Roses and Black Glass: a dark Cinderella tale (10 page)

“Mind if I
smoke?” he asked, but he already had one out and in his mouth. 

“If it makes
you feel better,” she said.  He struck a match and worked to light the end as
she watched the embers glow. 

Cindy looked
at him - this face that she hadn't seen in so long.  Had she remembered it
correctly?  Isabella and Charlotte had often boasted that Christian had become
even more attractive with age, and looking at him now, she would agree that
they were right.  Cindy had vowed not to be taken so easily, but perhaps it had
been pointless to aim for that.

Christian
looked at the ground, and she was unsure of what to say for a moment until he
broke their silence.

“Would it make
me seem like a liar if I told you that I missed you, even when I wasn’t
thinking about you?”

Cindy found
that she couldn’t disagree with that.  In fact, that was a good way to describe
how she had felt about him.  She only smiled slightly and looked at her hands
that were folded in her lap.

“I did wonder
about you, you know,” he assured her.  “Then again, you must have known that,
or you wouldn’t have come here.”

He stared at
her with a strange look in his eyes.  What was he thinking?  How did he feel
about seeing her?  He looked as though he was questioning her meaningless
existence.  Before she could gather the urge to speak, he took the liberty
first.

“Why are you
here?” he asked. “Why have you come to me now after so long?”

“There has to
be a reason?”

“Of course,”
he said. “Everyone wants something from me.  Why should I think you to be
different?”

She shook her
head, not understanding but hoping that he would explain.

“What do they
expect you to give them?”

“Everything. 
Even the ones who seek to win me want something more.  You have no idea what
they ask me for, Cinderella.  These women…  They all want something different
and all think that
I’m
the answer.  It seems as though I’m the only man
in this God-forsaken world!” he said, angrily fumbling with another cigarette
and match. “The unhappy want me to please them.  The sad want me to heal them. 
The unloved want me to love them.  The damned want me to save them!  The
sheltered want me to free them!  I can do none of those things – I haven’t the
power or the will.”

She stared
back at him as he inhaled.  The thought never crossed her that he could be this
unhappy.  What had he to hate?  At least he had
some
of his dignity
left, which was more than she could say.

“So, it makes
you angry?” she asked.  “And you feel as though you don’t have any emotions to
give them.”

“Perhaps.  But then there’s you.”

“What about
me?” she asked, feeling the wind blow at her long curls.

“You are one
of the last people I would have expected to see here – not that I’m
disappointed – and so I have yet to figure out what you want with me.  Because
why come here if not to see me, and why see me if not to want something?”

“
Mus
t I
want something?” she asked, trying to understand where all his reasoning was
coming from.

He looked into
her eyes.  There was a pause in the night air before he spoke.

“Then what are
you doing here?” he asked, sitting upright against her on the bench.

Cindy’s mind
froze at this.  What
was
she doing here?  She honestly wasn’t sure.  She
supposed there were several reasons.  Amanda had asked her to make an impact on
Christian, and then there was the thing she had been asked to bring back – but she
would not mention it now.  Cindy had also come to avoid Amanda’s prophecy. 
Additionally, she wouldn’t mind seeing her sisters look like fools.  But most
importantly, she had come to see this man - just to see him again.

“I don’t know
why I’m here,” she lied, feeling that all of that was much too complicated.

“It baffles me,”
he said.  “You hide away from me for three years, and now you come and claim –
what?  That you just wanted to catch a glimpse of me again?”  She sighed deeply
as he continued to speak.  “Isabella told me you left the house – that you
married.”

Cindy felt her
throat clench.

“And you
believed her,” she assumed, while becoming angry at the thought of her
step-sister’s lies.

“I didn’t know
what to believe,” he said honestly.  “Somehow I knew you were still around.  I
think I could feel you.”

She looked
back in disbelief.  His body was warm against hers as they sat, shoulder to
shoulder, knee against knee, but his gaze was hotter still, burning into her. 
If she’d not met Amanda, she might have brushed his words off as complete
nonsense, but she almost believed them.

 “You say that
as though we are connected – as though there was some sort of bond joining us.”

“You don’t
believe it?” he asked, leaning closer. “Tell me you didn’t think about me after
I left that day.”

“Please!” she
scolded. “I hardly knew you – and I hardly know you now!”

“I’ll answer
it then,” he declared.  “I believe you did think about me.  God knows I thought
about you.  Couldn’t you feel it?  It was almost as though our souls were
speaking to each other!  And that’s also what brought you here tonight.”

Cindy was at a
loss, unable to counter his words.  Christian stared at her, waiting, but she
could think of no response.

“That’s a
lovely dress,” he said finally, relenting.  He reached out to touch some of the
material that flooded over the bench.  “I’ve never seen anything quite like
it.  Is it silk?”

“I’m not
sure," she confessed.  "It was a gift.” 

She let her
gaze fall to his right hand that touched her gown, to the ring on his finger
which boasted a black stone.  She took a deep breath, finally able to admit the
truth.  There was no sense in hiding it from him.

“You were
right.”

“Pardon?” he
asked, releasing the material and stomping out his smoke.

“I did come
here to ask you for something.”

He nodded,
though she couldn’t tell if he looked disappointed in her.

“It’s good
that you’re honest,” he said.  She wondered if he now counted her as being just
like the rest.  She hated the thought of that.

“But that’s
not the only reason I came,” she admitted, hoping he didn’t think she was lying
to him now.  “I did want to see you – just to see you.”

Christian leaned
forward and folded his hands.  He examined her, but said nothing, quite
interested in what else she would say.

“I never did
forget about you, of course, though it was admittedly a bit hard to do since
Isabella and Charlotte spoke of you nonstop.  Through the years though, I did
wonder about you.  I would have just liked to see you from across a room, even
for a moment - even if we didn't speak.”

He watched
her, and she hoped that he saw her sincerity.

 “Ask,” he
bade finally, looking straight into her eyes. “Say what you want from me, and I
will give it to you.”

She could have
asked for anything, she supposed, even to be the one that he married, but that
was not what she had come here to ask for.  She would not ask him for that; if
it was what he wanted, he would have to ask her.  Instead of saying this, she
motioned toward his hand.

“Your ring,”
she said, peering at the black stone embedded in silver. “Will you give it to
me?”

“Of course,”
he said, removing the ring without hesitation. “It’s yours – and I won’t ask
why.”

She smiled,
taking the solid object in her gloved hand.  For a few absent moments as she
watched, he looked up to the sky, but soon returned back to her.

“Is that all
you would ask me for?” he inquired. “I wouldn’t have expected that to be the
sort of ring you’d want.”

She took
another deep breath, wondering for a moment what she should say, though she
highly doubted he required an answer to that question.

“What do you
feel for me?” she ventured. “You say you have no emotion, yet you treat me as
though I was part of your family or a close friend you’ve known for years.  You
gave me your ring without question, yet we’ve only spoken twice in our lives.”

“I don’t know
what I feel,” he said, “but like I mentioned before, it’s something beyond mere
words or subtle glances.  There is a great deal of curiosity involved.  And I
find you attractive tonight, to say the least.”

His words were
broken by her smile that he couldn’t help but return.

“I suppose it
makes me happy to see you,” he went on after a moment.  “I think I’m happy now
– it’s been so long.  I don’t know if I remember what it feels like.”

“We can
pretend,” she offered, “that you are happy.”

“Then so are
you, though you say you don’t know what you want.”

Once again,
she wasn't sure what to say to him.  Perhaps she couldn't win, but yet she
couldn't be completely honest.  How could she tell him about Amanda or the
things she had said?  She couldn't reveal the truth, and she thought he knew
that.    

“Why did I not
see you for so long?” he asked. “If you wondered so much about me, what kept
you inside that house?  Why would you not come out?  They say you were never
seen again after your father’s funeral.  I would have come, by the way, but I
didn't hear of it until much later.”

“Thank you,”
she said, touched by that.  “I suppose it is true, in a way.  After the death
of my father, I just didn’t care about anything.”

“What happened
to him?” the young man pondered, putting his fingers to his chin.  "It
seemed sudden."

“He just got
sick,” she said, still bewildered by it after so long. “The doctors were unsure
of the illness.  Day by day he got worse until finally he just
died
. 
Anna ordered the mortuary to be closed down.”

“And you?  If
you didn’t move away or marry, then where did you go?”

She looked up
at him uncertainly.  Deep down, she could not bear to tell him the truth about
her life of servitude.  She had never felt this sense of embarrassment before,
but she knew that she couldn’t tell him.  No; not him.

“I just wanted to be alone,” she muttered, turning her face away.

“I see,” he
said, understanding.  “Do your sisters know you’re here tonight?”

“Of course
not,” she said with a slight smile.

“And you don’t
want them to know.  Why not?” he asked curiously – pushing her.

“Why would I?”
she asked, turning her face back.  “They would probably try to destroy me. 
They would do anything for you.  I'm convinced they'd even
murder
for
your affections.”

Christian
breathed deeply.  She could see that he was disappointed in her lies, and then
cast his eyes back to the sky absently.

“What do you
keep looking at?” she asked.

He shook his
head slightly.  “I’m just thinking.  I’m wondering how I can find you so
appealing while you have the family that you do.”

Christian
turned toward her on the bench, moving in closer than she had been to anyone in
a long time.  He all but enveloped her, but his presence had certainly done
that much.  Even though she felt comfortable with him, she was a bit nervous. 
Their faces were just inches apart.  Her breath shuddered.

“Little
Cinderella,” he said quietly to her, “living with her evil stepmother and two
wicked stepsisters.  You mean they didn’t recruit you and school you in their
methods of eternal leeching?  Perhaps
that’s
why you’re here.  You're a
clever trap laid for me.”

“Don’t be
ridiculous,” she protested.  “After I watched them do that to my father, do you
think that I would join them?”

“I suppose
you’re right,” he said, backing off. “You’d only do that if you were pure
evil.  Which I don’t think you are.”

“Maybe I am,”
she tossed back.

He chuckled at
the thought, and then reached up to bury his hand in her soft hair behind her
ear.  She held her breath as her heart began to pound.

“You’re not
evil,” he said, caressing the side of her face gently, “but I must admit that
you do have me worried.”

“Why is that?”
she asked, bewitched by his eyes.

“I’m afraid
that after tonight you’ll pull another one of your vanishing acts and I’ll
never see you again.”

“It’s
possible, I suppose,” she admitted, enjoying his touch.     

“I don’t want
that,” he said with a shake of his head. “You must promise me that you won’t
keep yourself from me.”

“I thought you
said you had no emotion.”

He smiled
coyly, twirling a strand of her hair around his fingers.  “What I said was:
but
then there is you
.”

She stared
back into his cool eyes, flashing with the burning lanterns that lit the
courtyard.  She could not break away from his gaze.  He carefully smoothed her
hair behind her ear, touching the lobe gently and running his fingers down her
neck.  She felt a pleasant chill run across her skin, but could not break away.

“I want to see
you again,” he said.

She shook her
head slowly.  “I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Why not?”

Though she
could think of no better reason than the truth, her mind raced to find a better
excuse.  There was no way Christian could marry a woman who was a mere, dirty
servant.  It was not as though he would care, but none of this would be
accepted by his parents.  Most likely, they would not allow him his
inheritance.  

“You’ll be
married in a matter of weeks,” she said.

“Who’s to say
it can’t be to you?”  Her heart leapt to hear him finally say it, but she knew
that she had to crush it.

“It cannot be
me,” she said firmly.

Christian
removed his hand from her skin and sat back, confused.  The expression on his
face revealed that he didn’t understand her reasoning at all.