Beast Read online

  “You mistake my meaning, chevalier,” I say, pleased at how calm I sound. “The gift is not from me; I bring it on behalf of . . . a friend.”

  I step back into the sitting room, eager to be out of his bedchamber, and he cautiously follows, suspicious, yet intrigued. I’m not completely sure what to do next, but I pray that the ring itself, burning with Beast’s mother’s love, will guide me.

  But I have scarcely opened my hand to reveal it when a soft knocking comes at the door behind me from the outer salon of the chevalier’s suite of rooms. The door opens, and there stands a pretty girl from one of the vintners’ wagons below, carrying a jug of wine on her hip. Her eyes widen at the sight of the two of us standing here.

  “Monsieur le chevalier!” She gasps and comes no farther in. Her gaze darts to me and back to Jean-Loup. “But . . . I thought . . . oh, apologies, monsieur!”

  She turns and flees back out into the salon. And then we hear her gasp again.

  “M-my lady,” we hear her stammer. “I was told . . . the chevalier said . . . I never meant . . .”

  And as the girl’s voice fades away out into the hallway, Rose marches into the sitting room, crying, “Jean-Loup, who was that girl? Where have —”

  But she freezes on the spot to see me together with her husband. “Who is this?” she demands of him.

  “She is nothing, no one.” Jean-Loup waves me off, turning to his bride.

  “Really, Jean-Loup, how many more are there? They multiply like the roses in your garden. And on our wedding day! In our home! Have you set out deliberately to humiliate me?”

  Surprised by her anger, Jean-Loup slips into the placating tone with which he is so accustomed to getting his way. “Now, my love, you know you mean everything to me —”

  “Who are you?” Rose rounds on me again.

  I squeeze the ring in my palm. “My name is Lucie, my lady. And I have a message from Christine DuVal LeNoir to her son.”

  Jean-Loup looks shocked. Rose whirls on her husband. “You told me your mother was dead! Is every word you speak a lie?”

  “She is long gone, my lady,” I say to Rose. “But her spirit haunts me. I was employed here as a chambermaid not so long ago. I was here on the night Beast appeared.”

  I hadn’t thought Rose’s blue eyes could widen any further, as she gasps, “You know about Beast?”

  “Beast is gone!” Jean-Loup glares at us both.

  I ignore him, speaking to Rose. “I remained in this place until — until the day he left us.”

  “But there was no one else here!” Rose cries.

  “I, too, was transformed by magic,” I tell her. “I was a silver candlestick.”

  Anyone else would think me raving to make such an outlandish claim, but Rose knows far better than anyone else what enchantments took place here. Her hands fly to her mouth as her gaze darts from me to her husband, then back again to me. “You saw everything,” she whispers.

  I squeeze the ring again and focus my thoughts. I could scarcely help it. You took me with you everywhere.

  Rose stares at me, shocked to hear my voice in her head. “You are the one who called me back here!”

  I nod. “Beast would have died,” I tell her. “It was the only way I could think of to save him. And we did save him, you and I. Some part of Beast still exists inside your husband.”

  “Nonsense!” Jean-Loup scoffs. He turns to his bride. “My dearest love, don’t listen to her foolishness. She is only jealous of our happiness!”

  “Happiness?” Rose spits out the word. “Receiving women in your dressing gown? Insulting me in front of our wedding guests? Leaving me on my own for an hour or more? You think we are happy?”

  Jean-Loup rounds again on me, but his voice is less sure than it was. “How dare you come into my home with your lies and your hate —”

  “You are not worth hating, Jean-Loup. You’re not even real.” I wave my hand at him the way you might brush off a gnat. “I’m here for Beast’s sake. And his mother’s.” I unclench my fingers so the ring is visible in my hand. “She saved this all these years for Beast. It’s a token of how much she loved him.”

  I don’t know what I expect to happen next — a thunderclap and lightning, perhaps; a chorus of angels. But all that happens is Jean-Loup cries, “Stop this nonsense! There is no Beast!” But despite his commanding voice, there’s an edge of uncertainty in his manner as he reaches for his bride. “It’s all lies! Rose —”

  But Rose backs away from him, pulling her arm away. “Don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch me!”

  “I am your husband!” he shouts again. “And now that we are married —”

  “I find I have married a horrid beast!” cries Rose. “After all I have done for you, after what you were before —” She stops and shakes her head. “No, no, that was not you. Sir Beast would never treat me so!”

  “Of course he would not!” I chime in, eager to make an ally of Rose. The more she turns against Jean-Loup, the more fondly she may feel toward Beast. “Remember how kind and gracious Beast was?” I remind her. “He was so concerned with your comfort and your well-being. Your happiness was all that mattered to him.”

  It seems I cannot stop myself praising Beast’s virtues once I’ve begun. “He is good-humored and thoughtful, with a sense of justice so profound, he cannot bear any kind of cruelty. He would never raise a paw in anger. His passion for life is strong, and his feelings run so deeply, yet he is always quick to laugh.”

  It warms me even now to think of his husky laughter and his animal smile, to recall the zeal with which he brought his garden to life, and his respect for all living things. I am shaking my head as my heart swells with feeling. “I love his mismatched animal parts and his poet’s soul. I love his warm eyes sprinkled with gold.”

  Rose and Jean-Loup are both staring at me as I clutch the ring on its ribbon to my heart.

  “I . . . I love Beast!”

  There is the plain truth of it. I feel it welling up inside me even now, flooding through my blood. How could I not know it before now? I have overestimated the power of this ring, and yet by its magic I find the strength to speak the truth that’s in my heart.

  “He was a monster!” Jean-Loup yelps.

  “You are the monster,” I tell him angrily. “Beast is the true chevalier. And you are nothing!”

  “No!” howls Jean-Loup, his eyes full of panic, his face full of horror. He howls again, but his voice has deepened as he hunches forward, covering his face in his hands. His hair grows long and tangled, and two small, curved horns sprout from the top of his mane between two pointed, furry ears. He grows more massive beneath his robe, which falls away as his soft, whiskered muzzle rises up from behind his paws. He plants his hooves, stretches out his paws, shakes out his tawny mane, and lets out a blistering roar of triumph.

  “Beast!” I cry, even as I hear Rose faintly gasp, “Sir Beast!”

  I want to fly to him, but I dare not, checked by the enormity of what I’ve done. What must Rose think? What does Beast think? He has never even seen me in my human form — does he even know who I am?

  “Lucie,” he whispers in the tenderest voice I’ve ever heard in all my life. Awe and delight dance in his gold-dusted eyes. “You are human again! You’ve been restored!”

  I can’t resist grasping his paw in both my hands. “Oh, Beast, when I think of how close I came to losing you! But there was no way you could have undone that spell, however bravely you tried. Only I had the power to free myself.”

  “And you came back,” he rumbles. “For me.” He glances at my hands gripping his paw and back at me. “But you risked so much to come here. You had to face him.”

  “I would have risked anything for you, Beast! I . . . I was so afraid I would never see you again. I was so afraid that Jean-Loup had won.”

  Beast’s gaze intensifies. “But — he’s gone! I can feel his absence in a way I never could before. It’s like a weight lifted off my heart.” He covers my hands g
ently with his other paw. “We’ve defeated him at last, Lucie! Jean-Loup is gone!”

  “Sir Beast.” Rose’s voice trembles, recalling us to the moment. “I don’t understand. They . . . they all told me this place was cursed, that you were cursed. But they said I broke the curse!”

  Beast turns to her. “But . . . I am the Beaumont Curse,” he says, his dark eyes bright with sudden understanding. He glances at me again. “I was so little when it happened the first time, when I was first transformed. I didn’t remember. But the memory lives inside this body. And now that he is gone, I know it in every one of my senses.” He raises his paw again to stare at it. “This is what I am, how I was born. I am the true chevalier.”

  “And far more worthy of the title than Jean-Loup ever was,” I say to Rose.

  She nods slowly, frowning slightly. What must she think?

  “I know this must be a terrible shock to you, Rose,” says Beast softly. “But I shall not force you to honor vows you made to another man.”

  Rose peers at him with more resolution in her expression. “No, Sir Beast, I made my first promise to you,” she corrects him. “And our family keeps its bargains.”

  We fall suddenly silent. Rose is Beast’s lawful wife, after all.

  “But Jean-Loup is never coming back?” Rose asks. She does not sound displeased.

  “Never,” says Beast.

  Rose’s gaze falls to my hands still entwined with Beast’s paw. “And you are in love with him,” she says to me.

  It’s too late now to pretend otherwise. “Yes, I am,” I confess.

  “And you are in love with her,” she says to Beast. It is not a question.

  “I am,” says Beast, closing his other paw gently over my hand again.

  “So perhaps we can come to some . . . arrangement?” Rose says delicately.

  Her plans may lie in ruins, but the merchant’s daughter is ready to bargain. I rather admire that she can remain so clearheaded in spite of everything. For my part, I can’t imagine what will happen now. One last chance to release Beast had been my only goal; I’ve given no thought at all to what might come next.

  “My dear Rose,” says Beast gallantly, “in return for all you have endured, of course I am prepared to see you and your family provided for. What would you ask of me?”

  Beast behaves as honorably as ever, and Rose considers his offer. I wonder what she will choose? A trunk of riches? Some sort of annual stipend to be shared from the profits of the seigneurie once Beast has lowered the taxes and rents and restored prosperity?

  But no sooner do I have this thought than something far more disturbing occurs to me: How can we expect the people of the seigneurie to accept Beast as their new chevalier? All they will see is what Rose and her father saw at first, what all humans see: a hideous monster. How will they ever give him a chance to govern?

  “Beast,” I tell him with sudden inspiration, “give this château to Rose!”

  “What?” says Beast.

  “What?” says Rose.

  “Who better?” I go on. “Rose, you are now Lady Beaumont, the rightful mistress of the château. No one will dispute you.”

  Rose looks surprised, but I can see she is thinking it over. It’s Beast who looks doubtful.

  “But . . . this house, these things . . . Lucie, I have nothing else to give you . . .”

  “I don’t want things! All I want is you. Safe and alive!” I tighten my grip on his paw. “Jean-Loup was nothing without his fine possessions. They are all that gave him worth. But you are different.”

  Beast begins to nod slowly. “The seigneurie deserves a new sovereign,” he rumbles at last. “Promise me, Rose, that you will treat them well, after all they have endured — when Château Beaumont is yours.”

  “I promise, Sir Beast!”

  A commotion of servants startles us from out in the hall. Housemaids’ voices rise in alarm over the roaring they heard and wondering what’s become of Lord and Lady Beaumont; they are missed downstairs. Rose hurries to the door.

  “Wait here,” she whispers to us. “I’ll send them away.”

  As the voices move off, Beast raises his paw to stroke my hair with awkward tenderness. He leans closer, his breath warm on my cheek as he nuzzles my face, learning my new human scent. “But how can you want me like this, Lucie?” he murmurs. “How is it possible?”

  “I might ask you the same thing,” I say, sliding my fingertips gently through his mane. How soft it feels. “There was no room in my heart for anything but revenge until you came along. I lost track of who I was inside. But I found myself again because you cared for me. You gave me a reason to open my heart.”

  “And you gave me someone to come back to, Lucie,” he rumbles. “My faithful companion, my light in the darkness. My illuminator, who knows me better than I ever dared to know myself.”

  I lean my cheek into the soft fur of his chest.

  “I will make mistakes — I am only human, after all.” He chuckles softly. “But they will be my mistakes. Not Jean-Loup’s.”

  I glance up again. “But do you not think after all we’ve endured together that we might encourage what is best in each other’s nature?”

  Beast’s dark eyes shine with humor. “I think we might at that,” he agrees.

  I close my eyes, but a shrill yelp startles them open.

  “Beast!” a voice bleats nearby. “Monster! Murder!”

  We look up to see Madame Montant quivering in the doorway in her sober black gown, fluttering a white handkerchief about her mouth. Although she was in the house the night Jean-Loup was transformed into Beast, she never actually laid eyes on him; witchcraft drove all the servants off in terror. Now her sense of duty wars with horror in her wavering expression, finding herself face-to-face with Beast.

  “W-where is my lady Rose?” she cries. “I heard her voice! If you’ve harmed her in any way . . .”

  “My dear Madame Montant, calm yourself,” Beast tries to reassure her in his most conciliatory tones. “No harm has been —”

  “The Devil knows my name!” shrieks the housekeeper. “I am a marked woman! Oh, help! Murder!”

  Beast is too dumbfounded to respond as both her hands fly up to her whitening face to ward off the evil eye. When he takes one anxious step toward her, she reels backward, half turns, and collapses to the floor of the salon in a pool of black skirts. Beast glances nervously back at me.

  “By Christ and all His saints, am I so hideous a sight that people die of it?”

  “There is nothing hideous about you,” I tell him firmly, squeezing his paw. “It’s her own fear that overwhelms her.”

  Rose appears breathlessly in the outer doorway to the hall, pulling it shut behind her. “What has happened? I heard a shout —” But she freezes when she sees the figure sprawled on the floor. “Madame!” she gasps, raising wide eyes to us.

  “Fainted dead away,” I tell her, trying not to smile at the notion of ferocious Madame Montant swooning like a girl. But more agitated voices from below sober me at once.

  “They heard her shouting, too,” Rose says urgently.

  Already we hear housemaids’ voices, crying, “Madame!” and “Lady Rose!” A clamoring erupts downstairs of servants and guards drawn by these alarms. No one is running away this time, not if they perceive their new Lady Rose to be in any mortal danger.

  “Don’t let them find you!” Rose urges us anxiously. It may be that she’s merely protecting her interests as new mistress of the château, but I believe she really does care something for Beast. She would like him to be happy.

  “She’s right, Beast. We must flee!” I exclaim. “I know where we can go, but we must go now!”

  Heavy footfalls of a distinctly martial character on the marble floor of the entry hall below echo up the stairwell. Beast’s body tenses.

  “Lucie,” he rumbles, “put on the ring! Go far beyond these walls, and I will meet you there as soon as I can.”

  But I grasp the ring on its ribbon
and tuck it firmly back into my bodice. “I am not leaving you, Beast. I am never leaving you again! We will do this together.”

  Something indescribably sweet warms in his dark eyes as he gazes at me for another instant; then he reaches out his paw and takes my hand. We dash out to the second-floor landing of the grand staircase. Voices are shouting and yodeling below, but we dare not try the back stairs, where we might find ourselves trapped in a closed turret. Beast lowers himself to all fours.

  “Beastliness has its uses,” he growls, nodding to me.

  I climb astride his back, squirm in between the feathers, dig in my knees, and press myself flat against him, knotting my fingers in his mane.

  We move down to the bend in the stairway, keeping to the cover of the portrait wall, past the glazed eyes of Beaumont ancestors, staring out in haughty impassivity. But as we creep by, one by one, the paint in each portrait begins to melt. The colors all run together, and their faces dissolve into masks of gaudy paint. All but Lady Christine, Beast’s mother; in her portrait, she smiles radiantly. I can feel her warmth as if she were standing here beside us on the stairs, sorrowing no more, peaceful at last. I know we have pleased her. Beast feels it, too. We pause for a heartbeat to look at her portrait and say farewell.

  But as we descend to the landing, Beast pauses again. He is looking at the last portrait in the row, the portrait of the present chevalier, but the old Jean-Loup, cruel and beautiful, is nowhere to be seen. In his place, elegantly outfitted in his suit of burgundy and gold, stands the true chevalier: my Beast, mane, horns, hooves, all captured in oil, his expression fearless. Warmth and humor shine out of his gold-flecked eyes, so like his mother’s. He is ready to claim his place in the family at last, now that he is leaving it forever.

  I feel tension in Beast’s sinewy muscles beneath me, and he springs from the landing and gallops down the last of the stairs, bounding over four or five at a time. Guardsmen with swords race toward us across the black-and-white tiled floor, and servants and stableboys shake clubs and fists, faces contorted with yelling, eyes huge. But they balk and stumble backward to see this terrible beast in all its monstrosity hurtling toward them. And their weapons, if they have the wit to use them, miss their marks; swords sweep harmlessly; clubs drop in confusion.