“You made this?” I asked in amazement. Was the guy a mind reader too?
“No,” he admitted in a whisper. “You caught me. I used my wand.”
I took the bag from his hand and pulled out the sandwich, stuffing it into my mouth. It tasted like heaven.
“I could just kiss you!” I said, between mouthfuls, not caring how unladylike I looked.
“I guess I will have to wait until you’ve gotten through this lot first,” he replied, picking up the last photo I’d thrown down.
I rolled my eyes.
“I’ve still got about thirty to go through. Honestly, most of them are old enough to be my father. One of them, I swear was seventy years old.”
Cynder grinned. “At least, you won’t have to worry about being married to him for long. He’ll be dead soon enough.”
“Good point!” I said, “Now where was he? I’ll put him on my yes pile.” I began to rummage through the nope pile.
“What about this guy?” Cynder said, holding up a photo. “He seems nice enough. Handsome guy.”
I took the photo from him and read his name out loud. Luca Tremaine.
He was good-looking. With dark, brooding features and a hint of a beard, he was quite the catch. Elise would drool over the guy.
“Prince Luca, second son of The King and Queen of Thalia,” I read aloud. “My father would probably like me to pick him. He’s all about strengthening relations with other kingdoms.”
I put the photo on the maybe pile.
“I’m not sure,” replied Cynder, picking the photo up again and putting it in the nope pile. “I’ve heard of him. He’s not good enough for you.”
“Whatever do you mean?” I wasn’t used to servants offering their opinions.
“He’s got a reputation as a bit of a playboy. There have been many women.”
I arched my brow.
“What?” he shrugged. “The girls in the kitchen gossip. It’s not my fault if I overhear.”
I sighed. There was bound to be something wrong with all of them. “Maybe he just hasn’t found the right woman to settle down with yet.” I looked at the photo again. I could well believe the kitchen maids’ gossip. He was a very good-looking guy. I put him back in the maybe pile. “At least, he has his own teeth.”
“Just be careful.”
I looked up to find Cynder gazing at me. The humor had gone to be replaced with concern. It unnerved me.
“What does it matter who I pick?” I asked honestly.
“I just think you deserve to be happy.”
I placed the rest of the photos back down on the bed. The conversation was getting uncomfortable, and I couldn’t figure out why. His familiarity with me was unnerving and yet exciting at the same time. I’d never had a member of staff talk to me the way he did. Before I had a chance to think about it, I blurted out “Dance with me?”
“Here?” It was his turn to look uncomfortable now.
“Yes, here. I want to show my dance instructor that I can do better.” I felt my cheeks redden at the audacity of asking a member of the staff to dance with me in my own room. Normally, I would never have dared to ask such a thing, but I wasn’t ready for him to go.
“Ok, then,” Cynder pulled out his wand and locked the doors. I could understand why. I could only imagine the trouble we’d be in if we got caught.
He took me in his arms as he had the night before and began to hum. It was the only music we had. This time, he hummed a slow song.
He held me tight while I rested my head on his shoulder. This was not a dance he was teaching me. We were doing little more than swaying together, and yet again, we had become one. His arms around me made me feel safe as we slowly moved around my room, our bodies almost meshed together with only the thin silk of my nightgown between his hands and my bare skin. It felt like an ending to something wonderful and an awakening at the same time
“We can’t do this again,” he said, pulling away abruptly.
Confusion abounded within me. Only a second before, it had felt so good, and now he was moving away from me with confusion in his eyes.
“Why not?” I asked, taking a step closer to him. He stepped back at the same time.
“I can’t. I should go.”
“Please. I need your help. I have to dance with these strangers, and I don’t know how.” I pointed to the pile of photos on the bed.
“You have a teacher.”
“I like being taught by you.”
He nodded slowly and kissed my cheek before unlocking my door and walking through it.
“Ok,” he replied, closing the door behind him, leaving me alone with my thoughts, and with my heart beating at double speed.
I could still feel his lips on my skin when Jenny turned up half an hour later. She immediately saw the two piles of photos on my bed. A large one for no’s, and a tiny one for maybe’s. There were still no photos on the yes pile.
“Oooh, been making some decisions, have we?” She picked up the maybe pile. “Oooh, good choice.”
She sifted through the photos, occasionally making comments such as “He’s a tasty dish,” and “I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.” This was Jenny’s way of giving me her seal of approval.
“Where is Daniel Laurient?”
“Who?” I asked.
She picked up the pile of nopes and began to flick through it before pulling out one of the photos and handing it to me.
“He’s the son of a friend of mine. I promised her you’d give him thought. He’s a nice guy and would be a perfect match for you. He’s a local lad too.”
I picked up the photo of Daniel. A pair of piercing green eyes gazing out of a chiseled face stared back at me. He had blond hair and a wide smile. He looked nice. I must have missed him when I threw him on the nope pile. He looked honest and immediately I liked him. I threw him back on the maybe pile. I didn’t like him enough to go on the yes pile. I didn’t like any of them enough.
After another ten minutes of deliberation, I ended up with fifteen photos on the maybe pile and a whopping eighty-five on the nope pile. Jenny spent a good hour with me going over their names and titles of which I only remembered a quarter at best.
Later, she took me back to her room to learn how to eat soup. Part of me hoped I’d see Cynder again as it would surely be he that brought up the soup, but the large bowl of tomato soup was already waiting for us on the table.
Under Jenny’s watchful gaze, I ladled spoonful after spoonful of the red soup into my mouth until I was bursting with the stuff, and not once did I spill it, much to Jenny’s satisfaction.
After lunch (which I spent alone in my bedroom, going over the photos and names of the men) I proceeded to my dance lesson.
Stephan grimaced as I walked through the ballroom door, no doubt imagining all the horrible things I was about to do to his feet. He gave the signal, and the servant by the old record player pressed play.
I felt confident as he walked over to me, but as he took me in his arms, everything felt wrong. Everything Cynder had taught me went right out of the window, and the whole lesson ended up being just as disastrous as the one the day before. I couldn’t understand why. Dancing with Cynder had been effortless. This was torture for both of us.
That night, I counted down the hours until I could go down to the kitchen to ask Cynder where I’d gone wrong. As soon as the clock turned ten, I raced down the stairs that would take me to the kitchen, making sure no one saw me. When I walked through the door, a wonderful aroma hit me. Two plates and two glasses of wine had been placed on the table.
“What’s this?” I asked in wonder.
“I made sure it was ready for ten o’clock. I’ll have to do the dishes after you leave.” I looked over to see a huge pile of dishes, much larger than the night before, just waiting for him to clean up.
“You didn’t have to,”
“No, but you secretly hoped I would, right?”
“I barely ate anything at dinner,” I admitted, slippin
g into the seat beside him. The meal was amazing, even better than the one he’d made the night before and much better than anything Pascal had ever produced. It made me feel bad for his situation, and yet, I didn’t understand it fully.
“You are too good for washing up. You could easily be the head chef here or at some other place.”
Cynder sighed. “It’s not that easy. I don’t have a degree. I’ve never even been to university.”
“But you are amazing. Surely, someone will hire you without a degree. Your dishes speak for themselves.”
“You need a degree to get a job as a head chef, or you have to work your way up the ranks. I’ve been here three years and watched as people who don’t know how to boil an egg, get promoted before me.”
“But why?”
“Because I’m a Mage,” he growled. “Magi don’t go to university, and they don’t get jobs as head chefs.”
I was taken aback at his gruffness. I’d not seen him angry before.
“But why don’t they?” I persisted. “Surely, with Magic, you’ll be able to do things even better than the rest of us?”
“That’s exactly the thing you non-Magi are afraid of, which is exactly the reason why we are kept out of positions of power, and why we are not let into university.”
“I’m not afraid of magic,” I replied, slightly put out by his tone.
“Maybe not, but your family is.”
“That’s not true,” I said, but as I said it, the interview with my mother came back to me. Not a single Mage had been selected out of five thousand potential partners.
“Isn’t it?” he replied bitterly.
I ate my meal quickly and stood up to leave.
“Where are you going?” he asked, sounding surprised that I was leaving.
“You obviously don’t want me here.”
“That’s not true. I’m sorry. I’m out of order.” He stood and pulled me into his arms the way he’d done the night before. I relaxed, feeling safe as he began to hum. As he spun me around the kitchen, I couldn’t help but think that I was the one who should have been apologizing to him.
Afterwards, I helped him wash up, and he let me. Again, he didn’t use magic.
Every day for the next two weeks went the same way. In the morning, I’d spend time with Jenny before going to the ballroom to have my dance lesson with Stephan. By the end of the two weeks, I’d managed to get through all the dances without stepping on him once, but it was nothing to the way I danced with Cynder in the kitchen.
The nights down there had become my only solace from a manic schedule of lessons and briefings. I counted down the hours and minutes until Cynder took me in his arms, and we’d weave around the kitchen furniture as though we were the only two people in the palace. Neither of us had mentioned him being a Mage again, and not once since he produced that bacon sandwich did I see him using magic.
On the night before the ball, he seemed subdued as he served up my meal. As usual, it was out of this world.
“What’s the matter?”
“This is our last night together. I’m going to miss you, Charm.”
At some point in the last two weeks, he’d started calling me Charm. In a world where everyone referred to me as Princess Charmaine, I liked it, a lot.
“Why?”
“Because you won’t need lessons after tonight.”
It’s weird how I’d not thought about it before now, but he was right. In my mind, the lessons would go on forever, but in reality, how could they? My heart fell with a thud as I realized it was not the lessons I came down here for.
“I can still come and see you though?”
“In a few months, you’ll be married. I doubt your husband will take too kindly to you coming down here and seeing another man.”
In all the chaos surrounding the last two weeks, the reality of my situation had not really sunk in. I’d been concentrating on task after task, not looking forward to the reason I was doing it all. The ball had barely crossed my mind at all except for fleeting moments of panic, and my wedding day seemed like such a long way off that it could never come.
I almost said that I’d come down here anyway. After all, no one knew that I came down here now, why should they after the ball? But I knew it couldn’t happen. The reality was that once I’d picked five guys to stay, my every moment would be recorded and my elicit trips to the kitchen would become a distant memory.
I laid my head on Cynder’s shoulder, silent, listening to the music he made and the beat of his heart as we swayed around the room. We danced a slow dance, the one usually reserved for a special person at the end of the night. I wondered how I could ever find a special person by the end of the ball, especially when I was beginning to think I’d already found him.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Ball
On the day of the ball, I was awakened by chanting. I opened my window to see where the noise was coming from. It got louder, but it was still indistinct as though it was coming from the front of the palace, and my room was at the back.
“Get away from that window!” Elise scolded coming into my room, “No one is supposed to see you today before your big moment.”
“Can you hear that?” I asked, craning my head even further out of the window.
“There is some kind of demonstration against the ball,” said Elise, pulling me in. “Apparently, the Magi are up in arms about the whole thing. I don’t know why! It’s not like they could ever realistically hope to become a prince.”
“Why not?” I replied, thinking about Cynder.
“Because they are Magi! Can you imagine if they ruled? They’d do nothing but wave their wands around all day. It would be awful.”
I’d never heard her talk this way before. Was this the way everyone thought of the Magi? Before meeting Cynder, I’d never really given them a lot of thought. They were just there, cleaning the palace and tidying the gardens. Before Cynder, I’d not talked to many of them. Agatha was the only one I really talked to, and she never mentioned it.
I was just about to tell Elise my own thoughts on the subject when Jenny walked through the door to take me to breakfast. After that, I would be escorted to the dressing room.
Xavi was ready with her crew, all waiting in a line to turn me into something amazing. I’d already been told I wouldn’t be waxed that day (I’d had that pleasure the day before) and a dress had already been made for me specially for the occasion, so I wouldn’t have to choose. But I was still scheduled five whole hours in the dressing room. I had no idea what they could possibly do to me that would take five hours, but as I predicted, it began with a thorough scrub down in the marble room. The ladies were much chattier as they moved the soapy sponges over my skin, deliberating about who they would pick if they had the chance. Very few people knew the official list of men who had been invited, but there had been a lot of speculation throughout the palace and on the national news. Most of the candidates, they had gotten right, some, not so much.
The wash girls asked me whom I favored, but I mumbled noncommittally. I wasn’t allowed to say anything even if I wanted to, but the truth was I had no idea who I would pick. Daniel Laurient flashed through my mind. If Jenny supported him, I knew he would be one of the first I scouted out. Usually, when I left the marble room, the girls began to clean up, but I’d put a special request in for Elise to have the same treatment as me, so instead, they began to get the room ready for her. She came through the door as I was just about to leave.
Giving me a huge hug, she squealed with excitement at the waterfalls around the room.
“I’ll see you later on,” she giggled nervously, and, not for the first time, I thought that she would be so much better at this than I.
Jon was the first to see to me, and I luxuriated in his expert hands as he washed my hair thoroughly, massaging the shampoo into a lather. I noticed he used a different shampoo than usual. This one smelled delightfully of oranges. As he worked the shampoo into my scalp, I closed my eyes. Th
is was the only part of the whole makeover that I truly enjoyed. I was sad when it was over, and Alezis took over to create, in his words, a masterpiece. He was wearing even more makeup than usual today, and I wondered if it was in anticipation of the ball tonight. A lot of the palace staff would be in attendance, and some of the higher staff had been invited to dress up.
He spent a whole hour teasing my hair, braiding parts of it and moving it around until he was happy with the result. It didn’t look like anything too special until he brought out a large diamond tiara and placed it on my head. Instantly, I could see the look he was going for, and it was magnificent. I didn’t look like me at all. I looked like Grace.
When the three makeup artists had finished making me flawlessly ready for Louis, the similarity between Grace and me had strengthened. I could barely look at myself in the mirror.
“I want red lipstick,” I said when Louis appeared at my side with his bag of tricks. He looked taken aback as if I’d asked him to cover me in war paint.
Without saying a word, he walked over to Xavi and whispered something in her ear. She walked over to me.
“Louis tells me you want red lipstick. May I inquire why?”
How could I tell her that it was because I didn’t want to look like Grace? A thousand eyes would be staring at me tonight, and I didn’t want them comparing me to my dead sister. I knew they would anyway, but if I looked different from her, then the comparisons would be harder. Grace had always worn pale pink or nude lipstick. I never wore any. Red was as far away from her as I could imagine.
“I’m afraid the dress we picked out for you will not go with red. How about a subtle pink color? It will compliment your skin tone.”
“No!” I shouted a little too loudly. “I’ll wear another dress.”
I knew I was making a scene and that the dress had been specially selected for me, but I couldn’t stand it.
“I’m afraid that is not p...”
“She said she’d like a new dress,” butted in Jenny forcefully. She could see the tears that were threatening to fall down my face.
Charm (A Cinderella reverse fairytale) (Reverse Fairytales Book 1) Page 5