The Wilful Eye (21 page)

‘There is now.'

‘Why? How?'

‘The casket.'

Belle's mind flashed back to the small box decorated all over with miniature mirrors, the casket that her father had carried away from the chateau. One of those mirrors must be connected to this one . . .

‘My bride price,' she murmured sadly.

‘Bride price?' The beast shook his spiky crown. ‘There was no bride price.'

‘No, I didn't think so. That's what my father called it. He pretended you wanted to marry me.'

‘He lied. I bought you for a price, with no conditions. I would never make a false promise of marriage.'

Belle looked at him: the simple grandeur of his stance, the unblinking gaze of his amber eyes. He had none of the guile of human beings – of merchants – of her father. Certainly, he was a very honourable beast.

‘I don't suppose you would,' she said.

She turned back to the mirror, and the depths of her father's betrayal struck her with full force again. Delphie and Elise looked so smug and happy, they were all so cosy and comfortable in their own home. Whereas she had been lied to, sold and sacrificed for their benefit.

It hurt like the twist of a knife in her belly, until she could hardly hold herself upright.

‘I'm sorry,' growled the beast.

But she felt humiliated before him, knowing that he could see how contemptibly she'd been treated.

‘I don't want your pity,' she cried, and ran from the room as the tears sprang into her eyes.

All afternoon, Belle paced up and down in the herb garden at the back of the chateau. The snow had melted from paths and plots, birds chirped in the shrubbery, everything announced the approach of spring. But not in Belle's heart. She felt bitter and shrivelled up inside.

Gradually, though, she grew more tranquil. The warmth went out of the air as the sun sank in the sky. Still she kept walking up and down, back and forth, round and round.

Then the beast appeared. She was startled to see him in daylight. Thinking of him as a creature of the night, she had assumed that he'd gone back to sleep in his four-poster bed. It was also the first time she'd ever seen him outside the rooms of the chateau.

‘Be-lle,' he said in his faltering, lingering way. In spite of his improved powers of speech, he had never quite got his jaws and tongue around that particular word.

‘I'm all right,' she said. ‘Don't worry about me.'

She wanted to appear relaxed, so she moved across to sit on the stone bench. The beast came up and stood before her. His tail lashed the ground, yet he didn't seem angry. Tense, perhaps, and very, very solemn . . .

He went down on one knee – except that, as a four-legged animal, he couldn't kneel like a human being. He ended up in a kind of crouch. Belle couldn't work out what he was doing at all.

‘Be-lle.' His voice was so low it was almost a purr. ‘I ask for your hand in marriage.'

She goggled. ‘What?'

‘I want you to be my wife.'

He was utterly serious. Belle fought down the nervous giggle that threatened to burst from her throat.

‘You're only asking because my father cheated me,' she said. ‘You're trying to make it up to me.'

‘No. No. I ask because I respect and admire you. I am . . . fond of you. You have become very dear to me.'

She didn't know what to say. Her father hadn't cheated her only by his talk of marriage, he had also told Belle that her husband-to-be was a prince – and a human being! Still, she didn't want to hurt the beast's feelings.

‘I don't think any priest would marry us,' she said. ‘We don't exactly fit the standard view of man and wife.'

‘
I
don't,' he rumbled. ‘But I do have power and wealth. Power and wealth make many things possible. I can find a priest to marry us.'

‘Well, perhaps, but . . .'

‘All of this will be yours.' He swung an encompas- sing paw. ‘My chateau, my lands, my treasures, everything I have inherited. Any luxury you can imagine you can have.'

‘It's not enough,' Belle murmured.

‘A life beyond your wildest dreams. Beyond your family's wildest dreams. You can triumph over them and their betrayal.'

Belle shook her head. ‘There has to be love, Mr Beast.'

‘You don't love me? But you like to talk to me. Don't you enjoy my company?'

‘Yes. I do enjoy your company. I'm very fond of you too. But not the kind of love to get married on.'

‘Don't you think you could learn to love me?'

‘We're not the same.' How could she explain it? He was waiting for her to say more, but there was no more to say. He was a magnificent animal, but he was still an animal. Two different species. ‘We're just not the same.'

‘We could grow closer over time,' he insisted.

Why wouldn't he understand?
Two different species don't grow closer over time,
she wanted to say. But she changed to a gentler form of words.

‘I don't believe you can love me either,' she told him. ‘You may think you do, but it's not possible. Not real human love, not real human passion. Be honest with yourself. You can't feel it.'

‘I . . .' His jaws twisted, and he couldn't bring out the words. If he had been going to say
I love you,
there was a blockage in his windpipe. Or lower down.

He thumped at his chest. Belle saw with alarm that the claws had come out between the pads of his paws.

‘Don't!' she cried. ‘What's wrong?'

‘I . . . I . . . I . . .' he tried again, but the obstacle remained. He was rocking from side to side. His eyes had closed, his teeth were grinding together, and his whole face was a grimace of pain. He backed away, still in a crouch, panting heavily.

Then, with a supreme effort, he rose upright. He seemed to be fighting his own body, at war with his own muscles and bones.

‘I accept your decision.' He managed to bring out the words. ‘You have rejected me.'

He dropped his great ugly head in a kind of bow. When he came up, his eyes were open again.

‘A good decision,' he said. ‘Be-lle.'

He turned, and half-stalked, half-stumbled out of the herb garden. Belle resisted the impulse to go after him. Now was not the moment to display too much affection.

She wondered if things would ever be the same between them again. He had been trying to act honourably, and she had hurt his feelings. She hadn't wanted to, but she had. The thought of losing his friendship was infinitely depressing. An endless future of silent dinnertimes!

She became aware of a rustling in the shrubbery. More than a rustling – a violent agitation. Leaves were shaking, branches were tossing. Surely that couldn't be birds?

She jumped up and went to investigate. The crisscross paths of the herb garden turned into a single path through the shrubbery, and the agitation came from a particular clump of bushes beside the path. She looked in under the foliage, and there he was. The beast – in throes of agony!

He must have collapsed and rolled off under the bushes. Spasm after spasm contorted his body. Flailing out with his claws, he had gouged great furrows in the earth. Yet his jaws were clamped tight shut, even in his suffering. He was obviously determined not to cry out or reveal himself.

Belle felt responsible, although she didn't understand the extremity of his reaction. She dropped down on all fours and crept in under the bushes.

‘What is it?'

He kept beating and tearing at his chest, as though his pain had its centre there. She came closer, risking injury from his flailing claws.

‘Is it your heart?'

Still no answer. Had he even heard? She chose her moment and reached out to touch his paw. The contact of hand on paw quietened his spasms.

He turned his head and opened his eyes. Suddenly limp and slack, he was a pitiful sight. His amber gaze was cloudy and unfocused, his magnificent fur was dull, and his tail lay flat to the ground like a dead thing.

She could have wept at the expression in his eyes. He was like an animal that can only suffer silently and alone. But he
could
speak and he
wasn't
alone.

‘Is it your heart?' she asked again.

‘Yes. No. You wouldn't believe me.'

‘Try me.'

‘I don't have a heart.'

‘Of course you do. You couldn't live without a heart.'

‘I have my animal heart. Not a human heart.'

‘Why do you need a human heart?'

‘A human heart for human feelings.'

Belle thought about it. ‘Feelings for me?'

‘I have no heart to hold my love. My feelings have nowhere to go. They don't belong in my animal heart.'

This was the strangest conversation that Belle had ever had. ‘So your body is at war with your feelings?'

‘Yes. I think I'm dying.'

‘Don't do that.'

The beast groaned and shuddered as another paroxysm went through him. Belle held on to his paw, gripping tighter.

‘I used to have one,' he said in a low voice.

‘What?'

‘A human heart.'

‘But that's . . .'

‘I had a human heart until I traded it away.'

Belle's head was spinning, but the word ‘traded' caught her attention.

‘What do you mean? Tell me everything.
Everything.
'

Riding, riding, riding. Belle straddled the beast's back as he raced with long loping strides through the night. Her hair flew out, her cheeks stung, her eyes blinked tears. The speed of their motion drove cold air into her nose and mouth and lungs.

Such a strange, exhilarating motion it was. She could feel his muscles coiling and uncoiling beneath her, a liquid surge of force and power. She held the bony spikes of his head in her fierce grip. She
did
love him. She
would
love him. And she would marry him as human to human, man and wife.

He had told her the story of the deal with her father – far more complicated than she had guessed, and far more extraordinary. Magic mirrors were nothing by comparison. She could hardly take it all in.

Dawn broke as they approached Belle's home village of Rainsey. She saw the trunks of trees flash past; then open fields and paddocks; then trees again. Everything was alive and sparkling with dew.

They passed through the village like a visitation from a nightmare. The sight of the beast with Belle on his back sent early-morning labourers and errand boys scurrying for shelter. The women round the village pump picked up their skirts and ran for their lives. The beast let out a great roar, and sped on.

Belle's home was on the far side of the village at the end of a long lane. A sense of warm familiarity engulfed her as they came up to the cottage and garden. Yet the place itself had gone sadly downhill. The hedges were unkempt, the vegetable plots overgrown with weeds. No smoke rose from the chimney and the curtains were drawn. Belle might have wondered whether her family was still living there, had she not watched them yesterday in the mirror.

She directed the beast round to the back door. By the outhouse stood a fine open carriage – no doubt the vehicle that her father had driven away from the chateau. Spider webs beaded with dew draped its wheels and underframe, like glittering necklaces in the morning sunshine. A starved-looking horse grazed in the distance.

The beast didn't bother to knock. He reared up, planted his paws against the door and smashed it wide open. Belle let go and slid from his back as he passed in under the low lintel.

Following him in, the first thing she noticed was the stifling heat. Compared to the freshness outside, it was like being buried under a dozen blankets. When she had left in the middle of winter, the cottage had been as cold as an icebox; now the fug was almost sickening.

Her father stood by the kitchen sink, unshaven and bleary-eyed. He had been drinking milk straight from the milk jug, which he still held in his hand. The violence of their entry left him transfixed and gawping.