year-long war with its neighbors, and he had this fountain made to celebrate peace, but also to remind us of the bitter costs of war.”
Cinderella brushed her fingertips against the water, its gentle ripples tickling her skin. “Like the fountain in the city center! My father used to take me there when I was young.” She folded her hands over her lap. “I haven’t been back there in many years.”
“I’ll take you one day. Though I have to confess, I don’t get a chance to visit the center of the city much. It is not easy to go around without being recognized.”
“But you have Pierre,” Cinderella joked.
“Pierre can only fool so many. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much luck with my father or the Grand Duke.” He gently guided her away from the fountain. “There’s something else I want to show you.”
They walked through the gardens, the lilting music from the ballroom growing softer and farther away. Whenever he thought she wasn’t looking, he stole a glimpse of her, his lips parted.
“It’s been a long time since I could talk to anyone this way,” he confessed. “Without feeling like I was... different.”
“What about at the Royal University?” As soon as the question left her lips, Cinderella blushed, realizing she’d revealed how much she’d asked about him. “I mean, I heard that you’d been studying away from the palace for several years.”
A grin widened on Charles’s face, his eyes brightening so much Cinderella swore they shone. He took a deep breath. “Even when I was a child, I never had many friends at school. All the boys were ordered not to offend me and to always agree with what I said. I used to beg my father to send me abroad and give me a different name, but he always refused.
“He didn’t understand that I simply wanted to fit in. When I arrived at the university, I tried enrolling under a false name, but it was no use. I could have said my name were Peter the Pauper and everyone would have still known who I was. I could have never set foot in the classroom or opened one of my textbooks and still have passed every course with honors.”
“So you made no friends?”
“I had a few,” he said. “But even then, we weren’t close.” His gaze met hers, and there was such tenderness in his warm brown eyes that Cinderella wished time could stop so she could memorize the way he was looking at her. “I don’t feel that way with you. I feel like I’ve been looking for you my entire life.”
His confession sang in Cinderella’s ears, the intensity of his words arresting her in her place. “I know the feeling,” she whispered.
