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 had just shouted to leave her alone again. I knew she was angry with me, though I 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, 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’ head poked up over his brother’s shoulder.

“He is 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.

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 is downstairs waiting for you.”

“I will be right down.”

I went back to the sitting room. Hubert was sitting stiffly upright on a chair, the glass slipper clutched in his hand, and Curtis was reclined back on the sofa, the epitome of relaxed, chatting merrily with Mother. Everyone looked up when I entered, and I relayed Cynthia’s message. Curtis patted the cushion next to him, and I sat next to him. Curtis turned back to Mother, and continued to ask questions about the manor. Mother cheerfully told a story about her childhood here, one of my favorites. She and her sister had climbed out of an upstairs window and dropped things off the roof to see 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 she stumbled and dropped what she was carrying, which unfortunately, was the contents of a chamber pot. Curtis laughed easily and remarked that that sounded like something he would have done as a small child.

“Oh, you are 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. “What, are you going to call them shenanigans next? But no, such vocabulary would be too immature for the future king!”

Hubert looked aloof and gazed intently at the wall straight across from his seat. Mother nervously folded and unfolded her hands. She didn’t like any sort of conflict. Eager to break Hubert’s discomfort, she addressed him directly.

“So, Your Majesty, how is 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 asked.

“Also well, thank you for asking.”

Silence loomed over our group again. Curtis 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 another attack.

Curtis grinned, then 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. She 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. You have such tiny feet,” Curtis remarked casually. I guess he hadn’t told Hubert about Cynthia’s outburst and was giving her a second chance.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Cynthia said, smiling winningly. She extended her hand for the shoe, but Hubert, taking me by surprise, knelt and guided her foot into the shoe.

He stood and said, “You may call me Hubert.” Then to everyone’s astonishment, he smiled! It looked painful for him, a mechanical upturning of his lips. Curtis and I exchanged shocked looks.

‘He is 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.

“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!”

We sat, flabbergasted, unsure of how to respond to this monologue. I was shocked—is that what it looked like to everyone else in town? That 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 not 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 are so eager to rush off to get married to a man you met not even two days ago, and Truly and Curtis dated for a year before we moved here! They have a reason to get engaged, and you are 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 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. 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. Comfort was fuming. “What happened?”

“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!”

Curtis came over and took my hand. “Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested mildly. 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 I was too distracted by what Cynthia had said to me. How poorly she viewed us! I had never thought of myself as a bad person before now. Was that how people saw me? I had intended to allow Cynthia to quietly grieve her father’s death and not force her into public before she was ready. But it clearly hadn’t come across that way.

“Truly, wait,” Curtis pulled me to a stop next to the Fairy Tree. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“What did Cynthia say to you?”

I told him everything. He looked uncharacteristically serious. “I heard what Cynthia said to you last night too,” he looked at me steadily. “I hope you know that you are not selfish. One of the things I love most about you is how you are always looking out for others. You always have done that. Just because one person can’t see that doesn’t make it less true.”

“And you are not ugly!” he continued. “You have never been ugly to me and you never will be. Those scars,” he touched my face, “show that you are loyal and brave and resilient. That you stayed and tried to protect others when you could have run away. You probably saved me that day. And I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

His words were so sincere, I knew he meant them with all his heart. “Curtis, I can’t imagine life without you,” I said. It was true. A life without Curtis would be empty. Incomplete.

Curtis changed the subject. “There is another thing we need to talk about. If Hubert goes through with marrying your stepsister, and we get married too, you will be near Cynthia for the rest of your life.”

I nodded.

“Or,” and here he paused. “What would you think about staying here? We don’t have to live anywhere you don’t want to.”

“But, you are the prince!” I protested. “You have to stay at the castle.”

“I will give it all up in an instant to be with you and make you happy,” Curtis said automatically. “I’m not the crown prince. I can walk away if I want to. They wouldn’t like it, but I am free to do so.”

I considered the offer. As attractive as it was, I knew I would never accept. Curtis was too important. If it was left up to Hubert to care about the commoners, the kingdom would fall apart. I would never allow Curtis to walk away from his country just because I would have some awkward interactions with his brother’s wife. “No. The kingdom needs you. And besides,” a sly smile crept across my face, “think of all the pranks we can pull on both of them!”