“I wanted one perfect night. A night of music and dancing with no one to shout at me, no one to order me about and criticise every little thing I do. For once to wear beautiful clothes instead of rags made grey by age and ash from the fires I tend. My hands free from cuts and burns, the callouses of drudgery.
“Thank you for that night, your highness, but in truth you held me too close and too long, and your passionate words made little sense. Keep my glass slipper if you must, but I will not marry you.”
Francis James Franklin (Alina Meridon) 