TFT 01 Beauty and the Beast (5 page)

The prince ignored her.

Elle looked around the room, smoothing the soft fabric of her dress across her legs. The room’s suffocating silence was worse, even, then the lack of sound in Elle’s room. Severin seemed determined to ignore her presence.

Elle shamelessly stared at Severin. She hadn’t met him, or even seen him, in spite of all her trips to the palace in Noyers.

Elle frowned as her eyes traced his beastly body. He was frightening by the sheer nature of his features. White teeth poked past the lips of his massive feline head. His feet and hands were fitted with claws that could rip a man apart. His cursed appearance very accurately reflected his personality. He was, after all, a predator.

Severin looked up, but not to notice Elle. He stared at the door, which creaked open moments later.

In trooped a stream of housemaids carrying beeswax candles, which they set around the perimeter of the room—considerably lightening it.

Crystal chandeliers in the ceiling caught the flickering flames and reflected them across the room, bouncing candlelight off mirrors fixed on the walls.

After the housemaids came the kitchen maids—all masked and silent. They carried trays and trays of food—more than Severin and Elle could possibly eat.

“Emele seems to have given you all the impression that I possess a ravenous appetite,” Elle said as a kitchen maid set a tray of quaking pudding down in front of Elle while another maid poured wine in her cup and served tea. “No harm done, I suppose. She’s probably right.”

When the maids finished they left as silently as they arrived.

Elle shifted her gaze from the sea of food to Severin.

Severin folded up his papers and put them in a waterproof case. He wordlessly took his elaborately folded cloth napkin, shook it out, and set it on his lap before he began serving himself.

Elle followed his example, taking a scoopful of hash, snow cream, quaking pudding, and cheeses.

“Everything tastes heavenly,” Elle proclaimed after sampling some of the dishes. The cheeses were sharp and potent, the rosewater taste of the snow cream was fabulous, and Elle didn’t doubt the wines were priceless and the teas were of the highest quality.

Severin, Elle was interested to see, ate using silverware, making precise cuts and eating tidily. The utensils looked ridiculously tiny in his large paws, but he maneuvered them deftly. Only his wine goblet seemed to give him any troubles as he wasn’t able to get his lips properly pursed against it thanks to his large fangs.

More courses were brought in. There were bowls of lamb stew and fish stock soup, trays of grapes and cherries and pears, beets, violet jellies, breadsticks, venison, and quail.

“I believe I may require an additional footman to haul my chair up the stairs after this meal,” Elle announced.

Elle was sampling a crisp breadstick when the dining hall door was pushed open. In toddled the fat Papillon. He made a beeline for Severin, barking ferociously. The small dog circled the prince’s chair and snapped at him.

The prince’s cat ears flattened and he briefly narrowed his eyes at the canine before returning his attention to his meal.

The Papillon stopped to breathe for a minute, snorting like a pig as he recovered. One of his giant ears twitched, and with a yip he launched himself at Severin, hooking his tiny teeth on the sleeve of Severin’s jacket.

Severin shook his arm, but the dog remained fastened. He growled as the dog hung in the air. “Heloise!” he bellowed, his voice as feral as a snarl.

The Papillon growled as it hung from Severin’s sleeve, its fat jiggling whenever Severin moved.

Elle smirked openly. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who disliked the illegitimate prince.

“Heloise!” Severin shouted again. “Get this mongrel out of my sight.”

Elle took a sip of her wine. When she set her cup down on the table with a clack, the small dog rolled his eyes to look at her. He abruptly unhinged his mouth from the cursed prince’s clothing, dropping to the floor with a splat.

The beautifully groomed dog scraped himself off the ground before waddling to Elle’s end of the table. It attempted to launch itself on Elle’s lap, but it couldn’t get off its hind feet, so it settled for sitting on her uninjured foot.

Elle pet the adorable creature, and Severin looked directly at her for the first time since her arrival. His beast eyes were narrowed, and his ears flattened.

Elle smiled at him and popped a cherry in her mouth.

Severin pushed his dishes away from him, opened his waterproof container and spilled his papers in front of him. He carefully sipped tea and immersed himself in letters, ignoring Elle.

He looked up only when Emele and the four footmen returned to take Elle back to her room.

“This dog, this wonderful dog, who does he belong to?” Elle asked, playing with the Papillon in her bed that night as Emele shut the curtains.

Emele paused long enough to place her hands on either side of her head, upright, in a mock pair of ears.

“The prince?” Elle asked.

Emele nodded and started fluffing pillows.

“He doesn’t seem to like him,” Elle said, looking at the fat dog. “You are a good dog. Never change!”

Emele nodded before pointing to the dog and then Elle and smiling.

“The dog was hurt like I was?” Elle guessed.

Emele shook her head and finally reached for her slate.

Keep
.

“He can stay with me while I’m here?” Elle said.

Emele nodded and arranged the pillows around Elle.

Elle picked up the chubby Papillon, snuggling him against her for the moment. She hadn’t owned a pet since her father’s business failed. It would be fun to borrow a dog, even if it was only for a little while.

Emele carefully removed the splint from Elle’s leg, casting it aside before she helped Elle slide her legs under the covers.

“Thank you, Emele, for all your help,” Elle said.

Emele curtseyed and blew out the candles until the only light came from the fireplace on the far side of the room.

After a week of silent dinners with Severin, Duval presented Elle with two wooden poles. Each pole was topped with an oddly shaped pillow Elle saw Emele embroider during her bed rest.

“What are they?” Elle asked, for once not having to feign ignorance.

Duval presented a slate to her.
Crutches
.

The portly barber-surgeon passed the crutches off to Emele. The lady in waiting tucked a pole under each arm. She swung them forward and then stepped off a foot to glide forward, her weight resting on the crutches.

Elle didn’t understand quite how it worked, but she latched onto the important fact. “I can walk?” she said, barely able to contain her glee.

Duval hastily wiped his slate clean with a kerchief.
SLOWLY
, he wrote, underlining it several times.

“Of course,” Elle said as she hastily scooted to the edge of her bed. It was a difficult task thanks to all the underskirts and overskirts Emele had stuffed her into that morning, but at least Elle now understood why the ladies maid had fussed over her.

Emele dropped the crutches, which fell to the floor with a clatter, and rushed to Elle’s side to tug her skirts down.

Two masked footmen stood on either side of Elle—Elle suspected it was two of the four footmen who usually carried her to dinner based on their builds, but it was blasted difficult to tell the lower servants apart thanks to their uniforms, covered faces, and lack of a voice. They respectfully helped her stand, stabilizing her when she faltered.

The world tilted at an alarming angle as Elle tried to right herself. She couldn’t put any weight on her broken leg, and she was dismayed to discover that her uninjured leg shook with strain as she stood like a heron.

The footmen shuffled until they were able to prop the crutches under Elle’s arms, relieving some of the tension on Elle’s good leg.

“This will not do,” Elle muttered before she swung the crutches in front of her as she had seen Emele do, struggling to move the crutches against the material of her wide skirts. She then hopped forward and was nearly bounced backwards when her skirts caught on a rough edge of one of the crutches.

The footmen scrambled to support her as she teetered between the crutches and her awkwardly placed good leg.

Emele clasped her hands over her mouth to silence the scream she couldn’t utter as she watched the process.

Elle was breathing heavily when Duval smiled and held up his slate.
Practice
.

Elle grimly nodded and struggled across the room with her walking aids. “I will master this method of transportation, I am the captain of crutches—no, the commander!” She thumped awkwardly, nearly tumbling when the crutches caught on the edge of a rug.

Again the footmen righted her.

Elle reached the far side of her room and looked to Duval as she gripped the door handle. “Can I go out?”

The barber-surgeon nodded in encouragement. Emele, who stood next to him, shook her head no.

“I think I will agree with Duval in this case,” Elle said before she pulled the door open, almost taking out one of her crutches with it before a footman lunged forward to take control of the door.

The hallway proved to be tricky. A long rug ran through the center of the hallway, and it was difficult to swing her crutches over its tasseled edges. Additionally, the floor that wasn’t covered by the rug was bare stone—which proved to be a somewhat slippery surface.

“Commander of crutches might be out of my reach today,” Elle said when she paused for a moment to breathe.

A footman kidnapped an armchair set against the hallway wall and slid it up behind her. Elle gratefully sank into it. “Thank you,” she said, managing to plop on the cushion without whacking herself with her crutches.

Emele presented Elle with a handkerchief, which Elle reluctantly used to dab at the sweat beading on her forehead.

Duval smiled and presented Elle with his slate.
Good job
. His cheeks puffed with the size of his smile before he bowed and strode down the hallway, leaving Elle with Emele and the footmen.

“I lost a lot of strength,” Elle said discreetly rubbing at her underarms.

Emele patted Elle on her shoulder before flicking open a fan and fanning her.

Elle briefly leaned into the breeze. “It’s time to try again,” she said after a few more moments of rest.

Emele snapped the fan shut and twisted it in distress before she grappled for her small slate.

Too early
.

“It’s fine. I need to push myself. I refuse to be complacent,” Elle said, wrangling her crutches into position.

Emele placed her hands to her heart before she tried again.

Too tired?

“Absolutely not. In fact, I feel refreshed,” Elle lied as the footmen helped her stand. She smiled triumphantly when the world did not spin or tilt.

Elle wobbled down the hallway, laboriously pulling herself forward against her skirts. She had never worn so much material in her life, and it was throwing her off balance.

Elle glanced at Emele, who had her lips pursed and was still strangling her fan.

“I wish you would have more confidence in me, Emele. I survived a fall from the ceiling, this isn’t going to break me,” Elle said as she marched on, the crutches tapping an unsteady beat on the floor.

Emele clasped her throat when Elle’s good leg gave out for a moment, leaving Elle dangling by her crutches. Elle quickly fixed the position of her leg and thumped forward before the footmen could grab her.

When Elle’s left crutch scuffed on a crease in the rug, making Elle jolt forward, Emele had enough.

The ladies maid stamped her feet in a most unlady-like manner before stabbing a finger at the footmen, swooping it in Elle’s direction, and finally pointing back down the hallway.

“I’m sorry; I am not fluent in that particular gesture. Could you write it—,” Elle was whisked up by the footmen and deposited in the chair before she had the chance to react. They carried her down the hallway in the chair and banged into her room, setting the chair down before she could protest.

Emele grabbed Elle’s crutches and pulled them from her grasp before setting them down near the windows. She fixed a curl that had escaped from her hairstyle before writing on her slate.