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This chapter and indeed this story is dedicated to Richard Chamberlain-the one, the only, Prince Charming.

The Slipper And The Lily

Chapter 12-Never Felt So Alone

The Prince meets his Princess at last. With a little help from John and Lili.

Sir John was officially engaged to the Lady Caroline a week after his promotion. As the fifth daughter and the nineth child of a couple who had fourteen children Caroline had accepted and her parents seeing the sense of marrying her into someone close to the Prince had not minded so much that there was a little dowry. The Dowager Queen had expressed that she was utterly delighted with the match, the Queen thoroughly agreed and even the King had tapped his hands together in support.

Both of them had agreed to stay in service…and as the Dowager Queen complained when she thought that the Prince wasn't listening, this might be the only baby this court would see in her lifetime.

The reality of the stable boy becoming the Prince's new Master of Arms was a new one too but as Edward had pointed out to his father they must progress over time because if not then people would complain and they did not want that.

"Uprisings" his grandmother had muttered waving the Lord Chamberlain's stick (and how she had gotten her hands on that one Edward didn't know). She had nearly taken Glen's eye out but the muttering of the word had been enough for his father to capitulate and capitulate fast. Now that it was becoming achingly, gut wrenchingly clear that he would not find his love again Edward knew that there was talk about Princess Celina of Carrolsfield and he didn't have the heart in the midst of his friends happiness to tell his father that he would rather stick hot pins in his balls.

It was a time for young lovers. Spring was in the air, summer was fast approaching and everyone seemed to be out in the warm sunshine and enjoying themselves. Love was the main topic of conversation for everyone but him.

It wasn't that he was happy for John. John was the brother that he had never had and he wished him a long and happy life in peace. The same for his sister who somehow found time to sneak away with her boy even though Edward was quite sure that he kept him busy for a reason.

But he was miserable himself.

Viciously he had smashed that damn box and thrown the shoe away. He had regretted it almost instantly but he had not gone back to search for it, to clutch it to his chest and howl on his hands and knees like a dying dog. He was a Prince and maybe this dream of love had just been that? A dream. He did not get the happy ending that so many of his friends and family did.

"You know your not alone in this" Montague had said to him one morning. His cousin had a thing for forbidden tabaco always had, the kind that made your head swim and his mother had forbidden it but there was Montague with it when you needed it. More than once as teenagers they had used John as the increasingly disapproving lookout and had smoked on the roof until they were stupid with it.

Now he took the pipe and breathed out and realised that it was not the high that he wanted. The one hit that he wanted more than air was to see her again. Only then would the craving for his Princess be sated and the truth was that was never going to happen.

He didn't want to give up but he thought that he already had.

"Its our lot in life" Montague said not unkindly. "It's like when we were born, our mothers could not breastfeed us"

"What the hell has that got to—"

"Because you have won your baby a silver spoon and all the bread and honey he could ever want" Montague said his eyes misty looking out over the sunny grounds. "But you cannot give him your own milk" he turned to look at Edward. "We are Princes of the Blood my friend. Love is wonderful if we find it but we don't go looking for it. We will never know hunger for material things, just sentimental. Comfortable companionship is all that we can hope for in a marriage. Love is wonderful of course but comfortable companionship and a shared interest in children is all that we have"

Edward frowned.

"You make it sound very depressing."

Montague laughed.

"Because it is" he said quietly. "But it is what it is and you know it"

There was a pause and Edward nodded.

He didn't know what else to say.

Lili had been out with Glen…well…John had been out with Caroline and somewhere along the way he had been supposed to be chaperoning and had disappeared into the grass with Caroline.

"You think someone should tell her that grass stains are a bitch to get out of red?" she'd asked at random and Glen had laughed at her. She was perfectly content to be in her blue dress with flowers and she was running a hand in the grass and feeling totally content. Granted when they got back to the Palace there was trappings that they would have to put on, roles that they would have to play but here she could spin around in the grass with his hands on her waist and he could—

"Kiss her and your dead!"

"Good Lord" she said with an eyeroll. Even half hidden in the grass John was annoying. Did the man have eyes in the back of his head?

And then as if she had said that out loud

"When it comes to you, yes"

Caroline smothered a giggle in the grass and Lilianna, the Lady in Waiting (now an official Lady too thank you very much) flipped her brother a middle finger and then when she was sure that John was busy and the low suggestive mummers from the grass had disappeared she pulled him towards the trees as best they could and…

She staggered to a stop and he bumped into her behind her.

"What?" he asked but she had let go of his hand. Whatever expression was on her face it got him to raise an eyebrow and to open his mouth but she had held up her hand and she was watching with baited breath.

In the middle of the fields that separated Palace land to that of the neighbouring nobility was a woman. It was not just a woman it was the woman. It took Lili a moment to remember all those months ago when she had seen her the first time laying flowers on her parents graves and she had been there. Her dress had been black and drab and now it was white as if she had finally cast of the mourning. Her face was illuminated and she was dancing her brown hair shimmering and shivering down her back.

What was her name again?

And then just as she had thought that the name popped into her head as if by magic.

"My name is Cinderella"

"Hello. My name is Lilianna. But do not feel the need to call me that, most people call me a variation, Lili, Lilibet, Lila"

"Well what do you want to be called?"

She paused. She had never thought on that.

"Lili is what my brother calls me" she said finally. "So I suppose Lili is what you call me"

"Very well...nice to meet you Lili"

"Nice to meet you too...Cinderella"

Cinderella smiled and then.

"I suppose this is a terrible awkward place to make new friends"

Lili smiled.

"I suppose it is"

Cinderella.

Her name was Cinderella.

And she was dancing with the slipper.

Not just any slipper…the glass slipper the one that had been left by the Prince when…

"Get John" she said pushing Glen back. "Tell him not to make a sound but get him"

"Isn't that—"

"I think so just go—" and she pushed him backwards and then ducked behind a tree to watch as the woman's face finally came into view.

She didn't see Lili standing there. To be honest Lili was not sure that she would have seen her standing there had she been in her ballgown. It was as if she was trapped in her own world dancing around having been reunited with her lost slipper. Now that her face was in pure sunlight there was no mistaking who she was.

And suddenly it made sense.

Because the Princesses had tried the shoes, the daughters of the nobility had tried the damn shoe (Lili had not because it was fucking obvious pardon her language, that she was not the woman that the Prince had fallen in love with considering she had been waltzing with her Prince in the garden) and yet the servants had not.

It was there, it had been there all along but the trappings of the upper society had blinded the Prince even at his best to what was in front of his eyes. It would have never occurred to Edward that his love might be from the working class…of course now it didn't matter but then…

There was a movement and she turned to see John there. He looked from her to Cinderella and then he understood. Cinderella was still dancing.

"We must tell the Prince" John muttered. "Caroline come with me. Glen stay with my sister will you?"

And then he was gone before Glen could answer.

"So it's her" he said as John rode off.

"A serving girl" Lili said quietly.

Glen laughed but it was lacking in amusement.

"Oh the King is just gonna love that" he said darkly.

"What does it matter?" she asked btu the second she said it she knew it and by the look on his face he knew it too.

After all…hadn't they just sang about this?

"Maybe it will work out?" she said and she knew that she could hear the hope in her voice.

Glen opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"Maybe" he said and then his hand found hers and he backed them away as gently as he could because admittedly they were very close to the woman dancing away.

"Her name is Cinderella" she said at random.

Glen looked at her sharply.

"Have you too met before?" he asked and she nodded.

"It's the Prince" she said to Cinderella. "There's no need to be afraid he's not going to do anything—"

"You don't understand. I am not supposed to talk to anyone or see anyone. Oh my stepmother will be so cross when she finds out about this! She doesn't know where I am and she will not like that I took flowers from the garden to go to my parents graves"

"She sounds like a right bitch" Lili said not even bothering to mince her words. Cinderella gave a giggle and then bit her lip as if she was afraid of her stepmother falling out of the sky and landing on them like an angry dragon.

Lili peered around the tree. Her brother and the Prince had gone into the crept.

"Come on" she said ducking around the tree. Cinderella made a shushing noise but then curiosity won out and she followed Lili to where they were standing by the window hiding out of sight but still able to see and hear everything.

Oh God. They were singing again.

"Singing" she said again with an eye roll. "Everyone is singing these days"

Cinderella opened her mouth to ask no doubt what she was on about but then the Prince suddenly burst into song.

There was the sound of frantic riding then and Glen threw her behind the tree to avoid discovery but Lili was Lili and not for nothing she turned to look.

He rode like a man possessed. Cinderella stopped dancing and looked at him holding the slipper limply in his hands as he stopped in front of her. He looked as if he had been in his nightshirt and had thrown a pair of trousers and his boots on as he tumbled from the horse.

But his smile was so real and bright, the relief on his face etched there and she watched as the Prince she loved like a brother took the woman he loved into his arms and they were reunited at last.

She pulled back and rested her head on Glen's arm.

"And they lived happily ever after" she said sighing.

Glen made an odd noise and then.

"We hope" was all he said.

She didn't know it then but he was a realist in a way she was not and he knew what she did not.

That this was not the end of the story.

There was always going to be another plot twist.

And there you are-onto the final run as it were.

Next Chapter-As Cinderella makes herself comfortable in the palace, schemes are put in place that sees her and Lili cut adrift with the men in their lives racing to catch up.