Chapter Twelve

Cinderella never returned home that night. The house was in an uproar the next day, all the townspeople who loved her having come to the manor after hearing that she had disappeared the night before. Search parties formed, prayers were held at the chapel, and the children cried in the streets.

Tiernan knew where to find Cinderella. It came to him, as his own heart cracked and bled when he left Reina.

He saw this in her file, a field of flowers beside a lake, the place where her parents met and the place she had gone often with them when they were alive. It was a place she associated with happiness, a reminder that even though her own chance at love may be gone, true love really does exist.

He gave her until late morning then appeared to her. She was still wearing the dress she wore the night before, her face still so beautiful even after the effects of a night of crying.

She didn’t show any surprise as he came to sit beside her, as if all her emotions had been drained from her the previous hours. “You found me,” she said, her voice dull.

“Yeah, I did.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, both looking out over the water.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?” Cinderella finally asked.

“I heard that you ran away from Henry,” Tiernan said, and at hearing his name, Cinderella’s eyes started welling up again.

Tiernan put one arm around her shoulders, giving her a comforting squeeze. “I don’t need the details,” Tiernan said. “There is only one thing you need to answer.”

“What’s that?” Cinderella sniffed.

“Is Henry a good man?”

“Before I heard—”

“No,” Tiernan interrupted. “You have a good heart, Cinderella. If you trust it, you’ll know exactly how to read people. So I ask you again, is Henry a good man?”

Cinderella closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Yes,” she answered.

“And you love him.”

“Yes,” she readily agreed. “But he lied to me, and I heard all these things, and I don’t know what to do.”

“You ask Henry, and you hear what your heart tells you,” Tiernan replied simply. “If he’s a good man, then you ask him, you listen to his answers, and you decide after that what happens. If he’s a good man, and you love him, that is the least you can do.”

Cinderella gave a watery laugh, wiping the tears from underneath her eyes. “What if I don’t like his answers?”

“Then you move on, because no one is worth you sacrificing your self-respect for. That way, though, you are moving deliberately with your head held high, not running scared.”

She nodded and sat looking at the water for several more minutes. Finally, she rose. “It’s time to get my answers. Do you want to join me?”

He stood as well and offered his arm. “Let’s go.”

In silence they made the trip from the pond to Cinderella’s home. As they neared the manor, Tiernan saw that the crowd has not dispersed. It had in fact grown larger waiting for Cinderella to return. From the opposite direction, he saw Henry riding up on a horse. Henry jumped off, running towards Cinderella, not stopping until he was in front of her.

“Tiernan,” he said, his eyes not leaving hers, “please let us alone.”

Cinderella took her arm from Tiernan’s and gave a nod of her head. Satisfied with that, Tiernan stepped back.

Henry seemed to be fighting himself to keep from reaching out to touch her. “I wanted to see my country as it truly was,” he began. “I had no desire to lie to anyone, but people treat a messenger differently than they treat a prince, at least most do.”

He didn’t stop himself this time. He let his hand come out and stroke her face. “You don’t. You treat everyone as though they are royalty. That’s the first thing I noticed about you, not your beauty. It was your kindness and decency, both things that I find to be in short supply in this world. You are a generous, compassionate, fearless being, and I am privileged in the knowing of you. I may have been born to a king, but you are truly the most royal of souls I have ever known.”

“You lied to me. You are to marry a princess,” Cinderella said, tears coming to her eyes, not daring to believe his words.

His hands gently cupped her face, and his forehead touched hers. “I only lied about my profession. Every other word I have ever spoken to you is truth, I swear on my kingdom. And the only woman I will ever marry is you, because you are the one I love above all others. When I wake up, your smile is the first thing I see in my mind, your name is the last word I speak before I fall asleep. I want it to be that way always, but I want from now on to see your smile with my eyes, and speak your name as you are in my arms.”

Her hands covered his, and her eyes closed as she pressed herself closer to him. “No one will approve, I have no name, no connections. What of His Majesty?”

“My father—”

“Is here,” a voice interrupted, and out from the crowd stepped a short round shape draped in a cloak. Taking it off, the King appeared, and as one, the crowd fell to their knees. “This incognito habit is very interesting, Henry. I realize why you’ve been doing it so long now. Fascinating!”

“Father.” Henry stepped back from Cinderella but grabbed her hand, holding it firmly to keep her by his side as he faced his father.

“So this is the girl, Henry? Everyone has been very worried about you, you know. You are quite loved,” said the King, his head tilting as he studied her. Finally, he nodded. “Young woman, I have only one question for you.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Cinderella, even as Henry said warningly, “Father...”

“Hush, Henry,” the King said. “Young woman, this is what I want to know. Yesterday at this time, before the ball, when you knew nothing, did you love Henry the messenger?”

Cinderella looked at the King for a long moment. She gently pulled her hand from Henry’s, giving him a reassuring smile when he would have held her close to keep protecting her. Missing the warning glare Henry sent his father, she walked to the King, taking his hands in hers. She stood on tiptoe and put her lips to the King’s ear. “My heart didn’t know how to beat until I met him,” she whispered. “And now it beats for him alone.”

She pulled back, still holding his hands, waiting for his response. He gave it a moment later, leaning down and kissing her forehead. “Welcome to our family, daughter.” Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he added, “If you will have my very difficult son, that is.”

She glanced back at Henry. “Don’t try to deny me, lady,” he said to her, a smile coming over his face as he walked towards her.

“Why is that?” she asked, smiling herself as she waited for him to stand beside her.

“Because I will never let you go. Not when my happiness exists only in you.”

* * *

“Congratulations on your HEA. I’ve just received word that the Elf King’s petition has been officially denied.”

Tiernan kept skipping pebbles in the lake, his actions not changing in the slightest with her words.

Reina continued. “I’m glad you were there. I’m not sure I could have convinced her to go back.”

Tiernan didn’t bother to look over at Reina, but he did answer her. “You are a fantastic Fairy Godmother. I’m sure you would have gotten her to come.”

“No, I wouldn’t have, because I couldn’t honestly tell her to follow her heart. It’s not something I’ve had any luck with.”

He looked over at her then and saw her eyes were raw and puffy, very similar to how he’d found Cinderella hours earlier.

He stomped on the impulse to pull her into his arms. She didn’t want that, and he wasn’t going to keep hoping. Motioning her to follow, he said, “Cinderella has her HEA, Reina, we can go back.”

“I was supposed to be your Fairy Godmother, not Naomi.”

Those words got his attention. “What?”

“I was supposed to be your Fairy Godmother,” she repeated.

That long ago day, the obvious inexperience, well, incompetence, replayed in his mind. “Why weren’t you?”

“The excuse I used was that Naomi needed the exposure, but the real reason was because I saw your picture and I read your profile. I read who you were, and I couldn’t breathe for wanting you.” The color was high in her face, but she refused to look away. She was showing him everything, not letting herself be spared.

“After you joined us,” she continued, “every time I looked at you, I felt like a hypocrite. I really thought I loved him, and after he left, I thought I was so much better than he was, so much more loyal, but all I had to do was look at you to forget that I ever loved him. How was I any better than he was? How was I any better than the sluts that surrounded you? Hell, I needed the crown of sluttiest of them all, because I wanted you forever. I wanted your heart as well as your body.”

His mouth dropped open from surprise, and it took him several moments to get it to work again. “Reina, I never knew you felt anything for me. Believe me, I never knew, or I would have dragged you into my chambers and never let you out.”

“Don’t try to excuse yourself by saying you couldn’t read me, Mr. I’m-Celibate-for-Thirty-Years!”

“If I even started walking in your direction, you turned the other way!”

“Maybe that’s because Katarina somehow always found a way to have her head somewhere in the vicinity of your crotch.”

He burst out laughing. “You are crazy, woman! Do you know that? Compared to you, the Holy Grail…cakewalk!”

Her lips curled upward in response to him. “It’s a flaw in me, one you’ll have to live with if you stay with me. I think too much, and I can make poor choices because of it. The poorest choice I ever made was I chose to listen to my head instead of my heart, and I lost thirty years with the man I love,” she said, her voice slowing, breaking over those last few words.

Reverently, he drew her to him, into his arms, into the space he wanted her to fill forever. His mouth covered hers, and his world, which he thought destroyed forever, was just like that rebuilt.

“You are going to marry me,” he said, pulling his mouth away slightly.

“I am?”

“You are making an honest man out of me, or no more nookie for you.”

Her grin was so wide he almost thought he saw the shadow of dimples on her face. “Fine, but I’m only doing it for the nookie.”

He nodded. “Understood. After we get married, we are not returning to the compound for a month, and during that month, you aren’t allowed to put on clothing.”

“That seems fair.”

“Also, I no longer wish to be a Fairy Godfather.”

That caught her attention, and her smile vanished. “After all this to keep you?”

He shrugged. “The Elf King can’t touch me now, so with that worry gone, we can do what is best for us. Think about it, Reina, just me with all the other Godmothers...”

Reina shook her head. “Tiernan, I trust you.”

“I know you do. I just don’t want that for our life, because it will always be that.” His hand cupped her face, following the arch of her eyebrow, the bridge of her nose, those wonderful lips that he’d never get enough of. Finally, she was his to touch. She was his. “I’ve been thinking about it, since we’ve been here. I don’t know why I made that wish, but I’m glad I did. Even with that, it’s not something I feel I must do. It’s not a calling for me. As long as I can help people, I’ll be happy. Besides, don’t tell me you wouldn’t hate it with everything in you.”

She sighed in relief at his words. “I’d hate it passionately.”

“Promise me you’ll love me forever, Reina.”

“Only if you promise me to keep your sword skills sharp.”