Midnight for a Curse

by E J Kitchens

  Chapter 2

  Belinda tried not to think as she marched alongside Beast. If she did, she might please Beast by running away. But she was too much a coward for that. Gaspard could be kind, and with six weeks before her father returned and almost no one else kind to her … it was too dangerous to risk.

  She quickened her pace as a wrought iron gate three times as tall as Beast rose suddenly before them. So soon? It’d only been a half-hour’s brisk walk. She really hadn’t expected a … She foundered as she caught a glimpse of the building beyond the gates. Castle? It was the size of one, but hardly the normal design. She could only describe it as a once grand tree that had been twisted by storm and gale, one continuing to grow but warped to the core. She shivered as she took it in. Privacy must definitely be a priority.

  “Still with me, I see,” Beast said glumly as he slowed before the castle’s formidable doors. The handles bore a remarkable resemblance to their owner, and she was momentarily afraid he expected her, as a mere villager, to open them for him. However, he placed his giant paw on the handle and twisted slightly to meet her gaze.

  “I wouldn’t dream of abandoning you,” she said with more pluck than she felt.

  He huffed. “Perhaps you should. It’s not too late.”

  “Your home is delightful in a stark, easily defensible kind of way.”

  He stared at her a moment, then let out a sigh of defeat that threatened to blow away her hat. He opened the door and motioned her inside. “After you.”

  “Thank you.” Straightening her shoulders and locking her jaw in place, she entered, preparing to be unprepared for what lay inside. She did very well for the first three minutes, standing quietly beside Beast in the middle of the entryway as he rang a bell and waited for who knew what. The inside wasn’t quite so intimidating as the outside, but just as impressive in size and twisted grandeur. The chandelier had to be thirty feet above her head, and the entryway bigger than her father’s current house. Only the desire to not appear the country bumpkin she felt—and a promise to herself to come back later and gawk properly alone—kept her calmly glancing in polite sweeps about the room, her hands clasped primly in front of her. She’d already breached protocol by calling the creature “Beast,” but she couldn’t give it, with all its furriness and rather adorable tufts to its cat-like ears, the title Mister. Now, she’d be elegant.

  “Oh good. You’re all assembled.”

  Belinda jumped as Beast straightened and directed his attention to the empty air between them and the broad staircase leading to the second floor. A quiet shuffling came from that direction, but nothing to have made it met Belinda’s sharp gaze.

  “Allow me to introduce you to—” He leaned toward her and whispered, “What’s your name?”

  “Belinda Lambton,” she whispered, searching the far side of the entryway for the source of a subtle hush.

  “Miss Belinda Lambton. She is a damsel in distress and will be staying here until her father returns. Please give her every consideration. Thank you. Fulton, please see that a room is prepared for Miss Lambton.”

  The shuffling, the brush of fabric and padding of leather soles against marble floor, rose around her, pitching Belinda’s heart rate into a different sort of rhythm altogether.

  She couldn’t help it. She glanced around and up and down and back and forth in very bumpkin fashion, searching for the source of those sounds. Perhaps, she thought as Beast motioned to the empty room, perhaps she had made a mistake after all.

  “Miss Lambton?”

  Wide-eyed, she spun around to face Beast. “Yes?”

  “I said ‘Welcome to my home.’”

  “Oh. Thank you.” She curtsied, not knowing what else to do. Across the entryway, a door opened on its own.

  Beast nodded regally, then turned away. “The servants will attend you. Good morning.”

  Belinda sprinted after him, slowing to match his pace as she slipped up beside him. “What servants?”

  He froze, and Belinda could just see his eyes darting back and forth in thought before he turned fully to look at her. “The ones who greeted us so politely a moment ago, of course.”

  His look was too cunning by far for a beast. Belinda crossed her arms. She was not to be gotten rid of that easily. The cost of defeat was too great. “Oh, those. I assumed you meant the ghosts of the servants searching for their murdered prince.”

  Beast pursed his lips in irritation, which caused one fang to poke out beyond his upper lip.

  Belinda’s mouth twitched, her eyes unable to forgo the pleasure of laughing at that unruly fang. He caught the direction of her gaze and his own gaze dipped to his mouth. His lip popped out over the fang of its own accord. Belinda barely stifled a giggle.

  Rolling his eyes, Beast spun away. “They’re invisible so I don’t have to watch them watching me. Come along. I’ll show you to your room myself.”

  Still biting her lip, Belinda managed a thank you. The grin in her soul faded as Beast offered her his arm. It was a gentlemanly gesture she was little used to receiving from any but her father, and he didn’t have monstrously hairy hand-paws with cougar-like claws. Swallowing hard, she touched her hand lightly to Beast’s arm, and told herself the fur was a glove.

  “How did you know they were assembled if you can’t see them?” she asked as he led her to the stairs. “Do you go by smell as—” an animal might? She cleared her throat. “Or by sound?”

  Her trepidation eased immediately at his glower. Animals who ate people didn’t glower. They just ate.

  “They become a bit of a waver to you after you’ve been here awhile—not that you’ll be here that long.”

  “Far be it from me to impose, Beastie dear,” Belinda couldn’t help but goad.

  Beast sighed like a proper martyr, making Belinda struggle to contain her grin once more, but then she sobered. “I fully intend to keep my part of the bargain, you know,” she said. “I really do appreciate you allowing me to stay.”

  He gave her a sideways glance, but didn’t reply as he led her along a grand hallway, a guest wing she assumed. “Lunch will be served in your room,” he said at last, “as you’ll likely want to rest and clean up from the adventures of the morning. Dinner will be at eight. You are free to roam the castle and grounds as you please—except into private chambers, of course.”

  Belinda’s heart gave a strange and painful thump. She’d expected to be a servant. He’d made her a guest.

  “Do you speak many languages?” he asked after a moment, a surprising amount of interest in his voice.

  “None but ours fluently. Just a few words here and there my father taught me. He was a merchant once and has traveled much.”

  Beast slowed to a halt before a grand door decorated with a relief of blasted trees and snarling monsters. He knocked, and as the door swung open, he rattled off something at the rate of an Italian auctioneer. It may very well have been in Italian as well. Vuoi sposarmi, perhaps?

  Belinda, whose attention had been sucked into the room beyond, turned back to him with an inquisitive expression. “Ye—”

  “No!”

  She jumped back at Beast’s exclamation.

  “Excuse me,” he stammered. “I … I wasn’t really expecting an answer. I like rhetorical questions. Good morning. Please ring for the servants if you require anything.” He released her arm and darted away.

  “Okay,” she stammered, staring after him, momentarily considering whether or not she was crazy to assume he wasn’t.

  She shook herself and walked into the room—her room—and winced. It was too grand for her. Even the stable was too grand after the way she forced herself on Beast’s hospitality. His alarm after the mysterious woman called for him sprang to mind. She couldn’t earn what she’d bullied him into giving, but she’d do whatever she could to make sure he didn’t regret it. Anymore than he already did.

  Sealing that vow with a jerk of her chin, she set about searching for wavers in the room, then remembered Beast
had said invisible, not necessarily mute, servants. Could she send one with a note to town? She needed to hire a local youth to take care of her father’s few poultry and goats while she was away, but she didn’t want to sneak back herself to do so.

  She discovered a maid in the room and learned of her afternoon plans: lunch, a bath, a fitting for dresses the maid seemed excited to assist in making, and then dinner with the master. She didn’t get the chance to ask about her message.

  Two hours later, Belinda sighed contentedly as she wrapped a soft robe around herself and left the tub, its scented water still barely warm. Snuggling in the robe, she sat at the dresser and began to brush her tangled chestnut hair in front of the mirror. It was a bath such as she hadn’t enjoyed since her more affluent childhood. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.

  “Psst.”

  Belinda jumped and spun around, half gagging a scream by nearly eating the silver handle of her hairbrush.

  A beautiful woman in a doorway-wide, frilly, muted gray dress stood two feet behind her, a wand in her hand. The enchantress—for what else could she be?—sighed irritably. “I purposefully did not make my usual dramatic entrance so you wouldn’t scream. Do you think I like wearing drab dresses like this?”

  “Is everything okay, miss?” The question followed a soft knock on the door.

  Belinda glanced between the enchantress and the door through which the servant’s voice passed. The lady in gray waved her hand as if indicating she should answer.

  Belinda lowered the hairbrush. “Yes, thank you for checking,” she said, rather louder than she meant to.

  The enchantress nodded approvingly, then twisted and swished her wand behind her. A padded chair of matching color to her dress appeared, and she elegantly seated herself on it. “Has he asked you yet?”

  “Asked what?”

  “You to marry him?”

  “Marry him! We’ve only just met, and I don’t think he cares much for me.” And she’d thought the matchmakers in her village were bad! Gaspard at least had known her for years before plaguing her. He claimed she needed him to look after her and that she was the most beautiful woman in the village. Those reasons or that her once-wealthy father’s connections would give him a sense of status, or something, made her desirable to him.

  The enchantress raised a sculpted brow. “You’re not going to protest that he’s a frightening beast?”

  Belinda gave her a withering look. She might not be a bookish wench, but she was no fool. “He’s not a convincing beast, no matter how much hair and teeth you’ve put on the poor man.”

  The enchantress’s lips thinned. She tapped her fingers on her crossed arms. “I wouldn’t exactly call him a poor man,” she said at last. “But you didn’t answer my question. Did he or did he not? He knows the rules.”

  Belinda’s brows drew together. What kind of curse had poor Beast gotten into? “No, he didn’t. Wait.” Surely proposals wouldn’t follow her here too? “He did mutter something in Italian earlier, but I didn’t catch what he said, and he didn’t explain.”

  The enchantress’s lips pinched quite thin this time. “The cheater,” she hissed. “What did you say?”

  “‘Okay,’ but that was after he’d said a few other things.”

  “Hmm. You should be careful how you answer, dear, especially if you don’t understand the question.”

  Belinda arched an eyebrow, then dipped both into a V. “Is part of his curse asking every woman he meets to marry him?” That would explain why he was so eager to avoid that woman in the forest, and herself.

  “A minor part, yes. I rather hoped it would scare him into the change of heart that would break the curse. Unfortunately, he’s a better runner and conniver than I expected.”

  Belinda’s eyebrows continued in their workout, raising together in surprise this time. The enchantress ignored her for a moment, seemingly intent on some problem.

  “I almost answered him, ‘Yes?’” Belinda murmured after a moment of silent thought herself. Thank goodness Beast had interrupted her.

  “Oh, don’t do that, dear,” the enchantress said, alarmed. “You’d hardly make a suitable wife. Well, perhaps with a different outfit … I’m a fairy godmother on the side, you know. But I’ll have to think it over.” She eyed Belinda a moment, then gave her head a slight shake.

  Ignoring the slur, Belinda continued, “Does he have to marry the one who answers him with a ‘yes’? Because I almost answered ‘Yes?’, which isn’t quite the same thing as ‘Yes.’ And certainly not as ‘Yes!’ Does it have to be a ‘Yes.’ or ‘Yes!’? Or would an ‘I do’ or ‘I will’ or ‘Yep’ or ‘Sure thing’ or any affirmative word or phrase suffice?”

  The enchantress opened her mouth, then shut it a couple of times before speaking. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how particular the curse is. I’ve never used it before.”

  “Hmm,” Belinda said. “Well, I appreciate the warning. Would agreeing to marry him turn me into a beast or free him?” What did the enchantress want of her?

  “Neither. It was just a scare tactic that isn’t working. He has to have a change of heart.”

  “About what?”

  “Well, that’s what I came to talk with you about, isn’t it?”

  “Oh.”

  “You look like a hard-working village lass.”

  Belinda smiled at the compliment, whether it was intended as such or not.

  “The—Beast is shirking his responsibilities. His father wants him to come back, but all Beast wants to do is sit comfortably by the cozy fire and read, safe and untroubled by the responsibilities of his position.”

  Read. Belinda stifled a pang of jealousy. “So you want me to convince him of the value of hard work? Or make him too miserable to stay here?”

  “Something like that.”

  Belinda cocked her head. “Why should I? He’s been kind to let me stay here, though I admit I bullied him into it out of desperation. I don’t want to get myself kicked out before my father returns. And what kind of a father has his son turned into a beast?”

  “What kind of a father lets his son waste his life and abandon his people?”

  “You have a point,” Belinda conceded.

  The enchantress smiled slyly. “So you’ll assist me—the great enchantress Lady Violetta—in this curse breaking?”

  Belinda started to agree, then clamped her mouth shut. Should she trust the enchantress? Risk getting kicked out over a family issue?

  “You could say it’s for the good of the kingdom, your own family.” Lady Violetta gave her a cunning look. “Or you could do it for a reading spell.” Her pink lips twisted in a smirk as Belinda’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not the only one who’s clever,” the enchantress continued smugly. “I know all about you, Miss Belinda Lambton. Third and youngest daughter of a former merchant, once wealthy and privileged but now confined to a country village after a series of shipping disasters ruined your family’s fortune. You were the youngest of the children, but in some ways suffered more from the change than the others, though they whined more. You have difficulty reading and didn’t do well in the village school. Your own sisters made fun of you because of it. When you realized you couldn’t be a scholar like your sisters, who were in truth merely elegant, useless embroiderers who only read poetry to impress beaus, you became a tomboy, practically a hunter-gatherer and servant combined to help your father make ends meet. You had too much of an affluent background and beauty to be liked by the village girls and too much tomboy and too little gossip to be liked by the friends of your cousins in the city.”

  Belinda’s hand fisted around the silver hairbrush. “What makes you so sure I want to read easily?”

  Lady Violetta’s lips slithered into a wily smile. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll need to read in your battle of wills with Beast. I suggest you start by hiding the language books; otherwise, I’ll have to have a talk with him about dissembling during his proposals, and I’d rather not reveal myself at prese
nt. As for breaking the curse, consider how you’d want a leader to act. Think on that. He must stop being the indolent, self-absorbed, overgrown blanket he currently is, and the sooner the better.” She rose, and the chair disappeared. “Now, I must go and you must finish your toilette. I do hope they give you better gowns—and footwear—than the ones you wore here.”

  “Wait,” Belinda said, rising. “Who is Beast truly? Who am I to help him become?”

  “You’re such a clever miss; I thought you would have figured that out by now.”

  “I’ve only just met him,” Belinda sputtered. There were dozens of nobles and leaders around to be potential fathers anxious for their heirs. There was also the prince and his first cousin, the king’s heir and the spare. Belinda’s comment about Beast eating the prince had only been to goad him and was based on a ridiculous rumor. Yet, the prince hadn’t actually been seen in a while …

  Lady Violetta raised a sculpted eyebrow at Belinda, and Belinda’s nose itched. She wrinkled it as discreetly as she could. Where was she? Oh, yes. Even an enchantress couldn’t get away with cursing a prince. And the king’s palaces were too far away from her village for the half-hour walk that brought them here. The prince hadn’t been seen in a while, to be sure, but he was away somewhere looking for the man who tried to assassinate the king and who’d injured him a few years ago, and probably looking for a wife too. Beast had to be some nobleman’s son.

  “If I were you, dear,” Lady Violetta interrupted Belinda’s thoughts, “I’d focus on helping him overcome his indolence and self-absorption, for everyone’s good, including your father’s.”

  Her leading tone caught Belinda’s interest. “You’ll help my father if I help Beast break his curse?”

  “It will certainly benefit him. I’m sure something could be arranged to that nature.”

  Belinda’s brows furrowed at the muddled answer. “I need specifics.”