"Well, well, well." I felt the entirety of my body stiffen. "Pray tell," the masculine voice murmured as his chin rested down onto my shoulder, "what has made them send such a fine lady such as yourself?"
A Beauty and the Beast Retelling in which Be...
I AWOKE TO the sound of my maidservants whispering erratically from outside my room. Their hushed voices vaguely seeped into my mind, little more than a figment of my imagination. I pushed my covers away, my interest aroused.
"Ten livres she will be the one." Madame Dubois's voice. "Little girl, are you blind to the way he looks at her?"
It was Aurore who responded with: "But he acts like such a prick!"
"The lord is enticed by her, of that we are aware," an unfamiliar, feminine voice said, seeming to ignore Aurore. "But the lady, she is only interested in butchering him and therein lies the problem. I wager twenty livres he—and with him, the whole lot of us—will die at her hand."
"He can put up with a nick or two," Madame Dubois hissed sharply. "That is a small price for her company."
I sat up, sliding my legs along the silken sheets so that my toes pressed into the carpeted floor. Slowly, making sure that my steps were quiet, I neared the door and held an ear to it.
"Have you listened to them bicker and threaten each other over dinner? Or last night, in this chamber? Or—" She cut herself off and said, rather loudly, "Is it not time for her ladyship to dine with her husband?"
"Is it not inappropriate for my husband's servants to wager on his wife killing him?" I returned, pushing my door open. "But I must thank you, for believing that it will be I who kills him, and not the other way around."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"What made you decide to be punctual tonight?" I asked as my eyes fell upon the masked man seated at the head of the table. Prior to this night, he had arrived before me only once.
"It is you who is late this evening," he said calmly, raising a glass of swirled shades of red to his lips.
His gaze lingered in my direction as I approached my place and seated myself. Like him, I decided that it was the flavor of wine that I wanted to taste on my tongue. Hesitantly, I raised a glass to my lips. Last time I had drunk too much I awoke with my head in a bucket. To hell with it. I let the wine trickle down my throat, drained the glass, and set it down.
"You are rather quiet tonight, dear," his voice whispered in my ear, settling along my neck.
Unshaken by his sudden nearness, I said, "My apologies your lordship. I am much too fatigued to partake in our dinnerly banter." In truth, I did not want to put up with it tonight.
"And why is that?" he questioned, still standing beside me.
He spoke with a softness that I almost mistook for concern. I knew better. My eyes drifted, avoiding looking in his direction. "I have not slept all that very well." Indeed, the majority of last night had been spent in both his and the guard's company.
