TFT 01 Beauty and the Beast (2 page)

The barber-surgeon plunged his hands in a bucket of water and hastily wiped them clean before he started scribbling away on his slate. The ladies maid at Elle’s side did the same, and both of them leaped to their feet and held their slates out when the door was nearly thrown off its hinges.

“I will
not
waste my time again by acting as a translator. Although I will suffer this girl’s presence in my chateau I do not want to see her again,” the voice growled before a beast entered the room.

He was a horrifying combination of cat and canine, all death and wildness although he spoke crisply with careful enunciation. He was no less terrifying to behold now than he was in the few woozy moments Elle was conscious after falling through the ceiling. If anything he was more alarming, more
wrong
as his hulking body loomed in the cheerful light of the fire.

The maid scurried at his side, but the beast waved her away as he read the slates his other servants held out to him.

The beast—the cursed, illegitimate prince Severin—snarled gutturally in his throat before he turned to Elle, who was sinking low in the bed.

“Your leg is broken. Don’t move it or else. Duval will do whatever needs to be done. If you disrespect him I will have you thrown from the castle, broken leg or not,” the beastly prince said. He turned on his hind legs—a movement that was too smooth to be human—and started for the door. The ladies maid at Elle’s bedside knocked a stool over as she darted in front of the prince and again held her slate up.

“What is your name?” the cursed prince asked without turning around.

Elle deliberated on her answer for a moment, but hastily spoke when the prince started to growl. “Elle.”

“This is Emele. She will see to your needs until your leg has healed sufficiently for you to leave the castle.”

He was out of the room before anyone else could push a slate in his direction.

The barber-surgeon—the cursed prince had called him Duval—shook his head as he presented a glass of liquid to Elle.

Elle sniffed it, blinking when the contents burned her eyes and nose. “Alcohol?”

Duval nodded and went back to wrapping Elle’s exposed leg.

Elle took a swig of the drink and almost coughed. The alcohol was potent and powerful. The whole glass was going to get her drunk worse than a villager during Christmas time. Elle winced and her leg ached. She supposed being drunk was better than being fully conscious of the stabbing pain. “Bottoms up,” she said, toasting the air before tipping the drink back.

When Elle finally woke from her alcohol induced stupor the bandaged sludge on her leg had hardened to a plaster consistency. The barber-surgeon was gone, and light leaked through the top of the heavy, velvet curtains that covered the windows. It was daylight.

The ladies maid from the night before, Emele, was still sitting at Elle’s bedside, stitching the seam of a blue gown.

Elle shifted, and Emele looked up to smile at her.

“Morning,” Elle said, pushing through the pain to adopt the persona of a meek villager. Emele put her work aside before she pulled back the curtains—letting an ocean of glorious sunlight drift across the walls—and straightened the blankets and pillows mounded around Elle.

“Beggin’ your pardon, uh, miss, but I’ve got questions ‘bout my leg. Can I talk to sumone?” Elle asked before Emele briefly disappeared out of the room. A bell rang, and Emele was back.

“Oh, thanks,” Elle said, taking the damp towel Emele presented. She wiped off her face and hands before carefully feeling her scalp for slivers of glass. She remembered being blanketed in the jagged stuff when she first fell, but the servants must have swept it all off.

“Um, ‘bout my—ouch,” Elle said when the ladies maid began attacking her hair with a comb before tying it off with a ribbon. Elle’s scalp still stung when Emele fluttered to the door after a bell rang, she returned to the bed carrying a tray.

“Say, can you—,” Elle started, she cut herself off when Emele placed the tray on a small end table near the bed.

The tray was filled with scrumptious food. There were slices of cheese, wonderfully spiced meat pasties, turnips, and asparagus that dripped with butter.

Emele smiled and poured Elle a cup of tea as Elle slowly cut into the breakfast, reveling in the excellent food. When Elle realized Emele was watching her with round, curious eyes behind her mask, Elle switched to devouring her food with gusto and a general lack of table manners. Even though Elle shoved huge chunks of turnips into her mouth, Emele seemed pleased as she brought Elle a second tray.

When finished, Elle sipped her tea and lounged in the bed, her stomach happily filled for the first time in weeks. Emele settled into her chair at Elle’s bedside, resetting Elle’s thought process.

“What I’ve been meanin’ to ask is, what did the barber-surgeon say ‘bout my leg?” Elle asked, cringing when she shifted and jarred her aching appendage.

Emele did not respond and instead held up a slate that had the word
cheese
written on it. She picked up the plate that held a few leftover slices of cheese from Elle’s breakfast and gestured to it before slowly tracing her finger below the word.

“Cheese?” Elle said.

Emele nodded and set the cheese down before erasing her slate and writing with chalk.

“Fabulous,” Elle muttered. The ladies maid was trying to teach her how to read.

Emele selected a left over turnip and held up the slate, which was now inscribed with the word
turnip
.

“Turnip,” Elle said.

Emele nodded and proceeded to slowly gesture her way through the word, managing to “teach” Elle how to pronounce letters by crawling through words and making her utter individual syllables.

It was a laborious process, and Elle was thankful when Emele finally fed her a cup of strong alcohol to kill the pain and lull her off to sleep.

When Elle woke up again it was to the careful ministrations of Duval, the barber-surgeon. He was inspecting the stiff bandages, feeling her leg for additional swelling.

“How long?” Elle asked, her voice crusty with sleep and the last bit of alcohol in her system.

Duval looked up.

“How long am I stuck in bed?”

The barber-surgeon hesitated before holding up two fingers. He waited a few moments and then flashed three fingers.

“Twenty three?” Elle guessed.

Duval shook his head.

“Two to three?”

Duval nodded.

“Days?”

Duval shook his head.

“
Weeks
?” Elle yelped, rocketing to an upright position.

The barber-surgeon took a step backwards and nodded.

Elle could do very little except stupidly stare at her leg. Two to three
weeks
? She was supposed to report back to Farand in
a
week! If he thought she deserted her post her entire family would pay. Hopefully whoever was next on duty would notice Elle’s absence and send word to Farand. If they did, and if she was extraordinarily lucky, Farand wouldn’t think she had deserted.

Elle shook her head, too stunned to do anything else. Duval gave her a comforting smile that she did not notice as she collapsed back into the bed.

Duval left as Emele arrived. The ladies maid carried a strangely shaped pillow, which she set about embroidering when she took up her customary position at Elle’s bedside.

Elle lay still for an hour before she tried moving. Just because Duval said she needed two to three weeks of rest didn’t mean she—Elle bit her tongue to keep from howling. When she moved the pain ripped brutally through her body. She had to stay stationary, there was no way she could drag herself all the way to Noyers.

Elle closed her eyes in an attempt to smother the tears that threatened to fall.

Emele sympathetically patted Elle’s hand and skirted around the bed like a mother hen stuffed in a puffy pink dress. She roused Elle for tea and a reading lesson, but Elle didn’t have the heart to try.

All the hard work Elle did was for her family, and now because of one stupid mistake everything was going to unravel.

“Enter,” Severin growled when a servant tapped on the door.

Burke, Severin’s personal valet, swept inside with great pomp. The man moved like a peacock and had the wardrobe to match. Today he was in prime form as his feathers were displayed with all smugness. He wore ridiculously high heeled shoes that were tied with a blue ribbon and decorated with bows. His petticoat breeches—which were more puffed than even the most daring fashion devotee wore—floated around him like a skirt. He wore a fine waistcoat and a flowing cravat, all giving him the air of a fashionable idiot, but Severin was not deceived. Burke had the mind of a bear trap.

“What is it?” Severin asked.

Burke slid a wicker basket across Severin’s desk.

The basket held a sewing needle and a small spool of black thread, a black handkerchief, a chunk of crusty bread that had the density of a turtle shell, several long and oddly bent hair pins, a belt knife, and a silver whistle.

“These are all the items the girl carried on her person?” Severin asked as he held up the bright whistle in the dim light. A gift from a lover, perhaps? It was probably the most expensive item out of the bunch as the belt knife had been sharpened so many times the blade was cheaply thin.

Burke nodded.

Severin tossed the whistle back in the basket. “She must be a villager from Belvenes. Give the items to Emele for storing until the girl is able to stand—but confiscate the belt knife.”

Burke dipped forward in an outlandish bow, took the basket, and left.

Severin sighed—the sound was more guttural than he meant for it to be. The girl was a headache Severin didn’t want to deal with. His servants were acting like she was a visiting empress, which wouldn’t have bothered Severin if they ceased their tendency to pepper him with irksome questions about the girl’s health, treatment, and ignorant inability to read.

“One would think they would have as bleak an outlook as I do pertaining to our curse. All those wasted times and raised hopes,” Severin shook his head like a dog, redirecting his thoughts. He needed to go over the notes from his last meeting with his half brother, Crown Prince Lucien.

Severin found the papers and read the first paragraph when there was another knock on the door.

“Enter,” Severin said, setting down the papers.

Duval stepped inside Severin’s study, a smile twitching on his plump face as he passed his slate to Severin.

Mademoiselle Elle is resting. She has been informed that she will be bedridden for two to three weeks.

“She can go then?”

Duval flatted his lips at Severin and plucked the slate from the illegitimate prince’s fingers. He meticulously wiped the slate with a handkerchief before writing.

No. She must stay in
bed
for two to three weeks.

Severin narrowed his eyes at his castle’s attending barber-surgeon. “How long do you plan for this intruder to stay here?”

Up to six months
.

“Absolutely not,” Severin said. “The break in her leg couldn’t have been that bad—the bone didn’t separate much or break through the skin. It shouldn’t take months for her to heal.”