Cinderella and the Colonel (15 page)

“You’ve decided to stop deny
ing your feelings and plan to elope and run away with me?” Friedrich said, perking with interest.

“No.”

“Oh,” Friedrich said, easing back into a stance of nonchalance. “Then no. I don’t think I will be doing much gloating.”

“I am here to humble myself and admit you
were right in your advice to plant flowers.”

“So they’ve bloomed
, then?”

“They’ve bloomed
, and I sold a batch at the market this morning.”

“Sold out already
, eh?”

“Yes.”

“In all fairness, it seemed unlikely you would ever know that about our culture unless you visited Erlauf. As you haven’t many flowers besides wild flowers here, we don’t often get to express our passion,” Friedrich said.

“All the same
, I doubted the wisdom of your words. Thank you for pushing the subject.”

“
Of course. Anything for you, Cinderella,” Friedrich said, brushing Cinderella’s cheek with his fingers. “Will you make much off them?”

Cinderella nodded.
“A fair amount.”

“
But not enough to cover the landholding fine?”

“No.”

Friedrich nodded. “That’s unfortunate.”

“I will keep try
ing. The summer isn’t over yet,” Cinderella said.

“
Perhaps our sweet queen would accept a partial payment?”

“
Your
queen is a harpy, and I very much doubt she would bend that much,” Cinderella sourly said.

“She’s not
so bad,” Friedrich said. “Haven’t you heard? Next week she and the Erlauf Commander—the consort—are reopening the Trieux Royal Library.”

“What?”

“Yes. It has been renamed. It’s now the Erlauf Repository of Stories and Education.”

“
That’s a mouthful.”

“They’re call
ing it the Rose for short. See? I told you flowers are important to us.”

“I believe you
, now. I am impressed she means to open it again, but it may not help me. If they limit the patronage—as they did when it was under Trieux rule—it might be even more difficult for me to conduct my farming research. Do you know what the membership fee is? Knowing your queen, I should think it to be the price of a good horse,” Cinderella said.

“No
, it’s free.”

“
Free
?”

Friedrich nodded. “Free for everyone—
commoner, servant, noble, Trieux or Erlauf. Everyone can use it.”

Cinderella tucked her head
, uncertain. “That’s very…generous.”

“
The patrolling soldiers—mostly from the Second Regiment—were relieved to hear the news. With the library opening again, they no longer need to fear embarrassment by the book thief that persists in evading capture,” Friedrich said.

“How fortuitous.”

“There’s going to be an opening ceremony and everything. You should go,” Friedrich said.

“
Will you be attending?”

Friedrich sighed. “Alas
, I cannot. I am being forced to work myself to the bone for the occasion.”

Cinderella laughed. “You haven’t worked a full day since I’ve met you.”

“That isn’t true,” Friedrich objected.

“Hah!”

“Perhaps I have worked less since becoming acquainted with you. Unfortunately, next week even I cannot weasel my way out of work—though I long to do so.”

“
It saddens me to be told that, Fred.”

Friedrich
laughed, a sound that caressed Cinderella’s skin like velvet. “At least you are beginning to acknowledge how you pine for me.”

“Speak
ing of pine, I must return to the market.”

“You pine for
that loose-mouthed maid of yours?”

“No
, for our customers’ money.”

“Sometimes I worry you will marry me on
ly for my money,” Friedrich said, leaning over her.

Correct
ly interpreting his movements, Cinderella squirmed to the side before he could kiss her cheek. “One day someone is going to hear the way you moon over me and report back to whatever Erlauf lady your parents have selected for you,” she said.

“It makes no difference. My parents already know
all about you,” Friedrich said, losing the jesting edge to his voice.

“What?” Cinderella said
, freezing.

“Do you real
ly think I could use my regiment as a sort of go-between and not tell my parents?” Friedrich said.

“Isn’t that a part of sewing wild oats and what not?”
Cinderella said, her forehead scrunching. She had the barest sense of what “sewing wild oats” meant, and suspected it was wilder than what she was picturing.

“The moment I chose you I told them
,” Friedrich said, sliding his hand under Cinderella’s chin.

Cinderella shifted and avoided look
ing at Friedrich’s painfully intense eye.

Friedrich sighed. “I wish you would stop clamp
ing up whenever I mention how serious I am,” he said, his voice low like a dog’s growl.

“It’s because you
aren’t
serious,” Cinderella said. “You always flirt and joke.”

“No
, I flirt and joke because I doubt you would stay in my company for longer than a moment if you knew just how serious I am,” Friedrich said, sliding his fingers up Cinderella’s jawline.

Cinderella caught his hand and pulled it away from her face. “Friedrich
, I can’t.”

Friedrich
sighed and looked up at the sky. “I know.”

The pair
was silent until Friedrich tore his gaze from the sky and smiled at Cinderella. “I will let you run back to your market stand. Take care, Pet.”

“You as well
, Friedrich,” Cinderella said.

Friedrich
was the first to go, leaving Cinderella in the shadow of the mess hall.

Her relationship with the Colonel
was complicated, not just because of the position Cinderella was in, but because of who they were. “It would never work,” she said.

Cinderella squared her shoulders and put her chin up. “It would never work
,
and
he’s not wholly sincere,” she said before she turned on her heels. “I know perfectly well he’s a rogue. He cannot be serious. It just isn’t possible.”

Cinderella realized
she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than stating a fact.

It would
be easier if he were joking
, Cinderella thought before she angrily shook the topic from her head. “Sun Skips! That is what I should think of. I must speak to Pierre about their price, and ask how many we should harvest per day so as to not flood the market…”

“Studies and academics are vital to humanit
y. They allow limits to be pushed and countries to be changed,” Queen Freja said, standing on the front steps of the Trieux Royal Library—now the Erlauf Repository of Stories and Education—with her husband, three army officers, and two government officials.

“It is my hope all parts of Erlauf will flourish if
its people are properly educated and given the opportunity to seek out knowledge,” Queen Freja said. Her voice was hard, like iron.

“Every person
, whether he or she is a true scholar or a baker, should have access to books,” the queen continued.

Cinderella narrowed her eyes as she studied the foreign queen. She
had seen her before—she was presented to Freja when she inherited her title from her father—but back then Cinderella saw her as the hardened woman who was slowly choking Trieux to death.

Cinderella took in the woman’s height and lean stature with new eyes. There
was something about her face and the sharp angles of her cheekbones that seemed oddly familiar.

“She goes on
, doesn’t she, Mademoiselle?” Vitore darkly muttered as the queen continued with her speech.

Cinderella shrugged. “It’s rare for her to do someth
ing
good
here. I am sure she must capitalize on the few chances she has,” Cinderella said, safely surrounded by Trieux market vendors.

The milkmaid whose stand was next to Aveyron’s in the market
squawked, “Good? The library was already built and furnished. She’s just renamed it,” she said, brushing goat hair off her skirt.

“She is open
ing it to the public,” Cinderella said.

“For the moment
,” Vitore grunted.

Cinderella shifte
d her attention to the queen’s consort—the Commander of all Erlauf armies. The man was so uninvolved in palace politics and court happenings that Cinderella didn’t even know his name. She did know he was the terror of the Erlauf Army. His title was not something worn casually. The man was a brilliant strategist and just as hard and unmoving as his wife.

He
looked incredibly common. Cinderella wasn’t sure if she would be able to pick him out of a crowd if he wasn’t standing next to Queen Freja.

“Their sons must be like slabs of marble
,” Cinderella said. Neither of the Erlauf princes had deigned to attend the opening ceremony.

Cinderella
was not surprised.

“Is that a surprise considering who their parents are?” the acid tongued milkmaid asked.

“Hear, hear,” Vitore said.

When Cinderella looked at them with raised eyebrows they blinked innocently.

“What is it, Mademoiselle?” Vitore asked.

The milkmaid was not so shy. “Perhaps that Colonel of yours isn’t so bad,” she grudgingly said. “But you can’t tell me those Erlauf princes are as good as him.”

“No, I should think not,” Cinderella agreed.

“…Therefore
, it is with great joy that I pronounce the Erlauf Repository of Stories and Education to be open and free to all. Let no one keep his fellow man from these halls, and let knowledge pour forth from its doors,” Queen Freja finished.

Cinderella clapped
half-heartedly with her fellow market vendors. The pockets of Erlauf citizens cheered louder, a few even threw yellow Sun Skips—purchased earlier that morning from Aveyron’s market stall—on the library steps.

“Well
, that’s done,” the milkmaid said.

“I would bet my eyeteeth before the week is out there will be some sort of
book tax that all property owners who have owned their land for more than five years must pay,” Cinderella said.

“She is the rotten sort to do
that, if you don’t mind me saying, Mademoiselle.”

“Not at all
,” Cinderella sighed, fluffing her skirts.

“Shall we return to the stand
, Mademoiselle?”

“Not yet. I want to
have a look inside first,” Cinderella said, nodding towards the library. “You may go if you like, though. Don’t let me keep you.”

“As you wish
, Madmoiselle.”

“I will go with you, Vitore. I don’t trust Chas with my goats, not for long, anyway. Last time they got into his stand and ate two lengths of rope,” the milkmaid said, referring to the ropemaker.

“Thank you,” Cinderella said before the pair disappeared in the push of the crowd.

The c
onsort and his soldiers pushed back the crowds, opening up a pathway to the library. The first through the doors were Erlauf scholars—eager to get their hands on the priceless volumes the Trieux Nobles gathered over the ages.

After the scholars went Trieux commoners. The library
was built and founded decades ago, but it was exclusive in the patronage it allowed, so the average citizen rarely got to see so much as a glimpse inside the decadent building. It was probably why they attended the ceremony—so they could poke their heads inside and gawk at what was once denied to them.