Excerpt of Cinderella Series ~ The Collection by Kae Elle Wheeler

The Wronged Princess

Prince strode from the chamber, Sir Arnald fast on his heels. Surprise lit his eyes when they landed on her. His slow smile ignited a pulsating fire through her veins. She dare not dwell on the pleased expression. It did not bode well, at all.

The stick in her hand started to vibrate with a thrumming energy. Reverberating up her arm making its way through her entire body. Before coherent thought rationed through her brain, she held it out—freezing the two men quite immobile. Horrified and shocked by her actions she looked at the stick, dumbfounded, not sure at what she'd accomplished or why? Mayhap, she could make them forget they'd seen her? Her hungry gaze raked over Prince. Then a positively evil thought took hold. She could test the theory. Of course, if he did remember she would be mortified, humiliated and would generally end of absolution of an untarnished reputation. Her sisters and she had already stacked enough bad deeds against them to have them drawn and quartered—a feat fatal to any commoner. But somehow in the moment she could not seem to make herself care. She just wanted to touch him. Just once more, before the inevitability of his and Essie's impending nuptials.

Was that so terrible?

The Unlikely Heroine

“Monsieur Huntley, kindly remove your hands from my person!” Lady Pricilla’s fury snapped Arnald into action. He swept into the room almost bumping into Lady Pricilla “kindly” being escorted from the small parlor. The sight that beget him had him hard pressed to keep his lips from curling. Dainty slippers dug into the shiny wood floors, gliding easily with Silas’s unwanted help. Arnald wisely hid his amusement, noting the heightened color of her fury, tension, blatant.

“Silas,” Arnald acknowledged coolly.

“Sir Arnald.” Silas’s hands dropped from Lady Pricilla’s arm so suddenly, she would have tumbled backward had Arnald not snatched an arm to keep her upright. With a deft move, he maneuvered her slightly behind him. A slight huff of disgust reached his ears.

“I’ll not be accused of any misappropriation by the mouth of a chit,” Silas thundered. The walls shook with timbre pitch.

Arnald felt his self-appointed charge stiffen with outrage. “Silas,” Arnald said coldly. “Might I remind you, sir, you are speaking with an agent of the Crown. Designated, I might add, from Prince Charming, himself.”

Silas may have dropped his head in a submissive gesture, eyes lowered, but his shoulders registered disrespect.

“My apologies, Lady Pricilla.” Silas deferred in a mild tone, the gesture was offered as subterfuge, not genuine acquiescence.

Lady Pricilla bristled, ready with a retort of her own. At once, Arnald realized, she had not appreciated someone speaking on her behalf. “Monsieur Huntley—” she started. On the other hand, it seemed knowing when to stop was not in her conscionable abilities.

The Surprising Enchantress

“What are you talking about Nobility, Royalty, Marriage?” Alessandro sounded…furious.

“Sí. I vow Lady Kendra Frazier is perfect for you.” Essie’s stomach dropped and she could practically envision the Conte rubbing his hands together, warming to his topic. All signs of panic started at the tips of her toes, working their way up through her blood stream. Her fingers began to tingle. The Conte was trying to marry off Alessandro to that nitwit, Kendra Frazier? Why, she was naught but a prissy—

“I shall not marry Lady Kendra, Padre,” Alessandro said quietly.

Essie let out a held breath. It echoed in the chamber. Premonition angst rippled through her, along with the strongest wish to cover her ears. Yet, she was frozen in that bizarre world of morbid curiosity.

“No?” The Conte sounded amused now.

Obviously, Alessandro’s steely resolve failed to penetrate.

Essie gripped the edge of the sheeted settee, relieved at the resolve she heard in his tone.

“Lady Kendra shall suit my purposes adequately enough. Her padre as Earl of Macclesfield is a distant cousin to England’s throne.” The Conte’s excitement penetrated the air.

“Suit your purposes?” The sound of a chair scraped wood, followed by its topple on hard wood. Leastways, that’s how it sounded. Essie flinched at Alessandro’s fury. He’d kept his passionate nature well hidden.

The Conte’s tone hardened. “Sí. You shall betroth yourself and soon. ’Tis your duty. Just an heir or two. If Lady Kendra does not appeal, perhaps Lady Esmeralda is more to your tastes?”

The hair at Essie’s nape raised, along with chilled pricks over her skin, air constricted in her throat. Her eyes began their awkward fluttered fury. Dust stirred in the room, and the furniture coverings billowed in protest. She fought an imminent sneeze at the stirring dirt.

“Lady Esmeralda? You have truly lost your faculties if your ambitions go so far as to bind me for life to a woman whose eyes flutter so furiously ’tis enough to create an avalanche in these Pyrenees Mountains?” Alessandro sniffed in disgust.

Essie froze as the insult penetrated her stricken senses. She gripped her stomach at the sharp stabbing pain. But apparently Alessandro de Lecce had not quite completed his annihilation—compelled to pound that final nail. “I have availed myself for your purposes long enough.” His strong voice resonated through the empty corridors. “Once this coronation ceremony is over, ’twill be time for us to return to our beloved Italy. I will not marry a woman able to change the weather on a whim. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

That voice, distinct, accented, belonging to none other than a man she’d pined over for five long years, gone, in the thrust of a knife straight through her lower abdomen—so great, she bent at the waist. The candle she held tilted in her trembling fingers, spilling wax on the dusty coverlet. Humiliating tears spilled down her cheeks in a silent river. Could a person expire from utter mortification? All those years, wasted in a silent vigil of love, praying he’d notice her¬—only to realize he’d most certainly noticed."