Lambrose Cinderella AU:
RIKKARD AMBROSE is the prince of Battlewood. His mother, the queen, wants him to marry and produce heirs, but all he wants to produce is profit. Starting with a company, for which he requires a secretary. However, none of the...
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— E P I G R A P H : — "Has fear ever held a man back from anything he really wanted - or a woman either?" — George Bernard Shaw —
C H A P T E R O N E :
- LILLY -
My life, as I knew it, was being destroyed. Obliterated. Utterly ruined. Why, one might inquire? It was the result of one four-letter word—actually, make that two words, the first five-letter and the second four-letter. Royal Ball.
"Lillian!" My aunt screeched, as though she were auditioning to play the role of an Erinys in a Greek tragedy. Although, that wouldn't make much sense, considering the furies often punished people for mistreating their family members. If anything, she ought to be attacked by one of the furies. Although I was fairly certain that I would die from the torment of hearing her voice, as the Furies' victims were wont to do. I was, however, interrupted from my mythological musings by more shouts. "Lillian, if you don't get dressed and in the coach right now, we will leave without you!"
"Go ahead!" I bellowed back at her, sticking my head out of the window where she and the rest of my sisters were clustered by the coach that had been sent for us and every other household containing an eligible maiden. "I don't want to go to the ball anyways! I bet it will be full of bit-fakers and brainless young ladies swooning over them."
I could see the dilemma forming in the mind of my aunt, Hester Mahulda Brank. On one hand, if I didn't go, she would lose the opportunity to auction off one of her nieces to the highest bidder at the ball, namely the prince, Rikkard Ambrose, and all the important nobles and sycophants that he likely surrounded himself with. On the other hand, I was a force of nature and could be as stubborn as a bag of rocks. A bag of rocks that definitely did not want to be shoved into a corset and gown and dragged by the ear, kicking and screaming, to the royal ball. Eventually, I saw that her greed for money and being rid of me won out.
"If you don't get in the coach within ten minutes, young lady, I'll lock you in your room and never let you out again!" she threatened.
Finally, I thought with a sigh. A threat that I could actually take seriously. Being locked in my room meant no independence, no freedom, no trips to the park with my friends, and worst of all: no way of securing solid chocolate unless my favourite sister smuggled it in for me. And there was no way pure, innocent Ella, would ever even consider doing such a heinous crime.
"Alright, alright! I'll be in the coach in five minutes!" I hollered back my challenge, quickly stripping out of my everyday dress and forcing my generous behind into a frilly gown, hoop skirt and corset. My brown hair was a mess, but then again, when was it not? Quickly grabbing a pair of shoes from my closet, I dashed down the creaky stairs on stockinged feet and flung open the door, racing out to the carriage. Ann, Maria, Gertrude, and Lisbeth gave me glowers that were not at all suited for the faces of genteel, well-bred young ladies. They were burning, red-hot stares, and I meant that in an angry, furious way. They could have prompted a volcano to explode or an iceberg to melt.
"How dare you make us late for the ball! It's not as if the prince would want to dance with you anyways! Your hair resembles a haystack and your dress is stained with... with solid chocolate!" Maria sniped at me, snapping her fan open to punctuate her statement.
"It's not as if I want to dance with the prince anyways! He's probably some stuffy, witless, spineless and power-hungry fool!" I countered, moments from slapping my sister.
"Lillian!" My aunt rapped me on the head with a hairbrush, giving me a very painful knot. But what would hurt even more was the damage to her reputation when I was finished humiliating the family with my utter lack of social graces tonight. So really, the joke was on her. "That's quite enough. Cease arguing and fix your hair."
The hairbrush landed in my lap with a thud. Of course Maria wasn't blamed for insulting me first. Ella, sitting between myself and Anne, gave me a small smile and picked up the brush. "I'll fix your hair for you, Lil."
"Thank you, Ella." At least, I was thanking her. Until she pulled a clump of my hair so hard that I thought it was going to fall out, and I nearly bit my tongue clean off.
The carriage hit a bump in the road, and the brush snagged on my hair so painfully that I let out a variety of curses, combined just so to give my aunt an apoplexy. Unfortunately, she didn't have one and instead gave me a nasty look, like she was going to punish me later on by shoving me into the arms of every available suitor.
I gulped, knowing that one thing was for certain: this would be a long night.
-
Halfway through our trip to the royal palace, our landau made a sudden lurching stop that sent all of us crashing on top of each other. My nostrils were filled with the loveliest, most cloying, suffocating, and choking scent of flowery perfumes of five different girls. Fortunately, we managed to disentangle from each other without too much hair being pulled from our scalps and before I died of strangulation. Unfortunately, what happened next may as well have foreboded death.
"Get out of the coach and put your hands up!" called a coarse male voice. When we froze in shock, the voice continued. "Now!"
We quickly scrambled out of the coach, clutching our fans and purses to our respective chests. Well, my sisters did. I, on the other hand, gave the highwayman who was holding a pistol by his side, an arresting glare. Unfortunately, seeing as I wasn't a policeman, he remained unaffected and instead gestured with the weapon for me to put my hands in the air. For once, I could actually consider them sane; my sisters, including Anne and Maria, followed suit.
My aunt, on the other hand, seemed determined to get killed. I was far from wanting to dissuade her from going down that path, but I sensed that we would be next if she was in fact murdered.
"What is the meaning of this? We are on our way to a very special engagement, as incredibly important guests—"
"Aunt Brank," I said heavily. "Shut up."
"What did you just say to me?" She turned to me, eyes blazing with anger at my defiance even in the dark when we were about to be robbed, and possibly maimed or killed, by vagrants.
"Do you want it in French?" I asked nicely—well, relatively nicely by my standards, really. "Fermez votre bouche."
"Lillian! I will not stand for this sort of behaviour—"
"Then sit for it," I suggested, "And start listening to the man who has a pistol, and could very well kill all of us."
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps and bright candlelight spilled out of the castle, casting a shadow over the path outside of Battlewood's royal palace. A dark, tall, distinctly masculine shadow. My sisters might have swooned if they weren't occupied with being scared to death.
"What is the meaning of this?" The ice-cold, masculine, and unfamiliar voice asked. "Who are you, and what are you doing—mmphf!"
