by E. D. Walker
***
A short time later, Gabriel had his lady cradled in the crook of his good arm. He caressed her face and leaned back on the bench in the receiving room with a satisfied sigh. He looked at Kathryn’s sweet face and tucked an errant tendril of golden-brown hair behind her ear.
She traced the line of his jaw, brushing his stubbled cheeks gently with her knuckles. Her gaze fluttered up to meet his. “Well, Sir Wolf, what now?”
“Now…” He drew a deep breath, burying his face in her hair so he would not have to watch her reaction for this next bit. “You marry me.”
“I’m to become your lady?”
He nodded against her hair, which smelled of roses and fresh earth and the promise of tomorrow. “If you’ll have me.” He leaned back to study her face. “I’m still a werewolf and always shall be. There will be at least a few nights out of every month when you will have a wolf for a husband.”
Kathryn seemed to think deeply about this for a moment, and then she smirked at him, one dimple bobbing a haughty curtsy at him from her cheek. “Well, I always have several days a month where I’m not the most enjoyable person to live with too. I daresay it evens up.” He laughed at her and leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled away, suddenly serious. “But, love, I’m only a poor baron’s daughter. Shouldn’t you explore your options before you settle for me?”
Gabriel wrestled her into his lap, comfortably crushing her in his arms. “Idiot girl, I played that game once before and ended up with a lying harpy for a wife.” He paused. “May she find her peace.” He shook his head. “Do you think I want to play that game again when I have the best catch in the kingdom curled so deliciously in my lap already?”
She frowned still. He cupped her cheek and tilted her face so she would have to look at him. “Kathryn, I had a grand lady before, but now I should far prefer a true lady. And so you are. You are my one true lady. The only woman I could ever have to be a real wife to me. If you won’t have me, then I’ll just have to join a monastery. Or maybe I could be Llewellyn’s apprentice.”
“I am your true lady?”
He held her tightly, emotion roughening his voice. “You are my miracle, my salvation and, indeed, my true lady. I should be lost without you if you ever left me.”
“Well,” she said with a brusque tone as she settled herself securely into his lap and arranged his arms about her. “In that case, I had better not leave.” She brushed his lips with her own. “After all, can’t have you go to waste. You’re such a fine morsel of manhood—”
Gabriel kissed her.
“Werewolfishness—”
He gently touched his lips against hers.
“Mmm—”
He pulled her to him in a lingering embrace.
***
Meanwhile, the king, the abbess, and the magician returned to the receiving room to break the solitude of the couple. The poor little novice had missed these worthies at every turn, and so they were still in ignorance as to the whereabouts of the young couple.
“I thought Gabriel went out to the garden to find Kathryn and bring her back to see us,” the abbess said testily as they walked along a corridor.
“Yes,” King Thomas said. “We can’t exactly announce a royal engagement without the couple.”
Llewellyn, however, had nothing to say and had fallen behind as he stood just out of sight of the entrance to the small receiving room, the sound of quiet voices murmuring in contented tones having reached his ears.
The king and his sister turned to start asking him questions, but the magician motioned them to silence and cocked his head toward the room. Furtively King Thomas and Abbess Marie stole up beside him and joined in on the spying.
Quiet murmurs passed back and forth for a moment before the voices ceased altogether. “Oy,” Gabriel’s booming tones barked out to the eavesdroppers. “Bugger off.”
It seemed one didn’t spend two years as a wolf without developing an impressive sense of hearing.
King Thomas and Llewellyn burst out laughing. After indulging in a moment of offended piety, the abbess was also unable to control herself, and Marie howled with laughter too.
Eventually the disturbed lovers were persuaded to admit the others into the antechamber. The couple was chastely arranged beside one another, forced to content themselves for the moment with merely holding each other’s hands.
King Thomas grinned. “Have you come to an arrangement between you, then?”
Gabriel grinned wolfishly and kissed Kathryn’s hand. “Meet the future Duchess of Dorré.”
A general round of hand shaking, back slapping, and much kissing of the bride-to-be commenced before everyone could settle down and remember what they were about.
“Is Kathryn to stay here until the wedding or remove back to court?” the king asked.
Kathryn bit her lip. “I am grateful for all the abbess has done for me, and my stay here has been a pleasure, but I miss the queen and my friends at court.”
“And you don’t wish to be parted from Gabriel while the wedding arrangements are made,” Llewellyn said.
“And I don’t wish to be parted from Gabriel while the wedding arrangements are made.” Kathryn’s dimple pierced her cheek.
The king stroked his chin. “The only difficulty I can think of is that you need a lady chaperone back to the castle. After all the intrigue we went through to spare your reputation, we can hardly have you riding back without a female escort in company with so many men.”
“I will go with her.” Beatrice stepped from behind the half-open door.
***
Oddly enough, the arrangement worked out quite well. Kathryn and Beatrice didn’t actually need to interact for things to be seemly. The truce also accomplished what it needed to, in that Kathryn’s reputation remained as spotless as ever when she, in company with her fiancé and his uncle, rode into the royal castle the very next day. In exchange for her return to court, Beatrice would not repeat any of the juicy gossip she had discovered.
Beatrice had a room in the women’s chambers again, but she did not share her chamber with anyone, and no one expected her to perform any of the duties of the ladies-in-waiting. This suited everyone admirably—Beatrice, apparently, most of all.
Lord Stephen returned to court when news of his daughter’s extraordinary betrothal reached his ears. He stayed at the castle for some time and then, though no one was quite sure how, announced to his daughter and son-in-law to-be that he, too, would soon marry. “She is an estimable lady, Kathryn, to be sure. I’ve asked the Lady Beatrice of Troumper to be my baroness.” Lord Stephen smiled brightly at his shocked daughter.
Kathryn opened her mouth to tell him all about Beatrice, about Beatrice and the king, about Beatrice and everyone else with a codpiece in the royal court, but Gabriel stomped on her foot to quiet her.
Lord Stephen continued, oblivious, “The castle at Réméré has been very lonely without you these past months. The place needs a mistress, and I’m sure my dear lady is capable enough to set all to rights. She is kind and so considerate of my gout. I’m quite taken with her.”
Kathryn left the interview with her father with extremely addled wits, and when she finally decided to confront Beatrice, her soon-to-be stepmama, the change that had come over the former termagant amazed her.
“Oh, dear Kathryn,” Beatrice said, “your father is quite the sweetest man I’ve ever met. I pray you won’t spoil this for both of us by carrying tales to him of my old life. I’m quite reformed, I assure you, and I want nothing more in this world than to be a good wife to Lord Stephen.” Beatrice smiled angelically, patted Kathryn’s cheek with infuriating condescension, and glided away to sew her wedding dress.
Kathryn left this interview even more addled. When she told Gabriel, he held her in the crook of his shoulder and explained his thoughts on the matter. “The convent didn’t appeal. She has no male relations to care for her. I suppose Beatrice’s options are rather limited. Better to be a poor baron’s
wife and have the rule of him than to be an old spinster sitting by a fire somewhere, unregarded, unwanted, and alone.”
Gabriel was right. The more Kathryn thought about her father’s marriage, the more she realized Beatrice might be the making of Lord Stephen, and he the making of her. Their marriage was, oddly enough, really all for the best.
***
Kathryn remained far too busy taking daily delight in Gabriel, the man who couldn’t become her husband quickly enough, to care much about the affairs of court. The both of them were very busy, but now that they were both back at court, the morning walks, more properly chaperoned, of course, continued.
Kathryn spent the first week of mornings drinking in with awe and gratitude every word that fell from Gabriel’s lips. They talked of everything, shared everything that had, because of circumstances, been left unsaid between them. Every day was a revelation of how much more they could be in love, and every day they were proportionately grateful events had fallen out so well for them.
Kathryn and Gabriel’s marriage took place several weeks after their engagement—to allow enough time for planning and to make sure the wedding night was not on the eve of a full moon. It seemed everyone in the kingdom was invited, and the great hall of the king’s castle filled fairly to bursting with all the dignitaries and nobles come to see the beast marry his beauty.
Under the kind sermon of Abbess Marie, Kathryn accepted Gabriel’s ring, and together they exchanged vows, ignoring all the pomp and consequence of the event. Aliénor’s complaints about the silly, oversized frock she was forced to wear to accommodate her growing belly, and the king’s whining about a split seam across his shoulder, both fell on unheeding ears. When Llewellyn stumbled on a rug in the shrine and accidentally swore during the ceremony, Gabriel ignored him to keep his attention focused on Kathryn. The dubious sobs issuing from Kathryn’s soon-to-be stepmama and the snores of her father were likewise disregarded. And the two lovers barely noticed when Marie accidentally skipped a page of sermon as the sheets of vellum stuck together. Kathryn tripped on her own train, but her gaze never wavered on her way down the aisle to Gabriel. Gabriel sneezed before he pronounced his vows, but the action barely registered. To both of them, the day was about their love, about joining their lives together, and as such, that was all Kathryn and Gabriel concerned themselves with.
“Those whom Fate has united let no man try to part,” Marie intoned with convincing solemnity. She ruined this pretense the next moment, though, when she leaned in confidingly to the newlyweds and murmured, “Well, kiss each other, you great silly fools.”
Gabriel pulled Kathryn to him, and they melted into each other. The crowd watching rose to their feet in appreciative delight. The newlyweds broke apart after a short time and beamed at the wildly approving wedding guests.
Gabriel hugged Kathryn to his heart as they faced the cheering crowd. “Any regrets, love?”
“Just one,” Kathryn said quietly.
He turned to her, scrutinizing her face, his brows pinched together. “What?”
Her dimple peeped at him from her cheek. “That I let Aliénor convince me to have this idiotic train on my wedding dress.”
Gabriel grinned and kissed his bride again.
***
So it was that they were happy and united at last. Though Gabriel still turned into a wolf, he now had a warm bed to spend the night in and never again banished himself to the forest for his change—unless, of course, his uncle fancied a spot of hunting.
Kathryn and Gabriel would have their small fights and misunderstandings, hard times and good. But they would be together now, always and forever, living, for the most part, happily ever after.
That is all anyone can ask for, and all they wanted anyway.
***
Read on for an excerpt from E.D. Walker’s compelling follow-up to The Beauty’s Beast:
The Changeling Child
******
When Beatrice caught her husband’s gaze straying to the window of the chamber for the third time in as many minutes, she was tempted to kick his ankle. Unfortunately, she was a noblewoman and the lady of the castle. Outbursts of that kind were beyond her now.
Instead, she forced herself to cross her ankles beneath her skirts and give their castle steward all her attention—one of the castle’s lieges should, after all. “I’m sorry, could you explain again? What is the issue with the kitchen roof?”
Beatrice’s husband Stephen, the Baron of Réméré, stared extravagantly out the window into the yard below, where his men were already saddling his horse for a day of falconry. Stephen was nearing fifty, more than twenty years her senior, a battle-hardened knight with dark hair streaked with gray and skin deeply tanned from hunting. For all that he had an old man’s dignity and honors, sometimes he seemed to have no better discipline that one of his pages.
Their steward nervously rustled his reports and correspondence. She gave him a small encouraging smile. He straightened at once, red tinting his sallow cheeks. “Unfortunately, we did not manage to secure the wardship of the young Baron of Unfrah as we’d hoped.”
Beatrice winced. “Who did King Thomas give the wardship to?”
“The Duke of Aquinnah.” Stephen snorted. “As if that man needs more wealth.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She worked to keep her voice soft, to keep the frustration out.
“I didn’t want to concern you, my love.” Stephen gave her hand a half-distracted pat.
Concern her? As if she hadn’t had the managing of their household almost since the moment they’d married last year. Merciful Fate knew Stephen never bothered to concern himself with the estate, and his carelessness might have been the ruination of Réméré if Beatrice hadn’t taken matters into hand.
One of the ways Beatrice had been hoping to secure an influx of coin was to gain that wardship. Five hundred marks a year they could have received to oversee the Unfrah land and take the young heir under their protection. She restrained a wistful sigh. Apart from the money, it might have been nice for her baby son to have another child about.
Beatrice folded her hands in her lap so she couldn’t fidget. The lady of the manor does not fidget. “Without the wardship we can’t afford lead for the roof of the kitchen, can we?”
The steward shook his head. “No, my lady. The roof must be repaired, though, even if we can’t afford the new lead roof.”
Blight it. Beatrice tapped her fingers against the arm of her chair as she thought. “The outer chamber in the high tower is shingled, isn’t it?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Then we’ll just have to take the shingles off the outer chamber and put them on the kitchen to make the necessary repairs. We’ll have to thatch the outer chamber for now.” She’d been hoping to replace all their shingled roofs with lead this year. Instead, they were going backward. Beatrice touched the pearls at her throat—a gift from Stephen at the birth of their first son a few months ago—and counted the baubles with her fingers. Perhaps she could remove a few pearls from the back of the strand and sell them. Her hair covered that, so who was to notice?
“Thatch. Yes. An excellent idea, my love,” Stephen boomed in his resounding bass voice. He creaked to his feet and limped around his desk, away from the window. “That is the end of our business today, is it not?”
The steward twisted his hands together. “My lord, there is that matter I discussed with you before.” His gaze darted uncertainly to Beatrice. “The matter which the village midwife brought to your attention.”
Stephen’s face darkened red with anger. “That nonsense? Peh, don’t waste my time, man. And do not waste my wife’s time with that foolishness either. Come, my love. I’ll return you to your ladies.”
A lady does not disobey her husband. Although she burned with curiosity to hear the steward’s tale, Beatrice allowed Stephen to take her hand and lead her out of the chamber.
***
After Stephen rode off with his men for a day sp
ent in the forest with his hunting birds, Beatrice assembled her ladies to make her own small pilgrimage to the high castle walls. The midwife had told Beatrice that her baby son needed sunshine and fresh air to grow into a strong young lad, and Beatrice was strictly observant of the midwife’s orders.
They remained out in the sun long enough to warm her skin and the linen of her dress. The wind caught at the gauzy blue veil over her hair and kept trying to fling it into her eyes. She should go back inside. If she stayed in the sun much longer her milk-white skin would freckle. Some of her ladies were already grumbling as much under their breaths.
Beatrice found since her son’s birth she worried less about her own looks. Perhaps because she felt more secure in her husband’s affection. She was the Mother of the Heir now, after all. What did her looks matter? And, oh, it felt as if she hadn’t been outside in ages. The past few months, since her son’s birth, it seemed almost as if she’d been turned into a wraith of herself, always sleeping, never leaving her rooms.
I might finally be getting my strength back. Her husband had insisted she nurse the babe herself, as was her pious duty as his mother, and she hadn’t objected. She loved those quiet moments with the baby, when the world melted away and it was only the two of them. She just wished it didn’t exhaust her so, as if the child was drinking away her life-force as well as her milk.
The view from the castle parapet this morning dazzled her. She could almost imagine herself soaring free on the winds. The village lay to the left, small but bustling with thatch roofs on the houses and then, across the river, the Greenwood. The beautiful mass of green trees, rippling as though alive, whipped about in the wind, carrying a crisp earthy scent to her on the air. Her land now. Her son’s land someday. If only I can keep Stephen from draining our coffers dry.
“My lady.”
Beatrice let out a gusty sigh. “I come, I come.” She stepped away from the parapet edge and fell in behind her ladies as they made their way toward the stairs. She toyed with the pearls on her neck. Would Stephen even notice if I sold the whole strand? How many shingles can each pearl buy?
