Glass Slippers, page 1
GLASS SLIPPERS
A DARK SPIRITS FAIRYTALE
S.J. SANDERS
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Other Works by S.J. Sanders
About the Author
©2022 by Samantha Sanders
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without explicit permission granted in writing from the author.
Editor: LY Publishing
Cover Artist: Sam Griffin
This book is a work of fiction intended for adult audiences only.
Created with Vellum
CHAPTER 1
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a beautiful young woman who was as beautiful as she was good and kind…
The young woman sitting beside the kitchen fire frowned and flipped forward several pages, a calloused finger tapping at her lips as she read, ignoring the tap at the door. They could wait a moment longer. She had waited all day for a moment of solitude to read the precious little volume that had been gifted to her. Books were luxuries that she normally treasured, but the absurd tales had her shaking her head.
“What a load of rubbish,” she muttered. “Whoever heard of such tall tales? Talking animals, magical transformations, and all manner of fanciful things. Better suited to children, I would say, if not for the grim details.” She shook her head. “And this, a prince falling in love with a maid, indeed,” she snorted.
A fist rapped again against the door, this time far louder than was polite. Whoever it was clearly was not of the mind to wait patiently or go away. She supposed it was too much to have hoped for the latter. With the way the book was going, it was perhaps for the best.
Eleanor Douglas sighed and tugged a ribbon into her book. With an annoyed glance at the massive clock ticking in the parlor, she set her book on the table and rose to her feet. She couldn’t imagine who would possibly have business with the household at such a late hour.
Giving her skirts a brisk shake, she smoothed her hands hastily over them as she made her way to the door, cursing her stepmother’s frugality that just barely kept the household functioning with minimal staff. She didn’t understand why they didn’t just sell the estate and move into more comfortable lodgings in town. It would certainly save Eleanor hours of backbreaking labor as she worked beside and managed the staff. One might never have believed to look at her that it was her own ancestral home that she labored in while it slowly fell apart around their ears. Not only did she have all the duties of a housekeeper and maid, but also in the very early hours of the morning and after five in the evening when the cook and two housemaids went home, everything else fell on her.
Including answering the blasted door.
The disgust that she felt at having to get back onto her aching feet to see to that chore was hardly gracious. She thought back to the tale she had been reading and shook her head again. She certainly wasn’t the model fairytale heroine. She was more interested in surviving and getting as far from her stepmother as possible than being a good, sweet-tempered young woman. But then again, despite being sadly misnamed at birth, she was no beauty either. Nor was she exactly young anymore. At the age of thirty, she had passed the proper age of marriageability some years ago and had already come to terms with facing life as a spinster.
There was a certain freedom in that, of course. Once she got out from beneath her stepmother’s thumb, there would be fewer “proper and polite” restraints to check her wants since she wouldn’t be in the running to impress a future groom. She just needed to wait until her stepmother offloaded her two spoiled daughters onto some appropriately rich men, and that would give her the room to break free from her stepmother’s iron control. Already she had a tiny sum saved. Enough for a small apartment and to set up shop as a seamstress once her stepmother gave her the inheritance she promised to impart once Felicity and Annabella were married.
In truth, it was a meager compensation for the way her stepmother pinched every coin in her purse to make certain that the two girls had everything they needed to make good matches and marry well. At least it gave Eleanor enough experience sewing and mending her stepmother and sisters’ clothes that she would be able to support herself and make a tidy income from it. Within a few years, she could even hire other seamstresses to decrease her own workload so that she could focus more on expanding the business side.
Then she would have something all her own. A modest apartment with a warm hearth, maybe a small pet for a companion. It was a humble dream compared to the life of comforts she had as the daughter of a highly reputable merchant, but it would do. It would allow her far more control over her life than life at the estate gave her.
If sometimes her heart sank in absolute misery wishing for the pleasures she once enjoyed, she shoved it back deep inside her once more and refused to examine it too closely. What was the use? Anything she had in the future was only going to be because she carved it out herself and grasped it with her own two hands. The only thing that she had in her favor was that she was a well-educated young woman herself when her father made the disastrous decision to remarry.
As she approached the door, her lips twisted into a grimace. She wasn’t under any illusions. There wasn’t going to be a prince to sweep her off her aching feet. Certainly not at their door at that hour.
Cracking the door open, she peered through the gap, grateful that she had not yet extinguished the lanterns hanging outside the entrance.
A lean man in a dark cap pulled low craned his head, his smile rakish. A golden lock of hair chose that moment to pull free from the tie at the nape of his neck to fall over his left eye as he grinned at her. Was it her imagination, or did his teeth appear abnormally sharp? She rubbed her eyes in disbelief but was distracted by a small twinge in her back, reminding her that the charming visitor was little more than an untimely inconvenience. Adopting a suitably frosty expression, she narrowed her eyes at him.
“Can I help you?” The words that left her were appropriately curt and lacking any warmth, communicating her displeasure at being interrupted at a late hour, well after sundown.
Perfectly arched eyebrows rose, and his lips curled with amusement as he touched his fingers to the brim of his hat in greeting.
“It seems you might. It’s a fine evening, isn’t it?” he replied in a lilting voice, his accent one that she couldn’t quite place.
Her eyes skated around the frosted landscape and icy walk leading up to the house, frowning as she clenched her shawl tighter around her.
“Fine isn’t really how I would describe it. It’s cold.” Confusion knotted her brow as she noted the light clothes that he was dressed in despite the woolen coat hugging his frame. “I do not see how you aren’t freezing right now. Shouldn’t you be off bedding down somewhere warm instead of standing at my steps at this hour?”
His grin widened, his eyes sparkling with mirth, an elegant hand going to his chest. “Is that an offer, perhaps? I would gladly take warmth for a moment while attending my duties.”
Fingers tightening on the door, she directed an indignant scowl at him in response. Spinster or not, she certainly wasn’t inviting just anyone showing up at her door into her bed, no matter how charming he looked. Even if that air of darkness that clung to him despite his golden features made something in her belly twist in excitement.
“There is nothing of the sort to be offered to you here, sir. I suggest you carry on with whatever business brings you here and then go on your way.”
His lips pursed thoughtfully, but in the next moment he cracked another grin and shook his head. “I expect not. Very well. I have a special invitation for the ladies of the house. All ladies,” he murmured, his eyes sweeping over her with an assessing appreciation as he pulled from his vest pocket a cream envelope emblazoned with fine gold and red calligraphy.
He h
“What is it?”
“As I said, an invitation. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
He fairly purred the words, making the fine hairs along her arms stand on end.
She swallowed, her free hand absently pressing against her belly to quiet the butterflies there, even as a chill crawled up her spine. “Yes, but for what?”
“Now, aren’t you a curious one?” he observed, his eyes shining bright with amusement. “Just a ball. A lovely, once-in-a-lifetime event that you won’t want to miss.” His eyes glittered and appeared to glow as his head turned at a slight angle in his scrutiny. She stared at him wide-eyed. He nodded toward the envelope clenched in her hand. “Please deliver it to the head of the house. I’m quite certain that my lord will look forward to your presence there.”
Tapping his fingers to the brim of his hat, he grinned and turned around, the wind catching his hair just enough that it made it his bared ear appear pointed in the lamp light. Eleanor shook her head and let out her breath in a weak laugh.
“Of all the strangest things,” she murmured as she pulled the door shut.
Glancing down again at the envelope in her hand, she lay it on the entry table beside the door. She would collect it and any morning correspondence when she took her stepmother’s morning tray up to her.
Returning to the kitchen, she banked the fire. Eleanor was suddenly eager for her bed before anything else arrived at her door. The days leading up to New Year’s always felt colder and a bit unsettling to her. It was all that darkness. With strange visitors showing up in the night, she was more than ready for the night to be over. Shivering at the way her imagination had run amok in the lamplight, she picked up her book and promptly pocketed it.
“No more of that for tonight, I think,” she whispered aloud and hustled out of the kitchen.
CHAPTER 2
To Eleanor’s dismay, the invitation was still sitting there beside the door the next morning, dispelling any idea that maybe it had all been a dream. Balancing a service tray on one hip, she frowned down at the pale, creamy envelope with its perfect gold calligraphy. There wasn’t so much as a smudge on it to show evidence that it had ever been touched by a living soul. The other two maids just ahead of her hadn’t even been tempted to go near it as they hurried up the staircase to deliver their trays to their young charges.
Truth be told, she couldn’t blame them. She hadn’t enjoyed handling it last night when it was delivered, and she certainly didn’t want to touch it even now, but there was little choice in the matter. Not if she didn’t want extra punishment heaped upon her duties for failing to punctually bring her stepmother’s correspondence up with her breakfast tray. If there was one truth about the Mistress Douglas, it was that she had little patience for inconvenience, and even less for any delays when it came to news regarding social matters. Not with her desire to rise among her peers in society. When it came to a ball, any delay at all would be seen as unforgivable.
Gritting her teeth against the bitter taste that filled her mouth, Eleanor plucked up the envelope with her fingertips before she could change her mind and deposited it on the tray at the side of the domed plate. She turned toward the stairs, determined to get it delivered and done with as soon as possible, but drew to a stop at the sound of her name.
“One moment, Miss Eleanor. These just came in!”
Swallowing her impatience, she removed her foot from the top step and turned to greet the butler rushing over to her. Graying hair frizzed beyond what could be tamed by a comb, Malcom Gryphon had been with her family for ages and yet was as limber as she ever remembered him as he approached with a small stack of letters.
At the sight of them, she nearly groaned, but the feeling was overshadowed by her gratitude that he was kind enough to interrupt his morning duties just to make sure that she got them in time. On closer inspection, she was even more grateful that there were only three letters in his hand. Seeing how her stepmother insisted that Eleanor linger at her bedside while she read through her correspondence over breakfast, just in case there was anything that required being seen to right away. The fewer the letters, the sooner she could make her escape.
If she were fortunate, she would be quick enough to enjoy a hot breakfast with her tea by the kitchen fire before she started on her list of chores. She eyed one particularly fat envelope with misgivings, however, when Gryphon deposited the mail on the tray, obscuring the invitation beneath the envelopes.
He nodded toward the thicker envelope. “I suspect Mistress Douglas will be wanting to see that straight away. It is from that family she has been trying to attach her eldest daughter Felicity to—the Breckhams. Perhaps it might be some good news on that end.”
Eleanor raised her eyebrows as she looked down once more at the letter with renewed appreciation and interest. The Breckhams were particularly wealthy from their trade in silk and exotic goods. Mistress Douglas had been keen to form an alliance with them for years as she waited for Felicity to come of age. It was certainly a thick envelope and she wondered at its contents. Something as important as the formal contract for marriage assuredly wouldn’t be contained within it.
“Oh, yes. That would certainly please her very much. Thank you, Gryphon.” She smiled at the elderly butler before taking to the stairs once again.
Her smile, despite Eleanor’s resilience, faded as she approached the heavy doors leading to the master quarters. They towered in the dimly lit hallway with only a few meager gas lamps lit to keep it from being swallowed in darkness. One would not even know from looking around that her father had built the house with the most modern of luxuries, including fully installed gas lighting in every part of the manor.
Stepmother is rationing the gas usage again.
Shivering in the cool air of the corridor, Eleanor drew her shawl tighter around herself and rapped on the door with one hand to announce her presence. She only had to wait a moment before she heard her stepmother’s steely voice bidding her to enter. Bracing herself, Eleanor pulled open the door and strode briskly into the room, setting the tray at the bedside as her stepmother reached over and lit the lamp beside her bed.
Coal black hair thick with streaks of dark silver lay in a braided coil over her stepmother’s shoulder. Her pale gray eyes followed Eleanor as she made her way to the windows to draw back the curtains. The weak morning light filled the room, barely able to penetrate the oppressive darkness, even with the aid of the single lit lamp, made even worse by the relentless chill.
Rubbing warmth into her arms, she turned and forced a smile to her lips once more. “Good morning, Mother.”
It rankled her to call the cold woman her mother, especially when her own mother lay buried only a short distance away from the manor, but it was one thing that her stepmother had insisted on since the day she arrived on her father’s arm. A calculated measure, it was a constant reminder of the duty Eleanor had to her family. That no matter how badly she was treated, this was her family, for better or for worse. That presumed loyalty, however, had scraped thin in the years that passed since her father’s death. Now it was merely a part of the charade as she bided her time.
