“Can I?” Callista sounded more skeptical than she’d meant to, but that doubt had been nagging at her for a long time. “Erin sings like an angel. An angel!” She shook her head. “And you have your dance. Theodore’s a great scholar and adviser to Stephen, and Stephen’s the future duke. Kris—”
“I don’t need the litany,” Millicent pointed out quietly. “I know what we’re all good at, Cally. You’ve got things that you’re good at, too.”
“Not like you all.” Callista stabbed her needle back through the handkerchief, all interest in embroidery suddenly gone. “I’ll finish this later,” she mumbled, shoving it into the communal mending basket that they kept in the sitting room.
“Cally—”
She didn’t stop, didn’t even look back at her sister. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore—not any of it.
Someday, God, I want to see what my purpose is, she prayed silently. I want to see how I can make a difference in the world. Not how my sisters can, or how my brothers can, but how I can. Why is that so much to ask for?
As she rounded the corner, Cally smashed straight into her sister—so hard that for a moment, her addled mind couldn’t quite wrap around why she shouldn’t have been able to do that.
Then it hit her: she’d been talking with Millicent just moments before, left her behind in the sitting room when she’d fled, and Stasi was, once again, at Peter’s. That only left…
“Erin!” she gasped. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“I had to leave. Had to—” There were tears streaked down Erin’s face, Callista realized suddenly as she grabbed her sister’s arms, practically holding her up. “I couldn’t stay there—not after—not with what I—”
“Here, now.” Callista wrapped her arm around her sister’s shoulders, feeling Erin lean into her and wondering if her sister was actually going to faint. “You’ve had a long journey—”
“Not a journey,” Erin gasped out. “There was no—just a step and I was through. He sent me—said it was better if I was away, if I didn’t—didn’t have time to—” She dragged her hands over her face, looking surprised when they came away wet. “I—I saw—” She shook her head.
“Cally, I—” Millicent came out of the sitting room and gasped. “Erin!” she cried.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I thought I could do it. It’s—it’s been almost five months. Almost halfway there, right? But I—I couldn’t do it any longer, and I—”
“Come in here and sit down,” Millicent coaxed. “Tell us—what happened? No. She stopped her before Erin could even begin. “Don’t tell us yet. Wait until Stasi’s back—she’ll only be a few more hours, and then you’ll only have to tell it once.”
“I’m not sure we have hours.” Erin shivered. “He was so angry with me—told me to just get out, to hurry, to send one of my other sisters back through, because I—” She stumbled, luckily close enough to a chair that she was able to fall into it instead of falling to the ground.
Callista sat on one side of her, Millicent on the other, and the two of them, between them, slowly coaxed the story out of her.
“We were—were walking in the garden,” Erin admitted. “I was trying to coax him to sing with me—he’d said he had a passable voice, but the mask distorts it, so I couldn’t really tell what his singing voice would sound like. He said he couldn’t—that until I had learned to trust him, he wouldn’t make music with me. Trust him!” She choked on something that wasn’t quite a laugh. “How can you trust a man whose face you can never see? But he kept insisting, and I argued with him—I was so tired of singing alone!” She bent forward, burying her face in her hands.
“You argued?” Callista frowned. “I can’t imagine that he would have sent you away for that alone—not with his silly ‘year and a day—’”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Erin admitted. “Bad enough that I argued with him, but that, I think, could have been forgiven. No, I kept trying to tell him that if he would just take the mask off, or perhaps remove his gloves so that he could at least play for me—but no, he wouldn’t do either, insisted he couldn’t even be near me without his ‘protection.’” Her voice caught on a sob.
“His protection?” Callista asked cautiously.
“That’s what he calls them—the mask and the gloves,” Millicent filled in softly.
“I—I did the unthinkable.” Erin looked up, staring into Millicent’s eyes as though she expected her to read her mind.
Clearly, she did—or had—because Millicent’s eyes grew wide, and she stared back at Erin. “You didn’t,” she breathed.
“I did,” Erin moaned.
“But you can’t have! You had to have known—”
“I did it,” Erin whispered. “I did! I was so angry with him, so angry with that stupid, stupid mask, and I—” She broke off on a wail, burying her head in her hands.
“You did what?” Callista demanded, frustrated. Millicent might understand instinctively, but she had absolutely no idea what her sisters were talking about.
Erin mumbled something through her hands that Callista couldn’t make out.
Millicent shook her head, looking at once awed by Erin and horrified.
“I can’t hear you,” Callista pointed out.
“I ripped it off.” The words were still slightly garbled by Erin’s hands, but they were clear enough that Callista could at least make them out this time.
“You ripped it off?” She leapt from the couch, staring down at her sister. “But you said he considered it protection—how could you take it away from him?”
“You don’t understand!” Erin cried. “Weeks and weeks, months, with that stupid mask. He wore it all the time—would barely talk around it, couldn’t do—so many things.” Her hands balled into fists in her lap as fury replaced horror. “He was supposedly such a musician, but between the gloves and the mask, there was no instrument that he could handle, no way he could perform alongside me. And that mask—that thing was a horror!”
“Well?” Callista eyed her sister consideringly.
“Well, what?” Erin demanded.
“Well, what was beneath it, then?”
Erin burst immediately into hysterical tears from which she could not be comforted. There was no getting a sensible answer out of her—and both Millicent and Callista, entranced by the idea that she had at last seen beneath the so-terrible mask, tried. Every time they asked the question, Erin dissolved all over again, until they finally gave up on making sense of her and made her sleep out of sheer self-preservation and the hope that later, she would at least be calmer.
They let her sleep—in her own bed, which Erin proclaimed a small slice of heaven after being away from it for so long—until Stasi arrived at home just before the dinner hour. She swept in, taking in their news all at once, horror crossing her face.
“But she can’t have,” she whispered. “She can’t. She must know—what it will mean.”
“Stasi,” Millicent began cautiously.
“Erin. Erin!” Anastasia burst into her sister’s room, no calmer than any of the others. “Tell me you didn’t. Tell me they’re making it up!” she demanded.
Erin sat up, blinking sleep from her eyes ever so slowly. “What?”
“You tore his mask away. You made him banish you?” Anastasia demanded.
“No.” Erin ducked her head, tracing the pattern in her blanket with one finger without looking at her eldest sister.
“No?” Millicent, crowding into the doorway with Callista as both of them tried to hover without actually being in the room, frowned at her.
“He—he didn’t banish me,” Erin whispered.
“He didn’t?” Hope filled Anastasia’s entire face, her shoulders straightening as though a great weight had suddenly been lifted. “Then—then you could go back,” she suggested. “There are just seven months left, really—that’s no time at all, Erin, and you’re so close—”
Erin shook her head rapidly, still not
looking up from her bedcovers. “I can’t,” she insisted. “I can’t, Stasi. I can’t go back there. Not after—not after seeing—” She gulped.
“What was it?” Callista breathed.
Erin darted a fast look up at her before staring down at the covers again. “A beast,” she said flatly. “He’s a horrible, hideous beast.”
“That’s not a kind way to talk about someone who’s been disfigured,” Anastasia said sharply.
“No, you don’t understand!” Erin cried. “I’m not talking about someone who was disfigured, Stasi. This wasn’t an—an accident, or anything else. He’s a beast. An animal.” As they all stared at her, clearly not comprehending, she insisted, “A real one.”
“There’s nothing to be done for it.” Anastasia sat down heavily in the sitting room, looking at each of her siblings in turn. “I’ll have to go,” she said flatly. “See out the time. There’s just seven months left—that’s no time at all, really.” She sighed. “I suppose I can finish planning my wedding while I’m there, though it feels terribly crass to be planning a wedding to another man while I’m supposedly there to get to know the prince. But he did say that none of us were going to be bound to him beyond that year, and as the wedding is to be just a month after I’m due back—”
Kris was shaking his head, waiting for her to finish babbling so that he could get a word in, but just waiting.
“What?” Anastasia’s voice was a little bit shrill.
“It’s not just seven months, Stasi,” Kris told her ever so gently. “You’ve got to read the terms of the contract, but it’s not just that he wants a year and a day of our time. He wants a year and a day of one person’s time.”
Her face went so pale that Stephen hurried out of his chair and pushed her into one before she landed on the floor. “But I can’t,” she whispered. “My wedding—”
“It’s not fair of dad to have put you in this spot,” Stephen said grimly. “Not any of you girls. And now this—this beast of Erin’s has stolen five months of her life, and almost a month of Millie’s all told—”
Anastasia buried her head in her hands, looking like she wanted nothing so much as to dissolve into a fit of vapors, except that none of the Ramsay girls had ever succumbed to vapors in their lives, and she wasn’t entirely certain how to go about doing it.
“Stasi,” Callista said quietly. “Listen.”
“I know. No, you’re right,” Stasi said quickly. “It’s just a year and a day, and it won’t be so bad—and I have plenty of dreams to get me through. With the—the visit already planned—” She caught her breath on a hiccup. “Would it be completely unfair, do you think, to ask if Peter could come along, too?” There was such deep sadness in her voice as she said those words that for a moment, Millie and Erin felt tears sting their own eyes.
“No,” Callista said firmly.
“Are you sure?” Stasi looked up at her, clearly misunderstanding her. “I just—it sounds so terrible, to ask if my fiance can come when we know that the prince is really hunting for a wife, and that I’m utterly useless to him; but Erin, you’ve said that he’s not so very bad at heart, right? Perhaps—perhaps if he gets to know me, and understands about me and Peter, about how we’ve been meant for each other since we were toddlers—”
“I said no.” Callista got up from her chair, pacing back and forth without really looking at her sister. “You’re not going, Stasi.”
“Don’t be foolish, Callista. We can’t let Papa—” Anastasia began.
“You’re not going,” Callista repeated. “I am.”
All of them turned to stare at her—most of them with various expressions of shock, clearly already forming protests and arguments, but in Theo’s eyes, Callista saw the understanding she was looking for, maybe even the possibility of support, if all went well.
Maybe. If she formed her argument well. If she managed to convince Theodore, at least, that she was truly serious about this.
It was his eyes that she met as she said, “You’re engaged, Stasi. You’re getting married in just a few months—and you can’t miss your own wedding because you’re trapped in a castle with a prince looking for a bride.”
“But—a year and a day—” Anastasia breathed.
“I know. I’ll miss the wedding.” That was enough to send a little bit of a pang through her heart, but Callista held firm. “But—look, Millicent had the right of it when she said it was an adventure. Of all of us, which one has always wanted an adventure?”
“Cally,” Stephen protested softly.
“No, don’t argue with me, Steph,” she insisted. “All this time, I’ve been a little jealous because Millie got to go, and then Erin, and I never had a chance at all, because I’m the littlest sister and of course they got the first chance at a prince.”
“If it’s jewels and gowns you want,” Stephen began.
“It’s not jewels and gowns.” Callista crossed over to him, rested her hand on his shoulder. That meant that, for perhaps the only time in their lives, he was the one looking up at her, and she made sure that he could see exactly how serious she was. “It’s the adventure. It’s going out into the world and seeing a piece of it that not everyone gets to see, doing something that not everyone gets to do. I’ve always wanted to see what the world had to offer—well, this is my chance. You said he had instruments aplenty, and a library that I’d love to see, right, Erin?” She turned to face her sister.
Erin nodded a little shakily.
“Well, then I’ll look at it as a grand opportunity to learn something.”
“But he’s a beast!” Erin wailed.
“So what?” Callista demanded.
“Maybe you didn’t hear her,” Millicent pointed out, leaping to Erin’s defense as though Callista had suggested that her decision to run was lesser in some way. “She said beast, Cally. Fur. Fangs. His hands probably have claws at the ends of them.”
“Was he ever anything but kind to either of you?” Cally wanted to know.
Millicent shook her head quickly. “Creepy,” she said quickly. “But—yes, I suppose he was kind.”
“And you?” Callista pressed, turning to look at Erin.
“Kind enough,” Erin admitted, very slowly, like the words had to be dragged out of her. “But—”
“Even after you removed his mask?” Callista pressed.
“I—well—” Erin stammered.
“Be honest, Erin,” Callista insisted. “You said you were walking after dinner, trying to convince him to play with you, when you had the argument. It was lunchtime when you arrived here—it had to have been the next day.” She folded her arms over her chest. “At least the next day.”
All of their siblings turned at once to stare at Erin. They had been so busy reacting to her revelation that they, unlike Callista, hadn’t taken the time to think it all the way through, to imagine what Erin might have meant by it—but Cally had.
Oh, she had. She understood that Erin hadn’t run immediately upon seeing that face revealed.
It had taken her time. She’d gotten to dwell on it. Perhaps even spent more time with him after the mask came off.
Erin stared at her. Horrified that the secret was out?
“Was he anything but kind to you after you took his mask away?” Cally pressed.
“No,” Erin said flatly. “No, he was nothing but kind to me. But faced with a choice between that face and that mask—” She shuddered. “He sent me away,” she admitted softly. “When I said I couldn’t stand either, he sent me away. Said that there was no reason for me to remain, when I couldn’t stand to look at him no matter what he did.”
“He should consider the terms of the deal completed, since he was the one who did the sending,” Kris rumbled irritably.
“That’s the way it would be done among men of honor,” Stephen growled.
“Maybe he doesn’t have a choice,” Callista said quietly.
They stared at her. “How can you imagine that he’s the one who has no ch
oice in this?” Theo shot at her.
“How can you imagine that he does?” she retorted. “A face that induces terror or a mask that separates him from the world—who could possibly choose those options? No, I think that there’s more to this story.”
“There’s not necessarily more to every story, Callista!” Millicent snapped.
“Perhaps there’s more to this one,” Callista insisted softly. “We don’t know, do we? Did either of you get the story out of him?”
Millicent shook her head, subdued. Erin stared down at her hands.
“Erin?” Callista pressed.
“I—some of it,” Erin whispered. “One of the servants—she was trying to make me feel better. She said it was a curse—that he wasn’t always a beast, but that it’s how he is now, and it’s not really his fault.” She shuddered. “But that face—I just don’t see—and they know. All of the servants know. He doesn’t go about masked when he’s alone with them.”
“Doesn’t he?” Callista considered that for a moment. “Interesting,” she said slowly.
“Cally,” Theodore warned.
“I’m going,” she pointed out quietly. “I’m the last one who can. He’s not asked anything terrible of Millicent or Erin, and Stasi can’t be the one to go; and anyway, I want to.”
“How can you possibly want to?” Kris asked, bewildered.
Callista smiled. “Because it’s going to be an adventure,” she said quietly. “And I shall miss you all, and I shall hope that he lets you come for that visit. All of you.” She swept a hand over the room to encompass them all. “And you’ll have to tell me all about Stasi’s wedding—make sure there are paintings of all the important details, all right?” She gave her sister a smile that was more watery than she had intended. It looked too much like she was putting on a brave face if she let herself waver, even for a moment. “But really, this is the best option.”
“I’m beginning to think that letting Papa deal with his own consequences would be the best option,” Stephen said before he thought about it. She watched him, wondering if he would call the words back, but he didn’t. He just sat there, his arms folded over his chest in a petulant look that was not at all in keeping with the appropriate attitude of the future duke.
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