So This is Love (Disney Twisted Tales) - Elizabeth Lim Page 0,67
get away from here. It’s hard to talk over the music.”
Soon the ballroom glittered behind them, a silvery dome beyond the labyrinth of rose-studded bushes, leafy hedges, and marble fountains.
A cool breeze tickled the back of Cinderella’s neck, gently rattling her green beads.
“My mother would really love it out here,” she sighed.
“Do you still help her tend her garden?”
“No, she passed away years ago.”
“I lost mine at a young age, too,” said Charles. He removed his mask, slipping it into his coat pocket.
“I remember,” Cinderella said softly. Though everyone had loved the gentle queen—and no one more than the prince—their mothers had died in the same year, and Cinderella recalled wondering if everyone in the town was wearing black to mourn her mama. “My father used to tell me that my mother was in heaven with the queen. He had a feeling they’d become friends, and they would watch over each other. That helped a little, to think that she was in a good place.”
“Were you very lonely without your mother?”
“Yes,” Cinderella admitted. “We did everything together when she was alive. She’d take me out to the gardens to play on our swing. She could name every bird in the sky and paint them, too. We were supposed to travel Aurelais together and collect flowers from every city, then paint them once we returned home.” She swallowed at the memory, one she had long forgotten until now. “Papa used to tease us for always being lost in our imaginations together. I still have a bad habit of falling into my daydreams.” Before he could ask her more, she said, “Were you . . . lonely?”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t have thought so if you’d been there. I was always surrounded by people. Tutors, advisers—everyone sought to shape how I thought because I’ll be the future king. There was no one I could really . . .”
“Talk to?” Cinderella finished for him.
Charles smiled. “Exactly.”
“I understand. Better than you know.”
Shadows flickered across the manicured bushes, and a chill swept over Cinderella. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” Creeping up toward the bushes, the prince surveyed the area. He grimaced. “The Grand Duke again, I’d wager. He must have talked to Pierre and gotten suspicious.” He stood. “Let’s get away from here. Why don’t I show you more of the grounds?”
Cinderella nodded. “I’d like that.”
Little by little, her nervousness faded, and she laughed when the prince told her how he used to run into the garden when he was a little boy, chased after by his tutors.
“I loathed my history lessons,” he confessed. “All the tutors always trying to impress upon me that I was related to these great kings, all of them with the same names. Always a variation of George, Louis, Charles, and George again. At least it made my exams easier.” The prince chuckled. “I must be boring you.”
“You’re not,” she assured him. “Though history was my favorite.”
Her father had hired tutors for her, but soon after he had died, her stepmother had put an end to her education. Sometimes, when she had to dust the library, she’d pore through the books on the shelves when no one was looking. Her stepmother had sold off the valuable ones long ago, but Lady Tremaine recognized that books looked impressive to the few guests they had to the house, so she’d kept them as decoration—at least until she caught Cinderella reading them.
“My father traveled often when he was alive,” Cinderella explained, “and he used to bring me curios from all over the world and tell me their histories. I loved it.”
“Then maybe you’ll appreciate this,” Charles replied as he directed her through the endless maze of marble stairs and pruned hedges. They soon found themselves before a glorious fountain of angels, illuminated by a constellation of silver lanterns and surrounded by a coronet of swans with wreathes of ivy over their elegant necks. Water tinkled steadily from the sides, like soft percussion against the wind’s song.
“This fountain was commissioned by my great-grandfather,” said Prince Charles. “Aurelais had just ended a twenty-year-long war with its neighbors, and he had this fountain made to celebrate peace, but also to remind us of the bitter costs of war.”
Cinderella brushed her fingertips against the water, its gentle ripples tickling her skin. “Like the fountain in the city center! My father used to take me there when I was young.” She folded her hands over her lap. “I haven’t been back there in many years.”