The Fairy Tale Bride

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Miranda took the bundle from deep within her cedar chest. It was wrinkled and gray, and as she removed the items that had been rolled within it and fruitlessly tried to shake the wrinkles from the cloth, a smell of stale grease surrounded her.

“Are you sure you should go?” her younger sister, Hero, asked, hazel eyes reflecting her worry even as her nose wrinkled in distaste at the odor.

“Yes.” She had hoped never to have to wear it again. “Valentine is being stubborn. He insists that he will find a way to keep Anderlin afloat.”

“Perhaps he will.” There was little confidence in Hero’s voice.

Miranda was tempted to shelter her younger sister, but she could not. Hero was the next oldest after Miranda and Valentine, and she must be prepared to shoulder the responsibility of the younger girls while Miranda was gone. “He is coming around from his disappointment. But not fast enough. He has not stirred from the study in two days, except to bathe and shave.”

Hero protested. “If you give him just a little more time, Miranda — “

“We’ve barely any flour left, and the vegetable garden will not produce enough for eight people this month,” Miranda interrupted, trying not to breathe too deeply, as she donned the wrinkled gray gown over her own plain blue, giving her figure a bulkier look. “Help me with this, please, Hero.” She turned away from her sister’s stricken look and quickly tied the hideous yellowed linen cap onto her head so that it hid every lock of hair.

As she had in previous trips, Miranda took two balls of spun wool and stuffed them into the sagging bodice of the gown until it was rounded and taut. One glance in the mirror convinced her that no one would recognize her. But the final coup de grace was the pair of padded bags that she tied under her skirts. Before she tightened each bag’s drawstring, she inserted two carefully wrapped sets of silver candlesticks and the glittering ruby neckpiece that had been her mother’s prized possession.

“Oh, Miranda.” Hero took the necklace from Miranda’s hands and unwrapped it from the velvet cloth that protected it. “Must you pawn Mother’s necklace? She left it to you to wear when you are married and give balls of your own.”

It was truly a work of art, with its intricate working of diamond-eyed gold swans, each with its neck curled gracefully around a ruby the size of Miranda’s thumb pad.

The jewels themselves held no dazzle for her. It was the memories that the piece conjured for her — her mother, dressed for a ball in a beautiful gown sweeping down the staircase at Anderlin under the awed gazes of her children.

Miranda sighed. “Well, I have no better use for these jewels, Hero, than putting food on the table. I’m afraid Mother would be disappointed, but I don’t believe I’ll ever marry. Like the girl in the tale who would do anything to release her brothers from the evil spell that has turned them into swans — ” she ran her finger over the swans, feeling the hard smooth swell of the jewels under her fingertips — “I would give up anything for my family.” She smiled at her sister and gave her an impulsive hug.

Hero’s eyes shone with hope. “Perhaps the duke will come for you like Cinder Ella’s prince. You’d make a better Cinder Ella than swan princess.”

Miranda frowned. “It’s Grimthorpe who has my “slippers”, Hero, not the duke.” She shuddered. “And I pray that he never finds out that they belong to me.”

Hero laughed. “That would certainly change the way you told Cinder Ella’s tale. You’d have one of the stepsisters fit into the boots, then, wouldn’t you? Still, you’d be a marvelous duchess, even without boots. Wouldn’t Mama just be delighted if she could look down and see her daughter a duchess?”