Pray for me, please God, pray that it will all be well for me.”
“I’ll pray for you, Beauty.” Tom hugged her tight before he let her go reluctantly, ignoring the tears in her eyes. “And I’ll work to find a way to save you.”
“Do not. Do not even think of it,” Beauty replied firmly. “And please God, Tom, do not attempt any vengeance. ’Twould be the death of us all, Nate and our mother too.” She held his eyes and put all her love into her words. “From this night on, I will be dead to you and our family, and disgraced as well. My only salvation, Tom, is you. As long as you are safe, dear brother, I will find some happiness. Go home now and see to our mother and Nate but remember to return on the morrow to work here.”
“How can I work here knowing what must be happening to you inside the castle?” Tom muttered.
“You have to, else our mother and Nate will surely perish. It might be that your job will even give us a chance to see each other once in a while, even though as of now he commands me to swear never to see any of my family again. It’s a small barn, and mayhap I’ll get to ride with him sometimes,” Beauty whispered, hugging him close. “Go now. Be strong and pray for me that I’m all right.”
The poignant memory of those few precious moments with her brother strengthened her resolve to please the Beast. Beauty waited in his bed, dreading the arrival of the Beast, and yet hoping he’d come soon so that she could find out what fate held in store for her. The wine helped a bit but the waiting was fearful and seemed to last forever. Before long however, she heard his footsteps, sure and heavy, coming up the hall. In that instant, it seemed to Beauty that the wait had not been long enough, that the Beast had come to her all too soon.
The Beast entered his bedchamber and slammed the door. Suddenly the large room appeared to grow smaller to Beauty. The very walls seemed to be closing in on her and she felt trapped. Her breath caught in her throat and she struggled to breathe as the very air surrounding her seemed to suddenly turn thick and sluggish. In spite of the wine, she began to tremble, shaking uncontrollably. The Beast appeared to ignore her completely, not looking her way or speaking as his hands went to the fastenings of his clothes. His very silence further unnerved her.
Lying there on the bed, looking at him as he quickly shed his clothes, she was both terrified and mesmerized by his strong, muscular body and his physical perfection. In spite of what she’d heard both from him and about him, the real shock though came when he removed his tunic and saw the multitude of scars covering his perfect form. As he briefly turned his back, she gasped as she noticed that although there were several obvious battle wounds on him, his back was almost completely covered with old scars that seemed to have come from countless merciless whippings.
“Is something bothering you, lass?” the Beast mumbled, irritated and still looking for her to try to back out of her agreement, “Or are you finding your agreement easier to make than to keep?”
“Nay, M’lord, I was but shocked to see the proof of your words about how you’d been raised, M’lord, and the reminders of how many battles you’ve fought. ’Tis rare for one so young to have been in so many wars, but the truth of your words is reflected by the great number of scars on your body.” Beauty met his gaze and whispered, “Any man who has lived the life you must have lived and seen such ugliness as you’ve witnessed would surely have to be completely hardened to the softer emotions, truly.”
“You think my body’s ugly, lass?” the Beast growled, deliberately misunderstanding her. “It makes no difference to me.”
“No! I think you have a truly well made body, M’lord, ‘tis strong and well muscled. You have a very pleasing face too. ‘Tis what’s been done to you that’s ugly.” Beauty paused, not realizing that her words had pleased him strangely. “I don’t like to think of anyone, let alone the one man I have promised to love, undergoing so much torment and suffering. Remember, M’lord, I have promised to love you in my own way.”
“Rest easy, lass.” The Beast almost smiled in spite of himself. “It’s far too late to change the past and it served to toughen me, to make me fit to lead vast armies, to fight battles and to win wars, and to rule.”
“I don’t believe you have to be so hard to rule. The old lord ruled this land wisely and yet with compassion, M’lord. He was clearly respected by the serfs but also well loved by them. He knew how to rule reasonably with justice tempered by mercy. The local peasants prospered but so did he and his family. He was widely known to truly love his wife and children, and they loved him deeply,” Beauty pointed out, a slight tremor in her voice. “He was truly a fair and just man.”
“And now the old lord is dead,” the Beast countered coldly, stalking over to the bed.
He sat on the edge of the bed and removed his hose and boots. “And his family has disappeared. Now his castle is mine to hold, his lands and peasants mine to rule. Does that not prove he was too weak?”
“And would you, with all your cold, bitter fury and strength of will have withheld against an invading horde any better than he did? Your King sent ten times as many men as the old lord had, all of them well trained and heavily armed. It was not lack of strength or courage that brought the old lord down but overwhelming odds, lack of trained fighting men and good weapons,” Beauty pointed out.
“What brought this matter to your mind now? Do you seek to argue or reason your way out of my bed?” The Beast stood up and walked over to fetch the wine, then returned and stood looking down at her.
“No, M’lord, I went at it clumsily but I wanted to point out that here, in this one place, the warrior can also be a man. You can drop your guard and still be safe,” Beauty said proudly. “I will not betray you but will stand proudly beside you in times of strife.”
“Be warned, lass, for I am not a fool. I know what is said behind my back, that someday I’ll meet the woman who can tame the Beast. I think there’s something more on your pretty mind. I think you seek to be that woman, to be the one to tame the Beast. The woman who can teach me what love is,” the Beast grinned without any humour in it. “Beware my lass, for it cannot be done, and certainly not by the likes of you.”
“Tame the Beast? Ha! What mere woman could manage such a miracle?” Beauty responded with seeming calm but somewhere deep inside her soul the idea had taken root.
She looked up at him as he stood by the bed, naked. Her emotions were jumbled but her mind was clear and fixed. She knew the risks she took by being there with the Beast, not only in his bed but also in his hands, and under his control. In her heart, mayhap to ease her conscience, she saw this pact much as an arranged marriage.
She also realized that the real key to her survival, not only the survival of her body but also the survival of her spirit and her soul did indeed depend on her being able to tame the Beast. She had to succeed or he would surely crush her. Not that she needed to tame him by making him into a weakling, she grasped intuitively, but simply by showing him how to trust someone enough to lower his iron guard and reveal the man hidden deep inside the facade.
She needed to show the Beast that the peasants whom he took for no more than mere animals in the fields were indeed real human beings, with all the hopes, despair, love, fears and dreams of any other people. It was her only chance, albeit a faint one, to improve things not only for herself and her family but also for the villagers.
She also needed to discover his dreams and strive to make his dreams hers, to help
