Seventy-Four
In Beau’s small chamber, silence descended.
The ladies stopped fighting. They stood motionless.
All except for Hope, who’d joined Faith. She elbowed her sister now and said, “Look! Look! It’s Joy,” nodding at the courtier who’d just arrived, a ginger-haired woman, freckled and smiling, her lush curves skimmed by a lavender gown. No one had seen her for a century.
Arabella stood as motionless as the rest of her court. All she could hear was the crashing of her own heart. How had this happened? Hope and Faith had not found Love, and yet Arabella knew what she was feeling was real. Was Espidra wrong? Was Love actually somewhere in the castle? Arabella closed her eyes, suddenly convinced that her ladies were playing a cruel trick. Afraid that if she moved, or spoke, if she so much as breathed, Beau would deny what he’d said. He’d say she’d misheard him. He’d laugh at her.
Seconds passed. Half a minute.
And then Beau spoke again, hurt edging at his voice. “Usually, when someone puts their entire heart on the line, they get an answer back. Even if it’s not the one they want to hear. Even if—”
“What did you say?” Arabella asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Beau looked at her, incredulous. “I’m so sorry. Am I keeping you up?”
“No.”
“Were you not listening?”
“I was listening. But I can’t … I can’t quite believe … Did you—”
“Tell you I love you? Yes, Arabella. I did.”
“Me …”
“Yes.”
“But are you sure you meant me?”
“You just want me to say it again.”
Arabella opened her eyes and looked at him. “Yes, Beau. I do. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire sad, weird, awful mess of a life.”
But there was more heartbreak than joy in her eyes as she spoke. She was like a poor creature that had spent so long in a cage, it couldn’t remember what freedom felt like.
Beau saw her anguish. He stood up and cupped her face in his hand, running his thumb over her cheekbone. “I love you, Arabella. I’ll say it a thousand times if you need me to. If that’s what it takes to break the curse.” His eyes searched hers. “Did we break it? Is it over now?”
Arabella shook her head. “Not yet. There’s one more thing we have to do. Cross the bridge, unwind the years …”
“Escape this prison of your fears,” Beau finished.
Then his lips were on hers, and she felt the warmth in his kiss. And the wanting. And a promise, one that felt like the scent of woodsmoke on a winter night. Like a fast horse in a dangerous forest. Like making it home just before dark.
“I love you, Arabella,” he said. “I love you and we’re going to finish building the bridge, and then we’re going to walk across it together.” He paused, then hesitantly added, “At least, I think we will.”
“Think?” Arabella echoed, doubt shadowing her newfound happiness.
“Yes, think. I’m kind of flapping in the wind here,” Beau said, feeling helpless.
“I don’t understand.”
“Do … you … love … me?”
Arabella fixed him with a stunned look of disbelief. “Yes, of course I love you. Don’t you know that?”
“Funnily enough, I don’t. Given that you’ve tried to kill me several times.”
“I was afraid to show it. Afraid for you, most of all. That you’d be stuck here, doomed like the rest of us.” She touched his face, needing to tell herself again and again that he was real, that this was real. “And afraid for myself. Afraid that you’d see my feelings and mock me for them.”
Beau stood up. He ushered all the ladies out of his room and closed the door. Then he pulled Arabella into his arms and kissed her until neither of them could breathe.
“Ask Percival for another shirt,” she said, reluctantly breaking the kiss. “And then get some coffee. We’re going to need it. We have a bridge to finish.”
After one last kiss, Arabella left him, rushing past her court, hurrying to her chamber.
From deep within the castle, the golden clock chimed the hour—eight o’clock—reminding her that time was running out. That there were so few days left. She almost turned around then and there. She almost ran back to Beau and told him that he hadn’t heard the worst part of the clockmaker’s poem—that there was an end to the curse, and it was almost here. He would understand; she knew he would. But a small, frightened voice inside her, scarred from a century of sorrow, refused to trust love. For she had been told for so long that girls who felt too much, and thought too much, and said too much, did not deserve it. That voice told her to keep quiet. It told her that Beau might feel angry if he knew. That she might lose him.
And so Arabella made a terrible mistake. She listened to it.