The Duke’s Cinderella by Hazel Linwood
CHAPTER1
“Dear sister, surely you cannot be serious about sneaking out to attend the ball tonight.” Susan Palmer cast a dubious look at her older sister, Barbara Palmer.
Barbara turned the corners of her mouth upwards into a coy smile. “I have already picked out my dress, and I should hope that you will assist me in choosing the right hairstyle for the occasion.”
“Mother and father are going to be livid once they find out you have gone against their wishes and attended the ball!” Susan exclaimed with an incredulous expression stretched across her delicate features.
The two sisters were only two years apart in age but poles apart in their respective personalities. Susan had always been a good girl, eager to please her parents, and she always abided by the rules, but Barbara had a free spirit and a mind of her own. She and her parents often failed to see eye-to-eye since Barbara was always obstinate about getting what she wanted, one way or another.
“Well, no one said that they have to find out,” Barbara pointed out with a mischievous grin, examining her nails in a cavalier manner.
“Just because they cannot attend does not mean that they will not find out you did through other sources,” Susan said sternly in a vain attempt at trying to be the voice of reason. “They have expressly forbidden you from going tonight without them because they are certain you are going to stir up some trouble if they are not around to supervise you.”
“Susan!” Barbara replied, finally looking up from her nails. “My darling, you worry far too much for your own good. I have already made up my mind about going, and I should hope that you will join me as well.”
Susan shook her head. “There is no chance,” she grimaced and then gave her sister a once-over. “Barbara, I know that you’ll despise me for saying this, but I believe that our parents are right. Nothing good can come out of you going against their wishes.”
Barbara felt fed up with her sister’s incessant worrying over what she felt was nothing. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she instead tried to charm her sister into getting her to agree. It was a tactic that she found success with many times.
“If you’re so worried about mother and father finding out, let me put your mind at ease,” she started in a sweet voice, “the ball tonight is a masquerade, and our identities will remain hidden.”
“There is no ‘our’ in this scenario,” Susan huffed, “I refuse to follow you through this madness. I already have a match and see no need to attend these balls.”
“Fine, as you wish. I will go alone then,” Barbara sighed, giving up on the prospect of getting her sister to join. “I should say that you are beginning to sound a lot like them lately.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Susan shot back immediately. “I am only looking out for you so that you will not get into trouble with them later.”
“Susan, the only reason mother and father dearest do not want me to attend is that they are scared I might say something that might embarrass them in front of the people present there.”
“And are they so wrong?” Susan asked, raising a curious eyebrow. “You scarcely have any regard for anyone once you decide to open your mouth.”
“Do not consider me to be so tactless,” Barbara replied, chuckling at her sister’s accusation. “I have a mind of my own, and I am not afraid to share my thoughts. That is hardly a bad thing.”
“And what about mother and father?”
“Well, they are not going to be there, so I do not see how it’s going to be a problem,” Barbara smiled coyly, much to the disappointment of her sister.
“You really are ridiculous.”
“Yes, and you are about to help me get ready for the night. Let me fetch my dress,” Barbara said, scurrying away to her wardrobe. Susan watched her sister leave, and Barbara knew that once again she had succeeded in getting exactly what she wanted. Susan was going to help her prepare for the ball.
* * *
Susan fiddled with the lace on Barbara’s bodice, making some last minute adjustments to her dress.
“Will you stay still? I am trying to add a stitch,” Susan ordered, annoyed by her sister’s movements as Barbara was bouncing around in excitement.
“I cannot help it,” Barbara replied with a grin. She had donned a beautiful cream-coloured dress that complimented the light brown of her eyes. Her hair had been pulled back into a sleek bun, adding emphasis to her cheekbones that were dusted with a shade of pink.
Barbara had laid out her jewelry for the night beforehand. She was going to wear her favourite necklace that was a beautiful emerald encrusted in gold. It was her most worn piece of jewelry, and she scarcely ever attended a fancy event without it.
“If you wish to be stabbed, then continue moving like this, by all means, but do not say I didn’t warn you,” Susan sighed, carefully navigating the needle with her slender but firm hands.
“So many people are going to be in attendance at the ball this evening,” Barbara continued as though she had not even heard a word of what Susan had just said. “I cannot believe that mother and father thought they could so easily forbid me to go. Forbid! As though I’m some sort of a child.”
“You are a child to them,” Susan replied calmly, still working on the stitch. “You can hardly blame them for being protective of you.”
Barbara rolled her eyes. “I believe the word you are trying to use here is controlling,” she fumed.
It wasn’t as though Barbara was particularly interested in masquerades. Far from it. It was more so the fact that her parents thought they could just bar her from attending that made her want to go.The older she got, the angrier she felt when her parents disregarded her wishes for their own.
“You live under their roof; perhaps they feel a sense of entitlement to your life because of that,” Susan shrugged.
Even though Susan supported her older sister in all her crazy endeavors, she was diplomatic in her approach when it come to their parents. She never wanted to outrightly bash them, as Barbara often did, but instead, she tried to understand matters from their perspective.
“They can feel however entitled they wish, but what they do not know will not hurt them,” Barbara replied, making no effort to hide her rebelliousness. She still felt embittered by the fight she had with her parents earlier this morning about her attendance to the ball. The only way to regain her sense of control over her own life was to attend this evening.
“There,” Susan said, completing her stitch, “you are ready now. Be careful tonight, I will wait for you till you return home safely. Going without a chaperone is risky behavior.”
Barbara turned around to observe herself in the vanity mirror and gave an appreciative nod. Her sister had done a marvelous job with her hair and dress. In her haste to get ready, the necklace she had picked out earlier laid forgotten on her vanity.
Patting her sister on the shoulder, Barbara kept her eyes on her reflection in the mirror. “My dear sister, I believe that a woman should be two things: beautiful and able to make her own decisions. And tonight, I am both.”
Barbara was determined to not let anything spoil her night. She grabbed her mask from her vanity and brought it against her face. No one would be able to know who was behind it. It was the perfect plan.
* * *
Barbara Palmer glanced around the large hall of the ball venue. A few gentlemen gave her some attention, and she quickly used the opportunity to fill up her dance card. She was ready for a fine evening full of dancing and getting noticed.
“Would you like to dance with me for the next song, My Lady?” A blonde figure with whom she had exchanged a few smiles with from across the room came up to her. He introduced himself as a Baron.
Barbara smiled. “I was hoping you would ask sooner,” she replied in a flirtatious manner, feeling emboldened by the anonymity provided by the mask covering her features.
“I apologize about my tardiness at once. You must let me make up for it,” the man flirted back just as easily.
Barbara wondered what her mother would think if she saw her interact with this gentleman unsupervised and in the manner that she was right now. Elizabeth Palmer had always advised her to make herself demure and never appear too keen in front of prospective matches. Surely, she would disprove of her shameless flirting.
“I am eager to see what you might have to offer,” Barbara said, smiling coyly in his direction.
The two of them danced together. It was fun at first. There was a certain thrill in not having her identity known and her parents being blissfully unaware. But as the dance went on, she grew tired of the flirting. She realized that the man she had chosen to dance was with rather dull when he wasn’t complimenting her, and he stepped on her foot twice.
And so, when they parted, she quickly scurried off from his sight and went looking for the next person on her dance card. And the process repeated itself. Another dance, and then another. She would find someone, momentarily flirt them, and then grow tired of their company mid-dance. It was as though all the men there had been cut from the same cloth. No individuality, and they all bored her tremendously.
“Are you distracted by something, My Lady?” one of her dance partners asked her as Barbara glanced around the hall.
“No, everything is fine,” she muttered unconvincingly, trying to divert her attention back to the man in front of her. She thought she had just spotted her father in the crowd.
“Are you sure?” the man asked, growing impatient as Barbara kept searching for the crowd for another glimpse to confirm her suspicion. Suddenly, her feeling of boredom had transformed itself into a gnawing paranoia, and she felt as though her parents had come here to track her down.
“Yes,” she replied quickly, “let us keep dancing.”
“Are you searching for your mother?” the man suggested innocently, but it caused alarm bells to ring in Barbara’s head.
“No, of course not,” she said at once, “my mother is at home.”
“Strange,” the man remarked, “beautiful women like you are usually guarded closely by their mothers as their chaperones.”
If Barbara wasn’t so occupied with the concern of running into her parents unexpectedly, she would have rolled her eyes at his hackneyed attempts at trying to woo her. She searched the crowd once again for any signs of her parents and then at the band playing in the corner. She hoped that they would put her out of her misery soon as she no longer had any interest in being in her dance partner’s company.
To her delight, the band finished the song, and she excused herself at once. She had enough of dancing, and her sudden anxiety about her parents finding out was stressing her out to no end. She needed a moment to breathe.
“They do not know,” she repeated to herself as she rushed outdoors and headed over to the garden. “You wanted to do this. They will not find out.”
Barbara was headstrong and fearless about going after the things she wanted, but after a tiring night full of dancing and mostly dull conversations, her anxiety was getting the best of her. Was it really her father that she saw in the crowds? It couldn’t be possible as her parents had made it clear that they were not going to be in attendance.
From inside the building, she could hear the musicians start another song. Pulling out her dance card, she saw that there were two more gentleman with whom she had promised to dance with for the night. But she had enough.
“No more,” she decided, tossing her dance card to the side. It was best that she returned home now, but before she was ready to leave, she decided to take a walk in the garden to clear her head.
Under the pale white glow of the moon, Barbara dawdled along the trees and grass in the garden. Her mood had taken a turn for the worse, and she wondered why she had to sneak around like this. Others her age did not have to do so; their parents encouraged them to partake in balls and other social events. And yet here she was, consumed with stress about her parents finding out and reprimanding her over something that was harmless.
“Twenty years of age,” she grumbled to herself as she walked on, “and yet they treat me as though I was born yesterday.”
She felt overcome with emotion, and before she knew it, hot tears started to flow down her cheeks. The horrid combination of stress and tiredness had finally gotten to her. With tears still streaming down her cheeks, she continued to walk on further out into the garden, knowing that no one is going to hear her.
She needed to let her feelings out.
