Midnight Falls: A Thrilling Retelling of Cinderella (37 page)

Isolda was ready; she’d rehearsed her lines exhaustively on the way over. She could teach Ella a thing or two about acting. When the coach stopped, Isolda opened her own door, stepped down gracefully and walked unhurriedly toward the main entrance. Of course she was in a hurry, but letting on would only invite questioning. She had neither the time nor the flair for answering many questions. Isolda struck the door forcibly. It took only seconds for it to open.

“I am calling for the lady of the house,” Isolda said formally to an older man she recognized as Ella’s cook. “Is she here?”

Frome eyed Isolda suspiciously.

“It is late, and the lady is retired,” he said curtly.

Isolda feigned disappointment.

“Please,” she implored, “this is very important. I owe her an apology, one twenty years in the making. Please, sir. Two minutes for twenty years. I know my niece. She will understand.”

Frome was unconvinced and had every intention of slamming the door in Isolda’s face but was gently tapped on his shoulder before he could. Marion stood behind him and nodded, just once. Frome all but cursed the woman he loved for her forgiving spirit.

“I will retrieve her,” Marion said as Frome stepped back to allow Isolda entrance. He did not offer her tea nor beseech her to take a seat. He simply walked back into the kitchen without a sound. Isolda had never heard the Delaquix home so eerily silent. Even with a small staff and only one member of the Delaquix family still amongst the living, the house was almost always bustling with conversation and joviality. That night it was like something sullen loomed in the rafters and soaked up the oxygen like a poisonous vapor. Isolda had no difficulty ascertaining what brought about the change. She knew all too well herself.
Gabriel
had that effect on women.

“Why are you here?” Ella said from the staircase, her hair loose and flowing but her body still donning her pale pink gown.

“Ella,” Isolda said, extending her hand, “please come down here, child. I have something to tell you.”

“What? That you’ve poisoned my livestock and burned down my farmhouse?”

“I suppose I deserve that. But I came to tell you that—that—” Isolda began choking on her words.

“What is it?” Ella beseeched, unsympathetic.

“I am sorry.”

Ella felt dizzy. “What?” she said, gripping the railing to keep from toppling over.

“I’m sorry, Ella, for everything. I never treated you as an aunt should treat her niece. I suppose it was because I…I was afraid that my daughters preferred you over me?”

“Are you being serious with me?” Ella said, stunned, “You believed that your children liked me more than you and that gave you the right to treat me like filth and humiliate me? You think that justifies you sneaking around and lying to me or kissing my uncle when you are already married?”

Oh, so you are still going to play this role, Ella?
Isolda thought.

“Ella, you must forgive me for kissing Peter,” Isolda said, happy to oblige the actress. “I did not do it to upset you. I did it because I wanted to make Henry jealous. You know how many times he has been unfaithful to me and I just couldn’t bear it any longer. I wanted to hurt him.”

Ella examined her aunt’s face carefully. Was it possible that Isolda was also a victim? Like Gabriel, was she simply…damaged?

Isolda, as if sensing Ella’s resistance, exposed another layer to her penitence. “It was Bethany who talked me into coming here tonight,” she contended.

“Bethany?”

“Yes. I opened up to her about my regrets in allowing my relationship with you to deteriorate and she suggested I come make peace. Or, rather, to beg your forgiveness.”

“Bethany told you to come here this late at night? I know her. That doesn’t really sound like something she would do,” Ella stated, wondering if Isolda would take the bait. If there was one thing Isolda deplored about her niece, it was the presumption that Ella (just like Isabella) knew more about Aislinn and Bethany than their own mother.

“Actually it is more than that,” Isolda said, remarkably unprovoked by Ella’s insinuation. “There is another reason I am here.”

“Oh, is there?” Ella retorted, realizing how rude she must have sounded and feeling, though she hated to admit it, somewhat regretful.

“Yes. I come tonight, right now, because I have found away that I might atone for my mistakes.”

Ella listened attentively.

“I learned, from chatting with the Duchess of Timmelin,” Isolda went on, “that Arabella is adamant that Leopold choose his wife tonight at midnight when he will be made the new king of Gwent. The duchess spoke to the queen at length even after her husband had died. They are dear friends, you know. The duchess then went on to say that there was one lady in particular that caught the prince’s eye, but he was interrupted by the news of his father and could not tell her himself. Afterward, the prince decreed that this maiden with whom he’d been smitten be tracked down and brought to him. At midnight.”

“That could have been any number of maidens, Isolda.” Ella said nonchalantly, though her heart was beating furiously.

“Not according the Duchess of Timmelin,” Isolda replied, “for she heard that the woman was wearing a light pink dress and had curly blond hair.”

“I was not the only one wearing pink tonight.”

“And who also happened to answer to the name
Ella
.”

Ella did topple over at that point and was forced to catch herself on the railing. Was it true? Had she won over Leopold’s heart after all?

“Are you all right?” Isolda asked when she observed her niece all but welding herself with the brass railing to keep from collapsing.

“Yes, yes I am,” Ella replied, trying to gain equilibrium. “And you want me to believe that you are willingly giving me this information when having Aislinn become the queen has been your mission since we were children?”

Isolda frowned. She slowly ascended the steps until she reached Ella, warmly taking her niece’s hand and looking into her eyes. A soft tear fell down her cheek. “This is my chance for redemption,” Isolda pled. “Don’t take it away from me. Please, my child. Go to the prince and let me atone for my sins.”

Marguerite and Marion had joined Frome in the kitchen. They were each deathly silent, trying desperately hard to hear what was being spoken between Ella and her aunt. Only when they heard the large front door open and close did they scuttle quickly and noisily toward the great room, where Ella was standing in complete stillness.

“What did she want?” Marguerite implored desperately.

“She said she was sorry,” Ella replied apathetically, “and that Prince Leopold wants to see me at midnight.”

“What?” Frome said, staggered.

“Prince Leopold wants me to meet him at the castle at midnight because, according to Isolda who heard it from the Duchess of Timmelin who heard it from the Queen who heard it from her son, he is taken with me.”

“Good grief,” Marion exclaimed, “and she expects you to believe that lineup of gossip?”

“What does that mean?” Marguerite asked, ignoring Marion. “Does that mean the prince wants to marry you, Ella?”

“Isolda is a black-hearted woman,” Frome said, “and I don’t believe for a second what she says.”

“She wants to ‘atone for her sins’,” Ella explained, strangely obtuse to anything her friends were saying to her.

“Did you say you would go?” Marguerite asked.

“Yes, I did.”

Marion exchanged a stunned, horrified glance with Frome.

“Ella,” she pled, “listen to me. I know whatever happened with Gabriel has you all broken up inside. But I know Isolda. I’ve known her as long as you have. You can’t trust that woman. She is lying to you, I just know it.”

Ella severed her trance-like stare into nothingness and returned Marion’s gaze. A slight grin spread across her face. “Of course she is lying to me,” Ella said gaily. “I am not that much of an idiot, Marion.”

Marion was white with shock.

“What do you mean you know?” Frome entreated. “You don’t believe that Leopold wants to see you at midnight?”

Ella inhaled deeply. She was still smiling, scarcely able to believe God was giving her this chance. It was all she could do to keep from racing toward the door, leaving for the castle and forgoing any explanation to anyone, even people she loved so very much.

“Listen to me well, my friends,” Ella pronounced, “for I do not have much time. I believe Isolda is telling me the truth though she does not
know
she is. Somehow she got the word, and I am not sure from whom, that Leopold does want to see me tonight. But it is not because he wants to marry me. He could barely tolerate my presence at the ball tonight. That is, until I began telling him about Thurlow. Gabriel wanted me to wait until I was in the prince’s inner sanctum before I told him about Thurlow but I couldn’t take that chance. Until I brought up the fact that I had a person who knew how sinister Thurlow truly is, I was losing Leopold with each second I was with him. But now, Leopold is dying to speak with Gabriel, even though he does not know who Gabriel is yet. We were interrupted before I could tell him Gabriel’s name.”

“I’m lost,” Frome said, his eyes still wide. Marion smacked him across the shoulder.

Ella went on. “Leopold only wants to see me tonight because he wants to finish the conversation I started. That has to be it. Because I can tell you assuredly that the prince does not love me. I almost bored him to death.”

“Why did Isolda come, then?” Marguerite inquired. “Unless she was truly sorry for her actions, which we have all established she is not, then what did she stand to gain by coming here? She didn’t know you talked to Leopold about Gabriel, did she?”

“No.” Ella said, nervousness setting in.

“Then why?”

“I am not sure,” Ella replied, “But I still have to go.” She turned hastily and made her way toward the back exit by way of the kitchen. She was followed closely.

“Ella, stop for a moment,” Marion begged. “Just tell me what happened tonight with Gabriel. You are not making a great deal of sense and I know it is because of that man. What happened?”

Ella stopped abruptly and looked down for a moment. “I told him the truth, Marion,” she said. “I told him I loved him and that I wanted him to go to Leopold like we’d planned and end this vendetta once and for all. So that we could be together.”

Marguerite waited, spellbound.

“He didn’t want me,” Ella said, looking up, her eyes watering. “At least not enough to keep from doing the most reckless, dangerous thing he could do. He is going to kill Thurlow. He will expose him and then kill him. That was his plan all along.”

“That shocks you, Ella? You didn’t suspect he would want Thurlow dead?”

“Wanting someone dead and actually killing them are two different things, Marion. And yes, I was shocked.
Kind of
. I told him not to do it. Don’t you see? If he kills Thurlow, Gabriel will become just as he was before: a renegade, a fugitive, forever exiled from the rest of the world. I want him to love me enough to let that go.”

“You said that to him?”

“Not in so many words. Look, I have to go now, Marion. If I can make it to Leopold in time and tell him the truth, I can prevent Gabriel from killing Thurlow. I can see to it that Leopold knows the truth and has Thurlow imprisoned. Gabriel can’t kill Thurlow if he can’t get to him, right?”

Marion did not respond, for Ella hadn’t really posed a question. Her mind was made up. Marion could not help but be taken back to the morning weeks before when Gabriel had first come into their home. She could still hear Ella’s voice, insisting on itself in spite of all logic.

I have not lived as many years as you and I do not pretend that I have much experience in the proclivities of men, be they con artists or gentleman. But I must follow the instincts of my mind and heart.

As much as she might have tried to persuade Ella to rethink the rashness of her choices, Marion knew the unyielding efforts would only bring about bruises to her own skin. She would have to be satisfied with those moments where she and Ella, in the quietness of solitude and the vulnerability of sorrow, could speak as equals; where Marion would get tiny, almost indistinguishable moments to cloak her advice in empathy and pray it was not forgotten.

Why was wisdom wasted on the old?

“You are not going anywhere without this,” Marion said to Ella, handing her the warm shawl she’d had draped over her own shoulders. “Swear to me you will be careful.”

Ella waited until Marion was finished clasping the corners of the shawl with a large pin and kissed her dearest friend on the cheek.

“I swear.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Quarter Past Eleven o’clock.

Two guards waited at the postern gate. One was a veteran named Samuel. The other was his trainee, a lanky young man named Timothy who had the distinction of being the only man in the castle guard with one brown eye and the other almost yellow. Both men were quite bored in their station. It was a dark time of night and there were few people going to and from the castle, since the guests had all been cleared. Gwent’s citizens were expected to be in their homes, weeping and prostrating themselves now that their revered king was dead. Samuel and Timothy guessed few of the people were in reality very downtrodden, for the two men weren’t either. And it was their duty to adhere to each and every aspect, trivial or significant, that pertained to King William. Even upon his grave. But instead they were preoccupied by the two women that had graced their pathway that evening, within ten minutes of one another. The first had rich brown hair with striking hazel eyes. Her narrow face featured thin eyebrows that arched toward her temples, teasing that she was somehow keen to some great secret. She appeared that evening on foot, leading Samuel and Timothy to theorize out loud, as they watched her near, where she might have come from. She was not out of breath nor was she perspiring. She referred to herself as the Lady Armitage and that she’d been summoned by Prince Leopold himself.