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“Do you love me?” Raoul asked suddenly.

“Of course I do,” I said. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You don’t know who I am. None of us do,” Raoul answered quietly.

“That’s not true,” I replied, somewhat hotly. “You are Raoul. You’re generous and grumpy, the best
horseman in the county. You like peach pie better than apple, and Old Mathilde’s ginger cookies best of all. I would trust you with my life. I may not know where you came from, but that’s not the same as not knowing who you are.”

“Some days, it feels that way to me,” Raoul said. “And I like cherry pie best of all.”

“Did I leave out deliberately contrary?” I said sweetly. “Incredibly annoying?”

“I don’t really smell of horse, do I?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again, as I felt my hand ball into a fist at my side.
Anastasia again,
I thought.
That foolish girl has a great deal to answer for.
It took a lot to get under Raoul’s skin. She had done it the very first night, and now her cruel and thoughtless words were a part of him.

“The question isn’t whether or not you smell of horses,” I answered. “But whether or not horses smell. Specifically, whether or not they smell bad.”

“Anastasia seems to think so,” Raoul said. “She made that clear enough.”

“Why do you care what she thinks?” I asked. “She may be as old as we are, but she’s nothing more than a spoiled child. The way she treated you is just as bad as the way she treats me, Raoul. And if she thinks you smell bad after working with the horses, I suggest you pay her a visit after you’ve been mucking out the pig sty.”

Raoul’s lips gave a reluctant twitch. “You’re trying to tell me I’m being an idiot,” he said.

“No,” I replied. “I’m trying to tell you Anastasia is one. The fact that she hurt your feelings doesn’t make her right, you know.”

“I do know that,” Raoul said. “It’s just—”

“It’s just that even idiots sometimes have a way with words,” I said. “And some words have sharp tongues. I know.”

“I
am
being an idiot,” Raoul said.

“Well, if you insist,” I replied. I picked up the empty laundry basket, settled it onto one hip. “I should go back inside. Just this morning, Anastasia suddenly discovered half a dozen dresses in immediate need of mending. She’ll pitch a fit if I don’t at least get starred on them.”

Before I quite realized what he intended, Raoul leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. I felt my face flame, put my hand to the spot, as if to hold the kiss in place.

“What was that for?”

“To thank you,” Raoul replied, his own cheeks ruddy now. Displays of affection were rare between us, between Raoul and anyone. “You’re a good friend to have, Rilla.”

“As are you,” I said. “And I’m going to remind you of those fine words the next time I annoy you.”

A light I knew very well came into Raoul’s eyes. “Maybe you should just start now.”

I laughed suddenly, threw my arms around his neck, and kissed him back. “I’ll see you at supper,” I said. “Don’t forget to wash up.”

“Oh, I intend to,” Raoul said. “But first, I think I’ll just go and see how the pigs are doing.”

He was whistling as he turned on his heel and sauntered across the courtyard.

“Oh, Cendrillon,” Anastasia said as I entered her room in obedience to the bright
come in
that had answered my knock. “There you are. I was beginning to think this dreadful March wind had blown you out to sea, you were taking so long.”

She was standing at the window, staring out toward the water, wearing a white dress with pale pink flowers embroidered all over it. It was the perfect foil for her dark beauty. All of a sudden, I felt a strange lump in my throat. Would I be beautiful, too, if I had a dress like this? If I had dozens of them? What might I look like, if I could dress like the nobleman’s daughter that I was?

In the next second, I grew ashamed of myself.
Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to think you know yourself or anyone else, Cendrillon,
I thought. Jealousy had never been a part of my nature, not until Anastasia had arrived.

She turned from the window. “I am waiting,” she said, in a tone like cold, clear glass. I could almost feel the way it pressed against me, trying to find a way to cut.

I hesitated, sensing the trap, but unable to see how I could avoid stepping into it anyhow. I gave up the struggle and spoke.

“For what?”

“Not even you can possibly be so stupid,” Anastasia snapped. “For my apology, of course.”

“Your apology!” I exclaimed before I could help myself. Abruptly, I could feel my own temper start to rise. I was spending hours agonizing over how to tell Anastasia, her mother, and her sister the truth about who I was in a way that wouldn’t hurt their feelings, and this vain and silly girl stood there in her finery demanding an apology for only she knew what.

“Why on earth should I apologize to you? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“That is a matter of opinion,” Anastasia huffed. “As servants do not have opinions, none that count anyway, the only opinion in this room is mine. And I say you owe me an apology for keeping me waiting. You are here to serve me, not to chat in the yard with foul-smelling stable boys.”

“Raoul is not foul-smelling,” I said hotly.

“Don’t be absurd,” Anastasia replied. She gave a sniff, as if to emphasize her words. “I can practically smell the stables from here. Girls like you can be dismissed for your kind of behavior, you know.”

Abruptly, I felt my temper reach its boiling point.

“I
am
sorry,” I said sweetly, and caught the satisfaction that flashed across Anastasia’s face. “But then I’m just a plain country girl, unaccustomed to the ways of fine ladies. Explain to me how hanging out sheets that didn’t need washing in the first place is cause to have me dismissed.”

Two bright spots of color flared in my stepsister’s cheeks. “How dare you?” she cried. “How dare you speak to me in such a way? I can have you dismissed for anything, any time I want to. And don’t think I didn’t see the way you touched each other, because I did. I saw it all.”

“Then you are blind as well as ill-tempered and spoiled. Raoul and I have known each other since we were two weeks old. He put spiders in my hair, and I put garter snakes in both his boots. We are hardly likely to be flirting over a clothesline.”

“If you think for one moment that I care what the two of you do together—,” Anastasia began.

“I don’t,” I said, ruthlessly cutting her off. “The simple truth is, Raoul and I both try not to think about you at all.”

A terrible silence filled the room. Anastasia’s cheeks were pale as milk now. And I saw, to my absolute horror, that her eyes were filled with tears.

“Oh, Cendrillon,” Amelie’s voice slipped quietly into the room. “How fortunate. I was hoping you might help me with something, and here you are.”

Anastasia turned away, moved to the window seat, and sat down upon it with such force that the cushions beneath her sighed.
Oh, Cendrillon,
I thought to myself.
What have you just done?

“Of course I will help you,” I said, as I turned to Amelie. “If you will just give me a moment to collect your sister’s mending.”

“Actually,” Anastasia said in a brittle voice. “I find
that I have changed my mind. Instead of mending just these few dresses, I think it will be necessary to attend to my entire wardrobe.”

She turned away from the window to face me again, and, though her eyes were still too bright, I could see that they were dry. I felt my stomach give a funny little twist.

“I’m not going to be stuck out here in the country forever, you know,” Anastasia went on. “And neither is Amelie. Etienne de Brabant is an important man at court, and daughters of marriageable age are an asset, whether he wants them or not. I intend to be ready when he sends for us.” She tilted her head, and her eyes as they met mine were cold as snow. In them, I read dislike and a challenge.

“You understand what I require?”

“I do,” I acknowledged. And it was nothing less than looking over every single item in her entire wardrobe. Every seam of every dress. Every stitch which fastened on a ribbon or a seed pearl. Every hem and button. Everything must be in perfect order. I had no doubt it was a task she could make stretch on for weeks.

“I am pleased to hear it,” Anastasia replied in a sweet voice. “Naturally, I will need to supervise you closely, to make certain the job is done right.” She tilted her head in the other direction. “A pity you will have no more time to flirt with stable boys.”

She turned her back on me then, her gesture a clear sign of dismissal.

“Please help my sister with whatever she needs,
then do me the pleasure of staying out of my sight for the rest of the day,” she went on. “I’m sure you and I will both appreciate having one less thing to think about.”

“As you wish.” I said. And, to my surprise, Anastasia’s head whipped back around.

“It shall be as I wish,” she said fiercely, and now her eyes were hot and bright. “Do you hear me? I say it shall. Now get out of my room. I’m tired of looking at you. I’m tired of every single thing about this dreadful place.”

She turned back to the window. For a moment, I thought that Amelie would go to her. Instead, she gave a little sigh.

“Come with me, Cendrillon, if you please,” she said. She preceded me into the hall. I closed the door quietly behind us, then hurried to keep up as Amelie had already set off at a brisk pace down the corridor.

“I think this place is beautiful.” she said after a moment. “Especially the house. I didn’t think I would. I didn’t think I’d like anything about this place when we first arrived.”

“What made you change your mind?” I asked, then cursed myself for an idiot when Amelie stopped abruptly and turned around. I had spoken to her like an equal, as if I had the right to ask her what she felt and thought. As far as she was concerned, of course, I did not. I was no more than a servant in Amelie’s eyes. The fact that she treated me better than her sister did didn’t change things a bit.

“You have lived here a long time, I think.” Amelie observed. “And you love this place.”

“I have lived here all my life,” I answered, deciding to focus on the first statement and let the second go. “I was born here, in fact. Old Mathilde delivered me.”

Amelie’s expression brightened. There was something about her that always reminded me of a sparrow, though she was neither drab nor plump. But she had a sparrow’s bright, dark eyes. A bird’s darting interest and intelligence.

“I did not know that,” she said. She turned back around. If we had truly been equals, she might have inquired about the rest of my family, my mother and father, but she did not. Instead, she set off once more along the hall, her pace so brisk I had to almost trot along behind her to keep up.

“But it makes you the perfect person to answer my question,” she went on.

“What question is that?” I asked, as Amelie finally came to a halt.

“I am hoping you can tell me,” she said, “why this door is kept locked. None of the others are. I know. I’ve checked them myself.”

I swallowed past a suddenly dry throat. I had been so busy worrying about giving myself away, I had failed to notice that Amelie was heading straight toward my mother’s door.
Tell her. Tell her all of it, the truth about who you are,
I thought. There might never be a better time.

I opened my mouth, but the words I wished to
say seemed to stick inside my throat. If I claimed Constanze d’Este as my mother, then I must also claim Etienne de Brabant as my father. Etienne de Brabant, who had sent his new wife and stepdaughters to the great stone house without bothering to inform them of my existence, so great was his desire to deny I was even alive.

How would Amelie take the news if I told her? Would she be kind? Would she even believe me at all? But it was thinking of what Anastasia’s reaction might be that finally made up my mind. Her scorn I could bear, but not her pity, and, in that moment, pity seemed the only possible outcome of the telling of a tale such as mine.

“This room belonged to Etienne de Brabant’s first wife,” I finally answered, deciding there was no point in telling a lie. All Amelie would have to do would be to ask someone else. “He locked the door and threw away the key when she died.”

Amelie put her hands on her hips, pursing her lips and putting her head to one side. She studied the locked door as if it were a puzzle, just waiting to be solved.

“And has it never been opened since? Has no one even tried?”

“Never,” I said. And it occurred to me suddenly that not even I had ever been through that door, not since I had gone out it on the day that I was born. I had no idea what my mother’s room contained.

“What was her name, do you know?”

“Her name was Constanze d’Este,” I said.

“Ah,” Amelie answered, and her voice was like a sigh. She took her hands from her hips and, to my surprise, laid one palm very gently on the surface of my mother’s door.

“I have heard of Constanze d’Este,” Amelie went on softly. “Whispers of her name were everywhere when we were at court, particularly on the day my mother and Etienne de Brabant spoke their wedding vows. Constanze d’Este’s beauty had no equal, I heard them say, and the loss of her tore a great hole in Etienne de Brabant’s heart. One that has never been filled, and never will be.”

She turned her head to look at me. “Does that mean his heart is empty, do you suppose?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I said.

Amelie let her hand drop. “Nor do I. And neither, I think, does Maman, not that it will make much difference, in either the long or the short run. There is no chance of love between them. Maman’s heart is not whole, either. The king has seen to that by breaking his promise.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Amelie stood for a moment, gazing at the locked door. She seemed to have completely forgotten the fact that I was a servant, so great was her need to confide in someone.

“My mother and the king grew up together,” she said. “Both made marriages of state, though I think my parents’ marriage was happier than the king’s ever was.
When my father was killed in a border war, the king made my mother a promise that, if she married again, it could be for love.”