“But I had not foreseen that our relationship would take a twisted turn and come close to erasing all the good that once lay between us.”
I glance up at Beast’s face, which is contorted with—horror? Despair? I cannot guess what he is thinking or feeling. He looks down at his enormous, scarred hands. “How you must hate us all,” he says.
I stare at him, trying to understand what game he is playing. “But it was my fault,” I whisper. “My weakness and my—”
His head snaps up. “Your need to be loved? Protected? And for that, your brother demanded such a tithe? That is not a price anyone should have to pay for such things. And so I say again, it is a wonder you do not hate us all on sight.”
Marveling at how easily he has absolved me, I step forward and take his big hands into my own. “Not you, for you are as different from them as day is from night.”
Something in my words has struck him as forcefully as his words did me, and I can see that he wants to kiss me. But he does not, and I—I cannot bring myself to kiss him, not while the confession of such wantonness and wickedness still clings to my lips. The moment draws out into a palpable awkwardness, something that has never existed between us.
Unable to bear it, I turn back to the room and begin straightening the bed curtains. “We leave at first light?”
“Yes,” Beast says. “Do you think they are being brought to d’Albret’s encampment in front of Rennes? Or to Nantes for safekeeping until he returns?”
“I suspect Nantes, for even d’Albret does not want the inconvenience of girl children on his battlefield.”
“Very well. We leave for Nantes at daybreak.”
Leaving Beast to his window, I pace the small chamber, forming a mental list of all the preparations we will need to make before we go. There are not many. Provisions and fresh horses. I will not even have to alert the holding that we are leaving; we can simply be gone when they arise in the morning.
“Is Alyse buried here?” Beast asks, still staring out the window.
My skin pulls tight across my bones. “Yes.”
He turns from the window, his eyes bleak. “I would like to see her.”
I can think of a thousand places I would rather go, for the idea of visiting that place fair sets a wild clang of alarm bells ringing inside me, but I cannot refuse him this chance to visit his sister’s final resting place. “Wait here,” I tell him. “I must fetch the key.”
We step out of the castle into the raw spring evening, both of us quiet and lost in our own thoughts as we cross the inner courtyard and then go through the gate to the outbuildings beyond. Thick gray clouds scuttle across the sky, and I pray they will release their rain tonight rather than tomorrow, as a storm will greatly hamper our progress.
The closer we draw to the castle’s cemetery, the more my muscles twitch and spasm, desperate to avoid this place. My knees tremble with the effort to keep walking and not turn and run.
I lift the latch on the old rusty gate and push it open, its rarely used hinges squeaking in protest. My heart begins pounding and my breath comes faster, as if I have just run some great race. Beast looks at me in question. “There,” I say, pointing to the large mausoleum set near the back.
It is a grim and frightening place, not meant to bring comfort but to invoke all the demons of hell and damnation; that is what d’Albret is certain his wives deserve for having failed to please him in some way.
The building is made of gray marble, with devils and grotesques decorating its walls. The lintel over the doorway is a parade of cavorting gargoyles formed in darker stone.
“This looks like hell itself,” Beast mutters.
“It is meant to.” Pressure builds behind my brow as I lean down to fit the key to the rusty lock. I am filled with a violent urge to run away. I clamp down hard on my terror and turn the key. The lock falls open. I set my teeth, lift the latch, and put my shoulder to the door.
It swings open with ease. And then the ghosts are there, cold and lifeless, swirling about me—their whispering voices are no longer coherent, but I know their accusations by heart. There is his first wife, Jeanne, the one who thought to flee to her brother for sanctuary and instead brought death to them all. Next was Françoise, mother of Julian, Pierre, and Gabriel, who died while out riding alone with d’Albret. A fall from her horse broke her neck, some say, but few believe it.
My own mother, Iselle, whose only crime was that she bore him two daughters in a row. The first child was lucky, as she was stillborn. Then the next wife, Jehanne, who dared to take a lover, and then Blanche, whose belly grew great with child—only it was no babe, in the end, but a tumor. Once she was unable to bear children, d’Albret had no further use for her. And after that, Alyse.
One of the ghosts ignores me and floats toward Beast, circling him.
“What is that?” Beast asks as a shiver racks his great body.
“Alyse,” I tell him. “It is your sister’s ghost. Here.” I point to a long white marble coffin. “This is her tomb.”
Beast reaches out for my hand. In spite of his size, in spite of all the courage I know he possesses, he looks achingly vulnerable.
I take his offered hand; I cannot do otherwise.
I know I should look away, let him grieve in private, but I cannot. The sweet girl that I knew only briefly is the key to this gentle beast who has captured my heart. Besides, to look away smacks of cowardice, for I must bear witness to the misery my family has wrought.
When he is next to the coffin, he lets go of my hand, bows his great head, and closes his eyes, a spasm of grief distorting his face, his hands clenching into fists. I can feel the surge of his rage pound through his veins. He drops to his knees, and, unable to help myself, I go to him, but tentatively, afraid that after what my family has done to his, he will reject me.
But he does not. He grasps my hand in his and pulls me close until his head rests against my stomach. We stay like that a long time. How long, I do not know. But long enough for his heart to quiet and settle into a slow, steady rhythm, like a funeral drum. When he finally pulls away, I see he has found some measure of peace. But even so, the panic thrumming through my veins does not diminish.
At last he gets to his feet and brushes the dirt from his knees. Then he stops, his gaze falling on the tiny tomb to the right of Alyse’s. He turns to me with a stricken look. “Did Alyse have a second babe?”
Slowly, with every muscle in my body screaming at me to stop, I force myself to turn my own gaze to the small tomb. The beating of my heart grows so fast I fear it will burst out of my chest. Fiercely locked-away memories come rushing up from deep inside. Like water through a dam that has broken, they roar in my ears as I read the name engraved on the stone. “No,” I say with a voice I hardly recognize as my own. “That babe is mine.”