I'm No Cinderella

Chapter 15

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Raised In A Barn

Signora Flori was an old, frail looking woman, but I quickly learned that when it came to her, looks were deceiving. Her grey hair was pulled back in a severe bun, but it was the long wooden stick she was brandishing– the one that she used to make adjustments to my posture from a distance and that she kept threatening to strike me with– that was most concerning.

It was an empty threat, or at least that's what I continued to tell myself over the first two weeks of instruction with her. She wouldn't dare hit her alpha's mate, would she? I could have been mistaken, but I thought I understood the wolf hierarchy enough to know that he was still her superior, despite his youth and her uppity attitude.

Her lessons had started out brutal. It seemed that every single movement I made was either impolite or 'graceless', as she was prone to calling me. Graceless, I assumed, was her mannerly way of calling me clumsy. I wished she would just say it outright instead of putting on airs and hiding insults behind tact.

"No, no, no," Signora Flori tsked, lips pulled down in disdain, "do it again. This time attempt not to clomp along like a horse, how are the people to accept a human queen when she is so graceless."

I'm not going to be queen, I wanted to scream at her, but bit my tongue, eyeing the wooden rod in her hand. I was still not entirely comfortable walking in heels, but the old woman expected me to 'float gracefully' when I walked in them. Like Princess Evelina, I thought bitterly.

Princess Sienna had not been present for a single lesson so far. I could only surmise that it was because the lessons that I was receiving from Signora Flori were so juvenile that the little princess had already graduated past them. I might have been mortified, if this weren't simply a means to an end. I needed to learn to behave like a proper lady so that I could survive the year in one piece. Then I'd be free to go back home.

Back to Jax, if he will have me. Though the memory of his face the last time I had seen him, so hurt and confused, made my gut twist.

"Again," the old woman demanded, and I hurried to obey.

She sighed dramatically, pinching the bridge of her nose between spindly fingers, "How do you expect to be introduced with the royal family at the ball tomorrow evening with a gait like that? They will think you were raised in a barn."

My stomach dropped to my toes.

The what?

~*~

The prince had apologized profusely for the disaster that was dinner with his family. Even so, I had chosen to decline every invitation he had extended to me thereafter.

There had been quite a few.

He had taken to inviting me back to dinner every evening, promising that there would never again be a repeat of that first night. He even went so far as to attempt to bribe me with rare delicacies and sweets. Still I had rejected each offer.

A few hours later, after eating alone on the little settee by my hearth, a second note would inevitably appear. This one, an invitation for an evening stroll through the castle grounds. It was far more tempting than the dinner offer. If not for the company, I might have readily made it a part of my routine.

After Signora Flori's snide comments about an upcoming ball, I found myself having a slight change of heart. I was anxious and terrified and he had the answers I needed.