by K. E. Drake
Meanwhile, Samuel’s attention fell back onto the slipper. My heart’s truest desire? Calm fell over his agitated heart as the pieces fell into place, as if it was his heart confirming it. “I have to go,” he said mostly to himself and then broke away from his startled parents. He headed towards one of the open doorways at the end of the long ballroom, his long-legged strides carrying him quickly across the floor.
“Samuel!” Ruth called to her son at his abrupt departure.
The prince grudgingly slowed and turned back to his mother and father.
“What are you going to do?” Ruth asked as she and her husband stopped in front of their son.
“I’m going to find her.”
Ruth beamed, but Preston frowned, worry lining his brow. “You’re leaving again? You’ve only just returned.”
Samuel shook his head. “I love her, Dad. I have to find her.”
“I...” The king sighed in defeat. “I know you do.” The king shook his head, chuckling softly. “Go on. Find your girl.”
Samuel slumped his shoulders with a breath. “Thanks, Dad.” He quickly started on his trek again when his mother’s voice stopped him once more.
“Oh, Samuel!”
The prince halted just inside the doorway and turned back again to face his mother.
Ruth smiled brightly, sapphire eyes shining warmly. “Be safe.”
Samuel nodded to his parents, love and gratitude evident in the emerald depths of his eyes. “I will, Mom.” He started back on his way to prepare for his journey and to find his treasure.
Ruth sighed softly in the silence of the ballroom as her son disappeared into the corridor.
“I worry about him,” Preston admitted as Ruth moved closer to his side.
“I do too,” she softly confessed and laid her head on her husband’s shoulder.
“He’s taking too much responsibility upon himself lately,” Preston worriedly sighed. He slipped an arm around his wife’s waist, pulling her closer to him. “He’s trying to fix the problems of the kingdom by himself. Now he’s in love and going after the girl.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing.” Ruth lifted her head from Preston’s shoulder to look up at him. She smiled beautifully, a dazzling sparkle dancing in her blue eyes. “Samuel isn’t the only one who fought for the woman he loved, remember?”
Preston chuckled warmly. He pulled Ruth into his arms and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, assuring her, “Yes, my darling. I remember.”
Chapter Fifteen
Home
“Mother and Cora have already gone to bed. They spent most of their day in town and retired early.” Lianna Trent told Ruby, carefully hanging up the shimmering red dress in her stepsister's wardrobe. Lianna shut the closet doors and turned to Ruby, who sat curled up in a nightdress on her bed, a steaming mug of cider cradled in her hands.
“I must say, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon, and especially not like that.” Lianna gently smiled. She tucked a long strand of her strawberry-pink hair behind her ear and came to sit at the foot of Ruby’s bed. “What happened to you?”
Ruby sighed into her mug and took a long sip of the warm liquid. She swallowed her drink and began telling her stepsister about her quest from the beginning, admitting that it was the prince whom she had joined and detailing much of their adventure, carefully leaving out the parts about Samuel and his magic.
Lianna listened intently as Ruby told her about visiting the palace of Kently, a structure called the dark tower, and then the bandits that took three of the Kings’ Jewels. She described the prince’s homecoming ball and her dances with the prince and the mysterious magic user.
“You just ran?” Lianna gasped when Ruby told her about Duchess Sinclaire threatening to harm the prince if Ruby didn’t leave. “Why didn’t you stay and tell the prince what had happened?”
“I didn’t know what else to do!” Ruby cried. Her voice broke and her throat burned with unshed tears. “I couldn’t risk putting him in trouble.”
Lianna’s pale-green eyes shone gently with sympathy. “I know, Ruby. I’m so sorry it happened. You did what you had to do.”
Ruby set her mug down on her bedside table and picked up the single glass slipper that rested beside her on the bed. She traced a finger over the delicate crystal petals of the fully bloomed rose, tears blurring her vision blurring as her thoughts lingering on the painful memory of the moment she ran away.
“Samuel tried to stop me, but I left him. I should have stayed, Lia. I should have stayed and told him what the Duchess said. I was just too afraid, and I never even got to say goodbye. After all we’ve been through, I just left him. Oh, what must he think of me now?” Ruby blinked to keep the tears from spilling over. “I love him, Lia,” she confessed in a whisper, the truth of her words simultaneously giving her heart wings and splitting it in two. “I thought I would be all right when I had to leave him. I never believed being apart from him could hurt so much.
“Oh, Ruby. I’m so sorry,” Lianna whispered. The stepsisters fell into a thoughtful quiet for a long while she pieced everything together. Soon, she asked, “However did you get home?”
“When I got out of the palace, I bumped into Mage Grimm. He told me that he could use his magic to get me back home. He used a magic spell on me,” Ruby shook her head, her mind spinning from her own tale. “That was when I popped up at the front of the house.” She sighed again.
“Don’t worry, Ruby. I’m sure everything will be all right,” Lianna gently assured her stepsister.
Ruby set aside the slipper and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. “If it’s going to be all right, then why do I feel so awful?”
Lianna cast her gaze to stare at the bedroom ceiling, frowning thoughtfully. She hesitated a moment more before breathing a shaky breath. “Do you remember Reece Daniels? The baker’s son?”
Ruby pursed her lips and thought before she shook her head. “No.”
“When I was ten years old, not long after your father married my mother, I was with mother and Cora while they were in town dress shopping. I sneaked away to the bakery and that was where I met Reece for the first time. We became friends immediately. Mother disapproved of my association with someone beneath our station, but your father approved.” Lianna smiled wistfully at the memories. “Reece and I were close for years. We spent most of our time together, playing games in the market, exploring the estate, or just sitting on the grounds after dark, watching the stars until the sun would rise and Reece left to help his father at the bakery.”
Guessing what her stepsister was going to say, Ruby carefully ventured a question. “How did you know you were in love with him?”
Lianna shut her eyes. She remained quiet for a moment, and when she opened them again, they were sad. “I always knew that I felt a different connection with Reece than with anyone else. Something deeper. I could hardly stop thinking about him. One day when I was fourteen, Reece and I were playing at the market. He kissed me, and I knew then what I felt for him was love. It was wonderful. The stars even shone brighter that night. Yet...” Lianna’s soft voice trailed off.
Ruby’s heart sank. “What happened?”
Lianna turned her face down as a tear fell from her eye, and she quickly swiped it away. “He disappeared.”
Ruby stared at her stepsister. “Disappeared?”
Lianna only nodded. “He just left. I haven’t seen him in four years.” She sighed softly. “His father was found dead in the back of the bakery the same day Reece left.”
Ruby replayed the story in her head. “I remember hearing of the baker’s murder. The news shocked the town,” she recalled. “I also remember now that his son was never seen after that, and how quickly speculation of what happened to him spread.” She shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around it. “What about his family? Did you talk to any of them about the disappearance or the incident?”
Lianna shook her head. “Reece had no family except for his father. He once told m
e of a cousin and uncle he had in Glendower, but they were all he had left.”
“It’s been so long. Are you sure he’s still alive?” Ruby asked delicately.
“I’m not. Not for certain. Yet, I feel deep within my heart that he is alive, even though it hurts. I just know somehow.”
Ruby looked at Lianna with new eyes from all she learned, and her heart went out to her stepsister. “You’ve carried this for all these years and you’ve never told anyone about your heartache?” She felt like her pain was selfish compared to her stepsister’s loss. “Oh, Lia, I’m so sorry.”
Lianna took a steadying breath and nodded bravely, a small smile returning to her soft pink lips. “I’ve always held onto the hope that one day I would see Reece again, and I can tell him not one day passed that I didn’t think of him.”
Ruby opened her mouth to reply but found that she was speechless.
Lianna gave her stepsister a gentle smile. “I didn’t tell you about Reece to make you feel worse, but so you know you’re not alone in this.”
Ruby smiled glumly as Lianna patted her leg. Her stepsister then stood and went to the bedroom door. “Good night,” Lianna offered before slipping out of the room, shutting the door behind her with a soft click.
Ruby sighed shakily to the empty room and let her gaze linger on the single glass slipper resting beside her. She went to the window at the side of her bed and pulled the panes open. A light, warm breeze swirled into the room as she sat down on the plush seat beneath the window and rested her arms on the sill.
She looked up at the twinkling, silver stars that shone so brightly against the sparkling, twilight-blue night sky. A pained sob escaped her throat as her heart finally shattered. Ruby laid her head down on her arms and, for the first time she could remember since her father passed away, she cried.
Chapter Sixteen
Walking On Air
It was after two seemingly endless days and three nearly sleepless nights that Ruby had enough.
“I can’t keep going on like this,” she wearily sighed to herself early the morning of the third day after she had cried herself to a restless sleep again only an hour before.
Ruby turned in her bed to lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling. She closed her eyes and breathed a slow breath in the quiet of her room, letting the long moments drag by. “It was best that you left. Samuel is safe. You did the right thing,” she tried to convince herself, even as a nagging voice inside her insisted she was wrong.
The image of Samuel’s face invaded Ruby’s thoughts and her eyes flew open. She threw back the blankets and moved across her room in the dim, early-morning light.
Using the first rays of the sun to glimpse at her reflection in the mirror, Ruby ran a finger over her sunken, pale cheeks and then traced a finger over the dark circles that appeared under her red-rimmed eyes. Her lips turned down in a frown. I’ll keep busy, she finally decided, standing a little straighter.
She would keep busy to distract herself from the pain, as she had after her mother died, as she had after her father passed away, and as she had all the difficult years since.
Pushing away from the mirror with a new surge of energy, Ruby washed up, brushed her silky, red hair, and pinned it up into a quick, messy coil at the crown of her head. She changed into a simple, brown, cotton dress and then exited her bedroom, her footsteps light and quick despite the heavy burden weighing on her chest.
Ruby left her third story room and traveled down to the first floor to enter the spacious kitchen. She forced herself to eat a single slice of buttered bread before she got a washrag, prepared a bucket of soapy water, and set off to clean the estate.
Leaving only her stepmother and stepsisters’ bedchambers, she dusted every room, although they were nearly spotless from Lianna’s tidy care of the estate. Ruby worked her way from top to bottom of the estate, wiping down every piece of furniture, polishing each of the few decorative items they had left, and washing every window until the golden, morning sunshine shone in through the clear glass panes.
After working for three hours since dawn, Ruby went back down to the kitchen and started preparing breakfast, knowing that soon Lianna would be waking up to prepare the morning meal. She was placing plates of eggs, toast, and mixed fruit at her family’s places at the table when Bianca and Cora walked into the breakfast nook.
“Good morning, Stepmother, Cora.” Ruby greeted pleasantly, offering a small nod to each of the onyx-eyed, raven-haired beauties.
Bianca and Cora exchanged a look and said nothing, having figured it was best to leave the miserable girl alone the few times she had emerged from her room since she had been back home.
Ruby smiled softly and left the dining room without one word from either her perplexed stepmother or elder stepsister.
After almost four more hours of dusting and cleaning the large rooms on the first floor, Ruby began washing the wide window in the blue parlor at the front of the estate.
“I’m worried about you, Ruby. You’ve been working too hard. You need to rest.”
“I’m all right, Lia.” Ruby turned from the window at the soft voice and offered her younger stepsister a smile. “I’m actually feeling a bit better.”
Lianna smoothed the skirt of her faded dress. “I still wish you would rest. You didn’t even stop to eat any of the lunch I fixed for you.”
Ruby smiled a little at her stepsister’s concern. “I’m fine, Lia. Really,” she insisted when Lianna looked doubtful. Finally, she relented. “All right, if you want me to, I’ll stop long enough to have something to eat. Just let me finish washing the window.” She dunked the washrag into the bucket of fresh, soapy water by her feet on the blue carpeted floor.
Wringing out the cloth, she turned to the window and her entire body froze. She spun around again and pressed her back against the blue, painted wall to avoid being revealed by the clear glass. Her brown eyes went wide with fright.
“My goodness. Ruby, what’s the matter?” Lianna asked. “You look as if you’ve just seen a dragon.”
“Not quite, but you’re close.” Ruby swallowed hard, clutching the dripping washrag tight as she dared a peek out the window. She jumped as a swift knock sounded at the front door.
“I’ll answer it. It’s for me,” Cora carelessly sighed, fluffing her raven curls as she passed the open passageway of the parlor.
“No!” Ruby gasped, throwing the rag into the bucket with a splash and dashing across the room and past Lianna. She skidded to a stop just inside the archway as the front door opened and she heard Cora give an unladylike sputter.
“Don’t tell him I’m here!” Ruby rushed her words out as she darted the other direction past Lianna and ducked out of sight behind one of the few, white-floral seats.
Lianna spun around to where Ruby hid. “What?” she barely had time to ask before she whipped back around to the doorway to face Cora as she stiffly walked into the parlor, Prince Samuel of Avon trailing closely behind her.
“You must be Lianna. Ruby told me about you.” Though the prince’s voice was weary, he offered the young lady a polite smile. “Please excuse my appearance and lack of manners for calling unannounced.”
“Prince Samuel,” Lianna uncertainly greeted the young prince, though her voice held a hint of hope. “May I inquire what brings you to our humble home?”
“Please, there’s no need for formalities.” Samuel pushed his unsteady fingers through his rumpled hair. “I came because I need to see your stepsister, Ruby.”
Lianna opened her mouth to reply, but she glanced over to Cora, who had stepped back to study the prince from beneath a veil of long, thick lashes. “Cora,” she said quietly, her gentle gaze looking pointedly from her sister to the doorway.
Cora scoffed under her breath and turned up her nose. She gave the handsome prince one last lingering glance and then flounced out of the room, the layers of her rich-purple skirts swishing elegantly around her legs.
Lianna turned to the prince. �
�Your Highness...” she began, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I need to see your stepsister.” Samuel’s voice dropped as well. “I desperately need to speak with her. She left... suddenly, and I need to talk to her again. To see her again.”
“I’m sorry, but my sister isn’t here at the moment,” Lianna explained, indicating with a slender hand to the middle of the parlor where they now stood.
Samuel raised an eyebrow at the young woman, but she continued. “Even if my stepsister was present, I don’t believe she wishes to see you.”
“She doesn’t want...” Samuel trailed off. He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw and growled in the back of his throat. “No. I need to speak with her. To see her with my own eyes. Please.”
A slight quake caught the prince’s low voice, and Lianna faltered. She tilted her head and took in his travel-worn clothes, the worn leather satchel at his side, and the worry and fatigue etched onto his handsome features.
Lianna’s eyes wandered to Ruby’s hiding place. She hesitated for a moment longer and then nodded once toward the far side of the room.
Samuel’s brow furrowed and he looked over to the white settee nearest to the back wall.
“Your Highness?” Lianna whispered, drawing the prince’s attention back to her.
“Yes?”
“Ruby has had a... difficult time since she’s been back home. Please be gentle with her,” Lianna requested softly. She gave the prince a small smile and then left the parlor, her light footsteps muffled by the carpeted floor.
Ruby strained her ears in the quiet, unable to hear the hushed pieces of conversation any longer. Suddenly, a pair of scratched and muddy, brown-leather boots appeared in the line of her lowered vision. Her body stilled and she heard Samuel exhale a shaky breath above her. He lowered his tall frame to sit at her side and tilted his head to rest on the back of the settee before he breathed another long, heavy breath.