The Stepsister and the Slipper by Nina Clare
A Rival
Charlotte knewthe prince would be too well-mannered to dance more than two dances with her, for such a show of attention would amount to a declaration of courtship. But she was not going to let him get away once the second had finished.
“You dance delightfully,’ she said. ‘Oh, but how thirsty I am.”
She could tell he was about to suggest they go to the refreshment table in the adjoining chamber. He had opened his mouth to say the words when a little tap on Charlotte’s arm distracted them.
“It’s me!” whispered a voice.
Charlotte stared at the petite young woman at her elbow. A young lady in a beautiful white dress with a shimmery, gauzy cloth-of-silver trim. She wore a masque of pearly silk, and her fair hair was an arrangement of perfect curls, pinned and studded with star-like white blossoms. Charlotte stared in confusion.
“Isn’t the gown delightful?” the young lady whispered. “When I put it on, it seemed to change before my very eyes. It was like a dream!”
“Blanche?” Charlotte whispered back, amazed and almost dumbstruck. This beautiful, delicate, exquisitely dressed young lady was Blanche—the girl she had left behind with a tear-stained face and a smudge of soot on her nose from cooking soup? She glanced down at the girl’s feet. Sure enough, peeping beneath the sumptuous gown was Charlotte’s own pair of silver dancing slippers.
“Oh, I am sorry. I have interrupted your dance,” said Blanche, noticing the young man behind Charlotte.
“Ahem,” said the prince.
Charlotte felt a twist of vexation in her gut. Now she would have to introduce them to each other. It would be very rude not to.
“Sir, may I introduce you to—”
“N-no names,” stammered the prince anxiously.
“May I introduce my unnamed friend?” She turned to Blanche, still astonished by the sight of her standing there as though wearing some magical glamour. Blanche curtsied with native elegance and the prince bowed gallantly. Charlotte saw the flicker of interest in Prince Artus’s eyes behind his masque and felt a lurch of alarm. She reached for his arm. “My partner was about to—”
“May I have your hand for the next dance, madame?” the prince said to Blanche, speaking with no stammer, as though his admiration outweighed his anxiety.
Charlotte stared at him. Faithless cad! This could not be happening!
“Thank you, sir. I would be delighted,” was the silvery-sweet reply.
And they were gone.
“Who was that?” said her mother’s voice, coming up behind her. “Who was that chit in silver? She looked familiar.”
Charlotte did not answer. The transformation of Blanche both stunned and dismayed her. Blanche had plucked the prince from her side.
“Who is she, Charlotte?”
“How should I know? No one is supposed to give their name.”
“I wonder who her dressmaker is. Everyone is wondering. She is the best dressed here. I hope the prince does not meet her.”
* * *
“You are not to go tonight!”Charlotte was fierce. Blanche shrank back from her stepsister’s anger, putting Charlotte’s breakfast tray down quickly.
“W-why not?” Blanche stammered back. “I have as much right as you.”
Charlotte could not easily argue this point, but argue it she would.
“Because I am the one who needs to find a husband, and the one I want is the one you danced with half the night!”
Charlotte swung her legs out of bed and tugged her nightcap off, so her dark hair tumbled round her shoulders.
“I didn’t know you liked him. I thought you despised all men. It was just that we got along so well. I’ve never met such a nice, kind man before. We like so many of the same books and the same subjects, and we talked so long, it was midnight before I knew it, and I had to rush away, and he made me promise I would go again tonight, and…” Blanche’s lower lip quivered, but her eyes flashed defiance, “and I want to go again. It was wonderful to dance and not have to hide away because my gown is too short or too outdated. Oh, it was heavenly, it was like a dream, and I didn’t want it to ever end!”
“Blanche, that was my beau you dragged away. You stole him from me! He’s mine!”
Charlotte stood up so they faced one another. Charlotte towered over her stepsister, her dark eyes blazing. Blanche’s grey eyes were wide and fearful, and yet there was a new light in them that Charlotte had never seen before. Blanche had finally found something she was prepared to fight for. Charlotte had been telling her for years to stand up for herself, but she had never dreamt that when it happened it would involve taking a man from her!
The glaring match continued until Blanche finally dropped her eyes. “What if I do not dance with him tonight?” she said in a small voice. “I still want to go. I want to see that beautiful ballroom again. I want to hear the music. I want to dance and feel young and alive again. I want to go, Charlotte. But I won’t take your beau away.”
“Promise?” demanded Charlotte. “Promise you will stay away from him? You won’t let him see you? You’ll wear a different masque, one that covers most of your face? You won’t do your hair up so that it attracts attention, you’ll keep it plain, you will look ordinary, and not like some mysterious princess?”
Blanche hung her head lower. “I promise.”
“Take this.” Charlotte snatched a book from her bedside table and thrust it at her stepsister. “Read the first chapter to me while I drink my tea.”
“Oh, it’s the new book by Kant! Where did you get it?”
“Just read it to me.” Charlotte sat back down on the edge of her bed and took up her teacup.
“In German?”
“Don’t be a goose. Translate it. Read it quickly, then tell me what it means while you help me dress. Monsieur de Troye is coming today. We’re going for a drive. You’ll have to come too; I can’t go without a chaperone.”
“Won’t your mother want to chaperone?”
“I don’t want her. She asks too many questions.”
“Is he another beau?”
“No he’s not. He’s not the marrying kind.”
“So why is he calling?”
“I don’t have time to explain. Read, Blanche. You can borrow my slippers again tonight if you help me, and I’ll keep your ball-going secret from Mama as long as you keep secret from Mama anything unusual Monsieur le Troye says about me to anyone we meet.”
* * *
Lance arrived in an open carriage,holding the reins himself. Charlotte accepted the seat beside him, and Blanche perched behind. They set off at a pleasant trot.
“What do you think of Kant?” Charlotte asked, her head still full of the prince and the evening ahead. “Have you read him?”
Lance turned his eyes from the horses and the road to her, his eyebrows lifted.
“Don’t look so surprised,” she said.
“I did not have you marked for a scholar.”
“That proves you know nothing about me.”
He turned back to the road. His lips twitched into his usual smile. “Ah,” he drawled. “There is a certain young man with a passion for all the newest theories.”
“So, what do you think of Kant?”
“I think he lacks mathematical evidence. He’s too theoretical, though I admit his theories are interesting.”
“Oh.” Charlotte made a mental note of this.
“I think his theories are wonderful,” Blanche piped up from the seat behind, then blushed as both Lance and Charlotte turned to stare at her.
“You do?” Lance encouraged.
“They speak of the mysteries of life. Billions of galaxies and strange forces of gravity. It is all so much like magic, so much wonder. No mathematical theory can spoil the mystery for me. It’s only another language to try to explain the inexplicable.”
Lance gave Blanche an admiring smile before turning back to the horses, and Charlotte frowned and tried to commit the words to memory. They might prove useful tonight.
“Does this certain young man prefer the scientific or the metaphysical?” Charlotte enquired.
It would be helpful to know how the prince’s mind leaned. What a pity he was not like most young men, only interested in hunting and politics. Old Admiral Montdory’s war stories and Lord Floridon’s hunting boasts were preferable to silly theories of time and space. Who cared about such things? All that mattered was what was in front of you and what was happening now. And what was happening now, to Charlotte’s irritation, was that Blanche and Monsieur de Troye were having an animated conversation about all kinds of tedious things. Charlotte listened to her younger stepsister, feeling surprised at how much knowledge was in that little head of hers, and how much deference the impertinent de Troye was showing her. Why, he seemed to like her! He seemed to respect her opinions. He didn’t grin at her once.
“I am sorry to interrupt your intellectual tête-à-tête,” Charlotte said at last, but you are both committing the unpardonable sin of boring me.”
Lance laughed and Blanche fell silent.
“Your maid is well educated,” said Lance.
“She’s not my maid.”
“She’s not?”
“She’s my sister.”
Lance’s eyebrows shot up again, and he turned back to the blushing Blanche, his eyes taking in one sweeping glance Blanche’s inferior gown and straw hat.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Then Lance said to Blanche, “Don’t mind your sister’s sharp tongue, my lady. Never be ashamed of speaking up when you have something to say.”
Charlotte stared at him, his words echoing in her mind as the very words she had often said to Blanche, but in relation to her mother. An unpleasant thought struck her. Was she, Charlotte-Genevieve, like her mother? Sharp tongued and bossy? Well, I’m not a thief, was the one comfort she could summon. These new thoughts were so startling that she fell silent for a full five minutes.
It waspleasant to be driven along in a fashionable vehicle. Lance liked to drive fast once they gained the paved carriage paths, as did Charlotte, but she begged him to slow a little, or her ringlets would be windblown into a frizz.
The royal park was busy with open carriages full of beautifully dresses ladies accompanied by gallant riders. Charlotte had to keep from grinning with pleasure at finally being part of this world she felt she belonged to. The only thing that spoiled her pleasure was the attention Lance incurred from every lady they passed. They smiled and simpered and threw curious glances at Charlotte. Lance bowed and stopped to kiss gloved fingers and exchange greetings, and the jealous female glances melted into friendly smiles as Lance introduced Charlotte as his sister.
“Another sister?” said a pert gentleman on a fine horse. He lifted his hat and winked at Charlotte.
“Who was that rude man?” Charlotte said. “Is this a habit of yours? Do you introduce many ladies as your sister to cover your un-gentlemanlike dealings?”
But Lance only laughed and said, “There’s the fellow I need to see. Once I’ve introduced you to him, we can turn around. Wait here.” He jumped down and looped the horse’s reins over a post at the side of the carriage path, then strode away to hail a man among a crowd of acquaintances.
“Charlotte, why is Monsieur de Troye calling you his sister?” Blanche whispered over Charlotte’s shoulder.
“Did I not say to ask no questions?” Charlotte whispered back.
“Why, yes, you did. But I did not think it would involve any kind of deception.”
“Don’t be a goose, Blanche. Just sit quietly and act like my maid.”
“Oh, there is that friend of yours!” said Blanche. “What is his name? The naval man. Did he not propose to you?”
Charlotte looked in the direction Blanche indicated and gave a gasp of surprise on spying Admiral Montdory. “What on earth is he doing here?”
“He’s seen us,” said Blanche. The admiral’s face broke into a beam as bright as a lighthouse flash. He lifted a hand of greeting and turned to the man beside him as though to excuse himself.
Lance reappeared with his acquaintance close behind. “Charlotte, my dear, let me introduce you to Monsieur de la Vallee. My darling baby sister, sir, as you see.”
Lance had taken hold of Charlotte’s fingers and displayed her to the frowning man. Charlotte saw Admiral Montdory stare at Lance, and she groaned inwardly. He would expect an introduction to her unknown companion, and how could she introduce Lance as her brother to the admiral who knew perfectly well that she had no brothers? She could not afford to let Montdory catch her being duplicitous, for he might still be necessary if her plan at winning the prince failed. If she had to return home empty handed, Montdory was the only thing standing between herself and a hovel.
“We must go, Brother, dear,” Charlotte said lightly, tugging at Lance’s sleeve to gain his attention.
“One minute, sweet Sister,” he said gaily. “Monsieur de la Vallee has a few words more to discuss.”
Charlotte glanced anxiously back at the admiral, but he was standing transfixed, staring at her and listening to something his companion was saying; and only now did Charlotte see who the admiral’s companion was: it was the Italian count whom Charlotte had been introduced to as Monsieur de Troye’s wife. And the admiral’s scarlet face and lowering brows told her he was just being informed that Lancelot de Troye was her husband.
“Botheration,” she said under her breath. “I’ll never get him back now.” Well then, that decided things. She could not afford to let her plan fail, no matter what.