“You do?” I asked weakly.
The king looked deeply into my eyes, his expression unreadable. My skin felt hot and itchy under his gaze. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? Did I just challenge the king? I felt a little faint.
“I do, Lady Cendrillon,” he said, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “I have lost people that I loved. I know that pain, how hard it is to manage, especially for one so young.”
The king squeezed my shoulder and smiled before setting off in a flurry of valets and footmen. The rest of the mourners cleared from the cemetery quickly, on their way back to the château for small refreshments. Lady Catherine was being loaded into the sedan chair with Severine in tow, but Alexandre stopped to wait for me.
“Are you coming, Cendrillon? You might not be able to fit in the sedan chair, but we might be able to scrounge up another umbrella,” she said.
“No. I’ll walk.”
“Are you sure? I can walk with you, if you want.”
“It’s kind of you to offer, but I don’t want you to get any wetter. I’ll meet you back at the château.”
“Okay. Be safe,” she said with a small smile before rushing off after her mother and sister.
Alexandre’s concern touched me. Thankfully, Severine had been keeping her distance since Papa died, and Lady Catherine remained in her rooms, having her meals delivered to her. But Alexandre offered to bring me food or sit with me if I wanted. Elodie and Marius had barely left my side the past week, so any more company would have been stifling, but it was thoughtful of her to offer. I now asked my two friends to leave me in order that I may have some time to myself to pray.
Once the cemetery was empty of all but me and the dead, I started running. Where I was going, I didn’t know. Mud squelched under my boots as I flew down a little path that wound its way out of the cemetery. It took me in the opposite direction of the château, but I didn’t care. The only thing waiting for me there was awkward small talk and hollow platitudes from people I didn’t know.
The rain began to fall in earnest then, soaking my dress through. I started to shiver violently. Maybe I would catch pneumonia too. The thought only spurred me to run faster into the torrent.
* * *
A few days after the funeral, Lady Catherine called me into the sitting room to talk. It was the first time she’d spoken more than a few words to me since Papa died.
As I approached the sitting room door, Marius burst out and slammed the door behind him. He was rubbing at his eyes, and I could see tears on his cheeks. He was only thirteen, and he looked miserable.
“Marius, what’s wrong?” I asked, rushing up to him and grabbing his arm. “Tell me what happened.”
Marius wouldn’t look at me, angling his body so I couldn’t see his face. His tears scared me. I’d never seen him cry except at funerals.
“I’m fine,” he said, sniffling loudly.
“You’re not fine. What’s going on?”
When he didn’t say anything, I shook his arm gently. “Tell me, Marius. Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t help.” His eyes and nose were both red.
“Why? What’s going on?”
I couldn’t help but raise my voice at his stubbornness, from fear rather than anger.
In a choked whisper and with tears in his eyes, Marius finally confessed what was wrong. “She’s sending me away.”
“Who’s sending you away?”
Marius nodded at the sitting room door.
“Lady Catherine is sending you away?”
Marius nodded and wiped at his nose. “She said I was no longer needed.”
I didn’t feel uneasy anymore. Now I felt sick and confused. How could Lady Catherine ask him to leave? Where would he go?
“But why?”
Marius shrugged and pulled out of my grasp, running away before I could stop him.
“Marius, wait!”
But he didn’t listen. In the distance, I heard the kitchen door slam closed. He was gone. Anger pooled in my stomach as I looked at the sitting room. Without knocking, I threw open the door and stormed inside to see Lady Catherine sitting in Papa’s armchair.
“My, what an abrupt entrance,” she said, taking a sip from her delicate teacup, the image of a rose with curling vines running the length of the cup. “You look upset. Is something the matter?”
Lady Catherine looked as lovely as always in a simple black gown edged in lace, her silver-blond curls falling loosely around her shoulders. After placing the teacup down gently on the side table, she clasped her hands in her lap and stared at me with those pale blue eyes.
“I just saw Marius. He told me you’re sending him away. Is that true?”
“It is.”
“Why?” I practically spat the word at her, I was so upset. How could she do this? “First you send Claudine away, and now Marius?” It was all such a mess.
“Your father’s elderly little housekeeper had been, in my opinion, doing a poor job of running the château. And that stable boy acts too far above his station. These changes are long overdue.”
“And these changes include sending away from their home two loyal servants who have been with us for years.”
“Among other things, yes. And it isn’t their home. It’s mine.”
“That’s not—” I said, but Lady Catherine raised a hand to cut me off.
“We need to change the way we live, Cendrillon. I don’t expect you to understand this now. Maybe when you’re older. Your father, may he rest in peace, spent a great deal of money on unnecessary things. Like housing extraneous servants. He didn’t have a lick of sense about money and was far too accommodating, letting servants like that housekeeper walk all over him. It is far more prudent to employ them when the need arises rather than paying to house and feed them when they aren’t necessary. I’ll let the stable boy stay till the end of the week.”
“You can’t do that. It isn’t fair,” I said, my voice very small in the wake of such a horrible revelation.
“I’m trying to run an estate, ma belle-fille. To keep it aloft, sometimes that means I can’t be fair, only practical.”
Lady Catherine picked up her teacup and took another sip. When she was finished, she rested the cup on her lap and smiled at me. “Now, may we please move on from this unpleasant topic and get to the reason I asked you here?”
I glared at her. This conversation didn’t even feel real. Nothing in my life felt real now that Papa was gone.