I step back into the sitting room, eager to be out of his bedchamber, and he cautiously follows, suspicious, yet intrigued. I’m not completely sure what to do next, but I pray that the ring itself, burning with Beast’s mother’s love, will guide me.
But I have scarcely opened my hand to reveal it when a soft knocking comes at the door behind me from the outer salon of the chevalier’s suite of rooms. The door opens, and there stands a pretty girl from one of the vintners’ wagons below, carrying a jug of wine on her hip. Her eyes widen at the sight of the two of us standing here.
“Monsieur le chevalier!” She gasps and comes no farther in. Her gaze darts to me and back to Jean-Loup. “But . . . I thought . . . oh, apologies, monsieur!”
She turns and flees back out into the salon. And then we hear her gasp again.
“M-my lady,” we hear her stammer. “I was told . . . the chevalier said . . . I never meant . . .”
And as the girl’s voice fades away out into the hallway, Rose marches into the sitting room, crying, “Jean-Loup, who was that girl? Where have —”
But she freezes on the spot to see me together with her husband. “Who is this?” she demands of him.
“She is nothing, no one.” Jean-Loup waves me off, turning to his bride.
“Really, Jean-Loup, how many more are there? They multiply like the roses in your garden. And on our wedding day! In our home! Have you set out deliberately to humiliate me?”
Surprised by her anger, Jean-Loup slips into the placating tone with which he is so accustomed to getting his way. “Now, my love, you know you mean everything to me —”
“Who are you?” Rose rounds on me again.
I squeeze the ring in my palm. “My name is Lucie, my lady. And I have a message from Christine DuVal LeNoir to her son.”
Jean-Loup looks shocked. Rose whirls on her husband. “You told me your mother was dead! Is every word you speak a lie?”
“She is long gone, my lady,” I say to Rose. “But her spirit haunts me. I was employed here as a chambermaid not so long ago. I was here on the night Beast appeared.”
I hadn’t thought Rose’s blue eyes could widen any further, as she gasps, “You know about Beast?”
“Beast is gone!” Jean-Loup glares at us both.
I ignore him, speaking to Rose. “I remained in this place until — until the day he left us.”
“But there was no one else here!” Rose cries.
“I, too, was transformed by magic,” I tell her. “I was a silver candlestick.”
Anyone else would think me raving to make such an outlandish claim, but Rose knows far better than anyone else what enchantments took place here. Her hands fly to her mouth as her gaze darts from me to her husband, then back again to me. “You saw everything,” she whispers.
I squeeze the ring again and focus my thoughts. I could scarcely help it. You took me with you everywhere.
Rose stares at me, shocked to hear my voice in her head. “You are the one who called me back here!”
I nod. “Beast would have died,” I tell her. “It was the only way I could think of to save him. And we did save him, you and I. Some part of Beast still exists inside your husband.”
“Nonsense!” Jean-Loup scoffs. He turns to his bride. “My dearest love, don’t listen to her foolishness. She is only jealous of our happiness!”
“Happiness?” Rose spits out the word. “Receiving women in your dressing gown? Insulting me in front of our wedding guests? Leaving me on my own for an hour or more? You think we are happy?”
Jean-Loup rounds again on me, but his voice is less sure than it was. “How dare you come into my home with your lies and your hate —”
“You are not worth hating, Jean-Loup. You’re not even real.” I wave my hand at him the way you might brush off a gnat. “I’m here for Beast’s sake. And his mother’s.” I unclench my fingers so the ring is visible in my hand. “She saved this all these years for Beast. It’s a token of how much she loved him.”
I don’t know what I expect to happen next — a thunderclap and lightning, perhaps; a chorus of angels. But all that happens is Jean-Loup cries, “Stop this nonsense! There is no Beast!” But despite his commanding voice, there’s an edge of uncertainty in his manner as he reaches for his bride. “It’s all lies! Rose —”
But Rose backs away from him, pulling her arm away. “Don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch me!”
“I am your husband!” he shouts again. “And now that we are married —”
“I find I have married a horrid beast!” cries Rose. “After all I have done for you, after what you were before —” She stops and shakes her head. “No, no, that was not you. Sir Beast would never treat me so!”
“Of course he would not!” I chime in, eager to make an ally of Rose. The more she turns against Jean-Loup, the more fondly she may feel toward Beast. “Remember how kind and gracious Beast was?” I remind her. “He was so concerned with your comfort and your well-being. Your happiness was all that mattered to him.”
It seems I cannot stop myself praising Beast’s virtues once I’ve begun. “He is good-humored and thoughtful, with a sense of justice so profound, he cannot bear any kind of cruelty. He would never raise a paw in anger. His passion for life is strong, and his feelings run so deeply, yet he is always quick to laugh.”
It warms me even now to think of his husky laughter and his animal smile, to recall the zeal with which he brought his garden to life, and his respect for all living things. I am shaking my head as my heart swells with feeling. “I love his mismatched animal parts and his poet’s soul. I love his warm eyes sprinkled with gold.”
Rose and Jean-Loup are both staring at me as I clutch the ring on its ribbon to my heart.
“I . . . I love Beast!”
There is the plain truth of it. I feel it welling up inside me even now, flooding through my blood. How could I not know it before now? I have overestimated the power of this ring, and yet by its magic I find the strength to speak the truth that’s in my heart.
“He was a monster!” Jean-Loup yelps.
“You are the monster,” I tell him angrily. “Beast is the true chevalier. And you are nothing!”
“No!” howls Jean-Loup, his eyes full of panic, his face full of horror. He howls again, but his voice has deepened as he hunches forward, covering his face in his hands. His hair grows long and tangled, and two small, curved horns sprout from the top of his mane between two pointed, furry ears. He grows more massive beneath his robe, which falls away as his soft, whiskered muzzle rises up from behind his paws. He plants his hooves, stretches out his paws, shakes out his tawny mane, and lets out a blistering roar of triumph.
“Beast!” I cry, even as I hear Rose faintly gasp, “Sir Beast!”
I want to fly to him, but I dare not, checked by the enormity of what I’ve done. What must Rose think? What does Beast think? He has never even seen me in my human form — does he even know who I am?
“Lucie,” he whispers in the tenderest voice I’ve ever heard in all my life. Awe and delight dance in his gold-dusted eyes. “You are human again! You’ve been restored!”
I can’t resist grasping his paw in both my hands. “Oh, Beast, when I think of how close I came to losing you! But there was no way you could have undone that spell, however bravely you tried. Only I had the power to free myself.”
“And you came back,” he rumbles. “For me.” He glances at my hands gripping his paw and back at me. “But you risked so much to come here. You had to face him.”
“I would have risked anything for you, Beast! I . . . I was so afraid I would never see you again. I was so afraid that Jean-Loup had won.”
Beast’s gaze intensifies. “But — he’s gone! I can feel his absence in a way I never could before. It’s like a weight lifted off my heart.” He covers my hands gently with his other paw. “We’ve defeated him at last, Lucie! Jean-Loup is gone!”