Beauty Within

by Emily L Goodman

  She took a deep breath. He’d given her permission. Now she just had to find the strength to put it into words. “What did you do?” There was no polite way to ask the question. She was fairly sure that trying was just going to make it harder on both of them.

  Erin had put the thought in her head, of course. She’d tried hard not to let it stay there, but even a week after her sisters’ visit, she was still wondering. Erin was right: he had to have done something to bring the curse down on his head.

  Did it matter? No. No, it didn’t, not really. The Griffin she knew was so very different from anything he could have been before—and she didn’t think he could possibly have done anything to bring the curse down like that.

  And yet she still had to know.

  The spoon in his hand was bending. She could see that unnatural strength warping it even with her eyes fixed on her own plate. That was the trouble with moving down the table closer to one another: she could see more. He couldn’t hide the emotion from her. “Excuse me?” There: there was the emotion she had known would appear eventually.

  She was just glad that it was his emotion—the real, genuine emotion—and not the cold, glittering eyes of the beast that looked back at her.

  “Well—curses. They always come from somewhere, don’t they?” she asked softly. “I mean, I know you’re the crown prince, and that can bring on a lot of curses, I guess; but in order for it to really lay down and take effect this way, there has to have been a lot of emotion behind it. Ill-wishing an authority figure only goes so far. Something like this…it has to be personal, doesn’t it?”

  Griffin was silent for so long that Callista began to wonder if he would answer her—and she wouldn’t have blamed him in the least had he chosen to ignore her utterly. She supposed it really was a very personal question, and it wasn’t any of her business—even if she was—well, it didn’t matter, that; her feelings were her own, and she didn’t have the right to make demands of them just because she was silly enough to start feeling, now did she?

  Finally, however, he looked up at her, resignation plain in every furred line of his face. “I didn’t love her,” he said simply.

  Callista frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Nor did I, for a long time.” He pushed back from the table, his breakfast untouched. “This is not a conversation for a meal,” he said flatly. “Will you walk with me?”

  Callista got to her feet quickly. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She hated making him miss meals—any meals.

  Griffin shrugged, holding the door open for her as he escorted her from the dining room. “I don’t have much of an appetite at breakfast many mornings anyway,” he informed her. “Honestly, I come to the breakfast table for you—and it’s taking me time to eat normally again the rest of the day, after…” After the disastrous visit from her family: another thing about which Callista felt increasingly guilty. He had gotten thinner again. Funny, how it was so easy to see against lines that should have made him appear an animal; but she had become so familiar with him, with all of him, that she had realized that he didn’t eat as he should.

  She’d have to have a chat with Mrs. Martel, see if she couldn’t convince her to make up some of his favorites. Griffin needed to eat far more than he did—and she needed to not ask awkward questions at the breakfast table, preventing him from going ahead and getting something to eat.

  They were out in the gardens, walking around the rosebushes, before Griffin spoke again. She let him come to the words in his own time, let him think them through, instead of pushing. After all, she was the one who was making him talk about it; the least she could do was have the patience to let him come up with the way to tell her.

  Though, she thought, it couldn’t be that difficult. He’d had months to think on it—how he was going to explain it when someone did come around to asking questions.

  “At first, I thought it was just that I was the crown prince,” he said slowly, as though there had been no break at all between his question and her answer. “I couldn’t imagine who I might have angered to cause them to do this kind of damage to me, to my entire kingdom; but of course, you’re right about what it takes to lay down a curse like this one. For weeks, even for months, it could merely be a case of ire directed at the kingdom as a whole; but for it to stretch on for years like this, for it to last indefinitely until I meet the conditions that will break it, it has to be personal.”

  “And…it’s because you didn’t fall in love with someone?” Callista asked cautiously.

  “Her name,” Griffin said, “was Mary Margaret Deuxchamps.” He said the name with no bitterness—just sorrow. “She was one among many of the young ladies who were invited to the castle to celebrate my twenty-first birthday. It was time, you see, for me to marry, to at least start the process of choosing a bride. I was in no hurry. As you know, it’s customary for a man to inherit only when he turns twenty-five; until that time, my kingdom would be ruled by regents anyway. Still, I knew that choosing a bride now would improve the odds that it would be a lady of my own choosing: someone who could stand alongside me as my helpmate, not someone who would be a hindrance when we were around the court. I wasn’t sure how I felt about true love, though I was willing enough to entertain it; but I was convinced that there were certain qualities that I needed in a bride, and I wanted to look for them for myself, before my regents decided that they wanted to see me married before they handed over the kingdom.”

  “Because a man becomes so much steadier once he’s married?” Callista asked with a soft snort.

  “Yes, that, exactly.” Griffin sighed. “But I had made it known that I was going to be spending more time with the ladies—put a few balls on my schedule, arranged for activities with some of them, that sort of thing.” He waved a casual hand. Obviously, “that sort of thing” was perfectly normal in his circle, though Callista wasn’t entirely sure what he meant. None of her sisters had engaged in “that sort of thing” yet, as far as she knew; and only Stasi, of all of them, had any plans to be a bride any time soon.

  “For the first week or so, everything seemed to be going well,” Griffin continued. “Then I started to realize that every activity I attended, there was one young lady who was quite determined to be right on top of me every moment.”

  Callista frowned.

  “I fear I’ll make her sound worse than she was if I use the word ‘stalker,’” Griffin admitted cautiously.

  “What was she doing?” She found herself drawing closer to him, hanging on every word.

  “It started simply enough. She was just always there, at every activity. I’d asked the staff to make sure there were a variety of young ladies there, and I’d made a point to single out the ones in which I had any particular interest.” The furred face did not blush, but Callista could see embarrassment in his deep blue eyes anyway. “I’m ashamed to admit that at the time, those were the ladies who were especially lovely—the ones whose presence served to make the events themselves all the more beautiful.”

  “I’m sure you had a wider list of criteria to choose from than beauty alone,” she offered.

  “I tried, anyway. It was a lofty list, filled with ideals and no idea of how to determine whether or not any one lady possessed even one of them, much less all of them; but had I been asked, I would have been able to explain exactly what I thought I was looking for in my future bride.”

  Callista filed that one away. She would ask about it later.

  “Mary Margaret…” He hesitated. “Didn’t suit,” he said carefully.

  “She wasn’t beautiful?” Callista frowned.

  “I…don’t know.” His face furrowed into a deep frown. “I suppose she was pretty enough. She held a place at court, obviously; and it wasn’t exactly that she was hard to look at. But…” He paused for a moment, studying a flowering bush that Callista didn’t recognize as though it might hold a better explanation than the one he was trying to draw to the surface. “I wanted a wife who was intelligent
, who could converse readily on a variety of subjects—not just with me, though I thought it would be nice to never be bored by constant discourses on her dresses or the ribbons she had chosen, but because she needed to be my equal as a hostess, to converse intelligently with anyone who happened to come through the doors.”

  Callista nodded in understanding.

  “Mary Margaret lacked that depth. She could talk of operas, and ballets, and plays readily enough; but she never had anything different to say about them.”

  Callista rolled her eyes.

  “Yes, exactly,” Griffin agreed, latching on the expression. “Honestly, I was never entirely sure that she had actually seen them. It seemed sometimes as though she had simply been coached to appear as though she’d been—and that even the ones that I knew she had been at, having personally issued an invitation.”

  Callista grimaced. “That seems very…shallow.”

  “Indeed. And…” He darted a look at her. Callista held her breath, wondering if he was going to give her one of the other items on his list. “Compassion,”he admitted. “I wanted a bride who was compassionate. As a king, it’s necessary for me to sometimes make very difficult decisions; but I also need—not want, but need—to show compassion to my people. I am responsible for them, for taking care of them. The last thing I wanted, ever, was to leave them hurting because I missed something, or because I considered my plight more serious than theirs.”

  She had to look away to prevent the flash of warmth from showing on her face. “And Mary Margaret was not compassionate?” she asked cautiously.

  “She seemed to struggle often in that regard.” He sighed. “I admit to having the occasional bad day.”

  “No. You?” Callista teased without thinking.

  Griffin chuckled softly, a smile touching his face for just an instant before he allowed it to fall away again. “Because she was so readily on hand, I told her about one once. I’d been out in the fields, checking on the farmers—we’d had a bit of a dry spell, and I knew they were struggling. I shared with her my concerns, my worries, and she—didn’t have the answer I expected.” He hesitated. “If I told you we were in the middle of a dry spell, what would you suggest?”

  “I’m not sure.” Callista chewed on her lower lip for a moment before she remembered that it was not a ladylike gesture—and then she remembered that Stasi wasn’t there to complain and went right back to her chewing. “I suppose I would tell you that we should see if we could shift some help to the farmers, to make it easier to water their fields; and if the dry spell was pronounced across the region, we might consider finding ways to supply them with additional water, since the kingdom’s crops are quite important. In the absence of that, additional workers to help move water from the river might be helpful.”

  “All reasonable suggestions.” Griffin looked down at her. “And part of what I had been doing in the fields. Hauling quantities of water great enough to water crops, by the way, is a very tiring job, and left me less than eager to leap to my feet for every dance that night.”

  “I can imagine,” Callista agreed.

  “Hm.” He caught her eyes. “Mary Margaret could not.”

  “Oh.” That summed it up quite nicely, didn’t it? If the girl had shown no compassion for him, she was not a fit bride; showing no compassion for his people meant that she was not a fit queen.

  “Yes.” Griffin paced a few more steps, a little faster, as though he was trying to outrun the story even though he was the one telling it. “I suggested to my organizers that she need not find herself on every invitation list, but it was no use: wherever I went, there she was. She went to extraordinary lengths to get as close to me as possible: seating herself beside me at dinner regardless of who was supposed to be there, insisting that I dance at least twice with her at every ball, placing herself in the seat next to me at every possible concert, play, or other event. She went to extreme measures to end up on my ‘team’ any time there was a game. It was…quite disconcerting, to be honest.” He stopped, running his fingers along the stone wall of the garden. Callista found herself momentarily entranced, wondering if the fur beneath his fingers changed the way he was able to feel the texture of the stone.

  “I was as polite as I could be to her at first—tolerating her attentions, but quietly making other suggestions when it was appropriate; trying to get others to take note of her; even suggesting to my cousin Alicia that she take her in hand.”

  “Nothing worked?” Callista suggested wryly.

  “Indeed.” Griffin’s hands tightened on the wall. Callista watched it start to crumble beneath his fingers. “Finally, she apparently decided that I was too dense to notice her attentions, so she took things a step further—or, perhaps, a step too far. She sent me a letter one evening proclaiming her love and insisting that there was no one in the world for her but me, that she would make me the best bride I could possibly imagine.” He made a face. “To be honest, the letter was a bit…graphic…and dwelt far too long on subjects I had little interest in and far too little on subjects about which I had a great deal more interest.”

  Callista could imagine, though she did her best not to allow her thoughts to drift too far into it.

  “I was…” Griffin grimaced. “Relieved,” he admitted, letting his breath out slowly. “I thought this might finally spell an end to it. I couldn’t have been the first to write to her, you understand, but since she had broken with protocol and sent such a letter to me, I could at least respond to her as I saw fit. I crafted the letter carefully, letting her know that, while I appreciated her attentions, I did not return her affections and thought it best that she turn her efforts elsewhere.” He sighed.

  “I suppose she didn’t take it well?” Callista asked lightly.

  He snorted. “No. No, she didn’t.” Griffin dragged his hands over his face. “I sent my response to her letter with a rose—a token, I said, of my appreciation. At the time, I thought it might soften the blow a bit.”

  Callista stared up into his face, waiting for the rest, while he breathed deeply and tried to control himself. She had the feeling that the next few words were the critical ones—the ones that were going to explain it all.

  “She sent it back with a letter wrapped around the stem in such a way that I would be unable to read it without touching the rose. I unwrapped it, fully expecting a great deal of bile.” He sighed. Callista noticed that when he rested his hands back on the wall, they were trembling. “The moment I touched the rose…this happened.” He raised one hand long enough to sweep it down his body, then pressed his hands back to the wall, clearly trying to still their trembling. She could still see it: the way his entire body shook with the force of that emotion. “I never imagined this,” he admitted grimly. “At first, I didn’t even know what was happening. I felt my limbs twisting, my body contorting—” His voice cracked softly.

  “Sounds painful.” Callista tried to keep her response light, but she wasn’t sure that she had succeeded.

  “It was,” Griffin admitted flatly. “It was agonizing—and I’m sure she delighted in it, repaying pain for pain—because the very love that I had ‘denied’ from her was the love I would now need in order to live the rest of my life.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I always thought that curses had their roots in poetry—or at least that they used wordplay to twist it about so that it was nearly impossible to understand it. Mary Margaret was not so kind. There was nothing beautiful, nothing delicate, about her words. She just wanted me to suffer.”

  “Because you didn’t fall head over heels in love with her.” Callista closed her eyes, feeling his pain as though it was her own.

  “Indeed.” His hands tightened again; this time, she was sure there would be gouges in the stone. “I suppose I can only be grateful that most of the court was already out when it happened. Those who were there took one look at me and were quite reduced to vapors.” His face tightened. The beastly countenance had been hard to read, once, but now, Callista had no doubt in
her mind that the memory pained him. “And then they forgot me. All of them. The moment they stepped outside the castle for any reason, it seemed, they forgot me entirely, and they never came back.”

  “From the servants to the nobles,” Callista breathed.

  Griffin inclined his head. “Many of them fled,” he admitted softly. “There was only one small kindness: for every servant that fled, an invisible one rose up to take their place, so that I wasn’t left trying to care for an entire castle with only the three within it.”

  “Why those three?” she asked slowly. “I know Hemsworth has been able to leave, so I assume he must care deeply about you.”

  “Indeed.” Griffin sighed. “We—and the wise men we have consulted in an effort to understand the curse—have always believed that love is the key,” he said slowly. “Hemsworth, Mrs. Picard, Mrs. Martel—they’re the ones who cared for me, who saw me as more than just their future king and their meal ticket. The rest—the moment they left, their memory of me was erased entirely. So far as we can determine, as soon as they set foot outside it, they wouldn’t even have been able to find the castle without someone taking them by the hand.”

  “That sounds lonely,” Callista murmured.

  “It has been.”He sighed. “But it’s for the best. Who could bear to look on this, day after day, knowing that there was little chance I would ever find the so-called cure? The entire court would have been disrupted—who knows how many lives would have been lost, how many hurt, due simply to the fact that I was unable to love a foolish girl?”

  “Will my sisters forget you?” she asked cautiously.

  “Not as long as you’re here.” He smiled sadly at her. “Love is the ticket, remember? They remember because they love you. But if—if you were to leave—” He took a deep breath. She could see him struggling to be honest with her in spite of his request to court her—in spite of the fact that they both knew she could well never leave him or the castle. “If you were to leave, I and the castle will be slowly erased from all of your memories as though they never were. Love—for your father, for your family—brought you here, so it will take a bit longer; but eventually, all memory of me will disappear.”