Beastly Beauty

Seventy-Two

Into the castle and up the staircase Arabella raced.

By the time she reached the tower, she was breathless. She stood in front of Beau’s door, still wearing his too-big shirt, and knocked on it. But he didn’t open it. She turned the knob, but it was locked.

“Beau? Beau, I know you’re in there. Open the door,” she said, banging on it with the flat of her hand.

There was no response.

“This is childish, Beau.”

Still no response. “Coward!” she shouted, giving the door a kick.

Worried, always, about the ticking clock, Arabella sat down, her back against the door, unsure what to do. A moment later, she heard the sound of pounding feet. She looked up and saw Faith running toward her.

“Why are you sitting on the floor?” she asked breathlessly.

Arabella gave her a wan smile. “As usual, your sister has made me a glittering promise and left me empty-handed,” she replied.

“Want some cheese with that whine?” Faith asked.

“I’m not whining!” Arabella said, insulted. “I just—”

Faith cut her off. “The thief wouldn’t let a locked door stop him.”

“He knows how to pick a lock. I don’t.”

“Then you’re lucky I came along,” Faith said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the master key.

“You’re the one who stole it?” Arabella asked indignantly.

“Not exactly. I got it from someone … someone who re-stole it.”

Before Arabella could question her further, new voices spiraled up the stairwell.

“Lady Arabella? Are you there? What’s come over you? This behavior is beneath you! He’s a common criminal!”

“Come away from that door! Before he opens it and bashes you over the head with a chair!”

“Ugh, here they come,” Faith said. She hurried across the landing and skirted behind a table. “You can do this. Believe in yourself!”

Arabella stood a little taller, heartened by Faith’s encouragement. “Do you believe in me?” she asked.

Faith shrugged. She tilted her hand side to side. “Ehhhh,” she said, and then she ducked down. A few seconds later, Arabella’s court arrived on the landing, as bumptious as a bag of rats.

“He doesn’t want anything to do with you, can’t you see that? No one does!”

“He only kissed you because he felt sorry for you.”

“You’re going to make such a fool of yourself.”

Arabella turned away from them toward Beau’s door, clutching the key tightly in both her hands. She tried to work up her nerve to turn it, but it was impossible to feel courageous when all she could hear was her ladies’ words. For a hundred years, their poisonous voices had echoed in her ears. She longed to hear another voice now—her own.

“Be quiet!” she ordered, whirling on them.

Sadindi recoiled, shocked. She pressed a hand to her chest. “A lady never raises her voice,” she scolded. “It’s shrewish and unbecoming, and … and—”

“I told you to stop.”

Sadindi stepped back. She looked smaller. “Lady Espidra shall hear of this,” she threatened.

Rafe clutched Sadindi’s arm tightly. She started to whimper.

Sadindi shook her off. “Oh, do stop sniveling!”

Rafe began to howl.

“Rafe? Is that you making all that noise?”

It was Hesma. Iglut shambled along behind her.

“Who made her cry?” Hesma demanded. “It was you, Sadindi, wasn’t it? You are such a witch.”

Sadindi raked her eyes up and down Hesma. “Where did you get that gown, darling? Steal it from a beggar?”

Hesma gasped. She called Sadindi a bad name. Sadindi called her a worse one. LaJoyuse, Elge, and Rega joined them. The squabbling grew louder. Arabella let it. She squared her shoulders and turned away from them. Then she put the key in the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open.

Beau was lying shortways on his bed, his feet on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. “You’re invading my privacy,” he said.

“I guess that makes us even,” Arabella said. She strode across the room and flopped down next to him.

“I didn’t invite you into my room, much less ask you to lie down on my bed,” he said, not taking his eyes off the ceiling.

Arabella turned her head toward him. “I invited myself. Since it’s my room. And my bed.”

With Beau trying his best to focus on the ceiling and Arabella focusing her attention on Beau, neither of them heard the court ladies slip into the room and take their places like spectators in the Colosseum, eager for the blood sport to begin. Faith quietly darted in behind them.

Arabella was frightened, but she drew on her new reserves of hope and faith and tried again. “How did you get those scars?”

“Arabella, I don’t want this.”

“You know everything about me, Beau. Everything,” Arabella said. “And I don’t know anything about you. You demand that I share my secrets but hoard your own.”

“You know what matters—that I’m a thief.”

Arabella thought of how he’d jumped into the moat to save her. How he’d taught her to pick pockets. To dance again. To laugh again. She thought of the lines from the sonnet he’d spoken to her, and how they made her feel, for the first time in a hundred years, that she was something more than a monster.

“Beauregard Armando Fernandez de Navarre, you are so much more than a thief. Can’t you see that?”

She reached for his hand, afraid he would pull it away, but he didn’t. Then she asked him again how he got his scars.

“You don’t give up, do you?” Beau said. He was quiet for a long moment; his gaze was somewhere else, somewhere in the past. Then, finally, he spoke. “I stole a man’s wallet. He caught me and tried to stab me to death.”

Arabella felt her heart crack into pieces. “When did—” she began, but then she lost her words, swallowed hard, and tried again. “When did it happen? How old were you?”

Beau closed his eyes. “Ten.”