Midnight Falls: A Thrilling Retelling of Cinderella (45 page)

“Mother?”

Isolda was startled when she heard Aislinn’s voice in her left ear. Her daughter was emerging from the hallway that led to the private bedchambers of the Armitage family. Isolda had not even sensed her presence.

“I will apologize for nothing!” Isolda screeched, curling her fingers into a fist that, with the condemning laceration on her right hand, turned out to be rather painful. “I do nothing but for my family. Ella took everything from us. And she did nothing to deserve it but have a pretty face. Then she pouted and wept like I was the one that was being so very unfair to her. She has no idea how unfair life really is. Look at my daughters! They are as ravishing as Ella and yet Aislinn was sent home in disgrace last night. She went back just for you,
King
Leopold, and you spurned her! Just because you wanted to fawn like a satyr over Ella! Well, I had had enough. Ella is not so very pretty now!”

Isolda’s mirage of recollection was becoming plain to her. It had not been a dream. She’d seen Ella lying there, only partially conscious. Even in her desperate condition, she was still so ravishing. She would always get whatever she wanted because of her damn face! Isolda could not control her rage. All she could think about was leveling the playing field for once and letting Ella experience all the attention in a way she’d never dreamed. It had been too perfect an opportunity and Isolda had taken it.

And she would have done it again.

“What are you talking about, Mother?” Aislinn begged, her face aghast. “How was I sent home in disgrace? I went to the ball, but then I left the castle with the Duchess of Timmelin and all the other guests after the announcement was made that the king died. I never went back.”

“Why are you saying these things, Aislinn?” Isolda exhorted frantically, her face turning from white to red. “I told you to return to the castle and you did. Those idiotic excuses for guards told me you were there!”

“Well, they must have been mistaken,” Aislinn contended, stepping closer to her mother on the dramatic stage that was the mezzanine of their interior balcony. “After you left last night, I tried to do as you instructed but I couldn’t. My door was locked from the outside. I banged and hollered for an hour but no one heard me. I was trapped. Then this morning, when I tried to exit again, the door was unlocked. Like it had never happened.”

In Aislinn’s explanation, she appeared almost as desperate as her mother. It had been more than unnerving to be captive in her own bedroom, slamming her fists against the door for someone to let her out. She even considered trying to escape through the window but feared the fall would seriously harm her. More than just fear, however, was bewilderment. Her door had never locked from the outside on its own. Someone had to have done it.

“This can’t be happening!” Isolda nearly shouted. “You were there, Aislinn. I know it!”

“No, she wasn’t,” Bethany proclaimed, her voice a calming energy against Isolda’s increasingly propulsive tirade. “It was me, Mother.”

Both Isolda and Aislinn were stricken by a brutal hush.

“I heard what you said to Aislinn last night, Mother,” Bethany went on, trying not to enjoy her disclosure too much. “I heard it from my own bedroom. Like you’ve always complained, our walls are so shamefully thin. And I was just about to curse you both for destroying my own magical evening when I was set upon by a most self-serving idea. I decided it was my turn to take a chance on myself, since you never did. After you’d left, I snuck over to Aislinn’s room and locked the door. Then I hid the key. I was not dressed for the occasion but I couldn’t very well steal the yellow gown that I loved so much off from Aislinn’s body. So I retrieved one from her heap of unworthy discards. The gown that Aislinn had preferred in the beginning was still quite stunning. It was pink. Her favorite color. Not mine, though. I like yellow.”

Bethany took a step and eased into the vacant space alongside Leopold. She took his hand in hers proudly. “Remember when you told me,” she said with the sheerest pleasure she’d ever experienced, “that God would give us a kingdom? Well, it didn’t happen that way. But He did give me a king.”

Isolda fell forward against the railing. Bethany could not help but feel guilt for seeing her mother so undone. No matter how many times she had wronged Bethany, Isolda was still her mother. She was the only mother Bethany would ever get. Those ties were supposed to bind them forever. When Bethany looked over at her sister, however, what once had been just a tinge of regret transformed into an assault of remorse.

Aislinn peered down at her twin sister and the look that befell her face was not one of anger or even shock. It was sorrow. Aislinn felt like a rock had been thrown at her chest. She had never been a kind enough sister to Bethany. She knew it. She’d been sick about it that whole horrific night. She knew, objectively, that her twin sister had every right to take her own pride back after it had been so deviously taken from her by her own kin. But still Aislinn was heartbroken
.
Betrayed, even if there was no merit for it.

Would it ever have occurred to you to simply tell me that you were going to take my place instead of tricking me and leaving me to wail from my bedroom like a squealing pig?
Aislinn thought but did not say out loud.
Why didn’t you just ask me first? I would have agreed…willingly. I would have given you back your dress and told you I was sorry.

But Bethany had failed to give Aislinn such a chance and what once had been a fragile but living relationship was forever tarnished.

You said you took a chance on yourself because no one else would, Sister. Perhaps you are right. But last night has proven that you never once took a chance on me either. I suppose now we are even; and the chance for both of us is gone.

Bethany could not look at her twin sister. She knew she had hurt Aislinn. She could feel it. She turned and faced Leopold, the man she had fallen in love with, and took fleeting comfort in his eyes. He saw Bethany’s heaviness of heart. She’d told him, just hours before, that she would only accept his proposal of marriage once he knew the truth of her true identity and why she’d done what she had. Leopold had not struggled for even a moment to overlook the deception, but he did take the time to heed that while, in the beginning, it had been quite exhilarating for Bethany to enter her own arena of espionage, it was not easy for her to risk losing her family. Especially Aislinn.

“You wretch!” Isolda screamed at Bethany and began descending the steps. “How could you deceive your own mother like that? How could you do that to your sister? I always knew it. I knew it would have been better if you had been Isabella’s daughter instead of mine! You are just like her. You are conniving and unfeeling!” Isolda had reached the bottom of the steps.

“Stop it, Mother!” Bethany demanded. “Stop blaming a ghost for every one of your failures. You can pretend all you want that Isabella is the devil but it will never erase your own sins.”

“That woman
was
the devil! I would have done anything for her to like me, but she only ever despised me in return.”

“You lie,” Bethany exclaimed.

“It’s true, child.” Henry said.

Silence.

Henry’s declamation did more than still the storm. It teased of another one far worse, which had yet to reveal itself.

“What?” Bethany said, looking at her father; the man she hardly knew and never respected.

“What your mother says is true,” Henry repeated. “Isabella did hate her. She hated her for many years. She only ever hid it in front of you children.”

Bethany gasped. Aislinn could barely stand. Tears were streaming down her cheek.

“That can’t be,” Bethany said, almost pleadingly.

“Why are we supposed to believe you?” Miles interjected, though he could not deny the inkling in his brain that he should remain as far from the domestic inferno as possible. “Of course you would say anything to protect your wife.”

Henry chortled. “If you knew even an iota about me or my wife, you would know the gross error of your claim,” Henry asserted. “It is not too difficult to tell that she can barely stand to be in the same room as me. In fact, it has been that way from before she and I were even married.”

“Be quiet, Henry,” Isolda choked out.

“I loved her back then,” he went on. “In some ways I love her now though I believe her to be the worst kind of woman. She is rather smart, however. And she is right about one thing. Isabella Delaquix could barely look at her.”

“Henry, shut your mouth!” Isolda shrieked.

“Oh enough, Isolda!” Henry shot back. “Stop pretending you are such a victim. You are not. Isabella had every reason not to trust you.”

“She married my brother. We were family. She had no right to reject me like she did, just because she was a duke’s daughter.”

“That was not why and you know it! You betrayed her as no family ever should, and on her and Thomas’ wedding day of all days.”

“Henry, as God is my witness I will kill you where you stand.”

He laughed brazenly. There was a bizarre, almost perverse gleefulness in his voice. “How?” he prodded his wife. “From the looks of it, your hand is quite wounded to kill me. I suppose it is from your assault on Ella. Either way, if you murder me now, I will die a happy man. I never realized how hard it was to keep all of this scandalous information a secret for so many years, just to protect the reputation of a woman like you. It would suit me just fine to expose it all as my deathbed confession!”

Isolda’s eyes were like white stone. A creak emanated from the wooden floorboards and it pierced the silent air like steel striking steel.

“Father,” Bethany uttered almost inaudibly, “what are saying?”

“I am sorry your parents were so undeserving of daughters like you,” Henry said to Bethany before he glanced up to Aislinn, who was still stultified at the top of the steps. “But I cannot be the bigger man now, or the better father, and spare you from this shame. On the night of Thomas and Isabella’s wedding, your mother met Isabella’s young, adolescent brother, Peter.”

“Henry,” Isolda chanted, gutturally, “don’t say one more word. Isabella is a vixen. If you ever loved me at all, let it stay that way.”

“If you ever loved
me
,” Henry chided mercilessly, “you would never have done what you did. Isabella was just reacting as any loving sister would. How can you blame her for never wanting to befriend a woman that, on the night of her wedding and when she was already engaged to be married to me, bedded her only brother: the teenage Peter Summerly?!”

Chapter Forty-One

Ella rustled herself awake. Marguerite was there, distracted by Louis who had come to her with a basket of fruit and pastries. She could not see Marion. A dull ache still loomed over her body, but just the fact that she was warm and clean seemed to lessen its effect of her. She quickly discerned that there was some sort of cloth bandage on her face. It partially covered the corner of her left eye. She felt the area gently with her fingertips. She could feel the groove of what must have been a deep cut across her cheek. It hurt her and she winced

“Oh my goodness, you’re awake!” Marguerite squealed, nearly pushing Louis to ground to get to Ella. “How do you feel, my darling?”

“Sore,” Ella replied. She tried to sit up but Marguerite insisted she not.

“No, no, child. Stay still and rest. You can come home soon. Are you hungry?”

“Not very.”

“Well, Louis here brought some fresh peaches. Marion and Frome went for a walk. She did not want to leave but Frome insisted. Can you believe that? I do believe she is in love. Men. It is amazing the effect baboons have on swans such as us.”

Ella smiled and it felt good, through it panged. “Marguerite?” she said.

“Yes, love?”

“What happened?”

Marguerite’s gleefulness disappeared and she was not sure why. After all, it had all ended well.
Well enough.

“Thurlow is dead,” Marguerite stated clearly.

“Gabriel killed him?”

“I don’t know. If he did, he pushed him through a window.”

“A window?”

“Yes. Nothing too exciting there. Just went splat right there on the cobblestone walkway. Poor bastard.”

“And the prince?”

“He’s the king now.”

“What about—?”

“My dear, everyone’s alive and kicking but Captain Thurlow. Now the rest can wait for another time. Either eat something or go back to sleep.”

Marguerite placed the basket that Louis had delivered and began walking away from Ella. She contemplated whether to say something to Ella about Gabriel; how he’d known precisely where to find her in that enormous castle. Would it only make things worse? Marguerite elected to let Ella decide.

“He came back, you know,” Marguerite disclosed to Ella, whose head had fallen back on the pillow and whose eyes were staring off into nothingness.

“What? Who?” Ella asked eagerly.

“Gabriel. He came looking for you last night at home after you’d left. When we told him about what Isolda had said and where you’d gone, he vanished. Just like that. Went after you like some warrior to rescue his true love. Or something ridiculously romantic like that. What a baboon.”

Ella grinned and leaned back into the pillow again. She closed her eyes. After a few moments, when she was sure Marguerite had left, she opened them. Ella saw the rays of sunlight beaming through the windows, but it still felt like nighttime. She could hear the chirp of crickets in her ears and the crisp air against her skin. But it was not nighttime anymore. Once the clocks had struck midnight, the morning was ushered in and it was a new day. Even though the darkness still prevailed.

Thurlow was dead. Gabriel was alive and well and Ella’s hope lingered that he had not been the one to kill Thurlow. The ending she’d sought had come to pass and there was a new day ahead.

Still, the darkness prevailed.

Ella knew it would not last; it was being eased away ever so slowly by the promise of a better future. But until then, she yearned for the cover of the night’s darkness to hide her. And it was not because of her battered face. The pain was horrible and the dread of having to live the rest of her life with so obscene a scar was certainly trying. But still, miraculously, Ella did not feel a great deal of sadness over her physical misfortune. It was almost as if God had granted her wish to be unexceptional. Except now she was still exceptional, but for an entirely different reason. And yet Ella did not curse God.