Midnight for a Curse

by E J Kitchens

  Chapter 9

  Belinda had something in her hand when she woke the next morning, stiff, bleary-eyed, and still tired. Between blinks and squints, she ascertained that it was a rumpled letter. Had Beast left her a message? He was no longer in his chair.

  As she smoothed the parchment between her fingers, her brain slowly woke and reminded her of the previous day’s events. She re-folded the half-opened letter and stuffed it back in its pocket between the cushion and the chair arm.

  Despite Lyndon’s hint, Belinda Lambton was not stooping to spying on Beast.

  By letter, anyway. She couldn’t help her dreams.

  Belinda hurried upstairs, determined not to still be in her dressing gown when her dreams caught up with her. A maid was just finishing up her hair when Belinda’s hairbrush yanked her attention to itself. She’d been brushing her hair when Lady Violetta first visited, the enchantress who made her dream. Her dreaming about Beast’s jaunts proved she was meant to be spying on him, didn’t it? For whatever reason, Lady Violetta didn’t wish her to know exactly who Beast was—or wasn’t supposed to tell her—but there was no reason Belinda couldn’t do as much spying as her itchy nose allowed. To aid The Uncurse Plan, of course. Besides, Beast’s parents wanted him uncursed, and the letters were likely written to them.

  As soon as the maid released her, Belinda marched downstairs and retrieved the letter from her chair. She arranged it according to the scratchy numbers handwritten on the bottom of each of the three sheets, each written nearly full on both sides, then read. Her cheeks grew red as she did. The letter was addressed to his parents, as she supposed; there were a few paragraphs concerning her, but she didn’t have the courage to read those. What attracted her attention—and more than a trifle of her fury—was a lengthy discussion of the naval maneuvers of New Beaumont and New Grimmland—which he’d refused to speak to her about—and other matters of state before comments on what she assumed were family matters. Why had he pretended indifference concerning those to her?

  Tossing the letter on the little table beside her chair, she grabbed the neatly folded, unsealed letter on the table beside Beast’s chair, all compunction lost to other sensations. The red of her face deepened as she skimmed this single sheet.

  Lips pressed together, she retrieved the thick, rumpled letter and stared between it and the pristine, thin one. In her left hand were six sides of paper with a well-reasoned and articulated discussion of family and state matters written in a manner that suggested an interest far greater than mere polite responses to questions asked. In her right, one side of flippant, borderline disrespectful nothings.

  It was all she could do not to crush that single sheet. Why, that deceitful, conniving, underhanded coward of a Beast! He didn’t need a change of heart—he cared about his family and the kingdom. And he was willing to study and learn for them—he cared enough to study in secret when he thought she wasn’t watching in order to prepare responses to his parents’ inquiries. He cared. He simply refused to admit it while playing the part of an indolent creature. But why? Why pour out his heart and mind on paper but not send it? He was hiding from something in that rug of a fur coat of his. Well, after she got ahold of him, he’d be hiding from h—

  She blinked as a sudden tiredness washed over her.

  After she dreamed, then she’d have a chat with Beast.

  Her vision blurred as she felt her way to her chair and sat, resting her head against the cushioned wing. She wondered vaguely if that swish of the door signaled Lyndon’s entrance to the library or hers to the dream.

  The forest was quiet and Beast more anxious than usual. His nose continually sniffed the air, his neck swiveling side to side. Once, he listed to the right, a limp seemingly taking him by surprise. He walked onward a few feet, limping lightly, until shaking himself and glancing around the forest once more.

  Belinda couldn’t tell how long he paced within sight of the village, still and silent in slumber below him. The sun would soon rise brilliantly over the mountain peaks. No one would notice him then, and he knew it.

  No one from the village, that is. Belinda looked around the dream, searching for the woman. Was she some plant of the enchantress’s to torment Beast? Or someone else, someone he knew from before his curse?

  No woman appeared, however, so Belinda studied the village in the growing light. It clung to a rocky mountainside, all somber stone buildings and walls, trees poking up here and there until gaining in density beyond the circle of homes and shops. The gray stone wept from the village, forming an orange-tinted ribbon of road in the sunrise, running over the mountainside to the pass leading to whatever lay beyond it.

  There was something familiar about that sunflower-tinted grayness. Belinda couldn’t see far beyond Beast in the dreams, but she managed to shift her view just enough to read the sign on the larger village inn: The Dog and Barrel.

  It was a village between her father’s house and the capital. In little more than a week, her father would be staying there, as eager to return to her as she to him.

  Beast’s ears perked, his whole stance indicating alertness, and Belinda’s attention hurried back to him. The woman approached from the village footpath. Beast sensed her and stole back toward the stream that marked the boundaries of his land.

  The lady moved faster, the brush of her silk skirts loud enough to compete with the songs of morning coming from the forest canopy. Beast shifted into a jog. Belinda glanced back at the lady to gauge her progress. Her fingers tapped against a golden locket in time with her steps. She was smiling through her panting. Smugly.

  Alarmed, Belinda jerked away to scout Beast’s path. No men. So why that smug smile? She searched the paths Beast might take again and the woods around them. Small, furry creatures that shied from the bright light of day waddled through the underbrush, but no men.

  There. Something off-white amid the leaves. A bit of a rogue’s shirt?

  No, a length of rope.

  An accidentally unmasked length of rope tied between two trees.

  Belinda surveyed again with a keener eye. All through the forest, camouflaged ropes were taut between trees, hidden and low. Beast was running toward one now.

  Her vision sped: Beast running, tripping over a rope that snapped around his ankle; the woman standing over him, demanding Beast ask her what she knew he must; Beast, with defeat and horror in his face, asking. The scenes flashed again and again before her eyes, her heart pounding in the same impossibly fast pattern.

  “Look out, Beast!” she cried.

  Lyndon. She had to tell Lyndon. But the dream never gave her up before it was done.

  But she talked in her sleep. And Lyndon intended to guard Beast through her dreams.

  “Lyndon! Lyndon! There are tripwires hidden all over the forest.”

  That same forest began to shake.

  “Tripwires! Lyndon, you must do something!”

  It shook until Belinda felt her dream-self toppling. How was Beast still running? Why didn’t it topple him before the ropes did?

  “Belinda! Wake up!”

  Her head bounced against the chair back as her body moved in something between a gentle nudging and a desperate shaking.

  Blinking, Belinda caught Lyndon’s arm. “I’m awake. He’s on his way back, but she’s littered the forest with tripwires. He can’t smell those. You must go—”

  Lyndon was already standing, pulling her up with him and dragging her out of the library to the front door. He pressed his pocket knife into her hand. “I can’t interfere, but you can. Go!”

  Belinda’s legs caught his rhythm, then darted past him as an invisible servant opened the door. Hiking up her skirts, Belinda flew over the paved carriageway. A shiver ran up her spine as the forest beyond the castle wavered as she sped under the arched gate. Would it let her back in?

  She crossed the stream and shot down the path Beast would be coming up. It ran parallel to the road, and she had no doubt the lady’s thugs were waiting there for her
call.

  Belinda pumped her legs harder, her voluminous skirts nearly as loud in the forest as the lady’s. Why did proposals always seem to involve burning lungs and running?

  She leapt over a fallen tree and faltered in her landing, her scraped legs protesting as she fell. A squeak sounded low and to her left, sending her heart into a frenzied rhythm, one that wasn’t helped by the sight of twin stripes of white on black disappearing into the bushes. Or by the scent barreling her way. Oh no. She scrambled back, gagging.

  “Oh, Beastie.” The saccharine call from ahead was smooth and self-satisfied.

  Oh no, you don’t. Belinda pushed up and ran. The smell clinging to her ran with her.

  She might as well make use of it.

  Ignoring the taut, tender skin of her legs, Belinda dredged up more sped and started flailing her arms. “Skunk! Rabid raccoon!” she yelled. “Skunk! Rabid raccoon!”

  Light green fabric shifted among the trees ahead.

  “Skuuuunk! Rabid raccooooon!”

  Belinda tore past the wide-eyed lady, skidded to a halt, and raced back to her. A brownish furry leg was just visible in the bushes off the path. “Skunk! Rabid raccoon! Run, my lady!”

  “What—!” she cried. Belinda grabbed her arm and pulled. The lady tumbled after her. “Unhand me—”

  “Rabid raccooooon!” Belinda yelled over her and tugged her stumbling down the path, the lady alternately protesting and trying not to gag. “Come on! Before it gets you!” She added in a hop every few feet for effect, and to avoid the occasional rope. “Racooooon!”

  Twenty feet up the path, Belinda shoved the woman ahead of her. “Keep going! I’ll see if it’s following us.” She sprinted back to Beast, darted past him, spun around twice and screamed, hopping with each cry, “There it is! There it is!” She ran ahead again, chunking the knife at Beast’s foot as she leapt over the one loose rope end.

  She met the woman coming back and spun her around, ignoring her protests, which were growing quite colorful verbally. They were also physically determined enough to make Belinda glad she’d once been used to hard labor.

  “Thank goodness! We’re saved!” Belinda pushed the lady past the last shrub and onto the dirt road, sending dirt shimmering onto their gowns and scaring away the remaining mist. A fine carriage and enough guards and footmen as proper for a high-born lady awaited.

  “It’s just bit a squirrel, and now they’re both after us!” Belinda cried, dragging her to the carriage. “Quick!” she called to the mounted guards and servants lingering about the carriage. “There’re dangerous wild animals coming. You must get away! Your mistress isn’t safe.”

  The guards looked to one another and to their mistress before a footman jumped down to open the carriage door. One guard, a man with a regal, military bearing and scars on his face, dismounted and strode to Belinda and the lady. As he approached, Belinda realized he wasn’t wearing a guard’s uniform, but a soldier’s of rank.

  Belinda’s steps faltered as her eyes met his. They were a familiar blue. But surely his eyes were his own and no one else could have them.

  The lady slipped from Belinda’s grasp. “You fool! You’ve ruined everything!” Her hand clashed sharply against Belinda’s cheek.

  Belinda fell back, blinking away tears as her hand covered her stinging cheek. She deserved that, but ouch. She was too shocked to notice the fire still burning in the woman’s chestnut-colored eyes and the well-manicured hand pulling back for another strike, until the blue-eyed man grabbed the woman’s wrist.

  “Leave her be, Lucrezia.” He said it with a calm authority. She’d heard that voice before: he was the hero and bandit chaser.

  “I found him, Robert,” the woman hissed, jabbing her free hand threateningly at Belinda. “And her stunt let him get away. All these months, wasted!”

  Belinda backed quietly away toward the tree line.

  “If he ‘got away’ then it’s probably for the best,” Robert said, with a quick glance at Belinda. She stilled.

  Lucrezia quit struggling against his hold, though her thin lips and flaring nostrils didn’t indicate a surrender. “Robert,” she said, her voice turning sickeningly sweet, “you want me to talk to him, don’t you? You know my way is best.”

  Robert opened his mouth, his eyes already expressing his disagreement, but no words came out. He raised his shoulder to brush at his ear.

  “Robert,” she said sharply, then her voice softened. “Listen to me, Robert. You know it’s best. Now let me go.”

  Robert did, his eyes glazing. He tugged his ear.

  Belinda’s nose itched as she focused on that tugging of his earlobe.

  “Stop touching your ear,” Lucrezia said sharply as she stepped away from him. Belinda darted back to the safety of the line of bushes. Lucrezia ignored her and ordered Robert to hand her into the carriage, then she turned back long enough to find Belinda. “Don’t ever let me see you again,” she hissed, then rapped on the carriage ceiling for the driver to go.

  As the carriage rumbled away, Belinda let out a sigh and stepped back onto the road, finally regaining enough sense to try for a look at the carriage’s markings.

  “Make sure she gets a bath!” Belinda yelled after it. She winced and gingerly touched her jaw. It was only a hair from being out of joint. What an arm for a noblewoman.

  “Thank you.”

  Barely stifling a scream, Belinda spun around.

  Robert stood by his horse, watching her.

  “For what?” she croaked, lowering her hands.

  He gave her a sad smile. “Do you need any assistance with the dangerous wild animals? Or a ride home?”

  She took a step back, her gaze darting to the forest. She didn’t like the way he’d said that. Irrationally disliked, given his kindness. But still … “No, thank you, my lord.” Her nose itched again as she met his gaze and studied his blue eyes. It wasn’t just his eyes that were familiar. His entire face and build were. Had she seen him before, out of her dreams? Or a portrait of him? It was all she could do not to scratch her nose. “It’s kind of you to offer.”

  As she studied him, he studied her. Unconsciously, Belinda straightened her dress and smoothed her hair.

  “What’s your name, my lady?”

  My lady? Her? Oh. Striving for an air worthy of the elegant dress she wore, Belinda curtsied. “Miss Belinda Lambton, my lord.”

  “Do you live in the village there?”

  “I can easily get home. You’ve no need to worry.”

  He quirked an eyebrow, but something in his expression suggested a confirmed suspicion. He bowed. “May I—” He glanced at the forest, indecision lingering in his gaze before his head bowed in defeat or hopelessness. “Are you certain I can be of no assistance?”

  “No more than you have already. My jaw is ever in your debt.”

  A corner of his mouth curved, setting off the three thin, white scars on his cheek. Belinda’s heart did a strange flip-flop. He nodded and mounted his horse. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lambton. I hope I shall see you again.” He clicked to his horse and trotted up the road, opposite the carriage’s path.

  Not waiting for him to vanish beyond her sight, Belinda jogged back through the forest until reaching a set of trees with rope burns. The bushes shivered and shuffled at her approach.

  “Beast, it’s me.”

  Beast’s head and shoulders appeared above a holly sapling, his reply lost to Belinda as the excitement waned and her lungs’ messages grew too loud to ignore.

  She plopped down in the leaves next to Beast and doubled over, breathing heavily and laughing softly to herself.

  Beast shifted to make room for her, his legs scooting out of sight further under the holly. “Are you insane?” He gaped at her, uncertainty, concern, and stupefaction blending in his expression.

  That only made Belinda laugh louder. She leaned back on her hands, letting the laughter out and her breath catch up to her before she answered. Sobering, she sat up and t
ook the knife from Beast, whose paws clearly weren’t capable of using it properly. “Only when it’s useful.” She grinned at him. “Since I met you, it’s come in handy more than once. King David would be proud. He only escaped the king of Gath.”

  Beast stared at her, his brows a bushy crown. Then he shook himself, that ghastly smile pulling back his lips from his teeth. “You’re a marvel, Belinda Lambton.”

  “That’s one way to describe me,” she said, a touch of sarcasm in her tone.

  “Truly, Belinda, I mean it.”

  Her knife stilled and she met his gaze, searching.

  “Truly,” he repeated.

  Belinda looked down at her knife, remembering many a less flattering description of herself. “Let’s get you free, shall we? Can you pull your legs out from the holly?”

  Beast obligingly drew them up, bending his knees and quickly clasping his ankles, covering them almost entirely. “The rope between the trees detached and wrapped my ankles together. A third connection chained me to that tree.” He nodded to the mother holly beyond the sapling. “Just cut the rope to the tree and the one between my ankles for now. Lyndon will take care of the rest at the castle.

  “What are you doing out here?” he continued. “I would’ve known if you’d followed me from the castle this morning.”

  “I dreamed about what was happening. And don’t ask me how. I certainly didn’t ask to have my sleeping habits tied to your daily constitutionals.”

  Beast gaped at her. Again. “You dream about me?”

  “Have visions is more accurate. So don’t flatter yourself too much.” Belinda clicked the knife shut and rose to her knees. “And why is it so surprising? You have an enchanted castle and invisible servants. Can you stand?”

  Wincing, Beast pulled his feet underneath him and allowed Belinda to help him up. He protested mildly when Belinda draped his arm over her shoulders but seemed sensible enough to know a determined woman when he met one. They started walking slowly, cautiously, up the trail.