Chapter Text
It's every girl's dream to gracefully walk down a staircase in front of a packed dance floor and have every woman cast a subtle gaze in envy as the men stare scandalously at whatever the dress does not leave to the imagination.
That is where Ella found herself, basking in the spotlight and showered with the looks of every man and woman. No one could blame them for staring. The dress could never have been made by mere mortal hands, her hair shone by dew-like diamonds nestled between curls, and her shoes rang with every step as the glass slipper made contact with the marble floors.
Every detail was perfect. However, as she reached the bottom of the stairs, she found herself very alone. One by one, people grew bored of the mysterious masked woman, and their backs turned away from her. She stood awkwardly near the bottom of the staircase and looked out at the sea of people.
She had wanted to wish for riches or to be whisked far away from Harron City, but the fairy godmother had insisted. She had waved her wand and insisted that this masquerade would change her life. Now, she was at a social event with less than adequate social skills. At least the music was enjoyable.
There was nowhere to go, no friendly faces, no available seating, and no way to escape back the way she had come without drawing an even bigger scene. No one would make eye contact with her unless they were whispering between each other like a bunch of gossip-mongers.
The longer she stood unmoving, the more dread began to settle at the bottom of her stomach.
"Excuse me, my dear." a man in a rabbit mask said to her as he pushed past her to access the stairs.
"My apologies." She stepped against the wall, wishing at that moment that she could disappear.
Laughter surrounded her. Ladies gossiped in groups, men traded harrowing tales, and couples swirled the dance floor effortlessly. It was hard not to be drawn in by the shared joy around her. It gave her the courage to push off the wall and enter the sea of masked strangers.
A gentleman caught her eye from across the floor. He had on a sunset color mask that perfectly offset his sunshine-colored hair. He looked friendly enough, and he smiled at her and Ella dipped her head to him in response. It was enough to spur him forward towards her.
Her heart rate picked up in either fear or anticipation. She took a few steps forward, wringing her hands.
Anastasia. The name crossed through her mind before she could even process who had stepped between them. Her stepsister stepped into her eyeline, captured her attention, and walked towards her.
She was masked, but it was the same teal satin mask that Ella had seen tucked into a box in her room. Her stepsister would recognize her and when she did it would not be subtle. When Anastasia recognized her, it would be loud and painful and humiliating.
Run. That was the only word coursing through her heart. The man in the sunset mask was forgotten. Propriety was forgotten. She turned her head towards the staircase, but couples littered the stairs, blocking her exit.
Ella went in the only direction she could, she dug her heels into the floor and turned towards the dance floor with a dramatic twirl of her dress, which is how she managed to collide with a very tall and solid object.
"Oh no." she squeaked. It was not an object. It was a man. A man that had been holding two glasses of once full of wine now soaking into his coat, his shirt, and dripping onto the pristine white floors. There was nothing she longed for more in that moment than a short sudden death.
Anastasia. The name collided with her current calamity. Ella turned back to her stepsister, but Anastasia had stopped her pursuit. She stood back from the public scene Ella had just made, sending violent messages with her eyes.
Ella was saved. Relief flew through her until a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her into a much different problem.
She turned and looked up into the eyes of the man she had collided with and all apologies died on her lips. His green mask looked muted by sharp emerald eyes that captured hers. He was carved marble with broad shoulders and a strong jawline. Black hair fell across his forehead stubbornly. He smiled at her at her and if she had a fan and a nice couch, she would have swooned dramatically.
Her fairy godmother had not prepared her for this.
He had asked her a question, but his deep voice had pushed away her last coherent thought. Ella felt her face turn a bright red as her eyes moved down his broad shoulders to his coat covered in wine. Wine. Her mind finally caught up to the situation.
She jerked out of his grasp and tore off her shawl. She folded the fabric quickly and pressed it to the man's coat, trying to soak up the wine.
"My deepest, deepest apologies, sir." She felt her face grow redder with each pair of eyes she could feel on her back. There was not a hole that existed across the country that was big enough to hide her shame and horror. "You need to clean this as soon as possible. It needs salt... or is it vinegar?" She asked. In her panicked state, her memory failed her.
"Salt or vinegar, or both! I am sure there is some somewhere around here!" She looked to the corner as if she would find a cleaning cabinet in a corner somewhere.
Instead of Salt and Vinegar, she met the stares of dozens of people. Her head jerked back towards him.
She was still furiously wiping at his jacket when his hands wrapped around her elbows once again, and she realized that he was laughing.
It took her exactly that long to realize that she had been manhandling a complete stranger after practically pouring two drinks on him. Every eye was on them, watching as the wine bled into his jacket and into her shawl. Her eyes stung in embarrassment and the threat of tears caused her to panic.
The fairy godmother had said tonight would change her life, and she had been right. This experience was not likely to leave her memory again. She would remember standing clutched in the arms of a gorgeous man, utterly mortified every waking moment until, on her deathbed, she would curse this masquerade with her dying breath.
She was leaving, that much was sure. She would push past couples on the stairs, run to the magic carriage, and she was going to go back home where she would never venture outside her walls again. This moment would be enough to fill a lifetime of reasons to be content with her sad life.
"Dance with me." His eyes were tuned into hers, unflinching and sincere.
His gaze was intimate. Personal. It stole her away from every thought.
"Please," he added.
The limelight was jarring and unfamiliar. Her heart was like a caged bird in her chest. Cleaning and laundry left her ill-prepared for this, whatever this was.
"Your coat." She said, "The stain will settle."
He looked down at his doublet and let go of her arms slowly as if he was afraid she would bolt. He lowered the now-empty wine glasses to the floor then unbuttoned the coat and slid out of it in one solid movement. With the coat gone, even Ella knew he was woefully underdressed in his white tunic. He held his jacket in one hand and held out the other towards her.
"May I?" He asked, gesturing to her shawl that was crumpled up in one hand. She relinquished the stained shawl to him, her hand grazing his in passing. He smiled at her and winked before he walked a few paces off the dancefloor and placed the glasses and the ruined clothing on the banister at the base of the stairs.
Ella's mouth was agape. When he saw the look on her, face his smile turned impish.
"I apologize, my Lady, those stains were getting in the way of my proposal. Will you dance with me?"
He bowed his head respectfully and held out his hand.
Her dancing was ill-practiced and she look like a fool. She wondered if she even possessed the courage to take his hand.
He saw the hesitation in her eyes.
"If you leave now, I will forever remember this night as the night I had a drink thrown at me and a rejection by the same woman in one night. How will my ego survive?" She smiled, and it cut through her desire to flee. He calmed her just enough to bridge the gap that lay between them.
She grabbed his hand and he led them toward the dance floor.
"I am not a good dancer." She told him in a rush of words when he pulled her closer to him.
"You are not a good dancer and I am not a good speaker. I will worry about the dancing if you take charge of the awkward silences."
She laughed outright at that, and her hand was wrapped in his. He did not follow the other couples. He led them both in a blessedly simple 4-step dance. One of his arms circled her waist and the other encircled her hand and led her.
He was confident and that made dancing easy. Joe had practiced a few dance steps with her between their chores to ensure she still remembered the basics, but there was no education to be gained from the way she was held now.
Ella had always held foolish fantasies in her mind. Hopes and dreams that were too embarrassing to share with anyone. Fantasies that were now impossibly springing to life. The mysterious masked man dressed in forest green. His green eyes illuminated as he smiled and laughed and looked only at her as if he really saw her.
"You had me worried. You are a beautiful dancer." He said
"You are kind, and a good liar."
"I would never tell lies about a beautiful woman." He told her.
"Perhaps you would not lie about a woman. Her dancing, however, is a different story."
He threw his head back and laughed. A shudder traveled through her that left warmth in its wake. She took the moment to look around at the couples surrounding them who were all gazing in awe and she did not blame them.
"What are people going to say?" She asked helplessly.
He looked over at the staring couples and shrugged.
"Perhaps they will say, 'Those two must have a great admiration for dancing.' "
"You are barely dressed!" Ella said, trying to interrupt his casual demeanor. If he would not take their impropriety seriously, she would have to worry for both of them.
His eyebrows flew up suggestively and Ella felt her face turn red again. She would not be escaping this dance alive.
"No matter what they say you do not have to worry. I will be sure to defend your honor when they all besmirch your good name for dancing without a shawl."
She scoffed, "I am sure no one will have anything to say about your appearance."
"No one is going to be saying a single thing about me while I am standing next to you." He said simply.
"Has anyone ever told you that you could become an effective jester? All these jokes come too easily to you."
His eyes were bright and with every word they slung at each other, they got closer and closer until she was tight against his chest.
"I could never be a jester, but I think I could have a promising career as a fool." He said, but before she could agree with him, he continued.
"Would you believe that I watched you from across the room and puzzled with myself- no, agonized with myself over how to ask you to dance, and then I ran into you and ruined everything in an instant."
Ella rolled her eyes at his dramatic flair, but he made her smile, "So you take full blame for the fiasco that just transpired?" She asked.
"That would depend on whether you would forgive me."
Ella shrugged her shoulders coyly. If he wanted to tease her, she would return the favor. It seemed her social inadequacies were not the obstacle she thought they were.
"I would need a pretty grand apology. I might not be able to show my face in public for the rest of my life."
He shook his head with a grim look. "That is most unfortunate. I have no intention to apologize, because I am not sorry. That "fiasco" put me exactly where I wanted to be."
Ella snorted and rolled her eyes, shaking her head the whole while. "You have got to be the most ill-mannered man in the country."
Her words only spurred him on.
"You bring out the worst in me."
"Perhaps I should have denied you a dance. You saw me across the room and decided to accost me with two drinks? Who knows what you have planned next."
"I wish that was the plan. My original plan had more moving parts I would tell you about it, but I have a feeling I might need to use it later to get another dance."
"Do you not suppose that you can just ask a woman to dance without an elaborate scheme?"
"Of course not. Not if a man does not want to completely blend into the background." He said dramatically.
"I am not sure what you mean." As if he could ever fall into the background.
"Well, tonight you are going to have dozens of men asking you to dance. So many in fact, that by the end of the night, they will all blend together. All the Davids and the James and the Richards will become jumbled until you don't remember who is who. Then, when I call upon your home to court you, you will have to quickly think,
'Oh which one was he?" he said, now switching to a falsetto to badly mimic her voice. She laughed a little too loudly and more dancers looked over at them. "'Was he the one with the mustache, or the one with all the boring hunting stories?'"
He switched back to his deep tenor, "and if I was just another man who simply asked you to dance you might get me confused with someone else and turn me away, telling yourself that you did not like me because I was boring or sickly looking. I will not allow that to happen."
She smiled, "So when I do reject you for being boring and sickly looking you want to know that I have a vivid picture of you in my mind?"'
"Truthfully my whole plan was for you not to find me boring and sickly looking, but I can see now that my logic had its flaws to begin with."
"Actually I would say that you are a perfect judge of your own character. I could never honestly describe you as sickly looking. You are too..."
Ella trailed off and he raised a singular eyebrow. She blushed furiously, but every word that came to her mind was more embarrassing than the last one. Too handsome. Too fit. Too brawny. Too gorgeous.
"healthy." She added slowly and he threw back his head and laughed again. She could feel his laughter in his chest and it sent tingles all the way to her toes.
"and no one could ever accuse you of being boring. Not while we are still dancing a four-step while the music has changed to a waltz, and especially not while you are woefully underdressed."
"I do not think I have ever had a dance partner suggest I should cover up more. My ego will be in a pitiful state when you are through with it."
Ella rolled her eyes. "Somehow I think your ego will survive."
They both laughed and he effortlessly led them into a waltz. They were not in time with the other dancers. They missed steps and fell off the beat too often when they slowed on account of many fits of laughter, but when the waltz was over he bowed deeply to her and pressed a kiss to the top of her hand while she gave a blushing curtsy and another man wearing a pale yellow mask stepped between them to ask for Ella's hand.
She nodded to the man in the pale yellow mask and sent one last look over her shoulder at her previous partner.
-The Prince-
He escorted her to the edge of the dance floor. He was reluctant to let go of her hand, but he did just that at the end of the waltz and retrieved her shawl and his coat. She folded the fabric and draped it across her arm and gave him a quick awkward curtsey.
Another gentleman approached. It was some Lord who eyed the woman like a predator staking his claim. Acting without thinking, the Prince stepped forward and took her hand again. She looked up at him, her eyes widening. He should give her a cursory bow and thank her.
He brought her hand to his lips and almost laughed when her cheeks tinged red.
"I am loathe to let you go." He said, trying to think of any good reason to keep her attention.
"Thank you for saving me." She said and he finally decided he didn't need a good reason. He didn't need any reason at all to stay right here.
It was then that the Lord grew impatient and stepped forward. The woman pivoted, sharing her attention. It was a Lord. His name was Lint or Lindon or something of the sort. The Prince had met him enough times to be generally displeased by his presence.
"My Lady." The Lord said, stepping down into a bow so deep he could probably inspect the shine of his own boots. "Might I have this next dance?" He asked.
Her hand slipped out of his and she took a tentative step back. "I probably ought to." She said, to him, ignoring Linty for the moment.
The Prince smiled and nodded to her. "Of course, he did ask after all."
She broke into a grin and shook her head, "You really are the most ill-mannered man." She said under her breath. She turned from him and took Linty's hand.
The Prince inspected the dampness of his coat and deemed the jacket dry enough to wear. His father would be upset at his uncouth attire and his mother would rather have him walk through glass than be so ill-dressed.
He did his princely duty and asked another woman to dance, and another after that. Their faces and names all began to blur together, because in every spare moment, his eyes swept the dance floor searching for her.