Chapter 50
Ididn’t see Cynthia again for most of next day.
I had tried to talk to her through her bedroom door, but she just shouted to leave her alone again.
I knew she was angry with me, though I still couldn’t figure out why.
She had just gone to her first royal ball and gotten engaged to the crown prince.
She was all set to become the next queen, and all her problems would be gone.
No more cooking, no more cleaning, and a life of ease and luxury lay ahead! What was the problem?
I found out that afternoon.
A knock rang through the house, and I hurried to open the door. Hubert stood there, glass slipper in hand, Curtis right behind him.
“I have come for Lady Cynthia Elenora,” Hubert intoned blandly.
I bobbed a curtsy. “Please, come in.”
Hubert didn’t move. I stood back a little and gestured him inside. He still stood stock still. Curtis’s head poked up over his brother’s shoulder.
“He’s waiting for you to address him properly,” he said and rolled his eyes.
Inwardly chuckling, I swept my finest curtsy and said very formally, “Your Royal Highness, Crown Prince Hubert of Islandria, would Your Majesty please grace us with your esteemed presence in our humble home?”
Hubert inclined his head. “Indeed.”
Curtis followed after him, still shaking his head. He gave me a one-armed hug as he passed and jerked his head toward Hubert. “What a doofus, am I right?” he said quietly.
Chuckling inwardly yet again, I hurried off to get Cynthia. When I came to her bedroom, I knocked softly. “Cynthia?”
“I told you to go away!” she snapped through the door.
“Should I tell your fiancé to go away too?” I asked.
There was a long pause.
“Because he’s downstairs waiting for you.”
“I’ll be right down.”
I went back to the sitting room. Hubert was sitting stiffly upright on a wooden chair, the glass slipper clutched in his hand, but Curtis was seated on the sofa, the epitome of relaxed, chatting merrily with Mother and Comfort.
Everyone looked up when I entered, and I relayed Cynthia’s message.
Curtis patted the cushion beside him, and I scooted in next to him so his arm draped over my shoulders.
Curtis turned back to Mother and continued to ask questions about the manor.
Mother cheerfully told a story about her childhood here, when she and her sister climbed out of an upstairs window and dropped things off the roof to compare how quickly they would fall.
One of the things had been a chicken egg, which landed squarely on the top of a maid’s head as she had opened the door and exited.
The maid then stumbled and dropped what she was carrying, which unfortunately, was a filled chamber pot.
Curtis laughed easily and remarked that that sounded like something he would have done as a small child.
“Oh, are you limiting that to when you were a small child?” Comfort laughed. “It seems I remember Truly telling me about more than one or two pranks you have pulled in recent years.”
Curtis spread his arms out defensively.
“Pranks are childish and undignified,” Hubert contributed in his monotone voice.
“And fun!” retorted Curtis.
“Such juvenile tomfooleries are unbecoming of a member of the royal family.”
“Tomfooleries?” Curtis hooted. “Why, Hubert, I didn’t even think you knew any words associated with fun.”
Hubert looked aloof and gazed intently at the wall straight across from his seat. Mother, uncomfortable with any sort of conflict, nervously folded and unfolded her hands. Eager to break Hubert’s discomfort, she addressed him directly.
“So, Your Majesty, how’s your mother? I wasn’t able to speak with her last night at the ball.”
“Very well, thank you,” said Hubert, and lapsed into silence.
Comfort coughed.
“And your father?” Mother prompted.
“Also well, thank you for asking.”
Silence loomed over our group again. Curtis gently slid his arm off of my shoulders, stood, and jerked the glass slipper out of Hubert’s hands.
“This thing is tiny! No one can actually fit their feet into this, can they?” He bent down, slipped his own shoe off, and tried to wedge his toes in.
His foot was nearly twice the size of the glass slipper.
“Give it back!” said Hubert angrily, swiping for the slipper. Curtis tossed it to me.
I caught it, kicked off my shoe, and tried to shove my foot in. I managed to wedge four of my toes in, then pretended to walk around in the shoe. “A perfect fit!” I cooed, and Comfort and Curtis snorted. Hubert was turning purple with rage.
“My turn!” called Comfort, and tried to shove her foot into the slipper. “Ooh, cozy! If the slipper fits, does that mean I get to marry Hubert?”
“Oh, stop it,” said Mother gently. She took the shoe away from Comfort and returned it to Hubert, who gripped it securely in his hands and watched his brother suspiciously, wary of any more theft.
Curtis grinned, then pulled me with him as he sat back down and said, “Comfort, have you heard the joke about the ogre at the wedding?”
“No, tell me!”
“Well, there was once an ugly ogre who went to a human wedding long ago—"
“Ahem.” Cynthia had entered, still in her ball gown from the previous evening. She had obviously just done up her hair and looked absolutely stunning.
Hubert and Curtis stood respectfully. Hubert stepped forward and held out the glass slipper. “You must have forgotten this when you left yesterday.”
Cynthia didn’t blush, but a faint pink tinge appeared in her cheeks. She half glanced at Curtis.
“I told him how your foot must have slipped out last night as you were leaving,” Curtis remarked casually. “Let’s just make sure your shoes stay on your feet this time. We wouldn’t want a repeat of the scene from last night.”
Cynthia lifted her chin. “Thank you, Your Majesty.” She extended her hand for the shoe, but Hubert, taking me by surprise, knelt at her feet. Removing her old, worn shoe he guided her foot into the sparkling glass one.
Once finished, he stood and said, “You may call me Hubert.” Then to everyone’s astonishment, he smiled. It looked painful for him, like a mechanical upturning of his lips. Curtis and I exchanged shocked looks.
He’s smiling, I mouthed to Curtis.
Hubert motioned toward the front of the house. “I have come to take you to the castle,” he told Cynthia.
“I will be there in just a moment, Hubert. I would like to speak privately to my stepsisters and stepmother before I go.”
As Curtis and Hubert left, Mother and Comfort gathered around Cynthia to congratulate her on her engagement, but Cynthia backed away to evade their embraces.
“Before I leave, I just wanted to say, you three have done nothing but bring me misery all this time I have lived here. Right as my engagement was to be announced, Truly was forcing herself upon my future brother-in-law, trying to upstage me and my moment. That was incredibly selfish of you, especially after all I have done—cooking and cleaning and slaving away for your every whim and wish. You should feel ashamed of forcing a parentless, penniless girl to be a servant for you while you did nothing but sit, staring into mirrors and talking about dresses and makeup and dancing. All three of you are the most vain, superficial, greedy, gluttonous people I have ever met!”
Our mouths dropped, flabbergasted, and all three of us fumbled for words, unsure of how to respond to this monologue. I was shocked—is that what it looked like to everyone else in town? Did they think we were forcing an orphan to work for us as we lazily sat in our rooms, primping and preening?
“Cynthia,” began Mother, “We really never—"
Cynthia cut her off. “Furthermore, I will never be seeing any of you again, so I can be freed from your enslavement!”
Comfort broke in, more confident in handling conflict than either Mother or myself.
“Really! We have tried our best to be nice to you! Where do you think that gown came from, missy? And your shoes? Did your fairy godmother magically give them to you?” her voice was dripping with sarcasm.
“You’re so eager to rush off to get married to a man you met yesterday, and Truly and Curtis courted for more than a year before we moved here!
They have a reason to get engaged, and you’re just chasing status! Who is the superficial one now?”
Now it was Cynthia’s turn to flush, lost for words. But she held her head up and picked up the bags she had apparently brought from her room. “I have no time for peasants. Farewell!”
Stunned, we all watched her march down the hallway and give her hand to Hubert as he helped her up into the carriage. “She and Hubert deserve each other!” Comfort said fervently.
Hubert and Cynthia swept away in their carriage, off toward the castle, but Curtis stayed behind.
He walked back into the sitting room after he had instructed the coachman to come back for him later.
Upon his entrance, he stared at all of our faces.
Mother and I were still shocked by Cynthia’s outburst and Comfort was fuming. “What happened?” he asked.
“Our stepsister,” Comfort spat, “was just giving us her last endearing words before she left to marry your brother.”
“I take it that it didn’t go well?”
Comfort huffed angrily. “I have half a mind to leave the country. There is no way I will let that brat be my ruler!”
“What did she say?”
In a rush, Comfort summarized what Cynthia had said, then added, “So good riddance, I say. I don’t care what she thinks of me!”
My shoulders slumped. I wished I had Comfort’s brash, unapologetic attitude. I wished I didn’t care what others thought of me as much as I did, no matter how hard I fought it.
Curtis noticed. Once Comfort was done ranting, Curtis came over, took my hand, and said quietly, “Let’s go for a walk.”
I nodded, grateful to escape the room. I led him along the path Algernon used to always take us on.
I wanted to show him the manor, the town, the Fairy Tree, everything—but my mind wouldn’t settle.
I kept replaying Cynthia’s accusations, each one like a pebble tossed into my shoe, wearing at me.
I had never thought of myself as selfish.
But what if that’s how the world saw me?
How could I prove that I wasn’t that way?
“Truly, wait,” Curtis pulled me to a stop beneath the branches of the Fairy Godmother Tree. The dappled light filtered through its leaves, brushing his auburn curls with gold. His voice softened. “I wanted to talk to you.”
My throat was tight. “About what?”
“What exactly did Cynthia say to you?”
I told him everything, every biting word. He listened without interrupting, though his jaw clenched slightly. When I finished, he looked uncharacteristically serious.
“I heard what she said to you last night, too.” His eyes held mine, steady and sure.
“I hope you know that you are one of the least selfish people I’ve ever met.
One of the things I love most about you is how you are always looking out for others.
You’ve always done that—for Comfort, for your mother, and for me.
Just because one person can’t see that doesn’t make it less true. ”
Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes. I hadn’t realized how badly I had needed to hear that until the words left his mouth.
“And you’re not ugly,” he went on, his voice more insistent.
“You have never been ugly to me, and you never will be. Those scars—” his fingers brushed my cheek—“they’re proof of how loyal, brave, and resilient you are.
You stayed and tried to protect others when you could have run away.
You fighting back might even have saved my life that day.
And to me, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. ”
My heart swelled, too big for my chest. His words were so sincere, so completely Curtis, that I knew he meant them with every fiber of his being.
“Curtis,” I whispered, “I can’t imagine life without you.” The truth was as simple as breathing. A life without Curtis would be empty and incomplete, and it was one I had been living the past two years.
His eyes softened, and he laced his fingers with mine. For a moment we just stood there, silent beneath the Fairy Godmother Tree, the whole world narrowing down to the space between us.
Then Curtis drew a breath and changed the subject, though his hand didn’t leave mine. “There’s something else we need to talk about. If Hubert goes through with marrying your stepsister, and we get married too—”
I pulled in a breath.
“What?” he said with a shrug. “I’ve made no effort to be mysterious with my intentions. The moment you feel ready to accept, let me know and I’ll propose on the spot.”
“Being mysterious isn’t really your style, is it?” I asked with a smile.
“Nope. But as I was saying,” he went on, just as casually as if we were discussing the weather, “if they get married and once we get married, you’d still be near Cynthia for the rest of our lives.”
“Cynthia won’t be happy about that.”
“Good,” Curtis said emphatically. “After what she said to you, I wouldn’t mind her having a little bit of misery from time to time, but I won’t allow it to come at your expense. If I need to, I would walk away from a royal life to be with you.”
“But you are the prince!” I protested. “You have duties to attend to.”
“I would give it all up in an instant to protect you and make you happy,” Curtis said without hesitation. “I’m not the crown prince. I can walk away if I want to. My parents and the Council wouldn’t like it, but I’m free to do so.”
My heart ached with love for him, but I shook my head.
“No. The kingdom needs you. If it was left up to Hubert to care about the commoners, the country would fall apart. You’re too important, Curtis.
And I would never let you walk away from your duty just because I would have to endure occasional awkward dinners with my stepsister. ”
His grin flickered back, that boyish spark in his eyes.
“Besides,” I added with a sly smile, “think of all the pranks we can pull on both of them.”
Curtis laughed, the sound wrapping around me like sunlight. “That’s my Truly.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead and I felt like everything was going to be alright.