Midnight Falls: A Thrilling Retelling of Cinderella (32 page)

“You don’t say,” Halsty declared, “because I too found the duke to be less than amiable. But that could be due to my efforts to keep him occupied while you had your moment with Miss Delaquix. By the way, you’re welcome for that.”

“It is more than that, Halsty. Something about the way that man spoke to me; he reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

Thurlow did not answer immediately. Instead, he zeroed in the object of his quandary across the room. The Duke of Ebersol appeared to be anxiously observing his niece’s secluded rendezvous with Leopold, from a distance.

“Just keep an eye on him, Sergeant,” he said to Halsty, his eyes still fixed on Gabriel. “I have too many pressing concerns tonight to bother with some conceited charlatan. We will just have to see to it that after all of the dust settles tomorrow morning, our good friend the duke will find himself dead underneath a pile of stones.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Ella inhaled the chilly night air. It was a welcome sensation to her rising body temperature. She had been unwise to tease Thurlow in such a way. What had she been thinking? Her irritability manifested itself on her face and Leopold, the man she was supposed to be groveling over incessantly, noticed her stupor.

“You seem distracted tonight, miss,” Leopold said, leaning beside her against the stone half wall that lined the city’s mezzanine and prevented the two of them from plummeting to a grisly demise. “I hope I did not pilfer you from something important back there.”

“Oh no, on the contrary, Your Highness,” Ella said, perking up and taking heed that she was on a crucial errand. “You were liberating me from a…trying situation.”

“I see,” he replied with a slight but captivating grin. “Well, in that case, you are welcome.”

Ella smiled and felt her nerves calm.

“What is your name?” Leopold inquired.

“Ella Delaquix, Your Highness, daughter of Thomas and Isabella Delaquix.”

“Isabella is your mother’s name?”

“Yes. It
was
her name.”

“Oh, I am sorry to illicit sad memories. It is just that it seems your name is a derivative of your mother’s.
Ella.
Did they do that intentionally?”

“Of course! Why else would they give me such a trite, uninspired moniker?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Leopold exclaimed with a chuckle. “It is a lovely name. Short. Concise. Unlike mine: William Leopold Hoffeline II.”

“That is a mouthful,” Ella replied gleefully, though dreadfully listless with the niceties of their oh-so-formal dialogue. Still, the lull of Leopold’s soft voice and the sweetness of his eyes bestowed upon her a peace and serenity that was proving itself to be quite addictive.

Leopold was also tried in such uniformity. Ella was lovely—stunning even. But it had only been at his mother’s most vehement insistence that he summoned a meeting with Ella before any other maiden. Her good friend the Duchess of Timmelin had advised the queen that Ella Delaquix was the highest caliber of nobility. Arabella shared such references with her son, who didn’t give a flying rat’s tail. Leopold knew the Duchess of Timmelin. He’d never been fond of the pompous woman. That she was praising Ella was only making the young maiden that much less appealing. No, the night’s most entrancing woman was still a mystery to the prince. He had not been able to tear his eyes from her, even sneaking glimpses of her from the private balcony where he strolled with Ella. It was not difficult to spot the mysterious siren, even in the hoards of dresses. Hers was the brightest, most captivating yellow gown he’d ever beheld.

“Are you enjoying yourself tonight, Your Highness?” Ella asked, commencing their friendly conversation for lack of an alternative.

“Not particularly,” Leopold replied, gazing out at the gloriousness of Gwent; his own vast kingdom that, at least that evening, did not feel like his own.

Could this be true?
Ella ruminated.
Is there a chance this discourse will not murder me with boredom?

“Well, I must confess I might not be the best of company tonight, Your Highness,” Ella declared, feeling her intuition nudge her toward honesty.

“Why do you say that?” Leopold questioned.

“Because I have not been completely honest with you, My Lord.”

Leopold stood tall, his eyes dangerously inquisitive. Ella rethought her agenda. She was not yet in too deep; she could still walk off of that terrace with her head still in place and possibly even a prince on her arm.

“Honest about what?” he implored.

“Your Highness,” Ella said, trembling, “there is someone very important I need you to meet.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell you yet. But he has information pertaining to….”

Leopold’s eyes lifted eagerly.

“Captain Thurlow.” Ella said it. She did it and her own dice were cast.

“Thurlow?” Leopold repeated.

“Yes, Your Highness. Thurlow is not the man he pretends to be. He is dangerous and inhumane and ruthlessly ambitious.”

“How do you know this?”

“I’ve seen it. And this person with whom I want you to speak, he can explain to you the scope of Thurlow’s madness.”

“Who is this person?”

“I—I don’t know if I should…”

Leopold stepped toward her as she stuttered. “I demand his name, Ella,” he ordered. “Right now.”

Isolda was just one more person who was not acting like her typical self that evening. Any other time, she’d be scouring the vicinity for Ella and watching every tiny move the little wrench made. But instead she was interested in one man and it was not the prince.

Isolda had surveyed Peter for most of the evening. Most of the time, the man appeared quite fixed, but on what in particular she was uncertain. So she kept her wits about her and preyed upon the man’s every step. When it appeared he was distraught for some unimaginable reason, he made his way out of the ballroom into one of the darkened hallways that ran adjacent to the ballroom.

The guards were posted at strategic points around the castle’s interior to see to it that no guest ventured too far into the keep. Gabriel saw several men posted and opted just to tuck away into a small corridor that had no exit but one and appeared to be of no grave importance to the castle guard. The darkness of the corridor was a welcome relief from the glaring brightness of the ballroom. The only dimness in the whole godforsaken festival was on the parapet where Leopold had escorted Ella.

“We really have to stop meeting like this,” Isolda said, alarming Gabriel though her voice was soft, even sultry. She was donning a piercingly black velvet dress that plunged down her neckline and whalebone stays. Her shoulders were bare and there was a hint of glistening to her skin.

“It is not a meeting, Baroness,” he said, turning toward her, “when only one party is a willing participant.”

His response was not what she’d anticipated at all. But there were tricks up Peter’s sleeves. She knew it. “Don’t be like that,” she retorted, throwing her own pride in the ring, “just because my daughter is quite obviously the most exquisite maiden here tonight and your niece is donning the most ridiculous shade of pink I have ever seen.”

“What? Is that what this is all about?”

“Stop playing coy. You’ve always known that our families have been in a race for the crown since this whole thing started.”

“I thought you always said
we
were family, Isolda.”

“Oh don’t be so dramatic. I am simply making conversation. Besides, if it weren’t for chaos in family, well, then this entire world would most certainly be a ridiculous shade of pink!”

Gabriel was silent. Isolda stepped closer to him, her forehead at his unquivering chin, her eyes scaling his rigid face like she was examining a plated feast.

“Remember how good this can be,” she said, watching his lips.

“If you are referring to our kiss two nights ago, you are mistaken in your recollection.”

Isolda pulled back a touch. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed so much.”

“I have not.”

“That is reassuring.”

Slowly, deliberately, Isolda inched her mouth closer to Gabriel’s. She closed her eyes and anticipated his luscious lips advancing on hers. When instead she felt his fingertips press against her lips, her eyes shot open. He was pushing her away. Isolda stood numb for several moments before she felt her boiling blood recirculate through her veins.

He pushed me away…the snake!

“Just who in God’s name do you think you are?” Isolda demanded.

“I should ask you the same question, Baroness,” Gabriel replied coolly, “but I already know the answer to my query.”

She stepped back brusquely and leered into his eyes. Waiting.

“You are unlike any woman I have ever met,” Gabriel declaimed. “And in my years, I’ve had relations with women in almost every capacity you could think of. You, Baroness, are one of a kind.”

“Oh, am I?” she said, wondering if she’d been mistaken in her wrath; had he a trick she had yet to see?

“Oh yes,” he said, his words meticulous and calculated. “You are the most vile, contemptuous, reptilian human being that I have ever had the displeasure of meeting.”

Isolda gulped and felt her shock and rage descend like a boulder into her lungs.

“You son of a bitch,” she said scathingly. “You are twisted and spineless and pathetic! This is because of Ella isn’t it? It has to be! You have fallen under the spell of that vixen just like every man in this hell-bound world.”

Gabriel was unmoved as Isolda barraged on.

“Ella is the most devious man-eater I have ever seen,” she spat, “and I laugh at how deliciously she will chew you up and spit you out. And since we are being so very truthful with one another, why don’t you be so uncharacteristically kind and tell me your
true
name, sir?”

“Pardon?”

Isolda’s face relaxed and a sly grin dimpled her cheeks.

“You are a competent actor,” she said with eerie pleasantness. “There was some time there when you really had me going. Even after I knew you were not Peter Summerly, I felt the name fit your face beautifully. I let the show play out for the sake of my own fantasy. But the time for pretenses is over, don’t you think?”

“You are mad, woman.”

“I may be mad, but I have a memory that is younger than my age. I remember Peter Summerly and you, sir, are not him.”

“Oh, I am not?”

“No. It took me some time to realize it, but I did. And, like I said earlier, I simply bought into more than the act, but the illusion of your seductiveness. So I played along.”

“So when you tried to kiss me,” Gabriel jeered, “that was just playing along?”

Isolda did not answer him straightaway. Gabriel’s green eyes were aimed straight at hers and Isolda could still feel the sensuousness desires that ‘Peter’ invoked within her breast. Isolda cursed in her mind:
Damn it! Why couldn’t I have been acting too?!

“Come now,
Peter
,” she went on, ignoring his presumption and committed to keeping her despondency and her remaining lust for the man concealed in her façade, “don’t keep me waiting.”

Before Gabriel could respond, they were interrupted.

“I demand his name, Ella. Right now.”

Leopold was staunch and unyielding in his requisition. He was the prince. He was entitled to give orders. Ella was wary but resolved to carry on with the rest of her declaration, the remainder of her mission, undaunted. She ceaselessly tried to reassure herself that Leopold was not like Thurlow. He was not violent just for the sake of proving his manhood. He would listen to her; he had to.

“His name is—“she began.

Suddenly a loud, trumpeting bellow came at her and Leopold from every angle. It was a shrill, inharmonious pitch and it must have triggered in Leopold’s brain a rousing impulse. The man broke his gaze from Ella’s and made his way toward the main ballroom in a near sprint. Ella was aghast—too stunned to inquire of Leopold what was happening. Not that she would have had ample time.

Leopold rallied his way trough the crowds, trying desperately hard not to shove the men and women that were swarming him. When he finally eyed his mother, two guards and several other members of Gwent’s nobility, including the Duchess of Timmelin, were flanking Arabella. Leopold could not isolate his mother’s reaction to whatever it was she was being told by her staff. Her head was down. Was she upset? Leopold finally forged his way through the thick wall of patrons that surrounded the queen, most of them caring little for what she was enduring and more about being seen in such an environment. Arabella looked up upon her son’s arrival and lunged at his torso, wrapping her arms around him so pleadingly, it was as if their role as parent and child had been reversed.