by E J Kitchens
Belinda checked a smirk. Pity? What a blow to her vanity! And here’s to yours, Beast. “I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in consumption.”
“Peace! I will stop your mouth.” Beast rose from his chair, reached hers in two steps, and hunched over her, coming close enough for Belinda to smell the lavender scent of his clothes. Her heart stuttered as the stage direction glared up at her: Kissing her.
“Why, Beast!” Her affected cry of mock indignation cracked as she pressed back in her chair. “Don’t you dare act that ou—”
With a very un-beast-like twinkle in his eyes, he shoved a cup of hot chocolate in her hand and returned to his seat, not even missing his next lines.
Belinda melted against the chair back, held her cup to her mouth, and tried to pretend her cheeks were heated only from the aromatic steam. Thank goodness for the curse. Those eyes in a human face would be dangerous to a woman’s heart. Not that Belinda was prone to romantic foolishness.
They all slipped into silence as the play concluded, watching the fire and savoring their drinks. She, wanting to confirm a suspicion and still genuinely pained and exhausted, allowed herself to bob along the waves at the boundary of sleep and wakefulness.
And so she made no protest when Beast quietly chided her for falling asleep in her chair and then carried her gently upstairs and gave her to the maids to ready her for bed.
Beast has a protector’s heart. Belinda mused over the discovery as she settled into her covers. Lyndon told her to ascertain what virtues Beast possessed, if he had any that could be kindled to break the curse. Now she knew of two: a protector’s heart and generosity as a host. Perhaps even a sense of humor, she added, remembering his laughter and twinkling eyes.
Unlike his smile, Belinda decided as she fell asleep, Beast’s laughter was not ghastly, merely deep and rumbly and warm.
Chapter 8
A miracle! Here’s our own hands against our hearts. Belinda tossed Lyndon’s note from the reading into the fire. He’d left it a second time when he visited her the previous morning, along with a cryptic comment about a rose missing another petal. Was that a euphemism for Beast growing older?
And why that quote? Was he recommending she invade Beast’s private correspondence to learn more of his heart? That was hardly an honorable thing to do. Belinda gave the note curling and blackening in the fireplace another glance, one of shock and suspicion. Did Lyndon read Beast’s mail? He didn’t seem the type.
Shaking her head, she straightened gingerly. It had now been several days since The Incident and the beginning of the nightly reading. Her legs, side, and arm were much better, though far from normal. She stroked the powder blue satin of her gown. Was it possible to return to normal, after being pampered and sedentary so long? Would she even be able to run fast enough to escape Gaspard by the time she returned home?
It was time to get active again, but she’d beaten the sun up. She couldn’t go out. Clean her chambers? She looked around her spotless room and her chest tightened.
She’d dust the library. Surely that would keep her occupied for a time.
Taking her shawl against the morning’s chill, she crept down to the library, not wanting to disturb anyone with her early morning perambulations to collect a cleaning cloth and get to the library. Her heart fell as she pushed open the ornately carved door: the normally cheerful room was as empty and lifeless as its cold hearth. As if she expected any different before the sun rose. She stifled the strange feeling that she had expected something else.
After seeing to the fire, Belinda began the exhausting task of hunting for dust. When that proved more stressful that not, she chose a book and marched resolutely to her little desk, which had been neglected of late. She did not, however, search for letters among the papers on the table adjacent to Beast’s desk. If it did occur to her his name might be on them, she ignored the dishonorable thought and focused on her book. It would be an unprincipled act to read private mail. Her father would never approve of using such means to gain her own end even if that end aided him as well.
Some time later, the chamber maid entered to see to the fire, but noticing it was done, backed out. Belinda ignored her too.
Two chapters later, that unearthly sleepiness began to creep over her, at last. Another early morning venture.
And her about to crash onto a desk and possibly be drooling over a book when Beast found her.
Her vision half in the morning mist and half on the library furniture, Belinda stumbled across the carpet, guiding herself on chair backs and free-standing shelves until she collapsed into her chair by the fire.
The dream was much the same as the others, except that rain and a howling wind chased Beast back to the castle rather than the lady. And that Lyndon went ahead of Beast to the village and passed a letter off to a cloaked man. The man clapped Lyndon on the shoulder with easy familiarity and rode away. His athletic form was vaguely familiar.
It was the smell of coffee that woke Belinda.
She opened her eyes to see steam rising from a delightfully scented porcelain cup on the little table beside her chair. Across from her, Beast sat, practically a part of his chair, holding his mug in front of his face, as if it could hide his toothy smirk.
“I’d say you’re up early, but you aren’t actually up.”
“I was. Briefly.” And if I’m not up, it’s your fault. Belinda sat up, quickly taking up the coffee cup as an excuse to look away from Beast’s bright blue look of amusement. He picked up a book on the care of roses, and soon breakfast arrived for both of them.
There was quite a crowd for her normally solitary morning meal, Belinda thought grimly as a tray appeared before her: Herself. Beast. And the storm that had followed Beast to the castle.
Lightning flashed so sharply beyond the stained glass windows that even an enchantress would have had a difficult time competing for brilliance. Belinda’s cup rattled onto its saucer and her shoulders scrunched as she counted, bracing for the peal of thunder.
And waited for the scorn that usually followed her flinching. But Beast wasn’t her sisters. He ostensibly paid no more mind to her than to the thunder, and somehow, realizing that, she ate in greater peace than she expected.
After the breakfast trays had been taken away, Belinda let her restless feet guide her from the library for that tour of the castle she’d promised herself when she arrived. She gawked properly at the towering entryway, laughed to herself at the enchantress’s clever or sometimes ridiculous transformations, and tried to imagine how the castle might look after the curse was broken.
Her tour took her up stairs and down corridors she’d had no reason to traverse before. She was not, understandably, to invade private apartments, but most of the rooms on the wing currently under investigation appeared to be guest chambers. All decorated with thorned vines and dead flowers. Lots of dead flowers. Was Lady Violetta trying to tell Beast something or had she run out of ideas? The flower of his youth was wasting away, perhaps?
Taking a narrow staircase at the end of the lengthy corridor, she followed its curves up into the tower of the castle. This particular tower, if she guessed her location properly, had a twisted appearance and numerous spikes. Like intertwined vines studded with thorns.
It was a very tall tower, and its stones did little to shield her from the vibrations caused by the thunder. No warmth of fires reached this far either, and little light ventured in to touch the stone steps, beyond those raucous flashes of storm light. She wasn’t quite sure why she was practically walking up into the heart of the storm, other than a stubborn determination not to cower before it again that day. So she kept going.
When the small windows revealed naught but darkening clouds, the stairway ceased, flattening out into a small antechamber of rough rock lacking the polish of the floors below. That didn’t surprise her. But the open door, with candlelight and voices drifting from it, did.
There was a break in the louder conversation, and Belinda started, realizing with a blush that she was leaning against the doorframe eavesdropping with a ridiculous smile on her face. She had definitely not been woolgathering about conversations between her future, silver-haired self and anyone else.
Did beasts turn gray with age? She rolled her eyes at the ridiculous question.
A sign above the lintel read “Observation Room,” so she had no reason not to take the room at its word. “Hello?” she called as she stepped over the threshold.
Gasping, Belinda jerked back, grabbing the door with one hand and pressing the other to her chest. The rounded room stretched out from the castle wall, narrowing to a point some fifty feet beyond it. Rather like the inside of a very long thorn.
A glass one.
The room’s walls, ceiling, and floor were transparent, providing excellent, and very disturbing, views of the swirling clouds and lightning bolts outside.
Belinda swallowed hard. What? No spyglass to observe the neighbors? How disappointing.
Not far into the room were two tables, a desk, and a few comfortable chairs. A tea kettle began to whistle happily on a wood-burning stove just beyond those. Crossing her eyes, Belinda could make out two servants, one rising from the desk chair and one standing beside the stove. That second set of voices stilled.
On the desk, visible through the male servant, was a silver hand mirror resting on a stand, the apparent focus of the otherwise barren room. Like many of the rooms below, the mirror had a pattern of thorned vines and flowers. Stylized roses, Belinda decided, and wondered. A mirror in an enchanted castle. This was an observation room, but of what and by what means? The mirror’s reflection, though not plain to her where she stood, didn’t seem the right blend of colors for the room around her. Or more to the point, the clouds around her.
“Oh, miss!” said the woman by the stove, worry in her tone. “Should she be up here?” she whispered to her husband.
“Should you?” the man asked Belinda.
Belinda shrugged. “I know of no particular reason why I should be here, nor any reason why I shouldn’t. This is an observation room, and I am observing the castle. Only personal chambers were forbidden to me.”
The man shrugged as well then, and Belinda fancied he swung his arm out toward the walls, away from the mirror. “Observe away then. Just don’t faint.”
A smile twisted Belinda’s lips. Oh, he was a clever one. “I’ll try not to.” Belinda smirked to herself at the thought that an invisible man couldn’t very well block the sight of a mirror, or make too much of a fuss if she sat on him. After all, it was a long flight of stairs, and she could use a rest. But after a stroll around the room, to throw them off guard.
The wife offered Belinda a cup of tea, which Belinda declined, suspecting there was only water enough in the pot for two cups. Hands behind her back, Belinda strolled casually along one length of the room, catching glimpses through the swirling clouds of forests and gardens below. Eventually, the room narrowed too much for her to stand.
Catching the wall for support during a tremor caused by a thunderclap, she shut her eyes in preparation against yet another blinding flash. She had a mere second’s wait, then she opened her eyes and pointed her feet back toward the desk and door. There was really no point in dissembling her interest and remaining there longer than strictly necessary.
“Who are you watching in the enchanted mirror?” she asked, walking hastily, but with dignity, back to the occupied section of the thorn-room. It couldn’t be Beast. Otherwise, Lyndon wouldn’t be so interested in her dreams.
The man sighed softly and rose again from his chair at the desk and stepped aside. “Would my lady care to see for herself? A picture is worth a thousand words.”
Unless a word—a name—is all that would be telling. Belinda perched on the edge of the chair and looked into the mirror’s surface.
It was a room, richly furnished, and extravagantly lit with candles. It was an uncursed room. Decorated in kingdom colors and hung with a map of New Beaumont, a flag of New Beaumont, and portraits of famous kings and generals, it bore equal signs of wealth and love of New Beaumont. Near the rear of the room, a large man sat behind a large desk in an intimidating duo of largeness. The man’s eyes were even the same chestnut brown as the desk, and just as hard. Only, the desk lacked his haughty air. A trim man stood before him, showing him some figures on paper. Though the second man’s clothes were not as fine, they gave an impression of a lower kind of authority. His look, at the moment, however, was cowed. The steward?
“Incredible!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Are the mirror’s observations random or are they controlled?”
Beast’s servant hesitated. “My master is concerned for his family.”
That was Beast’s father? Barely keeping the exclamation to herself, Belinda leaned forward to better observe the man, something in her gut revolting at the idea of a blood connection between her beast and that arrogant bully. Not that she could find a physical resemblance between the man and Beast in his current form. Switching her attention to the room again for clues, she studied a crest on the wall she’d missed earlier, before remembering the second set of voices. She reached for the mirror’s handle, curious if the faraway voices would return if she touched it.
“Please, my lady.”
Belinda caught the sense of movement, as if the man reached out his hand to her in a pleading motion to match the tone of his voice. Shame warmed her chest. Had Beast no privacy and his servants no right to try to maintain that?
What of the privacy of the subjects of the servant’s observation?
Beast has his reasons.
Surely.
“Forgive me,” she said quickly. Drawing back her hand, she stood. “Beast has many secrets, and I shall have to content myself with being surrounded by an air of mystery.”
Wishing the couple a good day, she jogged down the tower steps, deciding to be less nosy and more musically inclined. There was nothing like a concerto to drown out the thunder.
Beast and Lyndon joined her in the music room, listening, praising, and accompanying her. She played while they sang. Lyndon played while she and Beast sang. Lyndon listened while she played the piano and Beast played a cursed version of a bass violin that looked rather like a tortured donkey but sounded superb. Beast was a … person of many talents.
Long after midnight, a sudden flash of light lit up Belinda’s room, highlighting her reflection in the gilded, floor-length mirror across the chamber like a spectral vision.
Rather pretty, is she? She’d almost forgotten Lyndon’s comment to Beast what seemed so long ago. Though her heart still pounded from the crack of thunder that swiftly followed the lightning, she couldn’t stop a bittersweet smile. She was ghastly pale in the mirror’s reflection, but Belinda knew she still had the silky hair, bright eyes, and striking figure that had caused her to lose the friendship of her jealous sisters and many likewise-envious village lasses. That had gained her the interest of many a man, some of whom had no right to be interested in any woman, let alone her.
How fortunate she was to be blessed with beauty.
Yet Beast had thought her pretty. He, whoever he was, must have lived in the best circles and seen many attractive women, all educated in the best finishing schools and pampered by numerous servants. All unlike Belinda with her simple clothes and self-styled hair. Yet he’d found her pretty enough to emphasize with a snarl that he wasn’t interested. He didn’t deny her beauty, but he also never made her uncomfortable about it.
Rolling from
one side to the other, Belinda tried to squash the feminine vanity that thought brought, but she couldn’t. What had Beast looked like before his curse? Would she think him handsome? Or too foppish to earn that designation, no matter how fine his features? Who was he really, a stump or a scrawny sprout?
And how could she use that knowledge to free him and help her father regain his former life and attain her own freedom from Gaspard? That was what she should concern herself with.
In the wee hours, the storm unabated, Belinda crept down to the library, feeling better with more stone between her and the storm and less air between her and the ground. And perhaps …
The library fire was still bright and warm. Beast was asleep in his chair. A folded missive sat on the table beside him, only lacking a seal to be ready. Wrinkled, handwritten pages lay tossed about his feet.
Shaking her head, she bent to retrieve the discarded sheets. He was a messy thing, far too used to servants picking up after him.
Perhaps too unconcerned about unscrupulous servants—or guests—reading his correspondence as well. If Beast could spy on who-knew-whom, then perhaps she could—
The tip of the last crumpled sheet was tucked between her fingers when Beast shifted in his chair and said in a voice softer and more rumbly than usual, “Leave my messes to myself or the servants. Go to sleep, Miss Lambton. In your chair.”
Startled, she glanced between Beast and her chair. A blanket of wool the color of sunlit sky warmed her place in it, as if waiting for her. Her fingers closed automatically around the pages, folded them neatly, and tucked them into the space between her seat’s cushion and arm as she sat, marveling and grateful that Beast was letting her stay. Belinda snuggled between the soft cushions of the chair and the warm blanket, closed her eyes, and listened to Beast’s even breaths.
Despite the cracks of thunder that shook the window panes, causing even the castle stones to tremble in reverence, Belinda slept.