by Shea, K. M.
Although he cradled Cinderella, Friedrich looked past her to Marie. “Thank you,” he said.
Marie raised an eyebrow. “She was my friend first before she became your heart’s desire. There is no need for you to thank me.”
“All the same, I still thank you,” Friedrich said.
“I am not a dog to be cared for,” Cinderella said into Friedrich’s shoulder.
“Of course you aren’t, Pet. What do you say to a brief ride? We will share my mount,” Friedrich said.
Cinderella stepped back from Friedrich’s embrace, her composure regained. “Where are we going?”
“Out of Werra for a bit,” Friedrich said, adjusting his horse’s saddle.
“Very well,” Cinderella agreed before she turned back to Marie. “Thank you.”
Marie smiled. “I am glad to help in whatever way I can. And I am trying hard not to feel resentful for being replaced.”
Cinderella laughed. “He could not replace you. Not ever. You will always be my closest, dearest friend, Marie.”
Marie arrogantly tilted her head up as she looked to Friedrich.
“Alright, I admit defeat,” Friedrich said before picking Cinderella up and sliding her on his horse. A moment later he was mounted up behind her. “I will never dare to try and come between you two beautiful ladies.”
“Enjoy your ride,” Marie said.
“We will,” Friedrich said before nudging his horse forward.
“Did Gustav tell you everything?” Cinderella asked.
“Yes,” Friedrich said, his eyes glued to the bustling streets.
“I’m more hardened than ever towards your queen.”
“She seems horrible because you’re only hearing one side of the orders.”
“Do not try to reconcile her to me,” Cinderella said, her voice sharp.
Friedrich sighed. “I know she has been unusually hard on you.”
“Hard? Hard? She has done her best to make me her legal slave,” Cinderella hissed.
Friedrich was quiet until they left Werra. They lingered within eyesight of his regiment’s camp, but dismounted and walked through a hay field.
“You have a right to hate Queen Freja, and to hate the royal family,” Friedrich said.
“Naturally.”
“But is it the right thing?”
Cinderella tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve gotten over your hate for Erlauf soldiers and commoners, right?”
“Yes,” Cinderella said with great hesitation.
“Why?”
“Because I have grown to realize and accept they are people too. I’ve known all along about Erlauf citizens, but it was difficult to reconcile the thought with soldiers—who killed my neighbors and associates,” Cinderella said.
“And you also admit Trieux was in the wrong?”
“Yes,” Cinderella said, her mouth forming an unhappy slant. “Where are you going with this?”
“Why can’t you extend the same sort of forgiveness to the queen?”
“You can’t be serious,” Cinderella said.
“I am.”
“Very well. Then perhaps it is because Erlauf commoners do not trek all over Aveyron, eyeing it greedily. Erlauf soldiers do not lie and steal from me, nor do they blackmail me and press me with such hard fines I will lose everything but my own body and my title. I can forgive them because their actions are forgivable. This queen of yours? She will not rest until I am destitute. For such cruelty, I have no forgiveness.”
“Does a person have to act sorry in order to be forgiven?” Friedrich asked. “I know you have encountered cruelty from others, and yet you forgive them.”
“Why does my attitude towards your queen bother you so?” Cinderella asked, placing her fists on her hips. “Whatever I think about Queen Freja isn’t of great importance. I am not going to rise up against her in rebellion—surely you must realize that. So what does it matter?”
“Forgiveness takes a great deal of personal strength. A weak person cannot forgive, and their actions will keep them captive and fester like an infected wound,” Friedrich said.
Cinderella stared at Friedrich. “What?”
“Of everyone in this rotten country, you, Cinderella, are the nearest to grasping forgiveness. You are so close to bridging the gap between us. Hate cannot drive out hate. As long as those from Trieux hate those from Erlauf, our countries will be in an eternal struggle. If you can forgive us, you will set not only yourself free, but your countrymen as well. I want you to have the courage to forgive. I want you to be the person to save our countries.”
“Friedrich, I am not capable of saving anyone. I can’t even save my own servants. I’m about to lose my lands. I don’t know what hope you see in me, but I am not capable of it,” Cinderella said.
“You are much stronger than you know,” Friedrich said, stepping closer. “You can conquer a country with forgiveness,” he said, lowering his head towards Cinderella.
When he was a hand away, Cinderella covered her mouth with her hands. “Do not even dream of it,” she said, her voice muffled.
Friedrich sighed. “Still not yet?”
“It will be not ever, I suspect.”
“Why not?”
“I said it before. Above all, I will honor my marriage.”
“Even though we aren’t married yet?”
Cinderella removed her hands from her mouth so she could smack Friedrich on the chest.
“If only you could apply this same sort of loyalty towards Erlauf,” Friedrich grumbled as Cinderella minced away from him.
“If only your queen had a heart,” Cinderella said.
Friedrich gathered up the reins of his horse. “Shall we return to my camp? I will see you home, but I would like to check in with some of my men first.”
“That sounds agreeable,” Cinderella said.
Friedrich caught one of Cinderella’s hands and held it as they walked back to the camp, Friedrich’s horse trailing behind him.
They rounded the corner of the camp and entered the stables.
Two soldiers saw them and violently shook their heads, motioning for Friedrich and Cinderella to backtrack.
“What?” Cinderella said, tilting her head.
“Drat,” Friedrich said.
Out of a stall came an Erlauf officer. He wore a uniform identical to Friedrich’s, but without the eye patch. His hair was a chestnut shade of brown, and he had good-humored, gentle, hazel-colored eyes.
“Friedrich, so you are here. Your men insisted you were out for the day but—,” the man cut off when he set eyes on Cinderella.
The stable was shockingly silent.
The two lower-ranked soldiers looked as though they wished the ground would swallow them alive. Friedrich wore a dark scowl on his face, and the unknown officer gaped at Cinderella as if she was a three-headed goat.
Cinderella cleared her throat and decided no one seemed prone to introducing her to this stranger, so she may as well do it herself. “Good afternoon, sir. I am Lady Cinderella Lacreux, and you are?”
“Colonel Merrich of the Second Regiment in the Dragon Army,” Merrich said, his voice just as dazed as his expression.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Colonel Merrich,” Cinderella said, performing a sweeping curtsey.
“There’s no need to be nice to him,” Friedrich said.
“What? Friedrich, you wound me! Has he said nothing of me?” Merrich asked.
Cinderella shook her head. “I don’t believe Colonel Friedrich has ever mentioned a Colonel Merrich.”
“Well, this is a fine mess,” Merrich said. “You lied about her beauty, and then you don’t even tell her about me?”
“I said she was exotic. You were the one who decided she must resemble a troll,” Friedrich said, curling an arm around Cinderella’s shoulders.
“I beg your pardon?” Cinderella said, her voice dangerously pleasant as she stepped out of the gesture.
“It was a j
oke,” Friedrich said. “I did not tell him how breathtaking you are.”
Cinderella looked down at her rumpled dress and ran a hand through her windswept hair. “Oh yes. Breathtaking,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion.
“But you are,” Colonel Merrich said with a charming smile. “I have never before seen hair so red and stunning before in my life,” he said, taking Cinderella’s hand.
He almost brushed it with his lips before Cinderella pulled her hand from his grasp. “I am charmed,” Cinderella said in the same tone one uses to announce the sight of a dead rat. “If you will excuse me, gentlemen. I believe I will go wait in the mess hall until you are ready to leave, Fred,” Cinderella said before making her exit from the stable.
As she left, she heard Colonel Merrich say to Friedrich, “She is a tough one to crack, isn’t she? I understand why you whine and complain so.”
“Thank you for your sympathy.”
“Yes, I figure I ought to share some with you before I kill you for setting me up as the fool. That lady could stop the sun if she smiled. You said she scuttled.”
“I have no idea what you are referring to,” Friedrich said.
Are all Erlauf Colonels so roguish? Cinderella wondered, shaking her head as she made her way to the mess hall.
Chapter 11
Cinderella sifted through her Father’s office, looking for items she could sell. The office was mostly cleared out from previous passes, but it was best to be thorough and exhaust all possible sources of income.
The curtains and rugs were gone, as were most of the books. The paintings—the first things to go—were long gone, and Cinderella would have sold the desk if she thought the monstrosity could be removed from the Chateau, but it was built inside the study and could not be shifted through the door.
“Mademoiselle?”
“Yes, Jeanne?” Cinderella asked, standing on tiptoe to inspect the books. (The remaining volumes were books of Aveyron’s records and a farmer’s almanac.)
“A Royal Messenger arrived,” Jeanne said. “He said to give this to the lady of the house.”
Cinderella took the envelope Jeanne held out to her. She glanced at the royal seal pressed into wax on the back of the envelope before she ripped it open.
“It’s an invitation for the annual victory celebration,” Cinderella said, reading the paper.
“The Victory Ball?” Jeanne asked, naming the event Erlauf royalty hosted in the Trieux Palace every year since the takeover to laud their victory.
“Yes,” Cinderella said, stuffing the invitation back into the envelope. “Please give it to Lady Klara. I will not be attending.”
“As you wish, Mademoiselle,” Jeanne said, curtseying.
When the housekeeper left the room, Cinderella rested her forehead on the bookcase. “It’s not enough that they took us over, they must make a spectacle out of it every year, too,” she muttered before climbing a ladder.
She shuffled the few leather-bound books around the shelves. Nothing new was to be found. Cinderella started to climb down the ladder—intending to search her mother’s old room next. She looked up at the top of the bookshelves, and, on an impulse, climbed the highest ladder rung.
The bookshelves did not reach the ceiling, but they still stretched up a good ten feet. The ladder was barely tall enough to push Cinderella above their height, so she might see if anything of interest was on top.
The tops of the elaborately carved shelves were dust-covered and riddled with cobwebs, but Cinderella was rewarded with a package of papers.
Cinderella brushed cobwebs from the package, shivering at their whispery touch, and carried it down the ladder with her.
She wiped the package off and sneezed in the raised dust before ripping the packet open. Papers spilled out. Cinderella recognized her father’s handwriting on the aged, yellow sheets. It was some kind of proof of sales based on the various seals and notaries pressed into the brittle pages.
“What is this?” Cinderella murmured, moving to the window so she could see better.
The paper went on, but Cinderella couldn’t believe it. Her father had purchased another manor? When? Was he out of his mind? Cinderella paged through the reports. Her blood turned cold when she saw where Windtop Manor was located: southern Loire.
According to the dates, the purchase was made in the chaotic but brief month Trieux was at war with Erlauf before it was overtaken.
Cinderella’s father hadn’t claimed the manor in his assets—Pierre and Cinderella would have noticed it before—and the Erlauf Crown wasn’t likely to let an out-of-country manor go untaxed, even if it was in Loire.
Cinderella bit her lip as she tried to keep the hysteria down. There was only one reason Cinderella could think of that would drive him to purchase a small manor—incredibly small compared to Aveyron—in Loire.
He meant to flee.
With only fifty acres to its name, Windtop could not possibly provide work for Aveyron’s fleet of servants. He meant to abandon everything and run. Cinderella knew without a doubt he would have taken her with, but it didn’t change the fact that her brave, gentle father engineered a backdoor to escape through.
However…Cinderella could sell this escape plan—surely it was worth the remaining amount of debt Aveyron owed the crown. (This explained the unpaid landholding fines—the money was gone, already used to pay for part of Windtop’s purchase, rather than pay off the debt.)
Hope toppled as Cinderella realized the position she was in. She could sell Windtop…and then Queen Freja just might have her imprisoned for embezzlement or whatever word she could use to brand Cinderella a traitor for failing to inform the Crown of the foreign manor.
If she didn’t want to be imprisoned, Cinderella’s only option was to ignore it…or use it.
Marie told Cinderella she needed to start thinking of herself, she should be selfish just this once. Once inside Loire, Erlauf could not touch her. She would have to leave behind the servants…but hadn’t she paid them back for their loyalty?
To never be harassed, to never be bothered again by Queen Freja…Cinderella was still as she imagined the freedom for a moment.
If Papa planned for it, surely it couldn’t be wrong, Cinderella thought. Papa was the kindest man I know. If even he made these preparations…
Cinderella recalled the way her servants dove into flower farming, even though they must have thought she was half mad to try it. She thought of Vitore—the stand-minder who was originally a lady’s maid. There was brave Jeanne, who might not be the warmest person, but who had said no to a suitor to step into her mother’s position of housekeeper when she died. Gilbert, who stayed on even though his wages were lowered. The cowherds, who learned how to tend sheep when Cinderella was desperate for help and unable to afford more. All of Aveyron’s servants hadn’t just stood up for Cinderella and her father when Erlauf rounded up the nobles for the slaughter, they stayed with Cinderella and sacrificed more.
“I can’t leave them,” Cinderella said, her grip tightening on the papers. “I can’t abandon them.”
Cinderella squared her shoulders. There was one final option. It would be a gamble, but to sit on Windtop and have no intention of using it while losing Aveyron was a waste.
Cinderella gathered her wits and strength before she set off down the hall, steeling herself for rejection and ruin.
She stopped outside a polished door and knocked.
“Yes?”
“It is me, Step-Mother.”
“Come in.”
Cinderella took a deep breath before she opened the door and stepped into the private parlor her Lady Klara occupied. “Good afternoon, Step-Mother,” she said, bobbing in a slight curtsey.
“Good afternoon,” Lady Klara said, her voice as feeling as ice. “What brings you into my presence?”
“I need your help.”
Lady Klara looked up from her tea. “…With?”
Cinderella handed the registry of sales to the stately woman.
Lady Klara skimmed the papers, her mouth twisting the longer she read.
“I want to sell it to pay off Aveyron,” Cinderella said. “It is only a small manor, but since Trieux is no more, Loire real-estate has climbed higher than ever. The buying price should be enough to cover Aveyron’s debt.”
“But?”
“Papa didn’t claim it in his assets. If I claim it now I may be jailed.”
“I see,” Lady Klara said, setting the paper on her lap. “Why have you come to me with this problem?”
“Because I have no one else,” Cinderella said, holding the woman’s gaze.
Lady Klara nodded, accepting the truth in the statement, but said nothing more.
“Please,” Cinderella said, her heart tightening. “I don’t know what to do.”
If Lady Klara wouldn’t help, she would turn Cinderella in. Her future depended entirely on Lady Klara’s reaction.
The Erlauf woman studied the papers again, and Cinderella’s mouth went dry.
“I will claim it as mine,” Lady Klara said.
Cinderella blinked. “Pardon?”
“As an Erlauf widow—with a low-ranked title and no landholdings—any income taxes I accrue will be significantly lower than what you—the Duchess of a profitable chateau—would encounter. After the taxes are paid, you can use the remaining amount to pay your debts.”
“How can you claim it?” Cinderella asked.
“I did marry your father,” Lady Klara wryly said. “You inherited everything to do with Aveyron. It is not entirely ridiculous that he would will a small manor to me, provided you agree with my story.”
“And they will believe you?”
“Unless they are cads, no. I am of Erlauf heritage, your Father of Trieux. However, if you support my word as his heir, there is nothing they can do to prove otherwise.”
“Won’t they be angry with you for withholding the inheritance?”
“My husband was a slain war hero, and even after his death I followed my orders and married again, an enemy even. Queen Freja will not arrest me, if that is your concern,” Lady Klara said with great firmness.