Bella's Babe

87) Pumpkin, Glass Slippers Part I

Hello Everyone.😄
Here's another story. This going to have another parts. So enjoy reading😄😄😄😄

Rated R.

No One's POV

Once upon a time, in a time and land much different from our own, there lived a young girl named Isabella. Isabella had long mahogany colored hair, chocolate colored eyes and pale skin that belied the amount of time the young girl spent outdoors. As a daughter of a lesser lord in the kingdom, Isabella lived a simple, but more well off, life on her father's country estate. Their country estate was modest but plentiful, adequately sized for the small family and a handful of servants that worked the grounds. Isabella occasionally assisted the housekeeper, Sue and her two children with the small vegetable garden that was just outside of the kitchen.

Isabella did not have many friends growing up on the estate. Sue and her children were her only friends, but they lived closer into town since Sue's husband was one of the local bakers. Despite this, Isabella was a happy, if somewhat quiet child, spending all morning in lessons with her mother in the library and her afternoons outdoors exploring the grounds. Lord Charles and Lady Renee did not spoil their child, but provided her with what she needed in order to grow into an intelligent young woman. However, tragedy soon struck the small family when Isabella was still a small child of barely six years. Lady Renee soon became ill and died, leaving Isabella in the care of Lord Charles, who had grown distant with the illness and death of his wife. The middle-aged man cared for Isabella as best as he could, with the assistance of the housekeeper. His trade business continued to grow however, and he soon realized that neither he nor his housekeeper could educate Isabella in the ways of a proper court lady.

On one of his trips through the kingdom for his trade business, Lord Charles met the recently widowed wife of one of his fellow lords. Lord Aro was accused of treason against the King and Queen and executed, his lands seized, leaving his wife and two daughters homeless. Lady Sulpicia saw that Lord Charles was looking for a wife to take care of his household while he was away in other kingdoms for business as well as raising his small child. She made it known that she was the best candidate for the position, especially with her own two daughters close to Isabella's age. Lord Charles promptly arranged to marry the woman, hoping to provide Isabella with a mother she needed and sisters who could be her friends.

At first, Isabella was ecstatic to have a new mother and two sisters to play with. However, as Lord Charles secluded himself more and more from his home and from memories of happier times with his beloved wife, Lady Sulpicia and her daughters' true nature began to show. The older daughter initially treated Isabella with indifference, but warmed up to her away from her mother and sister's influence. However, Lady Sulpicia and her younger daughter, who was a few months younger than Isabella, treated the young girl as a servant. When Lord Charles's business started to grow more demanding, he decided to leave the house and Isabella in the hands of his second wife, oblivious to the treatment his daughter had to endure under Sulpicia's care. He departed for a kingdom in the Far East, stating he would be gone for some years. After this day, Isabella's life was drastically changed under the rule of her stepmother.

Bella groaned as a shaft of light filtered across her face, creeping into the confines of her dreams and pulling her awake. Turning away from the offending beam, she rolled over on her simple straw bed in front of the fireplace and blearily blinked her eyes open. She sighed as she saw the embers of the fire from the previous night were dimming, signaling that it was time to get up unless she wanted grief about the house being too cold. The beginning rays of dawn were peeking through the kitchen window as Bella pushed herself off her straw mat, removing the quilt she used as a covering at night. Stretching slightly, Bella opened the closet that served as her dressing room and quickly changed from her nightclothes into her day outfit. She slipped on a pair of shoes that sat by the kitchen door and walked out to the well and hauled in a bucket of water. Bella poured part of the water into the pot that sat over the embers and more into the larger pot that sat directly on the fire. What was left in the bucket, the young woman used to wash the soot and dirt from her face as best as she could. When she finished, the brunette went back to her closet and pulled the small handheld mirror that Sue had gotten her for her 18th birthday a few months ago. She still had soot and dirt smeared in some areas on her face, but Bella did not have time to try to wipe them off as she hastily ran her fingers through her hair and started making breakfast.