She smiled as the horse bowed. The man dismounted in an easy flowing motion. The long gray cloak he wore swirled around his ankles like fog. The cowl fell back, revealing his face. She stared at him, trying to discern his features, and then, with a shock, she realized he was wearing a mask.
As though feeling her gaze, he looked up. The mask appeared to be made of black cloth and was cut so that it covered the entire left side of his face, as well as a portion of the right. Her heart seemed to stop as his gaze met hers. Waves of anger seemed to roll toward her, like heat radiating from a fire.
With a gasp, she drew back, her hand pressed over her heart, which pounded wildly in her breast.
Erik muttered a vile oath when he saw his bride staring down at him from the window of her bedchamber. Merciful heavens, what was she doing up at this hour? Even the household staff was still abed.
He tossed the stallion’s reins to Brandt, gave the horse an affectionate pat on the shoulder, and stalked toward the back of the castle. Kristine had been here for only a few days, yet she had turned his home, and his life, upside down.
She was waiting for him at the scullery door.
Erik came to an abrupt halt, his gaze moving over her in one swift glance. She wore a flimsy blue sleeping gown and matching robe. Bare feet peeked from beneath the ruffled hem of her gown. A white cap trimmed with lace covered her head. To hide her shorn locks, he surmised. The lace framed her face in a most becoming manner.
“What are you doing here?” he asked brusquely.
Kristine swallowed past the lump in her throat. She had forgotten how tall and broad he was. His size intimidated her even more than the black silk mask that covered two-thirds of his face, leaving only his mouth and strong square chin exposed.
She stared at him, mute, wondering what horror lay hidden beneath the mask. She reminded herself that this was the same man who had comforted her the night before.
He swore, the rough timbre of his voice making the oath sound even more vile, and then he swept past her, every line of his body radiating anger. And buried beneath the anger, she sensed a dark and bitter despair.
Kristine stared after him, wondering what manner of man she had wed.
She thought of him all that day. Indeed, there was little else for her to do. She had no tasks to keep her hands busy, nothing else to occupy her mind.
She wandered through the castle, then went outside and walked through the gardens. Vast gardens, well tended. A section of fruit trees, another of vegetables, all carefully weeded. She found a rose garden and followed the white stone path that wandered up one row and down the other. A bed of red blooms, one of white, another of pink, and still another of yellow. Beautiful roses, hundreds and hundreds of them.
In the center of the rose garden, she discovered a pool, and in the center of the pool, a statue of a great hawk, namesake of Hawksbridge Castle, carved of black and white stone.
Kristine walked around the pool, studying the hawk from all sides. It was truly awe-inspiring, almost lifelike as it perched there, wings spread. She would not have been surprised to see it soar heavenward.
Enchanted with the beauty of the grounds, she continued her exploration, a cry of delight erupting from her throat when she happened upon a topiary garden. Trees cleverly trimmed into animal shapes rose all around her. Elephants and horses, a giraffe and a unicorn, a bear and a tiger. Animals she had only seen in pictures. She walked slowly, pausing to study each remarkable sculpture, wondering how it was possible to make the bushes look so alive.
After a time, she returned to the rose garden and sat down on the grass, her skirts spread around her. She ran her fingertips over the smooth silk of her gown. Never before had she worn such fine clothes.
With a sigh, she removed her bonnet and ran a hand over her hair. How long would it take for it to grow out? It had never been cut short before. She felt naked without its warmth and weight, as if a vital part of herself had been shorn away.
It seemed the day would never end, but at last the moon took command of the sky. She ate a lonely supper, took a lengthy bath, then retired to her bedchamber, wondering if he would come to her that night.
Afraid he would, afraid he would not.
Surely no one else had a marriage quite as strange as hers. Curled up in a chair, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
In his room, Erik paced the floor like a caged beast. Earlier in the day, he had watched Kristine walking through the gardens, more beautiful than any of the flowers. He had watched her and hated her, hated the soft glow in her eyes and the smoothness of her skin, the smile that curved her lips as she paused to admire his roses. He hated her vulnerability, the sweet lilting sound of her voice, the way her name echoed in his mind and lingered on his lips. He hated her for being young, for making him want things that would never again be his.
He ripped the mask away, yanked off his glove, ran his good hand over the hideous contours of his face. Charmion’s curse screamed in the back of his mind: A rutting beast you were, a beast you shall become. Not all at once, my selfish one. Day by day, the change will come upon you. . . .
Day by day, the transformation had happened. So slowly, so subtly, that in the beginning he had been convinced it was only his imagination, his own guilt rising up to torment him. But the day had come when his acquaintances could no longer hide their curiosity about the changes in his appearance. Rumors had flown that he had been stricken with a rare disease that caused the disfiguration, and he had not denied it. Better that rumor than the truth.
Not long after that, he had risen from a troubled sleep. After splashing water on his face, he had stared into the mirror and been horrified by the hideous half-human, half-beastly reflection that stared back at him. On that day, in a fit of horror and helplessness, he had broken every mirror in the castle, save a small one, and the floor-to ceiling mirrors that lined the ballroom, now out of sight behind locked doors.
Since then, the curse had crept over him like some insidious poison, creeping down the left side of his neck, his left shoulder, his arm, his hand. . ..
He lifted his left hand and studied it, horrified as always by the thick yellow nails, the coarse black hairs that covered his arm and the back of his hand, the pelt growing thicker with each passing day. The skin of his palm was thick and growing dark, like the pad of a wolf’s paw. Soon there would be nothing human at all about the left side of his body. And in another few months, a year at most, there would be nothing human at all.
Removing the only remaining mirror in the castle from a drawer in his bedside table, he stared at his reflection, struck by the horrible realization that he would look less frightening, less grotesque, when the transformation was at last complete and he was finally, fully, a beast.