“I could read it to you, if you like, Your Grace,” Margrit suggested.
Cinderella stooped in relief. “Would you?”
“Certainly, Your Grace.”
“Thank you, Margrit. I don’t know what I would do without you,” Cinderella said, waiting for the mouse to move before she resumed walking.
“Do you know what page you were on?”
“I believe I just started chapter six…,” she trailed off, staring at a tapestry that hung on the wall of the grand palace.
“Is something wrong, Your Grace?” Margrit asked.
Cinderella stared at the tapestry. It showed a garden scene of several pretty maidens seated among rose bushes with a white unicorn. Cinderella could have drawn it by memory because she had seen it every day of her childhood, until she sold it with the first batch of Aveyron household goods when she became duchess. “This is mine,” she said.
Margrit blinked. “If you will pardon me for saying so, Your Grace, in a few minutes everything here will belong to you,” she delicately said.
“No, you don’t understand. This is mine. It was—where did it come from?”
Margrit looked helplessly to the lady’s maids.
“I believe most of the items in this part of the palace were purchased from Trieux nobility, Your Grace. Queen Freja was quite displeased with Prince Cristoph for his extreme patronage of Von Beiler—a broker,” Lady Therese said. Before Queen Freja recruited her as one of Cinderella’s lady’s maids, the woman served as a head accounting officer. (Queen Freja cleverly used the post of lady’s maids to place intelligent, knowledgeable women near Cinderella to act as advisors. Cinderella was very thankful as most of her schooling and training was in history, appreciation of the arts, dancing, and farming.) “Von Beiler, you say?” Cinderella asked, her voice light and airy.
“Yes,” Lady Therese said.
Margrit and the lady’s maids shifted with unease as Cinderella folded her hands in front of her.
“I will be back in a moment,” she announced before picking up the skirts of her dress and heading down the hallway.”
“Your Grace, your wedding starts in a few minutes!” Margrit said, hurrying after her.
“It can wait,” Cinderella said, her glass slippers clicking when she stepped off the rugs and walked on the smooth, polished, stone floor.
“Your Grace, what of your dress and veil!” the lady’s maids squawked.
“The Lady Enchantress Angelique spelled them for me. I do not think a short walk will ruin them,” Cinderella said, her veil floating behind her like a cloud.
In a few minutes, Cinderella stood outside Friedrich’s room. She had never been inside before—mostly because she had no reason to. Friedrich rarely used his rooms in the royal palace, and after they were married, they would have joint quarters.
Now, however, Cinderella had a sneaking suspicion.
“Your GRACE,” a lady’s maid shrieked when Cinderella pushed the doors open.
“Yes, it is as I thought,” Cinderella said, entering the room, although she barely had enough space to walk in.
“Your Grace, this might be a little unseemly,” Margrit said.
Cinderella pointed to a beautiful writing desk. “That was mine,” she announced. “And I would recognize this rug anywhere. That horse statue used to stand in my parlor—it’s a sculpture of a riding horse I used to have. The tapestry, bookshelf, wall hangings, everything is…,” she trailed off when she got to a painting covered with a white sheet.
“Your Grace,” another lady’s maid said when Cinderella yanked the sheet from the painting, which was also from Aveyron. It was the image Cinderella had been shocked to receive an offer for: the portrait of Cinderella in her Trieux finery.
Cinderella painfully smiled. The last time she saw the portrait, she had shorn hair, dressed in servants clothes, and was selling every last good she had. Now her hair was nearly shoulder length, curled, dressed with pearls and tiny roses, and covered with a snow-white veil. Her dress was made of the finest silk and lace, accented and highlighted with lace that matched the blue-grey of Cinderella’s stormy eyes.
The color scheme was the same one Angelique used for Cinderella’s ball gown months ago, but this dress had a longer train, was more intricate, and was gathered and pinned into place with real jewels.
“So many changes,” Cinderella murmured, reaching out to brush the gold frame, ignoring the squawks of her lady’s maids in the hallway.
“Um, Your Grace,” Margrit said.
“Hm?” Cinderella asked, turning to look at more of her possessions scattered through the room. “What is it Margrit?” she asked when there was silence.
“She only wanted to warn you of me.”