Soot & Ashes

Ten: Best Intentions

Mary Cinders laid awake in her bed, shivering from the frigid cold around her. Faint grey light seeped in through the crack in the long, heavy curtains, with the light more frosty air poured in, too. The world outside was harsh on this morning, the clouds veiling the sky in a thin layer of shining grey, enough to hurt your eyes.

From where she lay, the covers pulled up to her lips, hiding away from the calling sun, she could still see the soft trace of her breath turning to mist as it hit the cold air. Mary was barely thirty-two and had buried two husbands, had two daughters almost adults and a step-brat that thought she could be trampled all over. She was a nobleman's daughter whose father had frittered away all of their wealth on gambling and forced her into a premature marriage to salvage their good name and position.

Mary's first husband had been a good man for someone so much older than her. She had been just fourteen and a half when she had married a Mr Aubrey, who was thirty-seven at the time. She had not expected to be rushed into motherhood so soon, or to be blessed with two daughters for the price of one. She upheld her part of the bargain, raised the girls, smiled for the parties, represented her noble name with pride and elegance. He had up kept his, making sure her father and relatives were comfortably settled and not getting mixed up in the middle of scandal.

Instead of love he simply showed her kindness, it has a similar nature but for a young girl who always dreamed with doe eyes of the perfect love, it was heart rending. She learned very quickly the world did not revolve around sentimental feelings, that everything was either a successful game won or lost.

Unused to providing for herself and lonely, when Mr Aubrey died, Mary hadn't thought twice about pursuing a recently widowed man to marry. It was strategic as much as it was because she still hoped thing's would be different, that she'd find something in common with her new conquest. That maybe there would be something special there.

Instead, on marrying Lord Cinders she had signed a certificate of misery. Most of it deriving from his one true pride and joy, his dearest daughter, Ethel. Mary tried to put it from her mind, how often he picked that girl over her, all the times she was silenced for the opinion of a mere child, the times she received a hard hand because she tried to speak up for her own children. She had sought the marriage partially to secure her daughters protection and a place in society and a better dowry. For her pains she was granted almost the exact opposite.

Mary told herself there was nothing worse than a mother watching her children suffer without voice to change it. Only she had found the deep seated hatred and jealousy that brewed in her heart over the years as a Cinders far outweighed anything another could inflict. She no longer had the eyes to see compassion, she had never been granted any, nor had her feelings ever been considered. The sooner her daughters learned that and conformed the better.

It didn't stop her from taking precious advantage of being granted the power she had been denied for so long. That power, that worth she had craved for so long suddenly being in her possession, no longer having to live under a bratty little Childs menacing chains, it was so relieving that she felt she could go mad with joy.

Sometimes Mary still dreamed that she was still just four-teen, not thirty-two, before she was first married, before she had children, before she knew what real responsibility meant. Of course, she wasn't four-teen and she knew all too well the tiresome weight of responsibility.

Now Mary Cinders was faced with a new dilemma. Lord Cinders had invested much of his money far and wide before he'd died, a substantial sum of it going missing not long before his ship was reported sunk. Not all of his investments were wise and some large part of the family money had evaporated. The house was being maintained on very little but the trimmings left over, which were being consumed quickly. Her girls had a small dowry left by Lord Cinders, but it could only be obtained by either of them marrying off. Ethel Cinders had quite a dowry packed away, but Mary was sure she would never see a cent of it if she let the girl marry to escape the house.

Mary wasn't about to start dressing or acting poor. She was too proud for that. Her family had told her when in dire financial need, fake wealth until money can be procured. Still, nothing settled her mind on this. She would have to marry her daughters off and soon.

A knock came at her door then. Mary sighed and pushed herself to sit up, rubbing her temples under her fingers to ward off a threatening headache. "Come in," she barked.

Arabella still in her nightgown, had her hair ragged so that it would curl when she took out the long strands of white cotton. She walked in almost timidly, her slightness made her mother smile, a warm glow to her heart as only her Arabella could affect in her.

She sat up a little more and held her arms open, "what is it my child?"

Her daughter climbed onto her mother's bed and soaked up the embrace and attention she would find there. In her hand she had a letter, sealed with red wax, the engraving the shape of a bear stood on its hind legs with a crown on its head. She held it up for her mother to see.

Mary snatched it out of her daughters hands and ripped into it, no longer interested in Arabella's being there. "This is from the Palace!" She exclaimed gleefully. "Every Maiden is to attend a ball, one or two lucky girls may win the hand of one of the Prince's." Her eyes lit up, taking in every word again to make sure she hadn't missed anything. This could save them. This could save her.

Mary glanced up at Arabella, her eyes wide with hope. Her daughter shrank back a little afraid. She knew exactly what her mother was thinking, but she was already in love, she just needed to figure out how to make things right. "You're going to make one of those prince's fall in love with you, child."

"But...what if I..." Arabella couldn't speak up, her mother simply gave her a cold stare and she crumbled under it.

The door creaked open a little bit more and Mary scowled towards it. "Enter or leave, do not dawdle there." She snapped.

Both Soot and Cinders walked in, their heads bowed, their eyes low to the ground. "I suppose you both wish to go?" Mary asked flippantly. She sighed, "Soot may go, but I can't see any Prince in his right mind wanting to be in the same kingdom as you, Cinders. You will stay here."

"You might as well let her go," Soot spoke up, "as I won't. I'm not interested in some prince's I've never met and I can't imagine they would have any time for me." So sure of herself and of the love she remembered, once again she could not keep silent.

Mary sat up rigidly in her bed, narrowing her eyes on her daughters face. "I said you will go, and you shall. You have no reason not to."

"Cinders has no reason not to go, either. Why must she be left out?" Soot retorted.

Mary swallowed back a hard lump in her throat, her teeth gritting together hard in her mouth. "Remind me to give you a lashing later. There is good reason Cinders should stay here, because I wish it. There need be no other reason."

Arabella looked back between her sister and her mother, silent and scared. She wished so much to speak up, to say she had no interest in going either. No matter how hard she tried, her voice was hushed under all of her fears.