Beast and I have no opportunity for a private word, now that Rose is speaking to him again. Night after night, at the sound of eight chimes, she allows him to sit at the table while she joins him in conversation. I watch in mute anxiety as Rose allows herself to be charmed. Not by Beast himself — she is still too frightened of him physically — but by her own ability to charm him. And every now and then, she allows him to sit one chair closer.
Beast never speaks to Rose about his passion for the natural world at these dinners, nor reveals to her the tenderness with which he has learned to care for his roses, nor confesses to her the fullness of heart that once drove him to attempt poetry. Perhaps he believes she would not care about these things, and I suppose she would not. Or perhaps they no longer mean as much to him. It angers me that Beast seems to have mislaid the parts of himself that felt those things — at least, he has when Rose is around. But it’s far more alarming that Beast does not try to send Rose home as he agreed he should. Instead, she seems to be warming to her place in this household.
By day, Rose tours the rooms of the chateau again, with even more attention than before. If the afternoon is fine, she crosses the moat in back to wander in the park. The trees are in fresh green leaf, and every now and then, she spies a hind or a hare amid the trunks. But the black wood that stretches far beyond the park frightens her still, with its dense, gnarled trees that shut out the sun, its sinister animal noises, and its dark, surging river. She never goes there.
The rose garden is in more glorious bloom than ever. Each climbing branch supports dozens of blooms, heads lifted to the sky, their red velvety petals unfurling with lazy abandon, reveling in the spring sunshine. This morning, Rose has brought me into the garden as a place for Redbird to perch and sing to her.
“It’s like heaven here!” she exults as she carries us down the drive under the archway, a fragrant tunnel of lush red blooms. At the bottom of the drive, Redbird hops up to a crossbar on the gilded gate and warbles his merry song.
“You were right to encourage me to stay,” she agrees. I suppose she views Redbird and myself the same way, a chorus of support for any random idea that enters into her head. She steps to the gate and gazes out past the moat and down the steep slope of green hill to the valley. Far, far beyond the orchards and vineyards, the tiny stone buildings of Clairvallon huddle together under their red-tile roofs. A brave church spire rises from its hill at the far end of the town.
I wonder how the townsfolk are faring since the night of the witchcraft. There is every appearance of industry and husbandry continuing on as usual — fields are being cleared of their winter debris, planting has begun, church bells toll. Without the lord of Beaumont to collect their quarter rents and call in their debts, they must relish the freedom to work their plots of land and pursue their commercial ventures in some prosperity. The gentlemen of his suite and his companions-at-arms must have dispersed back to their own estates. All of their lives go on.
The town nestles in a fertile basin dwarfed by vast green and gold wheat fields trimmed in evergreen. Deeper green patches farther in the distance conceal even tinier villages dotting the broad, gilded fields that stretch away to the blue horizon. It all seems so far away from up here.
Rose turns her back to the gates and looks up at the riot of roses growing so much higher than the wall. “It’s even more beautiful up close,” she exclaims.
Her words strike me like a slap. Of course! Beast’s roses are visible for miles and miles up on this hillside; tales must be rife in the villages about their strange magnificence. Rose must have known her father would have to come here when she asked for her gift; where else could he find a rose in the depth of winter?
The splendor of Chateau Beaumont and the wealth of its masters, the LeNoirs, has been legendary for generations. Whatever tales the fleeing servants spread about the town after that night may be forgotten or disbelieved by now. But the chevalier is gone; that much is clear. Soon enough, someone might wonder what’s become of all that splendor and wealth. Someone used to fine things who suddenly finds his — or her — fortunes reversed.
I reconsider Rose, with her backswept golden hair and guileless blue eyes. And I wonder: Who is the puppet master here? Who is the predator?
She climbs thoughtfully back up the drive, Redbird perched on my silver arm, singing his cheerful tune.
“It’s not so gloomy here, is it?” Rose wonders aloud. “He would never hurt me. He’s far too . . . gentlemanlike.” Redbird pipes a few more agreeable notes. “I’d have only to bear his company from a safe distance,” Rose goes on softly to herself, “and Papa need never want for anything again.”
Rose carries me up the front steps and into the chateau, eager to see what new gown awaits her upstairs and prepare herself for the evening meal. But my thoughts churn with dread. Since Beast is so gentlemanlike, as she says, she must believe some portion of his splendid wealth might be spared to care for the father she adores. She knows by now that Beast will deny her nothing.
But she can never care for him in any way that matters. She will never appreciate Beast for himself: warm, reflective, caring. Noble in fact, not only in station. So worthy of the companionship he so desperately craves. She can’t know the beast that once lived here, with his angel’s face and form and his evil nature or the agony he inflicted so carelessly on others.
She sees only the poor, tragic Beast: So hideous. So melancholy. So romantic. Foolish girl — foolish maiden — who knows nothing of life but what she finds in books. She sees Beast as a task in a fairy story and believes the reward will be worth her sacrifice to this courtly monster. But she can’t know the horror she might set in motion, should her ambition bear fruit — if she positions herself to become mistress of this place.
Would she ever spare a thought for my Beast if he were poor?
Rose’s happy mood from the garden continues into supper. The tune of the invisible musicians is livelier than usual, bending to her pleasure, and she brings a flourish to all her movements, whether buttering her bread or raising her goblet. Beast joins her at eight chimes. Her gaiety amuses him as much as it terrifies me, for, of course, I am there at her place on the table.
“Rose,” he asks after she has supped her fill, “do you dance?”
“I was counted a fine dancer once,” she says, “before Father lost his fortune. We’ve had little in the way of balls or amusements since then.”
“But I’ve an entire ballroom at your disposal!” Beast declares. “You shall have whatever music you like!”
The ghostly music all around us subtly rises in tempo, and Rose can’t help tapping her foot.
“It would please me very much to escort you there,” says Beast.
She smiles, decision made, gets to her feet, and takes me up out of habit, although the sconces are already lighting the way to the ballroom. Beast rises, too, and hopefully offers her an elbow, but she balks. With an inward sigh, he bows and sweeps an arm out the door into the passage. Rose gathers up her skirts and glides past Beast to follow the lights.