18. Rosalie
Chapter 18
Rosalie
W hen Rosalie sank into her beautiful, soft bed that night, she had to admit that Dimitri handled himself well in a crisis. And when he had wrapped a protective arm around her, she had felt safe and sheltered, just like previously.
She wasn’t accustomed to the feeling of safety. Even before her family’s troubles, she had always been bracing herself for disaster. Ever since her brothers had been born, she had lived with fear of the Legacy as a constant backdrop.
But now the worst of the Legacy’s threats had all occurred. And she was finding, to her surprise, that there was freedom in letting her old fears go. She had been so sure that Dimitri’s arrival spelled fresh disaster, and yet she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so safe with someone.
Every time he saw a threat from Jace, he acted quickly and decisively. It was more reassuring than she’d expected. She spent her days doing everything in her power to shield her family from the consequences of her mistake, and she was exhausted. She didn’t want to acknowledge it, but it was pleasant to share the burden of Jace with someone.
They had won a minor victory in the garden, but he was still a threat. She trusted that Daphne and the triplets would have paid the debt already, but she didn’t trust Jace. She wished she had some certainty that it had all gone smoothly.
Although perhaps the scouts were a sign of the successful repayment. Had Jace sent them because he was suspicious about how Vernon had managed to repay the debt? Rosalie brightened. It was a comforting thought, and it made it easier to drift into sleep.
The next morning, she woke again to a breakfast tray on the small table beside her bed. It included a steaming mug of hot chocolate, and she hummed appreciatively as she sipped the sweet, creamy drink. It had been a long time since she had drunk chocolate.
She and Dimitri had reluctantly agreed they would need to stay out of the garden for the time being which meant she was limited to the inside of the manor. But the building was so large it didn’t seem like much of a hardship. She was looking forward to a day of indoor exploration.
A steady knock sent her hurrying for her bedchamber door. She swung it open to find Dimitri smiling at her, just as he had on the previous morning.
“Would you like to explore the manor today?” he asked. “I haven’t had a chance to uncover all the changes myself yet.”
“Yes, please!” she said promptly. She’d been planning to explore, but it made her feel better to have permission before she poked around someone else’s home.
As they fell into step down the corridor, she realized how comfortable it already felt to walk beside him. He was so much taller than her, but they matched rhythms easily, as if they had been walking together for years.
She glanced sideways at him. He still had the strange Beast appearance the Legacy had given him, but she no longer saw the Legacy when she looked at him. And any similarity to Jace was entirely obscured. He had become merely Dimitri.
It was a comfortable feeling, but also oddly disquieting. She wasn’t yet ready to explore it too closely.
They reached the entryway, and she turned away from the door that led to the sitting room she had already visited. The opposite wall held a similar door, so she crossed to it first, pulling it open ahead of Dimitri.
“Oh!” She stared at the room beyond. She’d been looking for a distraction, but she hadn’t expected something so startling.
“This is new,” Dimitri said wryly from behind her.
She nodded silently. That much seemed obvious.
They stood together in quiet admiration. Enormous windows ran along one of the walls, letting in plenty of light and allowing a view of the gardens at the front of the manor. It was a double story room, and the windows stretched from the ground to far above her head. Even though she’d never been inside the room before, Rosalie thought she would have noticed the windows from the outside if they’d existed previously.
“Was it a library before, at least?” she asked.
“It was.” He stepped forward and ran his hand along a shelf. “But it didn’t have nearly as many books. And it definitely didn’t have the chairs.”
Rosalie’s eyes jumped over the various features of the room, unsure where to rest. The Legacy had filled seemingly endless rows of shelves with books. The entire wall opposite the windows was covered in them, ladders giving access to the higher shelves. But they weren’t ordinary ladders. The wooden poles that made up the sides were made from living wood, leaves and roses sprouting along their lengths.
But the rose theme didn’t end there. The remaining books were scattered across the center of the room in short, half-height shelves each grouped with a huddle of chairs and small tables. The tables held lamps that shed enticing light in a soft rose color, emanating from lamp covers shaped like roses. And most remarkable of all were the soft armchairs.
Shaped like an actual rose, they were made of layers of soft material resembling petals. Positioned at an angle, the center of the rose was hollowed out, allowing someone to nestle within its heart. If someone had taken an actual rose and opened the center so a tiny fairy could use it as a seat, it would have looked like a miniature version of the chairs scattered across the manor’s library. Even the base was made of a single large green stem instead of four legs. It sprouted from a flat circle that allowed it to support the necessary weight, although it still looked like an impossible piece of furniture to Rosalie.
“Do you think we can actually sit in them?” she whispered.
“I don’t see why not. The Legacy made them for us, didn’t it?”
She gave a small squeak and rushed to the closest one. Sliding in was easier than she had imagined, and as she sank into the center, she sighed in bliss.
“I thought lying on my pillow was like floating on a cloud,” she said, “but I was wrong. This is like lying on a cloud.”
“I didn’t realize you had so much experience with clouds,” Dimitri said dryly.
She ignored him, too delighted with the chair to let anything dampen her enthusiasm. “It’s much more supportive than I imagined as well,” she said. “I think I could read in this chair all day.”
He smiled. “So you like to read?”
“No!” Rosalie said quickly, earning a surprised look.
She bit her lip, looking about at their surroundings. “Actually,” she said in a rush, “I do like to read.”
The statement came out defiantly, and she could see from Dimitri’s expression that he was bemused. But he had no idea what it had cost her to say.
“I’ve always insisted I don’t like to read,” she told him softly. “But I still remember the thrill the first time I managed to puzzle out an entire page on my own. It was like unlocking the door to a broader, richer life. Except I was convinced I had to hand the key back. I told everyone I didn’t care for reading and made myself avoid it as much as possible.”
“But why?” he asked softly, clearly confused but recognizing what the confession meant to her.
“Because the original merchant’s daughter loved to read. All the histories mention it. When her family lost everything, her sisters mourned their jewels and their dresses and their suitors, but the youngest mourned the loss of her father’s books.”
Dimitri regarded her steadily but silently, allowing her to rest for a moment with the words she’d spoken. She could have hugged him for it except she didn’t want to get out of her chair.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, gingerly sliding into the chair across from hers.
Her mouth twitched at the sight of his fur-covered body—still dressed as impeccably as always but now enveloped in an enormous rose.
He looked down and grimaced. “It suits you better than me.”
“You look charming,” she assured him with a grin. “And thank you. I know I’ve been doing nothing but blame you since you arrived at the manor. But I do know none of this is actually your fault.”
“Any more than it’s your fault,” he said quickly. “I resent that my mother raised me in ignorance, depriving me of family in order to keep me away from the Legacy. But at least it allowed me to grow up with the Legacy as nothing but an unseen weight on my shoulders. So much of your life has been shaped by your struggle against it. You were so busy not being the original merchant’s daughter that you had little space left to be yourself. You deserve better, Rosalie. You deserve to be truthful about who you are.”
She stared at him. He had understood exactly. No one had ever understood it as quickly and completely as he had. Was it because his life had also been shaped by the Legacy, although in the opposite way?
“Yes, exactly,” she said softly. “But I’m sorry for what was done to you as well.” She hesitated. “Have you found any answers in this library? Not about the Legacy but about your family, I mean?” It might be intrusive to ask, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Actually, I did find something,” he said. “But not in here. My mother left a letter for my grandfather when she departed for the mountains, and it was in her old room, waiting for me. I think he left it there for me to find.”
“A letter?” Rosalie asked softly. She could see from his face how significant it was for him to share with her, and she wanted to tread carefully.
He drew two folded pieces of paper from his pocket, smoothing them out carefully. He didn’t meet her eyes as he chuckled uncomfortably.
“I’ve started carrying it around with me which is foolish. I suppose I thought…” He trailed off, and she had no idea how to finish the sentence.
But when he held the papers out to her, she forgot everything else.
“Are you sure?” she asked before reaching for them.
When he nodded, she accepted both sheets and eagerly scanned the elegant cursive script. Her eyes widened as she read, and when she finished, she looked up at him in silence. He had already mentioned that the Legacy couldn’t influence emotions or control actions, so he understood the reality behind his mother’s words. He knew she had been delusional, clinging to a foolish belief to avoid facing her husband’s betrayal.
Rosalie’s hand trembled as she returned the letter to Dimitri. He carefully folded it again and replaced it in his pocket.
“She wasn’t brave like you,” he said in a rush. “She wasn’t strong like you either. I know you would never run away like she did, but please…” His voice faltered. “Please don’t think too badly of her.”
He finally looked at her, and the pain in his eyes pierced her chest. He saw his mother’s weaknesses with clear eyes, but he loved her regardless. Of course he did. And he had just lost her.
Part of Rosalie wanted to speak quick, glib reassurances. But he had just told her to be truthful about her own feelings, and she wanted to do that now with him.
“I do resent her a little,” she said slowly. “I resent her on your behalf, and a little on my own. She chose to run from her own pain, but she caused others so much pain in the process—you, your grandfather, even me, someone who hadn’t even been born when she wrote this letter. If she had remained and built a new life, you would never have become a prince living alone in a castle, and the Legacy wouldn’t have latched on to the two of us like it has.”
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, but she shook her head.
“I wasn’t finished. I resent her a little, but I understand her as well. Better than you seem to think.” She leaned back and looked at the ceiling, fighting back tears. When she regained control, she looked at him again and forced a weak smile. “I know the temptation to excuse my own weaknesses rather than face the full force of them. It’s a powerful temptation.”
“But you don’t give in to it,” Dimitri said.
“Don’t I?” Rosalie looked away, afraid of what he might see if he looked too deep inside her.
“No one’s perfect, Rosalie,” Dimitri said. “Everyone stumbles sometimes. But you had your heart broken, and you didn’t run away and abandon your family. You’re still here right now, fighting to free both yourself and them from the Legacy’s grip.”
“Your mother didn’t abandon her whole family,” Rosalie said. “She didn’t flee only for her own sake. She left hoping to protect the family member most important to her.”
“Protection that sat as heavily as a vest of stone,” he said with a sigh. But she could read appreciation in his eyes. She hadn’t excused his mother, but neither had she vilified her. It was the truth of Rosalie’s feelings, and apparently it was enough for Dimitri.
“Thank you,” he said softly, and she had to blink rapidly and tip her head back against the soft petals of her chair again.
When she finally mastered her emotions and looked back, Dimitri was gone. She sat alone in the library, ensconced in a giant rose, as the day’s light waxed and waned. When she finally stood on her own feet again, something had shifted. She was no longer the merchant’s youngest daughter, named for a rose. She was merely Rosalie.
Whether they succeeded or failed in the castle, the Legacy had run its course with her. Dimitri had spoken of a vest of stone, but she had worn the Legacy like shackles. But no longer. With Dimitri’s help, she had stepped free of them.
The day’s efforts might not have been physical, but she felt a tiredness in her limbs regardless. As she walked toward the door, she wished aloud that her bed chamber was on the other side. The thought of stairs seemed daunting.
Pulling the door open, she blinked at the sight of purple and gold. Had she somehow sleepwalked from the library to her room? She twisted around to peer behind her. She was still standing on the threshold of the library, as she had thought. But her bedchamber didn’t open off the library. They weren’t even on the same floor.
Cautiously she stepped through the impossible doorway, finding herself in her bedchamber, just as her eyes had promised. Looking back, she could still see the library, as if the two rooms were joined after all.
She closed the door, her hand moving stiffly as her mind struggled to grasp what was happening. Had she fallen asleep in the rose chair, and she was about to awaken from a dream?
She counted out five seconds before pulling the door back open. The corridor outside her room was there just as usual. She pinched herself, but she didn’t seem to be asleep.
A slow smile spread over her face. “Now that,” she said aloud, “is a very handy feature.”
T hey continued to eat each evening meal together, and the food grew progressively better. Dimitri kept insisting he had been right about the Legacy needing practice, but Rosalie was unconvinced.
“I still think you’re humanizing it too much,” she protested as they ventured out to explore the manor for the third day in a row.
“Then how do you explain last night’s scalloped potatoes?” he asked with the air of one delivering a winning argument.
“They were quite compelling.” Rosalie hummed at the memory, and Dimitri laughed.
“Do you even realize you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Hum in appreciation of delicious food.”
Rosalie flushed. “Do I?” No one had ever pointed it out before.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s charming.”
She flushed and looked away. “What about that door over there?” she asked quickly. “Where does it go?”
Most of the rooms they had explored the day before had turned out to be bedchambers, but their patience had finally been rewarded with an incredible hothouse full of plants just as lush as the ones outside. It had been a happy find since the gardens were currently barred to them, and she was hoping for another equally exciting discovery.
Dimitri chuckled softly before giving the door a proper look. “You know,” he said after a moment, “I can’t remember. It must not have been something very memorable.”
“But that was before.” Rosalie’s hand hovered over the handle, and she looked back at Dimitri, savoring the anticipation. “Who knows what marvel the Legacy has put in here now!”
He responded to her smiles as he always did, smiling back as if he couldn’t help himself.
“Why don’t you open it and find out?” he invited.
She turned the handle and pushed the door open, giving a dramatic flourish that died halfway as she saw the empty room on the other side.
“This is disappointing.” She walked slowly inside anyway.
He followed, his brow creased. “I’m sure it wasn’t empty before. I would have remembered that because there weren’t any completely unfurnished rooms.”
“So the Legacy emptied it?” Rosalie’s interest returned. “Why would it do that unless it had some purpose for the space?”
She looked up and down the room again, finally noticing one lone stack of furniture. But the padded chairs piled in one corner were hardly of interest. She examined the walls instead, frowning as she realized there were windows on both sides.
“Isn’t that an internal wall?” She pointed at the row of windows that were covered with drawn curtains.
“Yes, you’re right, it is,” he said. “So where are those windows looking into?”
He pulled back the closest curtain, his hand still grasping it as he leaped back in startled astonishment. “What in the kingdoms?” he muttered.
“Is that…a theater?” Rosalie stepped up to the edge of the window and pressed her fingers against the glass.
Impossible as it seemed, the window appeared to reveal the inside of a lighted theater. The rows of padded seats were filled with audience members, but none of them appeared to notice the window behind them or the two people peering through it. She could only assume that was because none of it was real. It certainly looked real, however.
“Sitting here would feel just like attending the theater,” she breathed. “How marvelous.”
She ran down the wall, pulling back the curtains on the next interior window.
“An opera!” she cried, once she’d taken in the sight before her.
The high notes of the singer on stage rang through the room, the noise clashing with the actor who had begun the play’s opening monologue in the first window. She moved on to the final set of curtains.
“An orchestra!” she called back to Dimitri as the sounds of the instruments mingled with the operatic singing and the declaiming actor who was still completing his monologue.
Dimitri clapped his hands to his head. “What a cacophony. I don’t think you’re supposed to open them all at once.”
Rosalie grinned but obediently closed the curtains on the opera, cutting off the singing. Dimitri did the same for the play, leaving only a pleasant orchestral background to their conversation.
“It’s a more marvelous entertainment room than anything I ever imagined!” Rosalie said.
“You’ve never heard of anything like it?” Dimitri asked. “If it’s here now, there must have been something similar in the histories.”
Rosalie hesitated, a distant memory sparking. “Actually,” she said slowly. “I think I did read a mention of an entertainment room in the histories about the original Beast’s castle. That part was full of nonsense about reflections on mirrors, so I didn’t really pay much attention. I thought one of the original historians must have gotten fanciful, so I skipped right over it.”
“You only used to pay attention to the bad bits, didn’t you?” Dimitri accused.
“Not only the bad bits! Roses aren’t bad, are they?”
“Certainly not to me.” Dimitri smiled. “But you’ve never seemed taken with them.”
Rosalie rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t that I focused on the bad bits. I was interested in the relevant parts—the elements the Legacy kept recreating. I’ve never heard of it recreating an entertainment room like this.”
“That does sound like you,” Dimitri said. “Too practical for romance.”
Rosalie looked away. She hadn’t been too practical to fall for Jace and his deception.
“Let’s watch the play,” Dimitri said suddenly, pulling the curtain closed on the orchestra and moving down to open the first window.
He ushered her over to it, fetching two of the chairs from the stack in the corner. Rosalie watched him surreptitiously. Had he noticed and understood the dip in her mood?
It was kind of him to try to cheer her up if so. And even kinder to do it so subtly. Dimitri had been doing a lot of kind things since she came to the manor.
The play turned out to be even more entertaining than she’d hoped, and she laughed until her sides hurt. When it finished, they closed the curtain over the play’s window and wandered from the room.
As they walked down yet another corridor, they fell into conversation. Ostensibly, they were still exploring, but they did little beyond poking their heads into the storage rooms, sitting rooms, and bed chambers they passed. Rosalie’s main interest was the doors—she wanted to identify all the ones that could lead to more than one place, but so far she had only found three.
“What about your sisters?” Dimitri asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about them.”
“Violet and Heather?” Rosalie looked surprised. “Have I never mentioned them?”
“Certainly not by name.” He hesitated. “Were they cruel to you?”
“Cruel? No, never!” Rosalie frowned before realizing the source of his misconception. “Oh, you’re thinking of the merchant’s family from the history. My sisters were nothing like the original older sisters. Violet and Heather were…like normal big sisters, I suppose.”
“Since I don’t have any siblings and grew up in a community with few children, I’m not sure I’m the best judge of normal.”
She laughed. “There was an age gap between Heather and me, so I annoyed them a great deal. When I was very little, they doted on me, dressing me up and treating me like a live doll. But eventually I got old enough to protest such treatment and to have my own ideas about how we should play our games.”
Dimitri grinned. He could no doubt imagine how Rosalie would have disliked being ordered around.
“But then Mother had the triplets, and my sisters soon realized I wasn’t annoying at all,” Rosalie said with smug satisfaction.
Dimitri laughed. “I can imagine.”
“You probably can’t.” Rosalie’s eyes had lost focus, and she could feel the fond smile on her face as they walked slowly down the latest corridor. “I don’t think anyone can really be prepared for triplets until they experience them.”
“So Violet and Heather were closer to each other than to you. And now they’ve both married and moved to the same town?”
Rosalie nodded, refocusing on the conversation. “They married cousins, actually, and live next door to each other. I miss them sometimes, but I have Daphne, so I’m not lonely. Even when they still lived here, they tended to spend their time together, while I spent my time with Daphne. Since she’s an only child, and her family lived so close, we basically became sisters.”
“That would have made it easier when they moved,” Dimitri murmured.
“Yes, I’m grateful they did move given how everything turned out,” Rosalie said. “Actually, I think that’s why I haven’t mentioned them. Violet and Heather belong to my old life—when I was the daughter of the richest merchant in town and lived on the village square. They were never part of our current life in the cottage on the edge of town, so I’m rarely reminded of them.” She looked down. “I wonder if they’re hurt by that? We’ve been so busy trying to survive that I haven’t really thought about it from their perspective.”
“I’m sure they understand why you built a new life here instead of going to them,” Dimitri said reassuringly. “They’re probably grateful that you’re protecting them from the Legacy. And I’m sure they’re busy too. Do they have children of their own now?”
Rosalie brightened. “They do! And once this is all resolved, I’ll be able to visit them again. Mother and Father will be so pleased.”
“And your brothers, too, of course,” Dimitri added with a straight face. “I’m sure they would love to be swarmed with small children.”
“Naturally,” Rosalie agreed, equally seriously. “Once I move back home, I’m going to suggest Mother send them to our sisters for a couple of months to help with babysitting. Poor Violet and Heather must be exhausted, and the boys will only be underfoot while we’re getting resettled.”
A lamp sconce on the wall creaked abruptly—as random objects in the castle had a habit of doing. It distracted Rosalie enough that she only just caught the end of Dimitri’s disturbed expression before he smoothed it out.
She frowned, trying to remember what she had said that might have bothered him. Was he concerned for her brothers?
“Don’t worry,” she said quickly. “I’m only joking. I wouldn’t really do that. And I’m sure my sisters wouldn’t want them even if we offered.”
Dimitri smiled. “I don’t know…It might do them some good after all the trouble they’ve caused.”
“True,” she said thoughtfully. “Maybe we should threaten it, at least. Just the possibility might be enough to scare them into line. And if it isn’t, I’m sure Violet and Heather could put up with them for a week or two.”
“Just make sure you don’t mention that I had anything to do with the idea,” he said, alarmed.
Rosalie laughed because it seemed entirely natural that Dimitri would remain a part of her and her family’s life when she finally left the manor and returned home.