“Hello. Is anyone here?” Pierre called. No answer again. Pierre sat and ate, feeling certain the food and wine had been placed there for him. Before he knew it, he was fast asleep.
When he woke in the morning, the fire was still burning, the room was still warm, and he looked around for a sign of someone else. He saw no one, but he knew the fire, as warm as it was, as high as the wood was piled, had to have been tended to overnight. He was also covered in a blanket. Someone had put it on him and taken away the remnants of food.
Or maybe it hadn’t been someone. Maybe this was an enchanted home. He chuckled to himself. Enchanted home? It sounded like the type of thing Celine would have said. She always believed in that type of thing — old magic, fairytales, sorcerers, and enchanted palaces.
Hmmm, maybe. It made sense, a little. It would explain why he saw no one. It would explain why the things he wanted just appeared.
Whether the house was enchanted or not, he thought he should write a note to tell the owner or enchanter he appreciated the hospitality. He wandered from room to room until he found what appeared to be a study. There were papers, quills and an ink bottle. He took a quill and wrote, “Thank you. Your hospitality to this weary traveler has been remarkable.” Then he signed his name and smiled. As he set the note on the desk for the home’s master or mistress to find, he noticed something else.
It was a small book with the imprint of a rose on it. It was like the ones Beauty read. He hadn’t read them himself. Pierre found the thought of reading anything other than farmer’s almanacs a waste of time and logic. But, he knew Beauty enjoyed them. She always smiled when Mme. Giselle brought the volumes. It was definitely the same type of book, only this one looked newer. The leather-bound books Mme. Giselle brought were dark and worn with age. This was lighter toned and in good condition. He opened the flap and saw it was published this year. Oh my, how Beauty would love this.
Pierre decided at that moment that his deceased wife had been right to believe in enchantments. This house was enchanted. It knew what he wanted and provided it to him. Just a moment before, he had wished he had something for Beauty, and then he saw this book. It hadn’t been there before; he was sure now. Just as he was setting the note down, he’d thought, “Oh, if only I had something of this experience to show Beauty.”
He decided he’d do one last test. I want money, a bag of gold so that I don’t have to sell my daughter to that M. Dumas. He closed his eyes, opened them again. Nothing.
Perhaps the house wasn’t enchanted after all. He was ready to turn and leave when he glanced out the study’s window and saw the garden below. His mouth fell open. Pierre blinked, not sure he could believe what he saw. He closed his eyes and opened them once more. He stepped around the desk, walked right up to the window, pressing his face against the cold window. Yes, down below him was a garden of gold. A garden of solid gold flowers. He was sure of it. He grabbed the book from the desk. This place was enchanted, and he would take the book and some flowers back to his daughter.
Pierre found his way outside to the garden, and when he got there, he confirmed what he’d seen from the window: the flowers were gold. Solid gold. He touched one in awe, and it felt soft, like a flower, yet it was gold. He cut two branches of gold roses and stuck them in his bag. Surely this would pay off his debt to Dumas and keep his daughter safe with him. She wouldn’t have to leave him.
He smiled and ran toward the stable, the heft of the gold flowers weighing him down less than it should have because his heart was now light.
He untied the horse from the post and bade it to come on. “We are rich,” he said to the horse. That is when Pierre felt a crushing pain on his shoulder. He turned and first saw the hairy hand clutching him tight. He heard the voice next. It sounded like the growl of a bear, but it was speaking words. “Thief,” the voice said, and the furry hand — er, now it looked to him more like a claw — shoved Pierre to the ground.
Pierre turned and looked up. Standing over him was a creature on two legs, dressed in clothes, but covered in fur, like an animal. Its fur was jet black, it had claw-like fingers and sharp teeth. “Thief,” it said again. “I give you hospitality, and you steal from me. My book. My flowers.”
“No,” Pierre was saying, shaking his head. “No. I didn’t know,” he said. He tried to look the creature in the eye, but it frightened him too much.
“You will die for your crime,” the beast said.
The beast’s massive, furry hands grabbed hold of Pierre’s arm and dragged him away. Pierre tried to loosen the beast’s grip, but nothing could pry this thing off of him. “Please, wait, no I have a daughter. I have a daughter,” Pierre begged. The beast didn’t seem to care. He dragged Pierre toward a stump, and next to the stump lay an axe. This was a simpler setup than a guillotine, but Pierre knew what was coming next. With no other choice, he said if the beast killed him, his daughter would be married off to a cruel tyrant. That he had to go home. The beast stopped, let go of Pierre. “Tell me everything,” the beast said.
Pierre knew this was his only hope, so he confessed to everything — his debt, the cruelness of M. Dumas, how he had promised his daughter to this man, how the gold would help him stop this man, how his daughter had been reading these books and loved them. How he had only taken them because he thought it would hurt no one, that it was an enchanted manor for the weary traveler lucky enough to find it.
The beast listened and finally said, “You are free to go.”
The relief surged through Pierre. He couldn’t believe it. “Really?”
“Yes,” he said. “Take the flowers and pay your debt. You may take more if you feel the need. Take the book to your daughter, and tell her that in one week I will send a carriage for her. She will come live with me forever.”
Pierre gasped. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t say that. I’m not giving you my daughter.”
The beast laughed in a snarl. “You were going to give her to a tyrant, but you won’t give her to me, a creature who shares her interests, and who can provide well for her here?”
Pierre just stared. Yes, this was a nice place, but he couldn’t give his daughter to this … this … thing. “I,” he started. “You can’t have her.”
The beast grabbed Pierre by the shoulder and shoved him onto the chopping block. “Very well,” said the beast. “I shall kill you and go find her anyway.” The beast picked up the axe and lifted it over his head.
“No,” Pierre said. “No, you can have her. I agree to the deal. Please don’t kill me.”
The beast stepped back from the chopping block and dropped the axe to the ground. “You are right. This house is enchanted,” the beast said. “So am I. I will send for your daughter in a week’s time. Do not think you can run or hide from me. If you try to run, I will find you. Then, I will kill you and take the girl anyway. Do you understand me?”
Pierre nodded, and he knew in his heart what the beast was saying was true.
“Go now,” the beast said. Then, he turned and started walking toward the manor. Pierre got on his horse to ride home. How ever was he going to explain this to Beauty?
Chapter 3
Pierre thought the entire ride home. He let the horse find its way back to their little cottage, while he determined exactly how he would tell Beauty what he had done. When Pierre arrived, Beauty was surprised to see him. Pierre sat her in the chair again, and this time he told her the truth. He left nothing out. He told her about his debt, Dumas’ cruelty, his plan to try to figure it out later, his encounter with the beast, and his promise to give Beauty to the beast.
The girl’s face was red with fury, and in that instant, she looked more like her mother than he had ever recalled.
“So, you’ve traded me from one beast to another?” she asked, her voice filled with hurt. “Father, how could you?”
He cast his eyes down. “I’m sorry, Beauty,” he said. “I wouldn’t have done it if he weren’t going to kill me.”
Beauty took a deep breath and nodded. She tried not to cry. This vile creature who had almost killed her father was to be the man — no the thing — she would spend the rest of her days with. She wasn’t sure she could breathe. Dumas’ cruelty, so far, had been confined to his business dealings. Perhaps his cruelty was limited to that. But this beast, that was something else altogether. The beast had tried to kill her father and now he wanted her to be with him.
She closed her eyes and lay her head back on the chair’s soft cushioned headrest. She felt like crying, but that wouldn’t help. She had been lucky growing up, lucky that her father had prized her company and had not forced her to work in the fields. He had her educated with books and encouraged her curiosity. He had done all this at great expense to himself, and was now in debt because of it. So, maybe it was only fair that she was responsible for fixing it.
She took a deep breath, opened her eyes and looked at the book in her lap. “He had this book in his study?” she asked her father. She was repeating the question. She’d asked it before. Normally, she wouldn’t question her father, but today she’d learned he was a liar. He’d lied to her about Dumas, and now she felt the need to have him repeat his answers just to see if they held true. She watched his face as he prepared to answer, looking for any signs that he was lying about this.
“Yes,” Pierre said, nodding. “I found it in the study. But, I don’t know if it is his,” he said, looking at the book. “I told you I thought the house was enchanted, that it knew my desires and would make them come true. So, I wished that I had something to bring you. That’s when the book appeared.”
She frowned. The book probably wasn’t even the creature’s. The book had appeared because her father wanted a gift for her. Beauty did want to cry now. This beast was probably as monstrous on the inside as he looked on the outside. She looked down at the book, almost hating it now. It had given her ideas, ideas that she knew were wrong, ideas about sins of the flesh and just how pleasurable they could be. She had a Bible, and she and her father went to church once a month for mass. She’d heard the sermons against carnal sins, but she’d ignored them, assuming that something that felt so right when she read it couldn’t be wrong. But now she realized she had been fooled. This was her punishment for enjoying these books, for wanting to feel the way the women in these books felt, for touching herself and wanting to be touched that way. Her punishment was life shackled in marriage to a beast.
Chapter 4
The week passed with Beauty not speaking much to her father. Beauty had told her father that she understood and forgave him. She’d said it because that was the thing she was supposed to say to him, to lessen his feelings of guilt. And part of her did understand. If her life were in danger, would she not have made the same agreement? Probably. But she dreaded being handed over to this beast. He would not be a man like in her books. He wouldn’t be able to hold and caress her and treat her kindly.
And if he felt she stole something from him, would he murder her? The way he’d threatened to murder her father? She didn’t know, and that scared her. Part of her felt she should hate her father for what he had done to her, for promising her to this thing. Only, the truth was, she would have to be married to someone. That was the way of the world, the way of things. She had even been looking forward to it. But now, fear replaced that yearning. Fear that he would be as beastly with her as he had been with her father. Fear that he would be a brute who took her at will, rather than caressed and held her. Fear that he would become violent and angry.
Even though she was afraid, she had to go. Her fate had been sealed, so she went about preparations to leave. She taught her father to cook a few of the dishes he enjoyed. She’d always cooked for him, and she worried he’d have trouble getting along without her.
If only her father had told her his financial problems sooner, perhaps they could have looked for a different solution, something that would not have involved promising her to a suitor who was a beast.
Beauty packed her meager belongings into a large trunk. It had been her mother’s, the one her mother had brought from her family home to her marital home.
Celine had come from a respectable family and had been expected to marry someone of the same station, but she fell in love with Pierre and ran off with him. They had lived more modestly than Celine had been used to, but she had been happy, as far as Beauty knew. It seems, her mother’s station had been supporting them since her brothers died. Pierre had sold Celine’s jewelry. As a child, Celine’s father had lavished expensive baubles on his daughter, and the grownup Celine had brought them all when she ran off with Pierre. Even then, Celine had known, they’d come in handy. There was no jewelry left now, no remnants of the house that Celine had hailed from, no treasures that Beauty could have received from her mother and passed on to her own daughter.
Beauty cringed at the thought. Now, she would have no daughters. At least she didn’t think it would be possible to have a child with such a creature. And if it were possible, would the children look like little mutts? She really felt like crying this time. What had her father done to her?
What if she just refused to go? Just then, she heard the whinnying of a horse outside. It was loud and strange, a feral whinny unlike anything she’d ever heard before.
She ran to the door and slung it open. There in front of the house was a carriage, pulled by a horse but with no driver. She walked up to the carriage and looked inside. In shadow, she saw a figure, a hulking figure under a cape. “Get in,” it said. The voice was a growl, low and stern, and Beauty’s heart sank. Was this to be her life? What if she didn’t get in?
“Get in,” the voice said again.
“But I want to say goodbye to my father. He went into town to pay M. Dumas. He’ll be back shortly.”
“Get in,” the beast said again.
Beauty looked back at the house. She’d left the door open. “My things,” she said. “I need to get my trunk.”
“You need nothing. Get in. Now.”
His voice was clear and commanding, and something about it made her feel she must obey it. She nodded and climbed into the carriage. She sat down on the bench opposite the beast, looked out the carriage window and watched her house disappear behind her. She turned back to him, to ask him what next, and gasped. He was gone. She reached her hand over to the other side and felt the empty seat. There was nothing there. She looked on the floor, wondering if he could have hidden. But there was no place to hide. She decided to flee the carriage, and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t move. It was locked.
Her father had said the beast lived in an enchanted manor. He had been right. She was afraid now. He had been here and disappeared. He had locked her in, made her leave without saying goodbye to her father. Made her leave all her things. Now it was time to cry. She leaned over in her seat and let the tears flow.
Chapter 5
Beauty lay slumped in tears for the remainder of the carriage ride. This would be her purge. She would cry it out here, and then she would go meet her fate with good cheer. Or at least with the realization that there was nothing she could do to change it. She was bent over, her head resting on her arms, still sniffling onto her sleeves when she realized the carriage had stopped. She sat up, dried her tears, and looked out the carriage window.
Before her was a huge manor, three stories tall and made of stone. It had a small rounded tower on the top left corner. It was so big and so immaculate it reminded her of a church, or a palace. Those were the only buildings that got such care and beauty when built. The sun was setting, and the building looked luminous, bathed in the orange glow of twilight.
This would be OK, she told herself. Instinctively, she looked around to gather her things to take with her, but she had no things to gather. The beast had made her leave with nothing, nothing but the dress she wore. It was one of her mother’s old dresses. Not one of the nicer ones — a red, one piece dress that had a decorative ribbon tied around the waist. Apparently, her father had s
old the nicest ones for money, to keep them alive and eating for as long as they had. She wished he’d worked harder on farming the vineyard, on earning money there, instead of selling her mother’s things. Only, how could she say that? She had been there, and she hadn’t insisted on finding out about the finances or offering to help him. Instead, she’d gladly accepted his suggestions to read more and enjoy long walks nearby. She hadn’t bothered to wonder how they afforded their lives, when the weather had not been good the past two years. The grapes had done poorly. The ones that had thrived were magnificent, but most hadn’t thrived.
So here she was, with nothing but the dress on her back, being sent to be the wife of this beast. She took a deep breath, pushed the carriage door open and descended onto the path that led to the front door. As she approached the door, navigating two small steps to reach it, it swung open by itself. She stopped, startled by the magic that was another confirmation that this place was enchanted. Hearing of it was one thing, but seeing it in person was frightening.
She continued on, entering the house, slightly apprehensive. After she went through the door, it closed on its own. The entryway was dark. There was a chandelier above, but it wasn’t lit. She wished it would brighten up, and suddenly the candles of the chandelier sprung to life, flickering gently above her.
Beauty and Her Beastly Love (Passion-Filled Fairy Tales Book 2) Page 2