Beastly Beauty

Seventy

Arabella emerged from the darkness, vulpine and wary.

In one hand, she clutched a dead rabbit. In the other, a squirrel and two chipmunks. Blood darkened her muzzle. She licked it away.

Her silver eyes stayed on him, watching him, gauging him, as she paced back and forth by the glowing embers.

Trying to decide whether to kill me or not, Beau thought.

She snorted, deep and gusty, warning him to keep his distance, then dumped her kills on the floor.

Slowly, so that he did not spook her, Beau stood and gathered up scraps and offcuts from the planks he’d sawed earlier and placed them on the embers. Wisps of smoke rose. Thin fingers of flame curled around them.

Arabella sat down by the fire. She picked up a chipmunk and bit off its head, cracking the skull between her teeth. She finished it in two bites, then ate the squirrel. As she tore through fur and crunched on bone, her eyes left Beau and lighted on the charcoal sketch of the bridge she’d made two days ago on the gatehouse wall.

It was the first time Beau had found himself able to sit with her, not run from her. It was the first time he could simply take her in. She was a miracle. Powerful. Fierce. Magnificent. Her fur was a rich, dusky gray. Her eyes were the color of a winter moon. She smelled of silver creeks, the north wind, snow.

He stretched out a tentative hand and touched the fur on her arm. Arabella’s eyes darted back to his. Her ears flattened. The velvet across her nose wrinkled. Her fangs flashed.

But Beau wasn’t afraid. Words he had discovered in her old chamber, in a book of sonnets, rose to his lips. Words that had lodged in his heart. “‘What is your substance, whereof are you made, that millions of strange shadows on you tend?’”

The ferociousness on Arabella’s face softened to surprise. Her eyes widened, and Beau saw an aching vulnerability in them. She quickly looked away, unused to seeing wonder on a human being’s face, he guessed. Unused to seeing anything but fear.

“Sonnet Fifty-Three. My favorite,” she said, her eyes fixed on the fire. “I didn’t know you read Shakespeare.”

Beau blinked in astonishment. “You … you can talk?”

“Of course I can talk.” She stood up on her hind legs and started toward her sketch, but halfway there, she turned and held up a clawed finger. “Don’t touch my rabbit.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She nodded, then, looking a little shamefaced, she said, “I guess you could have a leg if you’d like.”

“I’m good.”

Arabella cast one last possessive glance at her kills, then continued to her drawing. She tilted her head, taking it all in, tracing lines with a curved black talon, then she rubbed out a section of it with her paw. After a brief search, she found the stub of charcoal she’d used to make the sketch and started to redraw the rubbed-away lines.

“The pilings are too close together,” she said. “We have to place them farther apart, or we’ll never finish.”

We, Beau thought. She said we, not you. She wanted to help him. Even though he could not help her. The realization made him feel achingly guilty, yet again, for blaming her for something she had not done. They hadn’t talked, not since he’d stalked out of the castle. Maybe it was time they did.

“Arabella …” he began. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. About the drawbridge. I believe you. I know you didn’t do it.”

Arabella stopped sketching but did not turn around. “What changed your mind?”

Beau opened his mouth to answer her, then realized he might land Camille in trouble. He quickly cast about for words that weren’t quite the truth but weren’t a total lie, either. “Time,” he finally said. “To cool down. To think things over.”

Arabella nodded and Beau continued. There was something else he wanted to talk about.

“Listen, about … about the—”

That kiss, he was going to say. The one you gave me. The one I gave you.

But she didn’t let him.

“The planks?” she asked. “Have you laid any between the pilings yet? I think we’ll still be able to get away with a thinner one across longer stretches. It’ll have more bounce to it, but hopefully not enough to dump your thieving ass in the moat.”

“Not having my thieving ass dumped in the moat would be good,” Beau said, biting back a smile at her language.

After working a shard of bone out of her teeth with a claw, Arabella rubbed away another section of her sketch and redrew it, talking about span and pitch, which Beau did not understand. But he did understand one thing—she didn’t want to talk about the kiss they’d shared. And he was relieved; at least that’s what he told himself. It was easier to keep their conversation limited to solving problems of surface strength. To glance over problems of tension, and to avoid moats and the hard, dark things that lurked in them.

“I’m consulting everything I can find on footbridges,” Arabella continued. “I’m worried about the far end of our bridge. The forest side appears to be higher than the gatehouse side. What if we get there and we’re well below the grade? What do we do then?”

Beau thought for a moment, then said, “Balance a ladder on the decking?”

“Not unless you care to go swimming again,” she said. “I’ve been looking at pictures of Venetian bridges to see if I can solve that problem. The Venetians did what we’re trying to do, but a million times better. They sank pilings through the silt and mud of the lagoon, then connected them with planking, too. Then they put layers of limestone over the planks to serve as a foundation for the buildings. It was hard, ugly work, and yet, out of wood and mud and rock, those builders created one of the most beautiful cities in the world.”

“An entire city built on the water,” Beau said. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

“A Venetian ambassador once told me stories about his home. He made it come alive—the palaces and the art, the music and the masquerades, the smell of salt air, the songs of the boatmen …” Her voice trailed off. When she finally spoke again, her words were raw with longing. “Can you imagine the beauty of it, Beau? That’s why builders build, isn’t it? Why they try to make their castles and cathedrals touch the stars. So that we might stand on the shoulders of the past and see forever.”

Beau looked at her and thought, This sad, brilliant creature has been a prisoner here, too. For far longer than I have.

The enormity of it, of years spent living in this grim place, cut off from the world, hit Beau hard. How lonely it must’ve been for her, he thought. What agony for a mind so bright and searching.

“You’ll break this curse, Arabella. You’ll go to Venice one day. I know you will,” he said, his voice suddenly husky.

Arabella gave him the ghost of a smile. “Perhaps.” She looked at her sketch again, frowning with worry. “There’s still so much to do, and we only have four days left.” Then, as if catching herself, she quickly added, “To stay ahead of winter, I mean.” She winced and scratched furiously behind one ear. “Fleas. Such a nuisance. I have to drown the little bastards in a hot bath every morning.”

Beau laughed. He liked this beast-Arabella. She was frank and funny. Foulmouthed. Greedy and rude. And smart. So damn smart. Just like the other Arabella.

Still clutching her charcoal, Arabella walked to another wall now, one without any sketches on it. “I wish I had time. And winches. A granite quarry. Horses and wagons. And two hundred masons,” she said. “What a bridge I could build then.”

She started drawing, not a rickety plank walkway made of scraps but an arched marvel, wide enough for two carriages to pass over at the same time, with railed walkways and iron lampposts.

Beau asked her questions as she drew, one after another, just so he could hear the passion in her voice as she answered them. Once again, lost in work, in conversation, and in each other, Beau and Arabella forgot the time.

Until Beau, feeling his lack of sleep, yawned. Until he rubbed his face with both hands, trying to scrub away his weariness. Until his stomach growled for food.

“I wonder if Camille’s up yet,” he said. “I could really use a cup of her coffee. And a warm croissant or five.”

Arabella turned to him and blinked, as if he’d called her out of a trance. Then she swiveled her gaze to the archway. It was still snowing, but the darkness was beginning to lighten.

“Oh no. Oh, blast. Beau, give me your shirt. Quick!”

He looked at her askance. “My shirt? Why?”

“Just give it to me,” she demanded.

Beau shook his head. He did not want to remove his shirt. Not in front of her.

“Here,” he said, reaching for his jacket. “Take this.”

“It’s too short. I need your shirt.”

“No.”

“For God’s sake, Beau!” she shouted, her eyes huge with panic. “I don’t have time to argue!”

“You can’t have it. It’s, um, it’s really cold. I’m really cold.”

“In about sixty seconds, I’m going to be really cold. Since I’m going to be completely naked. Please, Beau, for decency’s sake, give me your damn shirt!”