Midnight Falls: A Thrilling Retelling of Cinderella (10 page)

“It shouldn’t be too difficult, because very few people remember Peter at all.”

Gabriel looked over to Ella and his eyes became pensive.“I can’t take that risk, Ella,” he said. “This isn’t a game. I must know every detail. I will talk in depth with Marion. I am prepared to do whatever is necessary.”

Ella shuttered.
Whatever is necessary
? She already knew as much, but why did his reiteration of that fact right then and there tingle her spine as it did? Who was this man, Gabriel? He was once a soldier, then a fugitive. He lost his brother and was driven by intense rage to avenge the man that took his brother from him. That was all Ella knew for sure. Gabriel had dragged her out there and she was damned if he was the only one who was going to emerge from their sojourn the wiser.

“Tell me about your brother,” Ella said, breaking a minute-long silence.

“What?” Gabriel was surprised.

“Your brother,” she said. “What was his name?” Gabriel didn’t answer right away. Ella wondered if she had ventured down a path on which he was not ready to accompany her.

“Benjamin,” he said, his face forward, never looking from the road ahead.

“Benjamin Solange?”

“Yes.”

“Was he older than you?”

“Yes.”

Gabriel was so mechanical in his answers to her questions that Ella dared not go any further. But with each step Fitzpatrick took, she felt compelled to know more; to do, as Gabriel so eloquently described, whatever was necessary.

“Where did you two grow up? Here in Gwent?”

Gabriel sighed, like her questions were more agitating to him than burdensome. “Yes, we were both born and raised here. He was four years older than I.”

“Were you close to your parents?”

“Ella!” he shot at her.

“What? These are innocent questions. Why are you so angry?”

“Because it is not vital for you to know these things about me. I will be in and out of your life fairly quickly, if all goes well, and I just don’t see how it is necessary.”

“How about because I feel it is necessary,” Ella declared, pulling back on the reigns to stop Fitzpatrick. “You are right that if things go swimmingly we will not have to know each other much longer. But in the meantime, I believe your vulnerabilities should be as exposed as mine simply so we can…” She stopped.

“We can what?”

Ella looked at Gabriel. She had been beaten at her own game. There was no way Gabriel would ever be equal to her in his vulnerabilities. He had them, of that Ella was sure. But, unlike her, he knew how to keep them safe.

“We can what, Ella?” Gabriel requested again with more urgency.

“Nothing,” Ella replied, defeated. She kicked Fitzpatrick softly with her left heel and turned back toward home. For the first time, as she felt Gabriel’s eyes on her back, she wanted Fitzpatrick to run as fast as his chubby legs could take him. She kicked her heel again, a little harder. Fitzpatrick took the cue and began trotting gleefully up the hill. Ella’s heartbeat quickened and she imagined falling from Fitzpatrick like she’d done more than ten years earlier. She didn’t know what would have been worse, breaking her bones again with no one to help or doing it in front of Gabriel. Ella had only traveled twenty feet or so when she felt Seely along her right side. She heard Gabriel’s voice and she felt a wave of relief.

“Whoa!” he said loudly as he took Fitzpatrick’s reigns and slowed the horse down to a complete stop. Ella felt as relieved as if her life had been saved. When she thought back to it, however, she realized the horse had barely been trotting.

Well, this was a splendid morning!
she thought.

She thanked Gabriel and dismounted quickly. She heard him call her name but she ignored it.

“Ella, stop,” he exclaimed, climbing off Seely and rushing toward her, pulling her back by her elbow. “You’re right. I am sorry. We need to trust each other. That is what you were trying to say, right?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, trying to pull her arm free. “Just like you said: all we need to be is competent actors and soon this will be over.”

“I was wrong,” he said, tightening his grip, “it is more than that. I do trust you, Ella. I trust you enough to hold my brother’s and my own soul in your very hands. Don’t you see that it was hard enough just to ask you to do this? I struggle to tell you about my parents because I never knew them. They died when I was very young and my grandmother raised us until she died. After that, it was just Benjamin and I. My brother was all I had.”

He released her arm and stood up straight, his stature proud but his eyes almost frightened. He spoke again.

“And now you are all I have.”

Ella could never have anticipated that Gabriel would say those words to her. And she could never, even if she’d tried, have prepared for the reaction her heart and mind would make upon hearing them. She could scarcely draw breath.

As she watched him take the reins of both horses in his hands and trek back up to the house, she knew she had embarked on the most desperate kind of relationship to have with another human being. Ella’s bond with Gabriel could never cease to be the kind that, with every bit you learn, cloaks itself in even more secrecy.

Miles stretched his fingers outward and then bent them back into a fist, squeezing as tightly as he could to stretch the surface of his black leather glove. He felt the tension travel from his gut to his hand and back again. He could see the territory known as Kersley less than one hundred yards ahead. His troops, only a portion of his total number, were waiting for his order to deploy. Miles wondered how treasonous it would be to disregard his own orders and call his troops back. It might not have been enough to have him imprisoned, but it was certainly enough to lose him his post. His second in command, Oli Roget, rode up alongside Miles’ right side.

“What will it be, sir?” asked Oli, the most loyal and honorable of any soldiers Miles had ever known. He often wrestled with the near certainty that Oli was a much better man than he was and should quite possibly be the one to command the army.

“Oli,” Miles said, stretching out and fisting his gloved hand a second time, a nervous twitch, “no horses are to engage in full sprint. Slow speeds are needed to avoid a panic in Kersley. Eviction of the residents of Kersley is our order. It must be executed thoroughly. Make sure the men know that residents are not to be harmed but be treated with respect. If there are any mishaps, attention must be brought to me before any arrests are to be made. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Oli said, riding back to his station farther down the line.

Miles would often think of his wife, Julietta, when he was nervous or anxious. Her lovely face would quell his agitation when he was unsure the consequences of his actions and instill in him the impetus to follow through on each of his acts, even through their repercussions.

As Miles gave the order to engage and the horses moved into Kersley, toward a people that were strangely independent but completely unthreatening, Miles saw more than his own family. He saw a sea of children, soon to be homeless, and knew he could go not one more day without making his concerns known to King William himself. The king was certainly not God, but adherence to his wisdom and guidance was still, for Miles Gamely, tantamount to the holiest of contrition.

Chapter Eight

Leopold had grown quite accustomed during his life to the pomp and downright ridiculous whims of his doting mother. It did not mean he liked it. There were, of course, several justifications for fanfare when it came to the prince and only heir to a vast kingdom such as Gwent. William Leopold Hoffeline II, known to all as Leopold, understood the necessity of image as the son of a monarch. Decorum, nobility, even grandeur were part of the package. King William had thousands of subjects. For a reason still bewildering to Leopold, they all seemed content to be governed by one man and, furthermore, have that man represent the glamour of all they did not have. It was as if to the commoner, the royal family (what with their fine clothing, exquisite jewelry, and disposable necessities) represented the dream for which they dared hope for themselves.

Queen Arabella had shown restraint by allowing her son to return from his military service without a parade or even a proclamation. Leopold had been able to ride his stallion right up the postern gates of his father’s breathtaking castle and simply request entrance into his home. But it was not truly his home, Leopold thought to himself dishearteningly, or at least it had not been for almost two years. For the last eighteen months, he had spent every waking moment with the young but proud fighting men of Gwent’s powerful army. The army was quite enormous, representing one-third of the citizens of Gwent’s middle and lower classes. The men of the upper classes were not required to serve but were often encouraged to by their parents for the sake of appearances. There had been little conflict between Gwent and its neighbors for many years and the idea of enlisting and training in peacetime was not overwhelming to most. It had been Leopold’s choice to set the example and serve in the army himself. He’d started at the bottom of the ranks and worked his way up as any other soldier would.

Well, he had hoped it would be that simple. But Leopold could not keep his identity concealed forever and the inevitable favor that fell upon him once the word of his parentage got out was something he’d dreaded. He had been discouraged by the fact that he could not even get his boots dirty without one of his superiors offering to wipe them off and resigned himself to returning home after only a few months. There was one commander, however, who had convinced him otherwise. His name was Miles Gamely and he had taught the wary young prince that deserting your comrades even when it was impossible to be one of them was still desertion.

As Leopold made his way through the tall, spacious hallways of the castle toward his mother’s bower, he smiled bashfully at the glances and pointed fingers of the castle staff. It indeed made him uncomfortable, but what else was new? There were a few smiles, however, that made him more jittery than most. Leopold wondered if one of the consequences of his rather disreputable behavior as a teenager was the perpetual awkwardness when he saw certain female members of the castle staff. There hadn’t been many and he was much younger then, but it made for butterflies in his stomach to be reminded of the scandalous events that they all shared. It was something of which he was neither proud nor ashamed. It just was as it was. He did not associate with many children as a child, either girl or boys. At that time, he did not mind the lack of peers. It was every young boy’s wish to be showered with riches and doted on by every person with whom he came in contact and the prince of Gwent was no exception. The young Leopold was spoiled beyond rotten and such prominence allowed the prince little residual energy to make equally “cushioned” socialites feel appreciated. That was not his responsibility. By the time he was a pre-teen, however, he had changed, at least in part, due to a rather frightening event in his life.

His father, King William, had almost been assassinated at the hand of one of his trusted soldiers. It was an understatement to say that Gwent was rattled to its core. Leopold had never seen his serene domesticity so fractured by fear and distrust. He’d never known his own father to be afraid. Even though one of the assailants had been killed, William became incurably paranoid and detained his wife and young son in the castle for months, believing they were in danger from a second assailant who had escaped from the dungeon before he’d been executed for his part in the conspiracy.

During the next several years, Leopold had become restless, curious, and desirous of fulfillment he could not find in expensive gifts. He also did not find it in the arms of Christine, a chambermaid some years older than Leopold and the woman who introduced him to the world of sensuality. Still, it became something for him to do; something to enjoy that was not exclusive to his station. No man, be he a prince or a farmer, could be born into the greatness of love; there was no such thing as an heir to passion nor a shoe-in to the truest, most intoxicating of all romance. Leopold had been brought up to believe he was both, but he knew better than to buy into the delusion.

So, indeed, the prince was grateful for the experiences of life that helped him mature when his own parents felt such growth was arbitrary. Nonetheless, Leopold wanted more than just the pleasure of circumstance and curiosity. He wanted to fall in love and know true companionship. But he knew better than to think it would ever happen. Just like his comrades saw more in Leopold than was really there, so would his betrothed, whoever she was, want only the prince everyone saw, not what was truly there.

Leopold knew, as much as it irked him, that he was of the age to take a wife. He was certain, as he knocked on the elegant, gold-trimmed doors of the queen’s chamber that his mother was well ahead of him on that subject.

“My son! Oh, my sweet boy,” Arabella squealed with delight, her arms outstretched to Leopold as he entered, “you’ve returned early. I did not expect you for many more days. How could you do this to me?” Leopold realized his mother hadn’t shown restraint by not throwing a circus in celebration of his return but that she had simply misread dates.