A Dream Not Imagined Read online

  A Dream Not Imagined

  A Dream Not Imagined

  A Cinderella Story

  ~~~~~~~

  Shantelle Mary Hannu

  A Dream Not Imagined

  Copyright © 2015 by Shantelle Mary Hannu

  Cover design

  Jaye L. Knight

  Cover images

  Copyright © 2015 Natasha H.

  http://tashahphotography.blogspot.com/

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the author. The only exception is brief quotations in written reviews.

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  What’s coming next from Shantelle Mary Hannu?

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  To a passel of lovely ladies who pushed me on in my writing, encouraged me, and loved on my stories—my cousins Ashley K., Emily H., and Moriah K., my Aunt Marla, my mom, and my sisters, Natasha and Serena. I love you all!

  And to Anne Elisabeth Stengl, who created the fairytale writing contest that brought about this story. Thank you!

  Main Character

  Ellie Abbington – a young woman living with her wealthy father and his family; yet destined for a life of service.

  Others…

  Lady Geneva Abbington – Ellie’s stepmother.

  Lord Franklin Irvings – Geneva’s late husband.

  Dezmarie – Franklin and Geneva’s eldest daughter.

  Adelaide – Franklin and Geneva’s youngest daughter.

  -----------------------------------

  Lord Thomas Abbington – Ellie’s father.

  Martha Abbington – Thomas’s late wife. Ellie’s mother.

  PROLOGUE

  THE SUN WAS setting, casting a golden hue over the fair meadow. In the safety of dusk, deer and spotted fawns crept to the edges of the forest, risking an appearance; while other night creatures roused and skittered about as well.

  But none of this disturbed the twosome sitting in the middle of the small meadow.

  The boy was a handsome little lad, with a smattering of freckles across his nose and a lock of his unmanageable hair falling over his forehead. He wore a simple peasant’s garb, his bare feet lying comfortably against the long, matted grass.

  The girl was equally beautiful in looks, except for the pale color of her face, which was shaded always from the sun by the fine hat seated upon her mess of soft ringlets. Her dress was velvet and satin and her little feet were fitted over with stockings and a pair of stiff day slippers.

  Because of their vastly differing social statuses, the two were as unalike as day and night. But even so, their youthful hearts hoped that someday they could play together without meeting secretly in the early hours of dusk.

  But for now, it must be so. For though their young minds may not have fully understood social status and rules, they did indeed comprehend their mothers’ scolding words and severe warnings.

  “Do you promise you will come back tomorrow?” the little girl’s voice pleaded.

  “You can count on it.” The boy grinned assuredly. “And I will teach you the village dance I did at the festivals.”

  The girl’s eyes lit up, and she clapped her hands. “Do you mean it? If Mother let me, I would dance all day . . . with flowers in my hair”—her tone became more serious—“and soft dancing slippers.” She stared at the stiff slippers on her feet that pinched her toes.

  The young lad patted her hand sympathetically. “When I grow up and become a shoe-maker like my father, I will make you the softest slippers you ever felt. You can do the village dances in them.”

  With widened eyes, the girl leaned forward eagerly. “Do you promise?” she asked in a hushed voice, in awe of her wonderful hero.

  “I promise,” the boy solemnly vowed.

  Then he helped her up with the gentleness and respect that his lowly, but wise, mother had taught him to have, and sent her on her way, for her nursemaid was calling for her from the courtyard gardens.

  “Tomorrow, Annie?” he called after the little duchess.

  “Yes, tomorrow!” she agreed. Then she ran as fast as her little legs could carry her toward her family’s looming castle.

  So the two young ones headed back to their drastically different homes, anticipating the next day filled with their usual, occupying pastimes.

  But little did they know that their lives as they had known them would change forever on the morrow.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fourteen years later…

  “DO YOU EVER wonder about the prince?”

  Ellie Abbington considered the question, tucking a lock of her sunny-blonde hair behind her ear and dipping her bare toes into the water. “The prince? Why would I wonder about him?” Her striking blue eyes held an innocent look.

  “Why indeed,” another young woman, Maisy, retorted. “He’s only the prince of all the land!” She gave Ellie a shove before bending to dip her bucket into the stream.

  Ellie quickly caught her balance and smiled patiently at the two maids from the neighboring estate whom she talked to every afternoon at the stream. “Be reasonable, girls. He’s a prince—we are maids. What good does it do to wonder about him?” She smoothed the material of her dark brown work dress. “Hand me that bucket, will you, Fiona?”

  Fiona grasped the bucket handle, her eyes huge and tragic. “But Ellie, surely it does no harm to dream! Sometimes dreams come true.”

  Ellie paused, and then thrust the bucket underwater. “Hmm . . . It’s not likely.”

  Maisy cast her an unreadable look. “Perhaps not for us.” She nodded toward Fiona. “But you are a different story, Ellie.”

  “Yes, quite true!” Fiona put in excitedly.

  Ellie heaved her bucket up, spraying droplets of water about. Her feet squished in the mud as she came up from the stream. “Really, Maisy, I’ve been kept out of society my whole life. I really don’t think Lady Abbington would thrust me into it now.”

  “You’re her daughter!” cried Fiona.

  “Her stepdaughter. And, quite obviously, her maid as well.” Ellie snatched up her brown kerchief from the ground and pulled it back over her hair.

  “But your father is Lord Abbington,” Maisy said crossly. “I don’t see how—”

  “Lord Abbington was only just named nobility himself, naught but a few years after I was born,” Ellie interrupted. “And my birth mother was very poorly-bred. Quite certainly, that reduces me to nothing but a maid in my stepmother’s eyes.”

  “It is a tragedy!” Fiona burst out. “Don’t you feel distressed when you think about how you could have riches, and perhaps even the prince, within your grasp?”

  “It’s the way of life,” Ellie said in a quiet voice, trying to soothe her friend. “I would have just as poor a family as yours’, if not for the title bestowed upon my father by the king for his bravery in battle.”

  The three young women stared at the ground gloomily for a moment.

  At last, Fiona spoke up. “At night, I dream that the royal family hosts a ball, and I am invited. Then, the prince falls in love with me and sweeps me away from this life of drudgery.”

  “I dream that too, sometimes,” Maisy admitted reluctantly.

  And I too, Ellie thought wistfully. But outwardly, she remained silent.

  “Ellie, don’t you ever dream of wedding the prince and becoming a fine lady?” Fiona asked hesitantly.

 
Ellie opened her mouth, but daren’t voice her deepest wishes.

  “Ell—ie!”

  All three maids jumped.

  “I believe that was Dezmarie.” Ellie brushed off her white apron. “I wonder what I did this time?”

  Fiona and Maisy giggled nervously before scurrying away to the household they served at.

  Ellie hurried through the sparse forest toward the stately Abbington castle, the bucket bumping against her leg.

  “Ellie! Where are you, lazy girl?” the slightly high-pitched, irritated voice came again.

  “Here, miss.” Ellie appeared from among the trees. She shifted her bucket to the other hand, awaiting the coming scolding. Let it be short this time.

  Dezmarie Abbington propped her fisted hands on her hips. Her glossy auburn curls bounced as she tossed her head. “Why must you dawdle so, Ellie? I needed you an hour ago to dress my hair! I do declare, if you were speaking with those mousy-faced maids from the Fredrickson estate again, I’m going to report to Mother!”

  Ellie avoided her stepsister’s reddened face and said hastily but softly, “You needed me to dress your hair again?”

  Dezmarie glared at her, her mouth pursed into a sour expression. “Don’t look at me like that! And quit with the superior attitude! You know your place in this household!”

  “Of course. I will come to your chambers as soon as I set this bucket in the kitchen.”

  “See that you do.” Dezmarie pulled out a delicate fan and waved it in front of her face furiously. “I will speak with Lord Abbington about your behavior if I feel I must.”

  Ellie winced.

  Dezmarie turned and flounced off.

  Please, please calm her, Ellie prayed silently, glancing at the heavens briefly, hoping God truly cared about such things.

  She hated when Lord Abbington spoke to her privately. He was merciless about her background—though his was hardly any better—cold in his position as her father, and, sometimes, harsh with his hands.

  Indeed, a bruise had only just faded from her face. But more often than not, it was harsh words that Lord Abbington flung at her. And most times, those hurt much worse.

  “If only I wasn’t a disgrace,” Ellie murmured, trudging toward the kitchen connected to the back of the Abbington home. “If only I could marry the prince and be happy, and rich, and safe.” She laughed cynically at her own words.

  How silly it was to think such things. She was a young woman of seventeen, posing as a maid to her rich family, and having never attended a high society gathering in her life.

  All because of her birth mother’s peasant status.

  Ellie shook her head, frustrated.

  She pushed open the wooden door to the kitchen, water lapping over the edges of her bucket.

  “Careful there, girl!” The cook scowled, brushing flour from her round hands. “I don’t need water all over my floors!”

  “I believe most of it landed on me—not the floor,” Ellie said with a sigh, setting the bucket down with a thud.

  “Don’t you be talking all loftily to me!” The cook unwrapped the apron from her ample body. “This is my kitchen! Now scat from here unless you’re gonna do some work!”

  Ellie bit her lip and turned from the room, feeling her pinned-up hair give way as she did. “Oh!” she exclaimed quietly. Should have taken more time putting it up this morning. She hastily left the presence of the scolding cook.

  She didn’t like her in-between position. She was lowly-bred; therefore only good enough to serve her family. But she actually bore the name Abbington, and so the other servants saw fit to detach themselves from her.

  Ellie was stuck; lonely—friendless. Maisy and Fiona had at least halfway accepted her; but still, she saw them only a few minutes a day at the stream. As for social gatherings, Ellie had never seen one of those in all her seventeen years, as far as she could remember. High society was, of course, much too regal for her. And Lady Abbington had never let her join the peasant festivals since she was Lord Abbington’s daughter. Such a thing just wouldn’t be proper.

  “Oh Ellie!” a voice called. “Ellie, where are you?”

  Ellie jerked her head up. “Coming, Miss Adelaide!” she called back, struggling to pin up pieces of the sunny-blonde hair spilling down her back. She half-ran toward where her stepsister was calling from the main part of the Abbington castle.

  “Ellie, come quickly! You will never suppose it!” Adelaide’s voice rang out again.

  Ellie rounded the corner, tucking up the last bit of hair into a disarrayed mass as she did. “What has happened?”

  Adelaide grabbed Ellie’s arm. “Mother just arrived home from the Granton’s.”

  The young woman looked a lot like her sister, Dezmarie. Except her hair was a much brighter red, her eyes were less cunning, and her wide mouth not as pinched as Dezmarie’s.

  “Lady Granton says we have good reason to believe that the royal family will be hosting a ball for the prince within days!” Adelaide pressed a hand to her chest. “Prince Charles Edingworth. Ellie, can you imagine?”

  Ellie stared at the ground, not sure what to say. A ball? Meet the prince? Only in her dreams, of course.

  “Ellie, you simply must go into the village and purchase some material for our ball gowns,” Adelaide pressed on. “Royal-blue for me. No wait, rose-pink. Or, a shade of green—”

  Dezmarie appeared under the stone arch of the castle’s main entrance, running toward them, apparently having heard the news as well. “A ball! Ellie, you must go purchase material so the seamstress can start sewing our gowns!”

  “Do you think a lime-green for me?” Adelaide turned primly to her sister.

  Dezmarie laughed. “If you want to look like a clown, Adelaide!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That dreadful hair of yours!” Dezmarie turned abruptly to Ellie again. “We’ll need a new strand of pearls, some diamond earrings perhaps, and—”

  “Good gracious, Dezmarie,” Adelaide interrupted with a snap. “My hair is not dreadful. I’m beginning to think you’re jealous!”

  “Jealous? Of you?” Dezmarie sneered. “Do not flatter yourself, dear sister. You know every gentleman looks at me first, and then you. If they even look at you at all.”

  Adelaide’s face blushed crimson, and she lowered her eyes to her clasped fingers.

  Ellie bit her lip, knowing the consequences for becoming a part of the sisters’ arguments.

  “Now.” Dezmarie turned briskly on her heel. “Ellie, you will go to the village at once. Several yards of red, soft blue, yellow, deep green, and ivory-white should do. Pearls, diamond earrings, and some lace trimmings.”

  “I think perhaps—” Adelaide began, lifting her head slightly.

  “Do hush!” Dezmarie cried. “Ellie, will you remember what you need to get?”

  “Of course, Miss Dezmarie,” Ellie said, mentally going over the list. “But should we not inquire of Lady Abbington’s—”

  “No,” Dezmarie said coolly. “Mother does not need to know of your trip to the village until the purchases are made.”

  Ellie’s spine straightened, but seeing the glint in Dezmarie’s eyes, she mumbled, “Of course,” and went on her way.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Ellie let a carriage flurry past before crossing the street.

  “Do you ever wonder about the prince?” Fiona’s words played through her mind.

  “Yes,” Ellie finally answered her friend’s inquiry with a sigh. “But it’s foolish to believe dreams come true.”

  She lifted her head and saw a young man in a stiff, formal servant’s attire on the other side of the cobblestone road. His kind green eyes assessed her face quietly before he gave her a polite nod.

  Ellie smiled and started to lift her hand as if to wave to him. In that moment, she jerked herself to a stop. Did she know him? She looked at him again, but could not think of who he could be.

  The man raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised.

>   Good gracious! Ellie turned away quickly, her cheeks flushing beet red at such misplaced familiarity. “Good gracious!” she repeated out loud, rapidly walking away from the young man. She pulled the coarse folds of her kerchief, which covered her hair, closer to her, seeking to shade her face from onlookers. The hem of her plain brown dress swished around her ankles as she hurried through the street. “I don’t know any young men from the village,” she muttered. “Oh, I don’t know what possessed me to act in such a way!”

  “Good day! Ellie Abbington!” A high, meddlesome voice interrupted her fussing.

  Ellie looked up.

  A matronly woman in a luxurious cambric gown trimmed in shimmery satins bustled her way. “Dear me, Ellie, whatever are you going to the dressmakers for?” she puffed, dabbing her neck with a handkerchief.

  Ellie curtseyed. “Just a bit of material, Lady Burch.”

  “Material?” Lady Burch said loudly. “Why, has your dear mother finally decided to let you attend a gathering with them?”

  “Oh, no, m’lady.” Ellie glanced around to see if anyone had heard. “Nothing like that, of course.”

  Two rich women were looking her way, shaking their heads solemnly.

  “Poor girl,” one said in a stage-whisper, “that she doesn’t get to share in her father’s fortunate rise to nobility.”

  The other woman fanned herself slowly and eyed Ellie with a speculating look. “You’d think she would be accepted in society, if not for Lady Abbington.”

  Ellie turned away, cheeks burning.

  “Dear me,” Lady Burch fretted. “I’m sorry for bringing it up. But why the purchases? Surely Dezmarie and Adelaide don’t need more dresses!”

  Ellie fiddled with the frayed ends of her cuffs. There was a legitimate reason she didn’t like going into the village.