Prince, Cinderella Forsakes You novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Slipper
The disguised prince makes Clem kneel and buckle her own glass slipper onto her stepsister's foot, so she volunteers to marry the Beast, who tells her he heard her sister's lie ring.
The man I danced with at the masquerade was standing in our kitchen in a guard's blue coat.
He was holding my glass slipper on a velvet cushion.
And he was smiling at my stepsister.
"Lady Ottilie," he said. "Will you sit?"
I knew that voice.
Last night it had said, in the dark of the palace garden, "I can't dance. Don't laugh."
I had laughed anyway.
Then I had taught him, counting under my breath. One, two, don't step on me.
Now I was on my knees by the hearth with a bucket of ash, and he didn't even look at me.
Ottilie sat down on the kitchen chair.
My stepmother stood behind her with her hand on her shoulder. Every ring on Maud's fingers flashed.
The royal herald unrolled a paper and cleared his throat.
"The Crown Prince seeks the lady who lost this slipper on the palace steps at midnight."
The maids crowded the doorway. The boot boy climbed onto the woodpile to see.
Ottilie held out her bare foot.
The guard knelt and slid the slipper on.
It went in.
I saw her mouth go tight for half a second.
Then she smiled at him like sunrise.
"It fits," the herald said.
The maids gasped and clapped.
"That's mine," I said.
Everyone turned.
I stood up. Ash fell off my apron onto the floor.
"That's my slipper. I lost it on the steps. The other one is upstairs."
Maud laughed.
"Cinders thinks she went to a ball."
I didn't wait.
I ran up the back stairs to the attic, to my pallet under the eaves, and shoved my hand into the straw.
Nothing.
I pulled the whole mattress open with my fingers.
Straw everywhere. No slipper.
When I came back down, Ottilie was holding up the second glass slipper in the window light.
"Looking for this?" she said sweetly. "I keep them as a pair. Like any lady would."
The herald looked from her to me.
The guard stood up.
He looked at me for the first time. His eyes were gray-green, exactly as I remembered them.
There was no flicker in them at all.
"You'd steal a lady's night from her," he said. "In front of the Crown's own herald."
"I'm not stealing anything. You asked me if I'd ever seen the stars from the palace roof."
His jaw went hard.
"Ottilie told me you'd try this," he said. "She said you listen at doors."
"She's lying."
"Kneel," he said.
I didn't move.
"You called a lady a liar before the herald. Kneel and put her slipper on her, and say you're sorry."
"Or I take you to the magistrate for slander."
Maud's smile spread slowly.
The maids went quiet.
I thought of the magistrate. I thought of the attic with no lock on it and no money in my pocket.
I knelt on the cold flagstones.
Ottilie lifted her foot onto my knee. Her toes pressed into my apron.
I picked up the second slipper.
My slipper. My mother's friend had made it to my foot, and it had fit like it was poured on.
I buckled it onto my stepsister's foot.
"Say it," the guard said.
"I'm sorry," I said.
Ottilie leaned down until her curls brushed my cheek.
"Good girl, Cinders," she whispered.
When everyone went in to toast the bride, I went out to the yard.
He was at the well, watering the herald's horse.
I walked right up to him.
"You told me you'd never seen an apple tree in blossom," I said. "I said I'd show you one in May."
He didn't turn around.
"You swore you'd know me anywhere."
He set the bucket down.
"I told Lady Ottilie all about that night in the parlor an hour ago," he said. "With the door open. Stay away from her."
He walked his horse away.
My hands were shaking, so I pumped water over them until they stopped.
In the afternoon, a black carriage stopped at our gate.
A herald in green stood on the step. Beside him waited a huge man in a hooded cloak.
"By the old treaty," the green herald read, "the Prince of the Thornwood asks a bride of an Avenmoor house."
"She'll wed him at the first frost. Her house will have a thousand crowns."
Maud's eyes went bright at the money.
Then the maids started laughing.
"The Beast," one of them whispered. "He sent three brides home already. One of them never spoke again."
"Ottilie is promised to the Crown," Maud said loudly. "This house has no other daughter."
The guard stood at Ottilie's shoulder.
I untied my apron.
I folded it and laid it on the kitchen step.
Then I walked down the path to the gate in front of all of them.
"This house has me," I said. "I'm Merriwether's daughter. I'll go."
Ottilie burst out laughing.
The guard stared at me.
Maud took half a breath, looked at the herald's purse, and said, "Take her."
The man in the cloak stepped forward and lowered his hood.
A maid screamed.
He had a lion's face. A long dark mane, short curved horns, and eyes like amber in a fire.
He looked down at me from a great height.
"Are you afraid of me?" he asked.
"No," I said.
His mouth moved. It might have been a smile.
"That's a lie," he said quietly. "So was your sister's, about the slipper. I heard it ring like a church bell."
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