Roses and Black Glass: A Dark Cinderella Tale
Chapter Eleven
1
Isabella stared across the room, hardly even aware that her feet were moving her toward that which she stared at. He was there with a young woman he hardly knew, ignoring the one he should have been with. Her. He would learn. He would learn soon enough that he could not escape her.
The man beside his fiancé saw Isabella coming before anyone else. When he focused on her staring at him, the false smile faded from his face. She stared into his eyes, and he into hers as she continued to advance. Christian felt his muscles tightening throughout him in anger that she would dare approach them, but another part of him was quite curious to what she would do. He didn’t exactly care for the girl beside him, after all.
Isabella came closer, pretending to be distracted. When she was only a few inches away, she lurched forward as if she had tripped, falling into the girl named Morgana, who had recently become her enemy. Isabella’s hand slipped into the fur shawl that the girl had wrapped around her, and with another little stumble, she knocked it lose. It fell to the floor.
Morgana looked up to her in confusion, not even noticing Isabella until they had collided. The brown-haired girl then looked down toward her fallen ornament.
“Oh! I’m so clumsy!” Isabella said, putting a gloved hand to her lips. “I apologize.”
Isabella stooped down to pick up the fur, handing it back to the girl with an apologetic smile. Morgana moved to take the fur, but then remembered she had a drink in her hand and couldn’t very well put the shawl back on without setting it down. Christian was too busy threatening Isabella with his eyes to notice the girl’s dilemma, so out of the goodness of her heart, the van Burren maiden took it upon herself to do the good deed.
“Allow me,” she said, taking the drink from Morgana’s hand.
“Thank you,” the brunette said softly, using her freed hands to assemble herself once again.
Christian’s eyes bored deep holes into Isabella’s, but she tried to counter it, pleading with him with her own eyes. It did little good. And then Morgana was done. Isabella gave her back her drink.
“I just wanted to be sportsmanlike and wish the both of you good luck,” she said. “Knowing Christian as I do, I know you’re going to need it.”
Isabella said it as if to be a joke, but Morgana wasn’t quite sure how to take the comment. Christian, however, knew exactly.
“We appreciate that, Isabella,” he said. “So good to see that you can accept defeat so graciously.”
The beautiful girl’s little smile became a deep scowl. She averted her eyes and then turned away, looking defeated, but secretly feeling triumphant.
“What did she mean by all that?” Morgana asked, turning her face up toward Christian. He did not take his gaze off the departing girl.
YOU ARE READING
Roses and Black Glass: a dark Cinderella tale (novel preview)
Romance(Now available as an ebook and in print!) A dark retelling of Cinderella in early America. In an age when cutting up dead bodies is considered taboo, Cindy’s father is a mortician. She is happy with their fascinating life, though controversial, unti...
