Dearest Cinderella Read Online Free PDF Page A

the forest alone, which hesitantly led
to a conversation about Jon.
    "He's just a man I exchange
letters with." That mischievous sparkle in her eye warned
Cinderella that she wasn't going to enjoy the following
conversation.
    "Oh, ho! A man is it? It's
always a man I tell you. And he sends you letters? What sort of
letters and what does this have to do with you being in the forest
alone, young lady?" Cinderella shyly told her about how Jon had
found her diary, the friendship that had been created.
    "I was on my way to read and
respond to his message when I found my original diary in the hands
of one of the thugs, they were all laughing, I assumed that one of
them was Jon."
    "He sounds terribly romantic.
Your Jon I mean, not the thugs of course." Cinderella laughed at
the faraway look on the woman's face.
    "Far from it, he's terribly
awkward, slow to catch onto jokes, arrogant..."
    "Oh but you care for him."
Cinderella blushed. Fairgem had always been incredibly perceptive.
She could look at a person and just know.
    "I do." She sighed.
    "Well don't look so forlorn
about it. He must like you too." She smiled in amusement at Fairgem
and her assumption.
    "I don't know anything about
him. He could be an old married man with grandchildren for all I
know." Fairgem regarded her thoughtfully, pulling the flask
smoothly out of Cinderella's hands, taking a swig, and smiling
softly at her daughter.
    "Or, he could be a titled young
lord who has just come into his inheritance and is ready to find
himself a bride."
    "It matters not anymore, I doubt
I could ever reenter the forest again after today. I suppose I will
never know." Fairgem regarded her thoughtfully. Her mind ticking
over Cinderella's options. Determined of her to meet her mysterious
writer.

    CHAPTER
    FIVE

    It had been exactly six days
since Cinderella had written. Prince Mark knew this because each
day, without fail, he would open that book he'd put in the hole, in
the hopes that she'd replied, and find an empty passage where her
thought provoking words should have been held. He'd asked her to
draw a picture of herself in his last message and instead received
silence. He wanted to talk to the girl who held his attention day
and night. Often he thought about her, wondering whom she was,
worrying about her and her family. But she'd told him not to
interfere, now with her silence looming over him he wondered
whether he'd done the right thing by respecting her decision. He
threw the book down in frustration. Where the devil was she? For
although he was mostly certain that something was keeping her from
talking to him, in the back of his head there was an ever-present
possibility that maybe he'd bored her, maybe she'd decided she had
better things to do with her day. Maybe he should have told her
that he was the Prince...No. He couldn't bear the idea of his best
friend only talking to him because he was royalty. He paced and
paced by the tree, overwhelmed with worry for her, what had
happened. Probability pointed to her family for the reason she
hadn't been heard from in almost a week but he couldn't contact
them, didn't even know where they lived as a start. He knew nothing
about Cinderella other than what she'd told him and she'd told him
very little. She'd told him that she adored strawberries but not
where she lived, that she hated cats but not birds. Indeed it
seemed to the Prince that maybe he knew her not at all. He sat down
next the tree and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths to calm
himself for he'd started to panic. Images of her being hurt or kept
inside because of their correspondence flashing through his head.
Oh what he'd give to go back in time and demand to know more
about-
    Footsteps rang in the distance.
His heart raced, he jumped up from the forest floor and brushed a
nervous hand through his hair before rolling his eyes and yanking
his hand down to a more casual position. Cinderella.
    She walked through the trees and
stood facing him in the clearing. She