Beauty and the Werewolf

That made her pause for a moment. She thought about it, and compared herself to the silly little girls of the minor nobility that she had met via the twins. Of course, that was hardly fair; a relatively serious person was not likely to inhabit the same sorts of social circles that the twins did. But if most of the young women that Sebastian had met were like those frivolous little fluff-heads, well — she must be surprising him every time she opened her mouth.

“I imagine I am,” she said dryly, and left it at that.

He clapped his hands once, and it was her turn to stare, as one of the branched candlesticks on the table lifted up and floated toward her. “Just follow the candles,” he said, a faint look of satisfaction on his face at her surprise. “I hope you like your rooms. When I received word of your coming, I did my best to arrange things so that you would be comfortable.” He paused. “Nevertheless, now that I have met you, I know that all that I am, and all that I have, could not match what you are worth.”

Well…

There really was no way to respond to that entirely gallant statement without seeming skeptical, ungrateful or just unpleasant. So she just nodded what she hoped was a properly shaped acknowledgment, and followed the floating candles.

The entire Manor seemed to have been constructed around the model of murder-corridors connecting lovely rooms. It did make her a little curious, since Redbuck was so far away from anything — what had it been built to defend against? Or had the original Duke simply been ultracautious?

She got brief glimpses of a small ballroom, what might have been an audience chamber, a parlor and an enormous library — where the spines of most of the books seemed to be made of tin — she was resolved to come back to before the floating candles led her to a corridor that had a dead end with three doors: one on the left hand, one at the dead end and one on the right. The door to the left swung open and the candles proceeded inside. She followed.

The candles paused for a moment, then set down on a table beside the door. A moment later, heavy curtains she had not seen in the gloom whisked aside, and sunlight streamed into a very satisfactory parlor, charming and well-appointed even by Genevieve’s exacting standards. She didn’t have any time to admire it, however, for a rose — and how had he managed a rose in the middle of winter? — levitated out of a vase near the window, and with a little wave that seemed to signal that she should follow, it floated over to a door to the left and opened it.

She limped in through this door to another darkened room — the darkness was quickly remedied as more curtains parted, revealing quite the most wonderful bedroom she had ever seen.

She was getting used to the fact that there were tapestries on virtually every wall here, and when she thought about it, the fact made sense. These were stone walls and would otherwise be very cold, especially in winter. But whoever had chosen the tapestries for this room had created an especially welcome environment, for they all showed a flowering wood, the sort of woodlands she wanted to run into and lose herself. Once again, what must have been a stone floor had been overlaid with wood except at the hearth, and as if that was not enough, there were carpets at the side of the bed, so the occupant would never find herself stepping barefoot onto a cold floor.

There was not a great deal of furniture in this room; instead of wardrobes and chests to hold her clothing as she had at home, there was a closet where, through the open door, she could see familiar clothing already hung up. There was a dressing table and mirror and chair, and the bed.

But such a bed!

You could bed down an entire family in that bed and they wouldn’t crowd each other, she thought, marveling. A massive canopy was supported by four fat, carved pillars covered with vines and flowers. The headboard was not just a headboard; it supported two lamps on brackets, suspended at exactly the right height for reading in bed. There was a built-in bookcase, proving that the carpenter had put them there for that purpose. Bed curtains of embroidered velvet had been pulled back to show the matching counterpane, and when she stepped forward and tentatively patted it, she could tell that the counterpane covered a down comforter and a feather bed of unmatched height and softness. She was tempted to lie down on it right that moment.

But the rose was moving onward, and she followed it into the final room — A bathroom.

She had heard of bathrooms, but she had never seen one. Most households could not afford to dedicate a room just for bathing. All her life, she had taken her baths in a tin tub brought in, set before the fireplace and filled with hot water. This room had a tub three or four times that size, like an enormous porcelain basin on clawed lion feet, with stacks of soft towels and bottles full of jewel-colored liquids and powders on shelves around it. One look at it made her long for a leisurely hot soak.

Later. She went back into the bedroom, and to the middle of the three long, narrow windows, and looked out.

Instead of overlooking the woods, she found herself looking down into a snow-covered courtyard garden, surrounded on all four sides by Manor walls. Here, for the first time, she saw signs of neglect; the rosebushes and trees had not been trimmed back in some time. Obviously Sebastian cared nothing for the garden, so his servants had done nothing with it.

More importantly for her purposes, there would be no escaping this way.

Still, as captivity went, this was going to be very comfortable.

She turned away from the window and to the closet. Now she discovered why there had been more trunks than she could account for. There was her clothing, all right — and a lot of unfamiliar clothing of the sort that would make the twins squeal with glee. Somehow she doubted that this was Sebastian’s idea; more than likely it was the King’s.

Trying to distract me with dresses, hmm? She was torn between amusement and irritation; she decided to let amusement win. I suppose that just goes to show that Kings are only men. Well, just wait until he gets the list of my real demands. She was not going to go into exile quietly.

Now she turned her attention to the floating rose.

“I assume you are waiting for my orders?” she said.