𝐀 𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍'𝐒 𝐋𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘 - Cinderella AU

XXV - if it weren't for my heart

xxv.

"ARE YOU SO SURE THEY WILL LEND THEIR SUPPORT?"

The words burned in Isadora Tremaine's mind, turning her senses to ashes. She was certain if she didn't bar her mind against the words, they would make her eyeballs bleed backwards into her skull.

"I can't say I have ever seen nor heard either of them vouch for a child born from a prostitute."

The Duke of Basingstoke's casual—devious—words kept tearing through her, ablaze with heat as they scalded her ability to focus.

But Isadora Tremaine had spent the entirety of her twenty and two years of life focusing. She focused on everything she wanted to, everything that she could—all while her younger sister shrieked relentlessly in her periphery, her mother demeaned her with every sentence that the woman uttered until Isadora became hard enough to shut it all out. Isa had focused through stinging cheeks in the aftermaths of her mother's blows as a younger girl, she had focused through her mother's lamentations that both humiliated Isadora and her father—on account of the girl bearing the forbidden resemblance to a man who had left them destitute.

The fact was certain and stark. Isa had focused all through her life. She hadn't let things blind her without her permission, she hadn't given such power to anyone or anything.

Perhaps, that was why she stood in her chambers alone, waiting for the man who had put the gorgeous canary diamond ring on her finger, her engagement gown feeling heavier on her than it had since she had put it on.

Isa turned the ring in her finger, watching it through misty eyes as the gentle yellow diamond caught light and reflected it like a shard of spark. The singular chandelier on the ceiling of the grand chambers seemed to shine somberly, as though it had sensed that a sudden light had gone out inside Isadora too.

Lucy had been told to take Archie away on a small walk, while Isadora talked to Zander. The maid had sensed something was wrong, and Isa had wanted to assure her that nothing was wrong. Isa wanted to assure the girl that dreams did come to pass sometimes, even if they didn't formulate the way you wanted them to.

This was Isadora's life, wasn't it? After having Archie, all she had wanted was to marry into wealth that she could protect her son and herself with. Her heart wasn't ever supposed to be in that equation. She had expected to respect her future husband, and love was excused. Isa didn't mind it's absence.

But now she had let love intrude on her desperate dream for security. She had let love take over, and now she was in pain.

For what if this love fell through? What if it wasn't worth all this space in her chest and her being? What if this love fell through?

Isadora had decided to tell Zander what she needed to. She couldn't tell why she had withheld information about Archie from him. Had she done it intentionally, or was it because she believed it didn't matter? Had the two things been felt at the same time?

Because if she would've been clear with from the start, she wouldn't be in this predicament now. Perhaps he wouldn't even have proposed. Perhaps he wouldn't even have invited her to his palace, and at present she would've been at the chateau in Toulouse with none of this hurt enveloping her heart.

If she would've been clear with him, this point in time wouldn't have happened because Zander would've harbored nothing for her or Archie.

Why would a King harbor anything at all for her and a child like Archie-after he knew all the details?

The child of a prostitute. The words ached—slashed like knives in her mind and heart. If such words had been said to her fresh after Ruby Alderidge's death, Isa would've defended her friend with all her might. But now, resignation had set in for Isadora had seen the man Ruby had been with. What else would you call what Ruby had done? What else would you call such a mistake made with such a man? Had the girl been so blind, that she'd lost her right mind?