by Lenore, Lani
Moving out from the wall, the man walked near the table, edging up next to some others who were in his way. He asked them politely to step out of his path – and then it happened. He pretended to trip over their feet as he moved past. The man gave a rather undignified yelp as he tripped forward, crashing into the table and the teetering arrangement atop it. The whole thing toppled over in the midst of everyone, summoning several shrieks as the silver trays crashed and bits of greenery splattered on shoes and gowns. Christian’s mother looked mortified, and the servants rushed in to clean it up, but everyone in the room turned that way, and for the first time – and possibly the last for tonight – Christian and the girl he danced with were not the center of attention.
“Well, there it was,” he said with satisfaction. “My bit of fun for the night. Shall we?”
He offered his arm to her like a proper gentleman and she slid her slender arm through his. It was pointless to hope that no one would notice them as they waded through the crowd, but most of them were properly distracted by now. He led her outside to the courtyard and into the shadows.
3
The night was cool and dark, with the only light shining down from the moon and a few lamps that flickered in the courtyard. Christian held onto Cindy’s hand on his arm as if she would try to escape, and he led her leisurely back to a spot behind a row of hedges where they would not be seen. There was a long bench here and he motioned for her to sit, which he did promptly after her. Christian reached into his coat pocket.
“Mind if I smoke?” he asked, but he already had one out and in his mouth.
“If it makes you feel better,” she said. He struck a match and worked to light the end as she watched the embers glow.
Cindy looked at him - this face that she hadn't seen in so long. Had she remembered it correctly? Isabella and Charlotte had often boasted that Christian had become even more attractive with age, and looking at him now, she would agree that they were right. Cindy had vowed not to be taken so easily, but perhaps it had been pointless to aim for that.
Christian looked at the ground, and she was unsure of what to say for a moment until he broke their silence.
“Would it make me seem like a liar if I told you that I missed you, even when I wasn’t thinking about you?”
Cindy found that she couldn’t disagree with that. In fact, that was a good way to describe how she had felt about him. She only smiled slightly and looked at her hands that were folded in her lap.
“I did wonder about you, you know,” he assured her. “Then again, you must have known that, or you wouldn’t have come here.”
He stared at her with a strange look in his eyes. What was he thinking? How did he feel about seeing her? He looked as though he was questioning her meaningless existence. Before she could gather the urge to speak, he took the liberty first.
“Why are you here?” he asked. “Why have you come to me now after so long?”
“There has to be a reason?”
“Of course,” he said. “Everyone wants something from me. Why should I think you to be different?”
She shook her head, not understanding but hoping that he would explain.
“What do they expect you to give them?”
“Everything. Even the ones who seek to win me want something more. You have no idea what they ask me for, Cinderella. These women… They all want something different and all think that I’m the answer. It seems as though I’m the only man in this God-forsaken world!” he said, angrily fumbling with another cigarette and match. “The unhappy want me to please them. The sad want me to heal them. The unloved want me to love them. The damned want me to save them! The sheltered want me to free them! I can do none of those things – I haven’t the power or the will.”
She stared back at him as he inhaled. The thought never crossed her that he could be this unhappy. What had he to hate? At least he had some of his dignity left, which was more than she could say.
“So, it makes you angry?” she asked. “And you feel as though you don’t have any emotions to give them.”
“Perhaps. But then there’s you.”
“What about me?” she asked, feeling the wind blow at her long curls.
“You are one of the last people I would have expected to see here – not that I’m disappointed – and so I have yet to figure out what you want with me. Because why come here if not to see me, and why see me if not to want something?”
“Must I want something?” she asked, trying to understand where all his reasoning was coming from.
He looked into her eyes. There was a pause in the night air before he spoke.
“Then what are you doing here?” he asked, sitting upright against her on the bench.
Cindy’s mind froze at this. What was she doing here? She honestly wasn’t sure. She supposed there were several reasons. Amanda had asked her to make an impact on Christian, and then there was the thing she had been asked to bring back – but she would not mention it now. Cindy had also come to avoid Amanda’s prophecy. Additionally, she wouldn’t mind seeing her sisters look like fools. But most importantly, she had come to see this man - just to see him again.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” she lied, feeling that all of that was much too complicated.
“It baffles me,” he said. “You hide away from me for three years, and now you come and claim – what? That you just wanted to catch a glimpse of me again?” She sighed deeply as he continued to speak. “Isabella told me you left the house – that you married.”
Cindy felt her throat clench.
“And you believed her,” she assumed, while becoming angry at the thought of her step-sister’s lies.
“I didn’t know what to believe,” he said honestly. “Somehow I knew you were still around. I think I could feel you.”
She looked back in disbelief. His body was warm against hers as they sat, shoulder to shoulder, knee against knee, but his gaze was hotter still, burning into her. If she’d not met Amanda, she might have brushed his words off as complete nonsense, but she almost believed them.
“You say that as though we are connected – as though there was some sort of bond joining us.”
“You don’t believe it?” he asked, leaning closer. “Tell me you didn’t think about me after I left that day.”
“Please!” she scolded. “I hardly knew you – and I hardly know you now!”
“I’ll answer it then,” he declared. “I believe you did think about me. God knows I thought about you. Couldn’t you feel it? It was almost as though our souls were speaking to each other! And that’s also what brought you here tonight.”
Cindy was at a loss, unable to counter his words. Christian stared at her, waiting, but she could think of no response.
“That’s a lovely dress,” he said finally, relenting. He reached out to touch some of the material that flooded over the bench. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Is it silk?”
“I’m not sure," she confessed. "It was a gift.”
She let her gaze fall to his right hand that touched her gown, to the ring on his finger which boasted a black stone. She took a deep breath, finally able to admit the truth. There was no sense in hiding it from him.
“You were right.”
“Pardon?” he asked, releasing the material and stomping out his smoke.
“I did come here to ask you for something.”
He nodded, though she couldn’t tell if he looked disappointed in her.
“It’s good that you’re honest,” he said. She wondered if he now counted her as being just like the rest. She hated the thought of that.
“But that’s not the only reason I came,” she admitted, hoping he didn’t think she was lying to him now. “I did want to see you – just to see you.”
Christian leaned forward and folded his hands. He examined her, but said nothing, quite interested in what else she would say.
“I never did forget about you, of course, though it was admittedly a bit har
d to do since Isabella and Charlotte spoke of you nonstop. Through the years though, I did wonder about you. I would have just liked to see you from across a room, even for a moment - even if we didn't speak.”
He watched her, and she hoped that he saw her sincerity.
“Ask,” he bade finally, looking straight into her eyes. “Say what you want from me, and I will give it to you.”
She could have asked for anything, she supposed, even to be the one that he married, but that was not what she had come here to ask for. She would not ask him for that; if it was what he wanted, he would have to ask her. Instead of saying this, she motioned toward his hand.
“Your ring,” she said, peering at the black stone embedded in silver. “Will you give it to me?”
“Of course,” he said, removing the ring without hesitation. “It’s yours – and I won’t ask why.”
She smiled, taking the solid object in her gloved hand. For a few absent moments as she watched, he looked up to the sky, but soon returned back to her.
“Is that all you would ask me for?” he inquired. “I wouldn’t have expected that to be the sort of ring you’d want.”
She took another deep breath, wondering for a moment what she should say, though she highly doubted he required an answer to that question.
“What do you feel for me?” she ventured. “You say you have no emotion, yet you treat me as though I was part of your family or a close friend you’ve known for years. You gave me your ring without question, yet we’ve only spoken twice in our lives.”
“I don’t know what I feel,” he said, “but like I mentioned before, it’s something beyond mere words or subtle glances. There is a great deal of curiosity involved. And I find you attractive tonight, to say the least.”
His words were broken by her smile that he couldn’t help but return.
“I suppose it makes me happy to see you,” he went on after a moment. “I think I’m happy now – it’s been so long. I don’t know if I remember what it feels like.”
“We can pretend,” she offered, “that you are happy.”
“Then so are you, though you say you don’t know what you want.”
Once again, she wasn't sure what to say to him. Perhaps she couldn't win, but yet she couldn't be completely honest. How could she tell him about Amanda or the things she had said? She couldn't reveal the truth, and she thought he knew that.
“Why did I not see you for so long?” he asked. “If you wondered so much about me, what kept you inside that house? Why would you not come out? They say you were never seen again after your father’s funeral. I would have come, by the way, but I didn't hear of it until much later.”
“Thank you,” she said, touched by that. “I suppose it is true, in a way. After the death of my father, I just didn’t care about anything.”
“What happened to him?” the young man pondered, putting his fingers to his chin. "It seemed sudden."
“He just got sick,” she said, still bewildered by it after so long. “The doctors were unsure of the illness. Day by day he got worse until finally he just died. Anna ordered the mortuary to be closed down.”
“And you? If you didn’t move away or marry, then where did you go?”
She looked up at him uncertainly. Deep down, she could not bear to tell him the truth about her life of servitude. She had never felt this sense of embarrassment before, but she knew that she couldn’t tell him. No; not him.
“I just wanted to be alone,” she muttered, turning her face away.
“I see,” he said, understanding. “Do your sisters know you’re here tonight?”
“Of course not,” she said with a slight smile.
“And you don’t want them to know. Why not?” he asked curiously – pushing her.
“Why would I?” she asked, turning her face back. “They would probably try to destroy me. They would do anything for you. I'm convinced they'd even murder for your affections.”
Christian breathed deeply. She could see that he was disappointed in her lies, and then cast his eyes back to the sky absently.
“What do you keep looking at?” she asked.
He shook his head slightly. “I’m just thinking. I’m wondering how I can find you so appealing while you have the family that you do.”
Christian turned toward her on the bench, moving in closer than she had been to anyone in a long time. He all but enveloped her, but his presence had certainly done that much. Even though she felt comfortable with him, she was a bit nervous. Their faces were just inches apart. Her breath shuddered.
“Little Cinderella,” he said quietly to her, “living with her evil stepmother and two wicked stepsisters. You mean they didn’t recruit you and school you in their methods of eternal leeching? Perhaps that’s why you’re here. You're a clever trap laid for me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she protested. “After I watched them do that to my father, do you think that I would join them?”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said, backing off. “You’d only do that if you were pure evil. Which I don’t think you are.”
“Maybe I am,” she tossed back.
He chuckled at the thought, and then reached up to bury his hand in her soft hair behind her ear. She held her breath as her heart began to pound.
“You’re not evil,” he said, caressing the side of her face gently, “but I must admit that you do have me worried.”
“Why is that?” she asked, bewitched by his eyes.
“I’m afraid that after tonight you’ll pull another one of your vanishing acts and I’ll never see you again.”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” she admitted, enjoying his touch.
“I don’t want that,” he said with a shake of his head. “You must promise me that you won’t keep yourself from me.”
“I thought you said you had no emotion.”
He smiled coyly, twirling a strand of her hair around his fingers. “What I said was: but then there is you.”
She stared back into his cool eyes, flashing with the burning lanterns that lit the courtyard. She could not break away from his gaze. He carefully smoothed her hair behind her ear, touching the lobe gently and running his fingers down her neck. She felt a pleasant chill run across her skin, but could not break away.
“I want to see you again,” he said.
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Why not?”
Though she could think of no better reason than the truth, her mind raced to find a better excuse. There was no way Christian could marry a woman who was a mere, dirty servant. It was not as though he would care, but none of this would be accepted by his parents. Most likely, they would not allow him his inheritance.
“You’ll be married in a matter of weeks,” she said.
“Who’s to say it can’t be to you?” Her heart leapt to hear him finally say it, but she knew that she had to crush it.
“It cannot be me,” she said firmly.
Christian removed his hand from her skin and sat back, confused. The expression on his face revealed that he didn’t understand her reasoning at all.
“There isn’t someone else?” he asked with the shake of his head.
“Of course not,” she said, trying to think of something quickly, “but don’t you think it would be a bit hard for me to see you again with my sisters being as obsessed as they are?”
“I suppose,” he said thoughtfully.
“Besides, you need your inheritance if you are to be a surgeon. I could never ask you to give that up for me.”
He turned to her slowly. “You know about that?”
She smiled.
“I hear of everything about you,” she said. “I do live with Isabella and Charlotte, you know. They say you are coming along with your schooling quite well.”
He nodded, pleased that she knew this. “Yes. I have a mind for it, I think. I owe it to your father, I suppose – to that day. I was fascinated with that life,
and I wondered what could be discovered within the body if we were simply allowed to study it. Of course, my parents don’t approve. The truly rich don’t work, you know. What a strange way of thinking.”
More silence rested in the night air. Neither of them spoke, just staring at each other. Both were lost in their own separate thoughts, but both sets entwined about the other. Perhaps if she hoped long enough, Amanda’s magic would allow this night never to end, but that was quickly taken away.
Hearing a chime, Cindy lifted her eyes to the clock tower in the distance. She could clearly see it in the night sky. The glass face with the torches lighting behind it let the entire town know the time of night. Eleven-thirty. It was time to leave.
Christian seemed to sense that she was going to go away from him now. He didn’t want that to happen. Before she could dismiss herself from the bench, he was touching her face, feeling the curvature of her cheek and neck. She didn’t try to get away.
“Allow me one kiss,” he whispered to her.
“If I give you one, you will want another,” she said knowingly.
“So be it.”
His hand slid to her back, cradling her in closer. He tilted her face toward his, lowered his lips to hers – and yet could not even manage to kiss her. She could see the truth in his eyes. His desire and need were too great for simple kisses. If he couldn’t have more, he didn’t want anything.
“Come upstairs with me,” he said, speaking into her awaiting mouth.
A jolt of excitement ran through her at the notion, but she quickly realized how foolish it was to think about. She had to leave.
“You are scandalous, aren’t you?” she gasped, but she couldn’t say she didn’t have an agreeable urge deep within her. “As if we could get there without being noticed.”
“We could try,” he pleaded, unrelenting. He did kiss her then, against the corner of her mouth, and waves of pleasure rolled across her flesh at the moist touch.
“I have to go,” she forced herself to say as he kissed the line of her jaw. She tried to rise out of his touch. “You should get back to the party and distract my sisters so that I can get home before they know I was gone.”