v.

HIS WORDS WERE HARD in his baritone and delivered with such ferocity, though it lay in the words themselves and not the civil effect the foreign prince made use of. He appeared to only graze his intentions with his words, Isadora Tremaine could sense the depth of the intentions that lay beneath.

A certain familiarity struck her then, was she too not the same? Picking out single words from the ocean of her depth and presenting them as they lay inside her, instead of watering them down for those she spoke to.

"Yes, your highness. I apologize," Samuel Harrison stuttered, before steeling his facial expression. "I will take my leave."

He dropped into a low bow, and pivoted to leave.

Isadora watched him go briefly, for her senses were much too encapsulated by the presence of the royal beside her.

Exhaling softly, she slowly glanced at the prince, lowering her lashes instantly when she met his intense brown orbs and dropping into a gradual curtsey.

"Thank you, your highness," She managed, keeping her eyes on the crimson carpet of the entrance way under her feet.

"I apologize for the scene," Isa continued, her humiliation rising to the surface. "I am mortified for it."

Not only had she been caught in midst of the embarrassing scene, she was not even aware of the identity of the handsome foreign prince in front of her. Perhaps it was just as well that commoners and nobles alike couldn't address royals with their names and the kingdoms they came from. Isa couldn't remember having been as remotely glad for anything else at present.

"Please," Chocolate brown irises met hers when she straightened, a soft look in them that made a nerve in the pit of her stomach flutter wildly.

"It is not your fault. There need be no mortification on your part, Miss Tremaine."

Isadora blinked once in slight thought, her eyes fixed into the foreign prince's. There was something else she felt other than that fluttering nerve when his eyes met hers. It was a strange feeling, as though her heart had been taken out from the ice cold water that had numbed it and was now dunked abruptly into lukewarm water. The sensation was different than anything she had felt before, she didn't know why it had come upon her or what it mean.

The foreign prince was a carved piece-someone that artists perhaps replicated in marble busts. He was intimidating, with a fierceness in his intentions and in his words alike. He was handsome, but she shouldn't feel towards him what she was feeling at present. It was out of place, it was disrupting.

Isadora realized too late that she shouldn't be meeting a prince's gaze head on like he was her equal. She was used to meeting people's eyes straight, and it didn't occur to her to refrain from the habit in the present particular case when suddenly her family name was called in the formal presentation happening in the ballroom, dragging her by the hair out of her spiraling thoughts.

Isa gasped slightly, her palms fisting at her sides, eyes shut tight. She couldn't run to catch up, it would be unseemly were she to barge in now at the last minute to make the presentation. Her mother would be furious.

Isadora opened her eyes and her dark orbs met the prince's amused brown ones.

"Your family presentation," He spoke, letting no other emotion show.

"Yes," Isa managed a small smile, not wanting to let her distress show. She would find a way to protect herself and her son from her mother's anger. She had been doing so for a while now, she could do it again.

"Presenting Lady Tremaine, and her eldest daughter Miss Isadora Tremaine, and the youngest, Miss Lucinda Tremaine."

The muffled voice from the ballroom made Isa swallow tightly. She imagined Lucinda glancing anxiously over her shoulder for her as her sister followed their mother to the front-the latter grinding her jaw and forcing on an apologetic smile for the royals to whom she would mention in a stumbling voice as to how her eldest was presently indisposed much to the family's dismay.

"Your father?" The foreign prince asked, a hint of curiosity in his baritone as he seemingly refused to blink, his eyes fixated into hers and reluctant to budge.

"He died," Isadora clasped her hands together at the base of her stomach as she stated the simple fact. "When I was six."

Isa felt nothing mentioning her father's death. The last time she had had to was when the late Baron had hired a piano teacher to teach the girls the pianoforte, and it was the teacher who had asked. Lucinda had been crying about something or the other as Cinderella was trying her utmost to shush the hysterical girl. Isadora had stood by, stoic but available, so the teacher had curiously asked.

Nobody asked her that anymore. It was common news in their part of Toulouse, and even when it hadn't been, it was her mother replying to such questions.

But at present, having to mention to someone that she had no father, and hadn't had one for years, made her feel nothing at all.

"My father died ten years ago," The foreign royal affirmed after a pause, the curiosity in his eyes vanquishing to a thoughtful insight.

"When I was twenty," He tilted his neck slightly, eyes not leaving hers for even a millisecond.

Isadora Tremaine startled slightly at the fact of his age. He was eight years older than her twenty two. No wonder he was as daunting as he was, his presence electric in her vision, his muscular form seemed to bear experiences that perhaps she couldn't even fathom if she tried to. Isa had the sudden urge to graze her fingertip on edge of his cheek bone through the satin of her glove, not to feel his warmth but to memorize the curves and dips of his face.

"You have a sister, it appears," He glanced briefly in the direction of the ballroom before his eyes found hers again. "Tell me, is the younger Miss Tremaine as breathtaking as you are?"

Isadora's breath caught into her throat slightly as she regained her composure, a sudden warmth crawling up her neck. She hadn't been called breathtaking before too. People in Toulouse would gawk at her, but they never used words such as these. And at present she couldn't focus on the inspection of the word to see if it fit her. At present, all she could think of was the foreign prince in front of her.

"I suppose it depends on what your perception of the word is, your highness," Isadora Tremaine managed with a small smile.

The prince's eyes glinted something she couldn't name, but it sent rivulets down her stomach, making goosebumps erupt on several areas of her skin.

The foreign royal's lips parted to speak, but he was interrupted when a trumpet was heard loud in the ballroom, signaling the end of the formal presentations and the commencement of the dancing.

"Excuse me, your highness," Isa bowed slowly. "I must see to my mother and sister, I imagine they must be curious in regards to my whereabouts."

The dark skinned prince raised his brow in slight amusement, "Not worried?"

"I imagine not," Isadora offered. "My mother doesn't worry about me, your highness. That is a privilege I am glad I do not have."

The royal's brows furrowed slightly as he tried to decipher whether the lady in front of him had merely jested or was in earnest.

He didn't get much time for Isa smiled a parting smile, before pivoting on her heels and leaving in the direction of the ballroom as the foreign prince watched her go with a discomfort he couldn't place.

-🥀-

The mystery girl was a cacophony of silvery glittered shades of blue as she whizzed by on the darkened ballroom floor, led by the elegant form of The Prince of the kingdom, the notorious Prince Charming.

The only light on the giant ballroom floor was a subtle purple effect produced courtesy of the gorgeous sheer purple glass work lamps that burned a soft and tiny flame each inside. The purple gleam was mixed with the silvery cream of the moonlight that poured in through the open ground floor terrace adjacent to the ballroom. The moonlight was deceiving though, it disappeared instantly once the moon was enveloped by the clouds, and reappeared when the moon shot out, rising to the surface for air.

Isadora Tremaine adored it nevertheless, the way the light played with the scene unfolding in her vision felt like a fever dream-a stunning scene from a book come to life.

She had no clue as to the identity of the girl who had seemingly swept in and captured Prince Charming's attention with her lavish blue gown. Try as she might, Isadora, from her spot in the by standing crowd, was not privy to the full view of the girl. All Isa saw were flashes of blue and corn blonde hair whipping past while the orchestra played a slowed down rendition of a composition she was all too familiar with.

Having excused herself under false pretenses from the foreign prince who had heroically saved her from Samuel Harrison's obsessive advances, Isadora Tremaine had ventured into the ballroom to merely catch a glimpse of her mother and sister, with the full intention of turning her back on the whole event. After all, she had missed the formal presentation. Which had ultimately been a chance for her to have herself introduced not only to the King and Prince Charming, but to any other potential suitor she would've liked to have in the walls of the ballroom.

Failing to appear had cost her more than her mother's fury, and Isa intended to give up all together on the endeavor and return to the chateau.

It was then that the lights had dimmed when she had tried to pick her way through the crowd towards the exit. People had crowded in her way, and she had found herself rooted to a spot. The next thing she knew, Prince Charming had taken to the floor with an apparently beautiful mystery girl-a turn of events that had caused disappointments from hurt ladies hush all throughout Isa's periphery.

An honorary dance for the prince of the realm instated that it be only he and his partner on the ballroom floor for the first dance. Isadora had watched some, her eyes meanwhile also fixed on the distant figures of Lady Tremaine and Lucinda-both of whom had anguish and frustration plastered on their faces as they tripped over hems and polished shoes in order to get a better look at the competition that had just been unearthed for them.

Isa exhaled, taking hold of her skirts and lifting then slightly so that she could see her way through without stepping on hems and shoes herself. Her little boy was waiting for her at home, and she didn't suppose the night would turn out any differently for her than it currently was unfolding as.

With some difficulty, she managed to reach the edge of the crowd and stepped out from the cluster, sighing a breath of relief as she dropped her skirts. Then, her eyes started raking the surroundings for the exit. From her spot Prince Charming and the girl with him were the size of Isadora's thumb-for they had ventured out into the adjacent ground floor terrace, dancing under the moonlit sky.

Isa forgot then that her search had been for the exit. The sight of the dance-a gorgeous waltz-under the deep purple sky was so startling, that Isadora faltered slightly.

Girlhood dreams infiltrated her senses, flashbacks of conversations with Ruby Alderidge where they had talked about their dream first dances with men they were truly in love with. Isadora's had always been a moonlit dance under an open sky. In some ways-regardless of the changes that had happened in her life since-a moonlit dance with a man she loved was still a hopeful dream somewhere inside her, throbbing and pulsing like a tiny heart.

"Beautiful, is it not?" A deep baritone surprised her then, and Isadora came face to face with the handsome foreign prince.

His brown eyes gleamed like crystals on his face under the effect of the dim lighting, making him appear almost.. divine.

"It is," Isadora managed, her voice barely above a whisper. She turned her eyes to continue looking at the moonlit waltz in the distance.

"My cousin had the epiphany for a moonlit waltz yesterday," The Prince continued, letting a smile overtake his lips.

Isa almost gasped at the sight of his smile when she turned to look back at him. She had never imagined that a man's mere smile would make her feel as though she had a dozen desperate butterflies trapped underneath her flesh. She almost want to tear her skin apart just so she could free them. He was startling-he was unreal.

"The only condition was that he had to find someone worthwhile for it," The prince shrugged gently, before casting a glance at the dancing couple on the terrace. "Which I suppose he did."

"I suppose so too," Isadora smiled a small smile.

It was strange how fate worked, you couldn't intervene despite the plans you made sometimes. For all of her mother and Lucinda's efforts, Prince Charming was there on the moonlit floor dancing the waltz with someone else.

Perhaps the blame of it would be directed to Isadora come morning. Perhaps it would be made her fault for not showing up for the formal presentation and making the family seem unworthy in the eyes of the royals-the sole fact that had seemingly prompted Prince Charming to ignore Lucinda entirely, because what deeply embedded flaws did Lucinda Tremaine herself have etched underneath her skin? Isa could already hear the curses her mother would call her-vile words that echoed in the back of head despite her pretense that they never bothered her resolve.

"He asked me to join him, when I found someone worthwhile too," The foreign prince brought her out of her reverie, a thoughtful lilt in his deep baritone.

Isadora Tremaine thought of Ruby Alderidge then, how the girl would've loved to see the royal ball. If she were alive, she would've been in attendance too. Isa met the foreign royal's chocolate orbs, willing thoughts of her deceased friend away.

"He was quite adamant, in fact," The man mused.

Isadora Tremaine blinked, not sure of what was required of her. What did he want her to say? She felt as though if she stared into his gleaming irises long enough, she'd get lost entirely. Suddenly, she wanted him to just step away from her presence-her senses-so that she could go back to her default state of life and to her four year old child.

Then, the foreign royal brought his hand out in front of her, palm upwards, a slight movement in his veins and a twitch in his skin akin to expectation.

"I'm quite anxious to join him," The prince met Isadora's eyes. "If you would only oblige, that is."

Isa blinked, realizing then through the thick haze of her thoughts that he was merely asking her to dance.

She glanced at the ballroom floor, it was empty except for Prince Charming and his partner still spinning around to the waltz on the edge. The onlookers stayed still, their breaths held as they watched from darkened corners in faintly glittering attires.

"Your highness," Isadora turned to look at him.

Her entire body was alight with the urge to put her hand in his expectant one, yet she was reluctant to do so. The fact remained simple. She had come to the ball to find someone-a suitor-with wealth and a title that she could marry into and afford Archie and herself a better life away from her mother, sister and the miserable chateau.

The fact remained that if Samuel Harrison hadn't cornered her, Isadora could've spent the time finding someone who was looking to marry. During the carriage ride she had tested all manners of being approachable but blunt in regards to marriage, for Isa figured men looking to marry likely wouldn't prefer to drag things out too much. But she had wasted the time, and it was too late now.

The foreign prince-though damningly handsome and intimidating-was merely only looking for a dance to join his cousin-Prince Charming-in. He had the luxury of dancing for delight, but for women like Isadora Tremaine, dancing was calculated and weighed with an outcome in mind.

Isa wondered how closely related the princes were, for there didn't seem to be a single resemblance in sight-at least from the glimpses of Prince Charming that she had seen until present. She would've been able to see the notorious prince upfront had she been at the formal presentation.

"I can sense you are going to refuse," The royal spoke, his tone collected and eyes not once leaving hers.

"And if you do," He started. "I intend to excuse myself with the utmost dismay and leave, for there isn't a more beautiful lady present-according to my perception of that word-at this ball that I'd rather dance with."

Despite herself, Isadora smiled. She glanced briefly at what she perceived to be the exit, before she placed her gloved hand in the prince's sculpted dark one.

He smiled a dazzling smile at her and pulled her close swiftly, a hand on her waist as the other held her hand. With practiced precision, he spun them both onto the dance floor, his eyes locking into hers as Isadora saw her periphery blur.

She briefly heard the slight commotion in the gathered crowd. She heard them violently whisper and she saw hands pointing at her through her blurred periphery.

But as the foreign royal spun her around and gazed deep into her eyes, all she could think was that her forehead barely reached up to his chin, and that perhaps little Archie would forgive her for this fruitless indulging.

***

A/N:
I haven't written it yet lol but the next chapter is going to be one of my favs i swear.