II

At Long Last Love

Eugene, Prince of Rennes and heir to the throne of Amorique, paced vigorously up and down the east sitting room, his feet wearing out the crimson carpet as they scuffed and trod upon the same spots repeatedly.

"Has he returned yet?" Eugene muttered to himself.

"When he does, I'm sure that they will tell you first," Etienne Gerard said from where he sat on a settee, his back to the window and the grounds spread out beyond. He looked up from the walnut he was cracking in his hands. "Unless of course they decide to tell your father first, so that he can send her away discreetly if he disapproves."

Prince Eugene stopped pacing. "At this point, I doubt he would disapprove of the match if I were to pluck a beggar of the street and propose marriage to them, as long as she was fertile."

A smirk flashed across Etienne's face.

"You're finding this terribly amusing, aren't you," Eugene said archly. "I am glad that you are able to find so much jollity in my heartache."

"Your heart does not ache so much that you've gone out to search for her yourself," Etienne said, the blandness of his tone belying the sharpness of the words themselves.

Eugene waved one hand dismissively. Inwardly, he knew that he had handled this situation quite badly from the moment the clock struck twelve. First he had grabbed her by the wrist when first she went to go, a moment of wretched indecency which any gentleman would be ashamed of, but an error that he had only compounded by letting go of her moments later. Then, when she had turned to run he had been so confounded and flat-footed by the revelation that she had no idea of who he was that he had given her too much of a head start, and when he finally got around to pursuing her he had allowed himself to be entangled in a crowd of admirers. By the time he had extricated himself from them the girl had disappeared, leaving only her slipper behind.

He had been so distraught at letting her slip away without so much as a name that, having vowed despairingly to marry none but the girl who fit the slipper, he had retired to his bed sick at heart and scarcely had the strength to rise in the morning. It had taken Etienne telling him that the Grand Duke had been despatched to place the slipper on the foot of every maid of Armorique to get him up, washed, shaved and dressed, and now waiting anxiously for a happy conclusion to the Grand Duke's quest.

Eugene halted. "I should have thought of it myself," he confessed. "If I had not been too upset to think clearly-"

"If you had been thinking clearly you would have dismissed a quest as quixotic as this," Etienne said. "It took His Majesty's singular genius to devise a plan so...innovative."

"Yet if it proves successful I will not doubt him again," Eugene replied.

Etienne's eyes fixed upon his prince. "You're serious about this, aren't you? I wasn't sure at first. But this matters, doesn't it?"

Eugene looked down at him. "Does that surprise you?"

Etienne shrugged. "There have been other women. Or there were, before... None of them lasted. None of them you ever thought of marrying. None of them made you so... this. What power does this girl you've known for four hours and whose name you do not know possess to reduce the greatest rake in Gallia to a lovestruck schoolboy?"

"Is it so unbelievable to you that my whole life, my feelings, the very core of my being could change in a single moment?" Eugene asked.

"Yes," Etienne said.

Few men would have spoken so boldly and so plainly to a prince of the blood, but Etienne Gerard was not most men. Though he was of an age with the prince, or near enough, he looked as much as five years older, with a weathered face that contrasted sharply with the dark hair he wore in boyish ringlets down the sides of his face. He had a sharp nose and sharp dark eyes that made him look a little like a bird of prey. He had also been Eugene's companion since they were boys, racing their ponies across the fields and jumping hedgerows together, and more recently he had done Eugene a singular good service, and for that Eugene was willing to forgive him almost anything.

That did not, of course, mean that he was willing to forego the right of reply. "One day, Etienne, your whole life will be thrown into turmoil just as suddenly and I will smirk and chuckle at your discomfiture."

"I am sure you will, your highness," Etienne said earnestly. "But in the meantime, that particular boot remains firmly upon your foot." A wicked grin blossomed upon his face, softening all his features in the process.

"Of course it is," Eugene muttered, turning away and running one hand through his short, black hair. He bowed his head, and spoke softly. "I suppose that from the outside it must seem quite ridiculous."

"It will only seem ridiculous if His Grace returns with a harpy in tow," Etienne said. "It does seem strange. After the matches which you rejected, after the wasted effort of the noble families to court you for their daughters. After the dalliances which you abandoned. After all the arguments with His Majesty and then, suddenly, you spend a few hours with girl, you do not even learn her name, and you declare she is the one for you. Some might call it arbitrary."

"Would you?" Eugene asked.

Etienne was silent for a moment. "Do you remember what she looks like?"

"I remember everything," Eugene said, whirling round to advance upon his old friend. "I remember the blue of her eyes which I nearly drowned in. I remember the softness of her face, I remember the fairness of her skin, I remember the shade of her lips. I remember her voice, like a whisper but at the same time not, breathless but at the same time as clear as a bell, like water trickling through a brook, like pouring syrup, like light cast upon shadow. I remember how it felt to hold her in my arms, to feel as though I had been incomplete for all these years and was at last made whole."

"You make her sound a veritable angel," Etienne said, and though Eugene expected a quip to follow, one did not come.

Eugene sighed. "And like a heavenly apparition she was gone in a moment. Yet before she left she struck me to the bone. My life will not be the same."

Etienne uncrossed his legs and climbed to his feet. "Then I hope that you find her, and that she makes you happy."

"If she can be found, I am certain that...it feels right," Eugene said. "It feels fated."

"Then if it be so, then she will be found for sure," Etienne replied. "Though all the kingdoms of the earth scheme to prevent it."

Eugene smiled. "Fortunately, the one kingdom that cares is bending its effort to make it so."

Etienne laughed. "One question, if I may?"

"Of course."

"What made you look at her in the first place?" Etienne asked. "Was the string of fate so strong that you could sense it from across the ballroom? All those women, presenting themselves to you, you couldn't even pretend to care. Why her? What made you go over to her?"

"She wasn't looking at me," Eugene said.

Etienne blinked. "Truly? That is the reason?"

Eugene nodded. He was used to women looking at him. He was, if he said so himself, a fine figure of a man, and a prince and the heir to the throne what was more, and so he was used to women desiring something about him, whether it was his looks or his potential power and status. But this girl, she had not even glanced his way. Instead she had turned on the spot at the back of the room, admiring the opulence of the palace as though she had never seen anything like it. She had not come to claim him as her prize, indeed she had turned out to have no idea who he was, and that had drawn him to her. And what he had found once she drew him in had bound him to her with chains that, though invisible, were nonetheless as strong as steel.

"There is not another like her Gallia or beyond," Eugene declared. "I know it for a certainty."

Etienne might have had something to say by way of a reply, but at that precise moment they both heard the sound of feet rushing down the corridor moments before the door was thrown open by a breathless servant.

"Your Highness!" he cried. "The Grand Duke has returned!"

A/N: Etienne Gerard is not quite an original character, he actually comes from a wargame/RPG called Flintloque, and I've brought him in here as a confidant to the prince because I like the name.

Speaking of names, I was originally going to call the prince Armand, but I decided to go with Eugene instead after Prince Eugene of Savoy, who commanded the Imperial troops in the War of the Spanish Succession.

The song 'Red and Black' from Les Miserables was an inspiration while writing this chapter.

In terms of setting, if you imagine a balkanised France with lots of moderately-sized countries existing within it, you won't be far off. This will be important later when the story starts dealing with Cinderella as a political actor.