by Lucy Leven
Willeme.
He was waiting for her there, at the foot of the grand staircase. His clothes were black and sombre, his hair neat, his eyes very clear.
He held out his hand when she came near, and Nicolette took it. “Might I have this dance, my lady?”
“You might, if you ceased calling me your lady.”
“Nicolette, then,” Willeme said — breathed her name, such warmth in it, such joy. “Will you dance with me?”
She would. And she did, as the ghostly strains of a lute floated down from somewhere high above.
Willeme held her close. So much closer than was proper of the dance, so much closer than was proper at all. But what care did Nicolette have for propriety? None. None at all when Willeme touched her so. When he held her hands clasped tight between his own. Lifted them. Kissed them.
“Marry me,” he said. “Please.”
As sudden as a flash of lightning in a winter storm, Nicolette’s mind was elsewhere: back to the village, to the menfolk, to her maggot of a husband, to the scratch of a scream in the back of her throat, the bite of shackles into her soft wrists, the phantom touch of a freezing, merciless wind.
She pulled herself from Willeme’s arms, stumbled back from him on suddenly unsteady legs.
“I cannot,” she said. “Oh, Willeme. I cannot marry you.”
And then it was Nicolette who turned and fled.
She did not see Willeme for days. She trailed around the castle still, but aimlessly, like a ship without wind enough for her sails, until all her contrary tacking steered her to the Great Hall, where the Beast stood at his station, watching the flames burn high.
“Ah, lass,” he said when he chose to see her, idle in his expression, though Nicolette knew there was nothing idle in his intent. “Did you hear the news? Willeme is to leave us soon.”
“To the Capital?” Claria asked, trying hard to bite down on the sudden, frantic note that threatened to overtake her voice. “On business of yours?”
“To the Capital, certainly,” the Beast said. “But his business is mine no longer. Instead, it is somewhat more regal.”
“I do not—” Nicolette began.
The Beast gestured with the letter he held, the heavy wax seal already broken. “It seems our new King would have Willeme as his advisor.”
“But — but why?”
Nicolette’s evident surprise drew forth a bark of a laugh from the Beast. “Willeme’s work for me is well-known and well-respected. Many have tried to steal him away, and all have failed, but even a Beast cannot deny the summons of a King.”
Nicolette’s eyes rolled quite of their own accord. “Yes,” she said, “you very well could.”
“Perhaps,” the Beast allowed, his sharp smile owning to his lie. “But either way, I would never deny Willeme such an honour. He will make a fine advisor to the King.”
“To the King,” Nicolette said, “in the Capital…” And then she said, her words as cautious as her thoughts, “I have been thinking, of late, upon something the Madame de La Roche said to me on the night of the ball… She said that if I wished not to be married, I need not be, and I…” Nicolette took a breath, straightened her shoulders, looked the Beast in his golden eyes. “I do not wish to be married, Beast.”
“Then you do not have to be,” the Beast said.
Nicolette stared at him, her mouth tipped open. “It cannot be that simple.”
“It can,” the Beast said. “It is. You are to have an inheritance from me, and a name of pedigree and bearing. You may own your own household. You may run that household as you see fit. You may buy yourself everything you wish that can be bought, or you may buy nothing at all.”
“Silks and furs and jewels?” Nicolette said.
“As many as you wished.”
“And a fine house in the Capital?” Nicolette asked, a strange, flaring bud of hope unfurling within her. “With a shining knocker on the door? With windows so high that I might see the towers of the King’s Palace?”
“Yes,” the Beast said, “all of these things.”
Nicolette’s brow furrowed as her mind whirled. “And if I had my own household, Beast, I would need a staff.”
The Beast’s brow furrowed a little in turn, as though confused by the sudden turn of her thoughts. “Lass?”
“We cannot all summon servants from smoke and air, Beast,” Nicolette said. “I would need to employ them. And so I might employ some of the young women of the village, you see. Give them a position and lives away from that awful place. Some of the lads too, I think, as footmen and stablehands. Away from the menfolk and all their awfulness. Could I do that, do you think?”
“Yes,” the Beast said — simply, plainly, a small smile playing about his lips, nothing sly in it, only pleased. “You could do just that. No husband needed.”
No husband needed, indeed. “But…”
“But?”
“But first, I must find Willeme!”
In the library she found him, hunched over some old, dusty book, a ledger at his elbow, his pen in his hand, his fingers stained with ink.
“I will not marry you!” Nicolette announced. She skidded to a stop beside him. “Willeme, I will not!”
Willeme eased himself up out of his chair and stood before her. The set of his shoulders was weary. The expression in his eyes was as flat as his mouth. “Yes,” he said, just as flatly. “You made that quite clear when you ran away as I asked for your hand.”
Nicolette’s brows shot up near enough to her hairline. “And who are you to speak of running away, you awful little milksop!”
Willeme drew breath to reply, their usual biting back-and-forth, but Nicolette saw the moment he decided on a different approach. A solution, as he saw it.
“You like fine things,” Willeme said. “Gold and silks and jewels.”
“And what woman with a lick of sense would not?”
“If I am to be the King’s advisor, I will be rich,” Willeme carried on mulishly.
“I will still be richer,” Nicolette said, just as mulishly.
“Your coin would be your own,” Willeme insisted, “if you married me. I would not take it from you.”
“The law would take it from me. Take it all from me and give it all to you.”
Willeme had no answer to that, for that was the truth.
“Do you know where I came from?” Nicolette pressed on. “How it is I came to be here, at the Beast’s castle?”
Willeme watched her cautiously, and for a moment he did not speak. Then, “I know some of it,” he said, “and I am sorry for it. I am sorry for what they did to you. My master has spoken of it, and of the village, and of a poisonous enchantment that cannot be broken or—”
“They forced me to marry him,” Nicolette cut in, “that horrid old man. And even when I had done so, that still was not enough for them. They sacrificed me to a beast they thought would ravish me in the most awful of ways, all to keep themselves and their meagre riches safe.” She held up her hand. “All for one ring of gold.”
Willeme watched her still, his face crumpled with sympathy.
Nicolette took a step closer to him. Reached out to touch his wrist. “Now, I have been told that you are a man of good sense. So then surely you cannot be surprised to find that I do not care for marriage. Not at all.”
“And perhaps I would not either,” Willeme allowed, “had my position been as yours.”
“But it would never have been, for you are a man.”
Willeme acknowledged her point with another dip of his chin. His eyes were awfully serious, the paleness in them gone a stormy grey.
“I will not marry you,” Nicolette said, placing her words with care, “but I do not wish to be apart from you, Willeme. I wish never to be apart from you.”
“You… I…” The storm in Willeme’s eyes quietened a touch as understanding grew. “We would be a scandal,” he said. “We would be the talk of the Capital.”
“You would be the King’s
man,” Nicolette said, feeling a smile begin to curve her mouth. “Scandal would not touch you. And if it touched me, I would be rich enough not to care.”
Willeme gave a small nod. He drew closer to her. “Not having to keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed would save me plenty of coin…”
“With which you could buy any number of boring, dusty books,” Nicolette finished for him.
Willeme’s mouth quirked. “I would have nowhere to keep them.”
“Then I shall build you a library. Finer than the castle’s, indeed.”
“Well then.” Willeme gathered her to him, kissed her, so gentle and full of joy — so full of tenderness. Of love. “Since you asked so prettily: I will not marry you, my lady.”
And incandescent with delight, Nicolette replied, “And nor shall I marry you, my lord.”
In all too short a time, the day came for Nicolette to leave. Outside of the castle grounds, winter lay hard upon the Dark Forest and the valley beyond. Their journey — Willeme and hers — it might very well be an arduous one, but Nicolette was ready to make it. The world had not stopped calling, and how she wished to see it with Willeme at her side.
And so it was time for her to bid the castle farewell. Time for her to bid the Beast farewell.
She did not search for him, for she knew where he waited.
The rose garden seemed empty when she drew open the gate, when she drew it fast closed behind her. But Nicolette knew that all was not as it seemed.
A shimmer in the air, and out of smoke and out of shadow stepped the Beast. No words did he speak, for such things were beyond words.
He drew her down onto the grass, as they had been that first time. No frost upon it, no touch of cold, and to her back Nicolette went, laid out, her hair spread out in turn, a golden crown to match the Beast’s ring around the finger of her heart, the golden touch that wrapped around her heart in turn.
The Beast folded up her skirts with care and came to rest between Nicolette’s spread and welcoming thighs. No phantom of smoke and shadow was he, for the Beast was as real as any man. But yet no man. A Beast.
Her Beast.
The rich, sweet scent of the grass came to her, crushed under the heavy velvet of her gown. But that gown was already green. The grass could kiss it all it cared to, Nicolette would care not.
Gently, slowly, on the most sweetest of slides, the Beast sheathed himself in her, in that tight wetness, warm and waiting for him. And he took her as he had taken her in the Library, as though she were a precious thing, like the beautiful ring of shining gold and rosy diamonds that twined around her finger.
That always would twine so.
They shared a breath upon a sharp kiss, and on the crown of the Beast’s head, silhouetted against the heavy, hanging grey of the winter sky, his horned antlers took form from the shadows.
Nicolette reached out, skimmed her fingers across the tangled expanse of them, expecting her touch to slip like the wind through the smoke of a hearth fire. But touch them she did, and they were smooth under her fingertips, and cold, as the Beast was never cold.
She shivered a little, and the Beast shivered too, as if that one small touch undid him. Gentle, he took her hand in his and kissed it, a finger at a time, until he came to her ring. That he kissed also, the diamonds glinting fractured pink light against his reddened lips.
He took her, the slide of him within her wonderful and torturous in turn. She knew better now than to hurry him. Simply basked in the attentive pleasure he gave to her, a creature of earth, and he, a thing of magic.
The Beast kissed her then. Kissed her breast, her neck, her jaw, her lips. Kissed her so long and deep. So well.
He kissed her, Nicolette knew, for the last time.
He kissed her goodbye.
Willeme handed her into the waiting carriage.
It was Nicolette’s carriage. She had bought it. Just as she had bought the horses that led it. Ridiculous things, pink plumed and dappled grey, hitched to a covered charette of such ridiculous opulence that it made her all but giddy.
The seats within were low and sprung and shaped in velvet, the curtains were a heavy hang of velvet too. Her coat-of-arms she had made a soft pink rose twined in a verdant briar, and it shone on the carriage’s polished door, the paint freshly done and brilliant with it.
Willeme hauled himself in beside her and pulled the door shut, drew the curtain closed to keep out the chill. “Your coachman says we will make the inn at the crossroads before the snows begin, though he supposes we may be stopped there a day or two, for the sky is thick with it yet.”
“I am quite sure we will be able to entertain ourselves,” Nicolette told him, no effort made to hide her smile.
“Hmph,” said Willeme, but a smile lit his grumping too, so that was well.
Nicolette leaned closer to him, so that she might rest her head against his warm, strong shoulder. At Willeme’s word, the carriage rolled off along the carriageway, a much smoother ride than it had any right to be. And though she could not see it, Nicolette imagined that road reeling itself in like a twisting bobbin of thread, disappearing behind them just as the castle did.
Born of magic, the Beast had said, and built upon it.
And Nicolette may not have been born of magic, but the new Nicolette, built from the ruins the village had left behind — she was full of magic all the same. And full of passion.
And love.
She tucked herself into Willeme’s warmth, content and full of contentment.
In her lap lay the Beast’s fairy tale, and atop that beautiful book lay a beautiful rose, the palest and most delicate of pinks, a drop of summer for her to carry through the long, cold winter and on into a glorious, blossoming spring.
Tales of the Dark Forest
A Tithe to Be Paid
A Deal to Be Done
An Oath to Obey
A Bond to Break
A Troth to Take
About the Author
Lucy is an Edinburgh-based author with a love for exploring the secret passions to be found at the heart of our most familiar stories.
Click here to visit Lucy’s website.
Copyright © 2019 Lucy Leven
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
‘Red Roses Flower Arrangement’
by Asoggetti/Unsplash
www.lucyleven.weebly.com