Edit 1: I forgot to mention that there are a few direct quotes from the book, they are designated with italics, they will become fewer and farther between as the story diverges farther from the original.

Father was open-mouthed in horror.

"It's so romantic Sir P.," Mum Olga sighed, entwining her arm in his.

His face changed, and he chucked her gently under the chin. "If it pleases you, my dear, my life." He looked wondering. "My love."

Olive climbed over my feet, trumpeting, "A real fairy!" She pushed her way to Lucinda.

Well-wishers crowded around Father and Mum Olga, but few were so foolhardy as Olive. The fairy would soon be free to look about. I fled the room.

It was too cold to hide outdoors. I decided to venture upstairs.

The stair rail was an open spiral, perfect for sliding. I resisted a mad impulse to take a ride - into Lucinda's arms, no doubt. I heard her voice and ran up the stairs. On the landing I opened a door and stepped into a dark corridor. Closing the door behind me, I sank down and leaned against it with my legs stretched out on marble tiles.

There must have been footsteps, but I didn't hear them. The door opened behind me. I tumbled back and found myself staring up at - Char!

In my moment of gracelessness I tumbled back into his shins and caused him to fall forward over top of me. We ended in a heap of limbs and rumpled finery, his shoulder thudding to the floor amidst the drifts of my emerald skirts and lacy petticoats. He missed elbowing my thigh by mere inches and ended sprawled over my lap. I lay on the floor, gazing at a length of well muscled thigh in tight fitting black breeches and began to laugh.

He attempted to right himself and managed to get to all fours, impeded by slippery green skirts and their helplessly giggling inhabitant.

I attempted to stifle my laughter as he turned himself around and looked down at me, one leg still pinning my skirts to the floor, his hair flopping charmingly over his brow. One look at his face and complete state of disarray sent me into new peals of laughter which set him to chuckling too.

Remembering the fairy a mere floor away I got myself under control slowly and as my laughter died away we slowly extricated ourselves from the sliding, entwining snare of my long skirts. The prince offered me his hand and pulled me easily to my feet, brushing dust of long years off of my skirt and attempting to smooth his hair and doublet into some sort of order.

As he pulled a small dust bunny out of my hair his hand briefly touched my neck and I felt as if I had been zapped by lightening. I heard his breathing stop too and I looked up into his beautiful eyes. His hand, clutching the dust bunny, stopped its journey as if he had forgotten what he had been doing. The barest contact of the side of his hand to my collar bone freezing us both.

Gently, as if in a trance, he pulled the dust bunny free from my curls and dropped it to the side then slowly his hand returned to my face. His touch hit me like a raging fire in my blood. His ever-so-gentle fingers traced the line of my jaw to my ear and my whole body lit up like a torch.

"What are you doing up here?" he asked. Gazing at me in that disconcerting way, still touching my neck. His light touch traced slowly from my ear lobe back down to my collarbone before he removed his hand, almost reluctantly it seemed.

My wits were scattered, I wasn't about to tell him that I was running away from Lucinda, that could lead to a whole other line of questioning. My racing thoughts returned to the ballroom where I imagined her laughing and chatting with the guests, observing her handiwork on father and Mum Olga.

"I was resisting temptation," I told him, laughter returning to my voice as I struggled not to give away the joke. His gaze intensified and he grinned at me. I grinned back.

"What temptation?" He asked. I noticed that I could feel his nearness.

"Can't you guess?" I asked. His smile grew broader and I wished he would touch me again. "The temptation to slide down the stair rail, of course!" He roared with laughter his eyes glinting merrily at the joke. He continued to laugh as he offered me his arm and motioned down the hallway.

"Would you like the tour? My father grew up in this palace and said he spent most of his youth looking for a secret passage." My interest was piqued. "Unless you would rather go back to the ball..." He hesitated looking down at me uncertainly. I placed my hand in the crook of his arm.

"No, There is nothing I would love more then to tour with you."

We strolled down the dark, dusty hall and opened the first door that we came to. A medium sized bedroom with a looming empty wardrobe and large windows letting in the late afternoon sunshine yielded no secrets. I knocked on the walls and tapped my shoe on any suspicious looking floorboards. Char did the same but seemed to be distracted. Whenever I turned back to him after a fresh investigation I would see him gazing at me, smiling. I smiled back, his happiness infectious. I was tapping at the back of the wardrobe, leaning far into it when Char came up behind me.

"Don't fall in, I wouldn't want to trip over your skirts again trying to come after you."

"Perhaps that is my dastardly plan." I said in a dramatic evil voice, looking at him coyly over my shoulder. His smile faltered a moment, underneath it was a look that made my blood heat again before he laughed and backed away to examine the window frame.

Deciding that the were no secret hideaways in this room Char again offered me his arm and led me at a sedate pace to the next room down the hall. We wandered this way, speaking of inconsequential things such as ogre hunting (from which he had just lately returned) and what would be the use of this mysterious secret passage.

As we continued meandering from room to room I became less and less willing to release his arm in order to investigate. He seemed equally reluctant to release my hand. We reached the end of the hallway and several identical hallways stretched into the distance.

"We will have to be careful not to get lost up here," he told me seriously.

"I put myself at the mercy of your sense of direction"

"Well any of my men could tell you that is sometimes a little questionable, we should mark our route." He quirked an eyebrow at me before tugging off one of the buttons on his doublet. I gaped at him, it was a perfectly carved roundel of ivory. Laughing merrily at my consternation he placed the button carefully a few paces inside the hallway we had just left.

"I won't have to slide on any banisters for your family to think I have lost all dignity." I let out a snort of laughter.

"Even naked you are more dignified than they are." I blushed after I said it, inadvertently thinking of Char in a state of undress. I looked at him slyly out of the corner of my eye and noticed a bit of striped silk undergarment peeping from the hole he had made in his doublet. I blushed again, wondering what the rest of his underwear looked like.

We explored until Char's buttons were all marking crossways then stood at the apex of several unexplored hallways wondering where to go next. Not wanting to end our adventures early I let go of his arm and reached into my bodice, yanking free a small wooden button from the top of my chemise. placing it carefully on the tile of the hallway we had just explored. Char gaped at me then laughed uproariously at my gambit. We explored three more halls before coming to a back stair case. In the fading light of the hallway the open spiral looked enticingly foreboding and I swiftly reclaimed my hand before racing to the top ahead of Char. I struggled against the large, iron clad door which was stiff from disuse and held harder still by an unyielding winter wind on the other side. Char came up behind me and leant his strength to my efforts before the rust and the wind let us pass through onto an exposed causeway. We ran across to the shelter of a small tower.

The inside of the tower was lined with gardening benches and stone seats, tiny trees in pots stood on the benches at regular intervals . Char guided me to a small stone seat warming my hands between his own.

From here we could hear the sweet notes of the wedding music, a slow allemande. He chafed my hands then cupping them he breathed gently on them and his own. Electricity shot through me again as he looked over our joined hands into my breathless face.

"I have a secret," I said.

"Will you tell me?"

"I was hoping there would be a banister in here." I giggled, he laughed too and shook his head.

"You are like no one else that I have ever met." He said wonderingly and let my hands go. He stepped closer to me and brushed a stray curl away from my cheek. I leaned into his newly warmed hand and the bench made a disconcerting thud and shifted slightly.

I squeaked in dismay and swiftly got up, the bench thunking back into its original position, seated slightly out of alignment with its base. Char was laughing again.

"I think it comes off." He said chuckling and leaned over to take a look.

The two of us managed to wrestle the stone lid off of the storage bench revealing a few tools and long forgotten detritus. Beneath a mouse eaten leather apron and a small wooden trowel a glittering pair of shoes were secreted in the company of a hole riddled pair of gardening gloves. When held up to the swiftly fading light they sparkled like gems and refracted a thousand tiny rainbows into the darkening room.

I couldn't contain a gasp of wonder at their beauty. I looked up at Char and enjoyed the awestruck look on his face as well.

"I think they are made of glass." He said holding them out to me. He wanted me to take them both but I misread his intentions and only grasped one. The other tumbled to the ground and as it fell I berated my clumsiness. But the shoe merely bounced and came to rest on it's side on the cobbled floor of the tower.

Swiftly I picked it up and examined it. There was no damage. I tapped my fingernail on the toe and a sweet clink of a fingernail on glass greeted me.

"Try them on!"

I seated myself on the edge of the open storage bench and began to untie the leather lacing of my slipper.

Kneeling swiftly with a flourish and a grin he took over the work and had my slipper off in a moment. He took the first glass shoe from my hand and slid my foot gently into it. It fit perfectly. He did the same for the other foot then stood up, offering me his hands.

"Try them out."

I didn't want to stand in them, I was so certain they would shatter into a thousand pieces but his command didn't give me many choices.

I took his hands to take as much weight off the shoes as possible but they bent and conformed to my foot. I laughed in delight and took a twirling step with all of the hard-won grace of finishing school, I had to make up for my former clumsiness somehow.

"A lady should not dance alone." he said, perfectly anticipating my twirl and gathering me into his arms. His hand fitted to my waist and our free hands met. We stood much closer than I had when dancing with the girls and mistress at finishing school. I could feel the warmth coming off of him in the small chilly room and my heartbeat picked up. My cheeks staining with a blush.

We danced and danced. When the orchestra stopped for a break we fell down panting on the bench, having restored its lid together. I noticed his eyes lingering on my décolletage and he blushed scarlet when he saw that I had noticed. I looked down and saw that the massacred end of my chemise had worked its way out of my bodice and its buttonless end was swaying free.

"I'm sorry," he choked and I laughed and laughed, stuffing the material back down into my bodice.

"Manners mistress would have had a fit!"

"Maybe you should have left it out," he laughed in return. I could see he was uncertain still and laughing to hide his disquiet. I liked the idea that I disquieted him.

Feeling bold and powerful I lifted my hand and poked my finger through the buttonhole in his ruined doublet wiggling it around and tickling the hard stomach underneath the silk.

"I'm not the only one with their underwear showing," I reminded him. He caught my hand with a surprised laugh and sat there gazing at me, smiling like a fool. Holding my fist in his he gently tipped it up to expose my wrist and slowly kissed it. I gasped, my smile gone, only fire in my veins and thoughts. His soft lips still on me he looked up into my eyes. I could tell he was judging my reaction, trying to see what I was thinking. He released my hand and I slowly lowered it.

"Tell me what you are thinking." An order! What was I thinking? Everything in my brain was bold and lascivious and incautious. But it was an order.

"I was wondering what your undershirt looked like to have such stripes on it." He laughed again, surprised and delighted.

"What else? Tell me more."

"I was trying to decide how long my chemise had been hanging out of my dress." He nodded gravely. His twitching lips giving away his suppressed smile.

"Tell me everything."

"I…I was wondering what your lips taste like…" My cheeks were so hot they could have glowed. I was looking at my hands balled together in my lap, embarrassed. His hand under my chin gingerly raised my face and I felt him scoot closer on the bench. When my eyes met his, he was very close. Tenderly he cupped my cheek and his soft lips met mine. His breath was sweet and warm and his hand cradled the back of my head. When I came back to earth he was looking at me, his face warmed by the last rays of a long sunset.

"Ella…" he breathed. "Come here." I didn't even want to resist the order as he pulled me onto his lap. He was warm and his well muscled thighs made a comfortable seat. He cupped my face in both hands and I twisted to face him feeling a large bulge in his pants resting against my thigh.

"You are so wonderful, clever and beautiful." He told me earnestly, gazing into my face and kissed me again, harder this time. His arm travelled around my back pulling me closer to him and I felt the bulge in his pants twitch as it pressed against me. I could feel my blood rushing down my body and pooling in my loins, my flesh aching and tingling with every movement of his thigh or mine.

We came up for breath and he rested his forehead on my shoulder running his nose up and down my clavicle. His hand travelled slowly up and down my back.

"I certainly never did that with my dance partners at school." I said breathlessly and he chuckled into my shoulder. The heaving of my breath had caused the reappearance of the end of my chemise and Char tugged on it delicately with his free hand. I gazed into his eyes and they had darkened with a look I had only seen flashes of.

"We should examine the damage to your chemise, I would hate for you to get in trouble with your maid. Let me see it." Another order. He said it with a smile but his eyes were bold and hungry.

"I would be practically naked," I protested but I had already began untying my bodice. My incongruous actions had captured his attentions much more than my words. He thought I was teasing him!

"I promise not to be offended," he said laughing again with his hungry eyes. "I will show you my interesting striped underwear." He began pulling open his buttonless doublet and the shirt underneath. The heated budge in his pants twitched again as I pulled the laces on my bodice free as slowly as possible, trying to stall for time. My thoughts were jumbled, what was going to happen now?

Still slowly working the laces on my bodice free I looked him in the face.

"If I show you my ruined chemise you will think I am a loose woman and then we won't be able to be friends anymore." I said it firmly even though I was a little afraid. The finishing school had had an entire day long lecture on the importance of protecting one's modesty and virtue. They hadn't really elaborated on what that included but had many instructions on how to avoid ever taking off one's clothes and how to discourage a man or husband's indecent advances.

The lace popped free of another grommet and my hand slowly began to pull the swiftly lengthening lace from the next hole.

The prince looked at me shocked, his hair mussed from coming through the neck of his shirt which now lay on the floor with his doublet.

"I would never think of you as a loose woman!" He laughed, the dark glint in his eye completely displaced by earnestness and good humour. "I want to marry you!" He looked shocked at his own words for a moment, gaping like a landed fish. I was shocked as well and stopped unlacing my bodice for a moment, staring at him, until a sharp stab of pain in my gut reminded me I was being disobedient.

Deftly he picked me up in his arms, twirling me around before setting me on my feet. My half unlaced bodice sagged and his truly interesting striped undershirt conformed to his muscled torso. Swiftly he knelt at my feet as he had once already that evening and began working a small gold ring off of his little finger. When he got it off he presented it to me.

"You are everything that I want in a wife." He said staring up at me. "I think I've loved you since I met you at your mother's funeral. You would make a wonderful bride and an unmatched queen." I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. My complaints began again and I realized I had stopped unlacing my bodice.

"Say something," he pleaded. He looked so ridiculous in his underwear, hair mussed but also so beautiful and I realized that I loved him too.

"I love you too!" Fell out of my open mouth, my curse taking over. He gave an exultant shout and lifted me in the air twirling me and kissing me. He set me down on my feet once more, I surreptitiously continued to untied my bodice as he put the ring on my trembling finger. I was elated! I was so happy I didn't even notice that my lace had pulled free of my bodice entirely until my dress fell in a heap at my feet. My chemise ,made shapeless by its complete lack of buttons, hung around my arms leaving my chest exposed.

I gaped up at Char whose face took on a new look of desire. "I'm sorry," I said lamely. I covered my bare breasts with my arms.

"I love you," he reiterated. Slowly twining his arms around my mostly bare waist. "My wife to be."

I looked at the ring on my finger, my arm trapped between my bare chest and his silk clad one. "I suppose I am," I said wonderingly and beamed at him. Completely content for the first time since my mother had died.

He stood and kissed my hair and the nape of my neck, my shoulder. I groaned as a pulling sensation in my belly started. He pulled me closer to him and the bulge in his pants poked insistently into my belly, hot and twitching. I used the arm between us to create some space so I could look up into his eyes. They were hot with desire and inflamed me in turn. Boldly I undid the button on his silk underwear, then the next. He stilled, watching me, eyes burning into me like a physical presence. I undid the last button and pulled the undershirt free of his pants leaving his torso bare.

"Do you want this? Tell me the truth." His eyes bored into mine and all I could think about was the heat of his skin against mine and the tugging ache in my loins, the truth was I did want this and the curse left me no modestly.

"Yes."

The word was like a dam breaking, he tore the remains of my chemise free and tossed it to the floor while pulling me close and kissing my neck passionately. He slowly kissed down my shoulder, pulling me closer still. My nipples, set erect by the cold of the tower, brushed against his well muscled chest and were tickled by the short tuft of hair he had there.

Slowly, he knelt on the floor covered by the skirt of my discarded dress, and gently pulled off my pantaloons leaving me naked except for my stockings and glass slippers.

"Lay down." Obediently I lay down on my dress watching as he swiftly dispensed with his breeches and underwear, boots and socks. I stared as his erect phallus came into view. It was tightly pressed to his stomach with the force of his erection and curly hair hid the base. I had never been face to face with a man's phallus before and I leaned up on my elbows for a better look.

He knelt at my feet looking down at me with love and desire writ large on his face.

"Ella, I love you." He picked up my ankle, the sock rolling down swiftly without the help of the ties on my pantaloons. He kissed the inside of my knee where the sock had abandoned it and I groaned laying back down with a whumpf of escaping breath. He laughed.

"You like that?" He said playfully, kissing a little higher up my thigh.

"jdgumkwu azzoogH" I said laughing again. He looked at me smiling with a bemused expression. "Kiss me!"

He crawled up my body laughing and dropping kisses on my stomach and sternum. Each nipple was kissed next causing my body to tense and my groin to buck under him. When I looked at him again he kissed me full on the mouth, slowly massaging my lips with his lips and tongue. I opened my mouth so that I could feel his tongue with my own. I could feel his hard length pressing against my thigh, warm and smooth. He nudged my thigh aside so that he was kneeling between my legs. Impulsively I pulled him down onto me and flung my legs around his waist. I heard the glass shoes clink together as my ankles locked behind his back.

"Ella," he whispered in my ear, "Are you sure you want this, tell me the truth." I looked him in the face, seeing all his love for me there and smiled.

"Yes, I love you and I want to marry you!" I told him simply. He shifted slightly and I could feel the hard blunt tip of his cock nudging my sensitive folds. Hot skin against slick wetness. I wasn't sure what he would do with it but I trusted him.

Slowly he pushed his hard rod into me, grunting with the effort of keeping himself together until I felt a sharp pinch in my genitals. It was nothing compared to the pain of disobedience though and I ignored it. When he was fully inside me he looked me in the face, ecstasy and disbelief on his features. I felt filled, the ache in my loins magnified a thousand fold into a deep need to move and feel his length inside me. I shifted and his phallus pulled out of me a bit, I shoved him back to me with my heels, jamming him back inside me. He groaned loudly, or maybe that was me.

Slowly he drew himself back out then a little faster pushed back in. We were both panting all I could see was the look of almost painful pleasure on his face, his mouth a perfect "o". My mind was fixed on a swelling building sensation in my belly. Urgently I shifted my hips to meet his, joining with him again as he began to move faster. In and out he slid his hard length. I gripped his hips with my legs and pulled him closer with every thrust. My taut nipples brushed his chest, filling me with tingling pleasure.

I was whimpering now, my legs trembling as he thrust into me. His forehead pressed into my shoulder.

"I'm almost there," he grunted, "Feel it with me Ella!"

I didn't even have to try, I was right there with him. My insides clenched and clenched again. My hips bucked against him involuntarily as he stiffened against me before falling limp across me. We both groaned and lay there panting.

Slowly he lifted himself off of me, pulling free from me. His eyes were searching mine and I smiled up at him.

"That was incredible!" I whispered and relief and happiness lit up his face. He kissed me again tenderly, hugging me to him.

We lay there on the floor for some time, listening to the distant orchestra and each other's calming breaths. The cold air of the tower showing steam over our naked, sweated bodies. I gazed at the ring he had given me, a simple gold band with the shape of crown inlaid in gemstones. It was a little big for my ring finger, I would have to be wary of it falling off.

Eventually Char sat up looking at me. "Are you cold?"

"Only the naked bits," I grinned up at him, suddenly a bit shy of my nudity. He laughed.

"Me too." He looked down at himself noticing the bloody mess we had made of his loins and lower torso. Looking quickly back at me, suddenly concerned, "did I hurt you badly?"

"Not badly, I suspect I will be a bit sore. Unless that is your blood?" He looked shocked and then back at himself, blushing.

"No, not mine." He wrestled a dark handkerchief from the discarded wads of clothing and wiped himself mostly clean then offered it to me. I surreptitiously did the same, noticing white goo all over my thighs and loins mixed with the blood. By the time I had cleaned myself he had his breeches and socks back on. I slipped into my ruined chemise and pulled my dress back on, tying it securely so that my chemise wouldn't make another appearance. We kept looking shyly at each other furtively, gauging each other's reactions. He sat on the floor to pull on his boots and I walked up to him, smoothing his hair into place. He laid his cheek against my thigh, looking up at me.

"I've been dreaming about you…about this," he confessed hesitantly. "I can't wait to marry you and spend every day with you." I smiled down at him.

"You are by far my most handsome suitor." His face fell.

"You've had other suitors?"

"My father was going to marry me off to an old man to make some money but I think that will stop now that he has married Mum Olga. Besides I'm betrothed." I grinned at him and he smiled back. Standing, he lifted me in his arms twirling me about.

"Yes, you are all mine."