TFT 01 Beauty and the Beast (6 page)

Rest
.

“See now, I—,” Elle started.

Emele underlined
Rest
.

Elle stared at the slate before looking at her merciless ladies maid. “Fine. It appears I have been beaten today,” she said, settling in the chair as Emele dismissed the footmen from the room.

The next day Elle sat in an armchair next to the fire, the picture of innocence in her cast off dress from Emele. “Emele, is it tea time yet?”

Emele looked up from the embroidery piece she was working on.
Not yet
. She wrote on her slate.
Why?

“I’m famished,” Elle said, setting a hand on her stomach while looking at Emele under her eyelashes.

Emele bustled to her feet with a smile.
Tea time
, she wrote on her slate.

“Thank you, Emele. You are as sweet as you are pretty,” Elle said.

Emele blushed and swatted a hand through the air to disregard Elle’s comment.
Stay
, she wrote.

“Of course,” Elle amiably agreed.

Emele smiled before she sailed out of the room.

Elle waited until Emele’s footsteps disappeared down the hallway before she grabbed the fireplace poker. She hooked it around her crutches—which Emele had leaned on a wall, tantalizingly out of reach—and pulled. The crutches fell to the ground, and Emele carefully reached out with her good leg, snagged her slipper on the crutches, and pulled them to her.

She had about ten minutes before Emele would return with the tea, and Elle intended to use the time to slip off to a different part of the castle. She needed to practice using her crutches—
without
the easily startled ladies maid flittering around her like a butterfly.

Elle stood and wedged the crutches under her armpits. She kept her movements precise and unhurried as she thumped across her bedroom. She struggled with the door for a minute before she was able to maneuver it open and close it behind her after she made her escape.

Elle started thumping up the hallway, careful to keep to the rugs and off the stone floor. Based on the view from her window, Elle thought there were a few empty salons—sitting rooms—that weren’t too far away. If she could reach them before Emele returned she might be able to hide for a few minutes and practice.

Elle turned up a different hallway. When she reached an intersection and was deciding if she should go straight—where there was only one door—or if she should take a risk and go right, which would take her back towards her rooms she heard the crash of breaking dishes. The crash of a dropped tray. The crash caused by Emele returning to an empty room.

With renewed vigor Elle thumped up the hallway. She wouldn’t be able to reach a salon, but there was a large door further up the hallway. If Elle could just get to it in time…

Elle reached the door and wrestled it open, glancing over her shoulder when she heard footsteps. They were heavy and masculine, making Elle wonder if Emele had already spread word of her disappearance to the other servants.

Elle hastily slipped inside, ripping her skirt and almost wiping out when the door closed behind her. Elle leaned against it, listening as the heavy footsteps drew closer and paused outside the door. For a few long moments there was silence until the footsteps retreated back in the direction they had come from.

Elle exhaled and tipped her head back against the door. “That was shamefully close. A few weeks in bed and I am out of practice. Very disappointing,” she said before leaning forward on her crutches, eager to see what room she had walked into.

Bookshelves stood like giants in the shadows, stretching sky high to disappear into the gloom of the ceiling. Books lined the shelves—expensive books with leather covers and embossed spines. The furniture was big and invasively masculine. Portraits of rulers and royalty long dead hung on the walls.

It was the library, and it was undoubtedly the most expensive feature of the castle.

Elle thumped across lavish rugs, uneasily teetering as she shrugged off the unseeing stares of the portraits.

Elle explored until she found a velvet armchair—a larger version of the one in her room—pulled in front of an empty fireplace grate. Elle took small, mincing steps around the chair as she looked for tripping hazards. When she was sure the chair was an acceptable axis to use for her walking practice she adjusted her wooden crutches and took a deep breath before swinging her crutches in front of her. She frowned when she jostled forward.

“These dratted skirts make it impossible to correctly use my crutches. Who designed such foolish feminine wear? The proletariat class would never wear something so irrational,” Elle said, balancing on her good leg as she removed the crutches from under her arms to try and push the puffy skirt of her dress backwards.

Pinching her mouth in a grim line of determination, Elle replaced the crutches beneath her arms and moved forward. She did not take the small, careful strides she had used to hobble down the hallway. Instead she swung the crutches forward with faked expertise before pushing off her good leg.

Sometimes Elle hopped too high—like a frog clearing a lily pad. Other times she moved too slowly and her shoulder blades uncomfortably pinched. There seemed to be some sort of trick to keeping the crutches from moving. Half of the time they slipped when she hopped, and her shoulders hurt from pushing them forward like the oar of a boat. Elle was positive the volume of the dress was making the exercise more difficult than it needed to be. They forced her to keep the crutches angled out.

Twice Elle had to lunge forward to borrow support from the armchair to keep upright. Her underarms ached and the thigh muscles of her good leg burned as she charged ahead.

Occasionally Elle glanced at the library doors, but she never heard another set of footsteps, so she kept practicing.

Once Elle accidentally put her bad leg down. Pain shot through the limb. Elle narrowed her eyes and bit her lip to keep from yelping as she stood still. She shook her head, as if shaking the pain off, and grimly hobbled forward.

Elle was exhausted and ready to face the most likely murderous Emele when it happened. Her crutches slipped. The left one shot out from under her arm when Elle was hopping forward. She landed heavily on her good leg, spinning oddly with one sided momentum.

Elle knew she was going to fall, so she avoided calamity by falling into the armchair. Unfortunately she fell at a very awkward angle and was wedged into it, her good leg straining to keep her aloft.

“Oh dear,” Elle said, feeling her leg shake. She would have to figure out a way to slowly lower herself. Maybe she could slide to the floor and—

Elle’s thoughts were interrupted by the click of claws on stone.

A beastly, hulking shape emerged from the bookshelves. It was Prince Severin. He glided across the floor in his rolling gait, his velvet black fur gleaming dully in the torchlight.

Elle should have known someone was in the library with her. But she hadn’t heard him at all, were her skills slipping?

Elle’s leg almost gave out when Severin stopped next to her. The cursed prince reached out with clawed hands and gently—but impersonally—picked Elle off the chair. He set her on her good foot and presented her fallen crutch to her before he glided off.

Severin left the library, closing the door behind him.

Elle stared at the door, a puzzled frown slipping across her lips. What did that mean? Elle always thought Severin was the type to stand on top of those who had tripped and fallen. He was the master mind behind his inept brother. Helping peasant girls stand was not a character trait Elle would have thought he possessed.

Elle shook her head and limped to the door. “I must find Emele and repent. I really
am
famished now.”

At dinner Elle thoughtfully chewed her fish as she stared at Severin. He still ignored her as he tidily ate, reading papers and scribbling notes in between courses.

Elle slurped her tea, noting with interest when one of Severin’s cat ears twitched—in irritation most likely. At least he was aware of her, even if it was only auditory.

As Elle took care to slurp especially loudly, she wondered why the prince hadn’t sent her from the room. An illegitimate prince was still a prince, after all, and she was nothing but a supposedly ignorant peasant. An idiot, he said, as Elle recalled.

A maid glided forward, refilling Elle’s teacup when she set it down. Elle gave the masked girl a quick smile before she selected a few grapes to eat.

“The food is fantastic,” Elle said, speaking loudly enough for Severin and the servants to hear.

Severin didn’t so much as move a muscle, so Elle turned her attention to the servants. “Really, it is,” she said to the silent maid closest to her. “You must give Bernadine my compliments and highest praise. She brings credit to the already honorable occupation of cook.”

The maid curtseyed with the whisper of crinkling cloth.

Elle smiled at her before her attention began to wander. She eyed her crutches, which were placed near her on the ground.

A manservant noticed her gaze and swept her crutches out of reach before she could make a move. His lips formed a sweet smile as he leaned the crutches on the wall, aware of Elle’s aspirations.

“So, this is a big castle,” Elle said, folding her hands in her lap.

Severin turned a page in his book.

“It’s very nice. It’s well… furnished,” Elle said.

Severin managed—very aptly from what Elle could see—to hold a quill in his thick, claw tipped fingers and scratch out a note.

Elle shrugged at his indifference and turned to look at her crutches again. Servants were lined up in front of them. All of them were nodding and smiling, looking encouraging as they gestured for her to keep talking.

The situation struck Elle as being odd, which was something she did not hesitate to tell Emele the following day after the footmen carried her outside for the first time since her accident.

“The entire dinner was awkward and silent. He only ever acknowledged me with his ears whenever I slurped my soup or clanged a dish,” Elle explained to her faithful ladies maid as they meandered down the path. (Emele finally trusted her enough to stroll down the level, graveled paths in the thick garden even though Elle’s puffy skirts still gave her troubles.)

“I fail to understand why I am brought to dinner with Prince Severin. Surely I’m beneath his notice,” Elle said.

Emele stopped to write.
Companionship
.

“Companionship? You are bluffing. Prince Severin needs my companionship like a peacock needs horse fur. He clearly doesn’t want me there. I am positive the only reason he does not send me off, bouncing on my way home and further injuring my leg is because of you and the rest of the Chateau servants,” Elle said, walking further up the garden trail. The armchair the footmen had brought her out in was still within sight, Elle felt confident she could go farther.

Never
! Emele wrote.
The Prince is too kind for that
.

“Say what you will, but I have experienced otherwise,” Elle dryly said. “What are the terms of his curse? It seems to have done very little to sweeten his temperament,” she said. Little was known of Prince Severin’s curse, even among the Crown’s servants.

Emele shook her head and kept walking.
Not my story to tell
.

“Why not? You were cursed with him,” Elle said, thumping after her maid as they moved toward the outer patches of greenery. They walked the perimeter of the gardens, going down a path that was walled in by giant hedges. A wrought iron fence was snug against the outer hedge. Elle wasn’t sure if it was meant to keep intruders out, or everyone else in.

The weather was pleasant. The sun was warm and intense considering summer was leaving and fall would soon sweep through the land.

Emele shook her head again but didn’t write anything on her slate.

Elle paddled down the path for a few moments, contemplating her next question and occasionally stopping to push her skirts backwards. “Will you be stuck like this forever?”

Emele smiled generously.
No. There is hope.