Beauty's Cursed Prince

by Mary E. Twomey

  Remus’s eyes tightened, but he didn’t take offense. He set the bottle back down on the passenger’s seat, and Ella could tell by his careful study of the barely-there traffic that he was trying to think up another way to bond with her. When they turned onto the freeway, he said with a lightness to his tone, “I’m sure this is all very confusing. We didn’t know what we would find when we got here. You probably have lots of questions.”

  Ella kept her lips pressed together, but held his gaze in the rearview mirror.

  Henry cast his mentor an apologetic chin dip, and pressed the button on the back of the passenger’s seat to raise the partition. “Sorry, Remus. She’s scared, and she won’t talk because she doesn’t know you enough to trust you.”

  Remus fanned his fingers out in surrender, keeping his palms pressed to the steering wheel. “Fair enough. I’ll be here to answer any questions when you’re ready. Music?” He flicked on a classical station to drown out anything he wasn’t meant to hear as the partition sealed him off from the backseat.

  Ella exhaled and slumped back against the black leather interior. The car smelled new and looked pristine, which made her feel like she didn’t belong in it—much less with a prince. “Thank you,” she finally offered, relieved that she didn’t have to try and decode Remus’ motives.

  In the next breath, Henry had her gathered in his arms, her knees looped over his while he kissed her face frantically. “You worried me!” he accused, his fretting coming out as anger. “I don’t like being worried. Do you think I got to be this handsome by staying up half the night, staring at my phone?”

  “I’m sorry! I couldn’t text you like this. I wanted to see you too badly. It hurt every time I looked at your number.”

  The partition rolled down, and Remus’ frantic voice filled the car. “Whatever it is you’re doing to make her excitable, stop! The computer system in here is going mad.”

  Ella slinked off to her side of the backseat. “I’m sorry, sir.” Then she shot Henry a wounded look. “You told him?”

  Henry slid closer and lifted her hand, pressing it to his chest. “You can trust Remus. He’s like family to me—the big brother Adam, Rory and I never had. I had to tell him, Ella. It scared me when you almost brought the roof down on our heads! I wanted to kiss you so badly, but I need to get to the bottom of what we’re dealing with first, so we don’t crumble a building by accident. Remus knows more about magic than anyone. My father even consults him on occasion. Remus studied under Malaura, and even countered her curse on Rory. If anyone can help us, it’s him.”

  “I can be discreet,” Remus promised. “Though, you don’t have to believe me yet. You don’t know me, and your first interaction with me was a front row seat to me deceiving your employer. In time, though, you’ll see that no one else will discover your secret. Then you can start trusting me.”

  Henry and Remus waited for Ella to ask questions, but she’d gone back to silent mode, afraid to say the wrong thing.

  Henry sighed and pressed the partition button again. “Another moment, Remus. I promise to behave myself.”

  “Sure, sure. I’ve never fallen for that one before.”

  The second they were alone again, Henry kissed the center of her palm, drawing out her blush. “I had to tell him. He can keep things quiet, and maybe he can even help us.”

  Ella kept her gaze on Henry’s firm chest as he placed her hand back over his heart. “Help us how? It’s already done. I’m stuck like this. He can’t undo a person’s basic makeup.”

  “He’s worked with people who’ve had trouble getting a handle on their magic before. Rory had a terrible time controlling hers when it finally came about in her. He also works with a Lethal.”

  Ella’s eyes climbed up to meet Henry’s, unable to hold back her sadness. “It wasn’t your secret to tell.”

  “I don’t even understand what I told him! I still don’t get it. All I know is that I want to be with you, and collapsing buildings seems problematic.” He closed his eyes, pained as the memory of his visit tugged at his heart. “Why, Ella? Why do you work for such a horrible woman?”

  Ella lowered her chin. “Because she knows my secrets, and she’ll tell the authorities if I don’t let her treat me as she pleases.”

  “What secrets are worth this?” He motioned to her black eye with a palpable ache. “Tell me, and we’ll find a way around it all.”

  Ella couldn’t bring herself to tell him, but instead leaned forward, resting her head on the firm harbor of his shoulder, trusting that the shelter he offered wouldn’t crumble at the first sign of a threat. She wrapped her arms around his middle, loving the feel of his body. “I can’t tell if you’ve made things far worse, or if they’re about to get better.” She burrowed into his warmth. “Either way, it’s time. If I end up with you, or locked in a facility somewhere, I can’t live with Lady Tremaine any longer. Something had to give at some point. Might as well be now.”

  “That’s the spirit?” he said like it was a question. He held her, rubbing her back to soothe them both. “It’ll be alright, blue eyes. I won’t let anyone lock you away. Imagine how horrible the cell phone reception would be. How would we text?”

  Ella sniggered, but her smile died just as quickly as it came. She was scared, but she tried to take solace where she could get it.

  13

  Who Are You?

  “Ella, we’re not going to get anywhere if you won’t talk to him. Remus is on our side.”

  Ella’s gaze shifted to Henry in the quiet of the study. There was a fire built in the welcoming hearth, and an antique tall lamp next to Remus, who sat beside the flames in a large leather armchair, one leg crossed over the other. He had his elbows on the armrests and his fingers pressed together under his chin, while he studied her total motionlessness on the matching couch on the other side of the hearth.

  When Remus spoke, Ella stiffened. “You don’t want to talk about yourself, and I can understand that. How about we start with me? I’m the wildcard. You don’t seem to mind talking to Henry to some extent. Ask me anything.”

  Ella’s eyes flicked up to him, harboring a tinge of mistrust. “You don’t mean that. People say it, but they don’t mean it.”

  Remus smiled, relaxing in his chair that he’d finally managed a response. “Did you know that I was lying to Lady Tremaine about my interest in her fascinating ideas about how best to deal with the Lethals?”

  Ella ran her tongue along the inside of her bottom row of teeth before responding. “Not at first, but after a couple exchanges, yeah.”

  “Then trust yourself enough to know if I’m lying to you. If you don’t want to talk about yourself, then we can talk about me. Ask away, Miss Ella.”

  Ella’s lips twitched at the formal address. She was wearing her old housework jeans, a red flannel button-down and torn sneakers. Remus looked fresh off the cover of a magazine for the modern businessman—confident and crisply put together. “Okay. Who are you?”

  Henry leaned on the hearth—the only one too anxious to sit. “This is Remus, blue eyes. I told you, he was my mentor and my tutor growing up.”

  Ella waited a few beats, and then asked again. “Who are you?”

  Remus kept his body language lax. “I’m Remus Johnstone, tutor to the stars,” he replied with a flair of playful dramatics.

  Ella blinked at him and dug her heels in. “Who are you?” she asked again, unwilling to smile at his lightheartedness.

  Remus tilted his head at her. “I’m the man who cares enough about Henry to help him out when he’s worried. He was concerned about you, so I drove him over to pay you a little visit. Good thing he brought me along. He’s usually better at thinking on his feet. I daresay your black eye confounded him.”

  Undeterred by his attempts at making small talk, Ella repeated herself. “Who are you?”

  Remus frowned and leaned forward in his seat. “Alright.” He swallowed hard as he stared at her, stripping off any charisma to get to the bare bones. �
��I help people with extraordinary Pulses. I teach them how to get their abilities under control, which Henry mentioned might be a problem you need help solving. Think of me as a friendly guide.”

  Ella lowered her voice, but didn’t break eye contact. “Who are you?”

  Remus stopped to think, turning her question over to examine it from all angles. He rested his elbows on his knees and turned his palms up in a subconscious gesture of surrender. “I’m someone who can help you.”

  Ella took in his sincerity and deemed the question answered, so she moved on to the next one. “Why?”

  Remus maintained his submissive posture. “You called Henry to tip him off that there was a hit taken out on a few chairholders on the council. Because of you, we were able to take countermeasures, and Caleb and Eustace are safe. Henry needs more people in his life who care about him enough to speak up when he’s near something dangerous.”

  Ella didn’t accept this as the whole answer. “Why do you want to help me?”

  Remus searched through his response, and then moved deeper into his rationale. “Because Henry needs someone good in his life. He’s not easily enchanted by a woman. I had to meet you.”

  Ella was not satisfied, and spotted a look on his face that told her he was still holding himself back from answering the question completely. “Why do you want to help me?”

  Henry shifted his weight from one foot to the other, impatient with Ella’s process. “He’s a good person, Ella. He’s helping because I asked him for a favor.”

  Ella held Remus’ gaze, seeing in his eyes that there was more to it all than that. She made it clear that she wasn’t moving off this point until he answered it to her satisfaction.

  Remus hung his head, a sudden wash of shame weighting his posture. “I want to help you because it fascinates me to study the mutations in our magic.”

  Ella nodded, finally understanding that the root of his motives were his curiosity. “Explain.”

  Remus obeyed her as if she was the instructor and he was the student who was being told to search out his motives as part of his daily lesson. “The community is afraid of anything new because we’ve all seen what Queen Vanessa did when anyone stood out. She took them and broke them. She manipulated them so she could use their power, and then sold them out and labeled them dangerous. They were tried for their crimes, and in the older days, they were disposed of. Malaura wasn’t much different. She didn’t take them to break them, but she collected the ones with odd abilities all the same, and kept them for her purposes. Being close to Malaura broke the good in people.” He paused to let his eyes plead with her, permitting his decades-old hurt shine through.

  Ella kept her voice quiet. “Is the good in you broken?”

  Remus’ expression twisted from practiced calm to positively haunted. “I’ve done everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t come about, but sometimes I worry.”

  Ella inclined her head to him. “Maybe it’s that worry that’s kept you from crossing over completely.”

  “Perhaps. But I know my curiosity for the strange and new has nothing to do with how she trained me. I want to understand because I think our magic is an ever-shifting miracle. Malaura made everyone afraid of anything different, but that’s never been me. The evolution of magic is happening, whether the public wants to look at it or not. If we don’t understand how the world is changing, then one day we’ll wake up to find nature’s progress has left us in the dust.”

  “Those uniquely gifted were given lobotomies in Queen Vanessa’s day,” Ella state bluntly. “You can understand why I’m not eager to jump aboard that ship.”

  Remus held her gaze, trying to convey that nothing could be further from his intentions. “Those didn’t happen under King Hubert. He’s a solid friend to me, and I know his heart. He doesn’t want to stamp out the people who are different. If anything, he’d want to learn from the mutations so we can add to and strengthen our community.”

  “So, you want to use me for political gain.”

  Remus raised his palms to her. “I want to study your magic if it’s as incredible as Henry claims. Nuances to our ancient magic have always fascinated me. I want to help you because that’s my nature. But if you’re worried about being used or called out publicly, I can offer you a promise that I won’t speak of our sessions to anyone, aside from Henry.”

  Ella quirked her eyebrow, seeing his boyish fascination of the obscure for the hobby and obsession that it was. Finally, she felt she understood Remus Johnstone enough to talk. “Does your promise come with a contract? Something legally binding?”

  “It does if you need it to.” He pulled out his phone, but then frowned. “But you don’t have a voice in court. Servants don’t have legal representation, so they can’t sign contracts or hold other people to them.”

  Henry hissed at the insensitive observation, but didn’t argue the logic. “Don’t say it like that.”

  “Like what? She wants assurances I can’t give her, and she’s smart enough to know that. If I tried, I’d be lying to her, which is no way to start this out.”

  “I’m not a servant,” Ella admitted, tucking her hands under her thighs to keep from fidgeting. “That house you just saw? I own the deed. It’s my home.”

  Henry’s mouth fell open. “What? Why? Why would you let Lady Tremaine treat you like that? She told us you were her servant! You told me you were her servant!”

  “I fill that role, yes, but legally, I’m a landowner. Lady Tremaine treats me like that because she knows most of my secrets. If I misbehave, she’ll turn me in so the government can do experiments on me.”

  Remus was speechless but Henry was livid. “How did you come to meet this terrible woman, and how does she have so much power over you? She just took over your home? Some random stranger can just move in and… I don’t understand.”

  Ella shifted uncomfortably against the buttery leather of the couch. “Well, she’s not some random stranger, for one. Lady Tremaine is my stepmother.”

  14

  Hearing and Seeing

  Ella wasn’t expecting the huge reaction from Henry, nor the sick look on Remus’ face. She wondered how numb she had become to the horrors of her life, and if things were really as devastating as their expressions implied.

  “It’s… I mean… You’ll have to excuse me.” Remus stood but Ella protested, worried he would make a bigger mess of things for her.

  “You can’t say anything! She doesn’t like people to know I’m her stepdaughter.”

  Henry ran his hand over his face. “How did… I don’t… How?”

  Ella answered as thoroughly as she could in hopes it might keep them from confronting Lady Tremaine. “Lady Tremaine married my father. She was a good actress in the beginning, but it didn’t matter. My father died a few months into their marriage. She was living here when the deed was in my father’s name. Her Pulse is Submission, but my father figured that out too late. He was in the process of trying to divorce her, but he died before it was finalized. He signed the house over to me, with the legal stipulations that it would never be sold from my bloodline. So Lady Tremaine got part of the life insurance money, but the bulk was put into a trust for me. It’s safe until I turn twenty-five. I’ve done my best to make sure she can’t get her hands on it then. She doesn’t know that part, though.”

  Remus had his cell phone out at the same time Henry pointed at his mentor. “Lock that trust airtight, Remus. We’ll get my financial team to move the money on her birthday. I mean, like, 12:01am. When’s your birthday, Ella?”

  She lowered her chin and rattled off the date, which was two months away. It was only when her stomach growled that Henry seemed to remember his manners. “When was the last time you ate anything?”

  Ella stared at the tops of her thighs, wishing Remus wasn’t watching her every move. “I had breakfast.”

  “It’s almost dinner time.” Henry’s agony pulled at his features as woe took him over. “That horrible woman starves
her, Remus. What time will Lionel have dinner ready?”

  Remus sent out a text message. “Momentarily, I’m sure. We can move this conversation to the dining room. Ella, everyone who works for the Chancellor’s family signs a privacy agreement, so whatever is said in this house stays here.” He stood and extended his hand to her, but Henry was already moving toward her, helping her up as if she was an old woman, too fragile for long walks.

  Though Ella was usually stalwart enough to move about without an escort, she indulged herself and leaned on Henry’s proffered arm, letting him steady her rocking world as they moved to the dining room.

  “I can get started cleaning in the kitchen,” she offered. “I just need you to show me where it is.”

  Henry clutched Ella closer to his side. “You aren’t a servant here. Remus doesn’t have servants; he has employees that he pays. You’re a guest in his home. My guest. That means you don’t do chores.”

  She cast a baleful look up at him, finally allowing a little of her personality to seep through. “Hello, Remus paid for me to work in his home four days a week. I’ve been sitting around talking for way too long. I should probably get started.”

  Henry paused and turned her to face him, placing his hands on both her shoulders. “I want you to hear me very carefully. Remus is paying Lady Tremaine because I told him to do whatever it took to get you out of there. He needs time, and the fee bought us exactly that. Time is what he’s paying for, and that’s all. Time to teach you, get to know you, and also get to know Lady Tremaine’s true intentions and just how deep all the manipulative plotting goes. I’m guessing you heard the threat on Eustace and Caleb’s lives because the Baron told Lady Tremaine?”

  Ella cast a guilty look over at Remus, who clasped his hands loosely to imitate patience while she decided how much she was willing to trust him. “I didn’t overhear Lady Tremaine. I heard the Baron himself. He was talking about it in the Smoke Shop with Mr. Herchon and a bunch of other men I didn’t know well enough to recognize by the sound of their voices.”