The Beast’s Heart

by Leife Shallcross

  ‘Like who?’ she asked resolutely. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘My father,’ I choked out, the words bitter in my mouth. ‘He was a terrible man. His faithlessness brought nothing but misery and death upon my mother. He was vicious and cruel and—’

  ‘But you’re not like that,’ interrupted Isabeau.

  ‘I might change,’ I protested miserably.

  ‘Julien,’ Isabeau spoke my name slowly and deliberately. ‘You could never be like that. I know you. I’ve spent almost a year here by your side.’

  ‘I have a terrible temper, as did my father,’ I said, visions of his livid face rising up in my mind.

  ‘You have a temper,’ Isabeau acknowledged, but she was smiling.

  I shook my head, trying to make her understand.

  ‘When he was in his cups he would fly into violent rages. He also …’ I stopped. How could I tell her about the women?

  ‘Is this why you were cursed?’ asked Isabeau indignantly. ‘Because of your father?’

  ‘No!’ How could I explain the fear that had plagued my entire life? ‘No, because – because I may become him—’

  A terrible shrieking noise filled the air. I was blasted by a sudden hurricane stinking of dust and ashes. Isabeau cried out in fright and I found myself clasping her tightly in my arms. A host of flying things erupted from the bed hangings; bats churned around us with a leathery clatter and tiny, soft-winged bodies battered my face.

  An impossibly tall, gaunt figure loomed over us, amid a swirl of sparks being sucked from the fireplace.

  ‘You fool!’

  Through the wind-whipped hair streaming across my eyes I could see a pair of enormous, lambent green eyes glaring down at me from a face as white as bone.

  ‘Have you learned nothing?’ The Fairy’s voice was an angry screech.

  ‘What is that thing?’ cried Isabeau, her voice high with fear. She was holding onto my shirt with both hands now. I clasped her tighter.

  ‘You have paid for Marguerite’s pain,’ said the Fairy, in a voice so filled with rage I felt as though she was battering me with her fists. ‘But I will curse you again, rather than see you perpetuate the misery that broke her heart!’

  ‘No!’ Isabeau shrieked.

  ‘Lady,’ I cried. ‘Forgive me! I do not understand.’

  The maelstrom of flying things subsided and I was able to see the Fairy more clearly. She stood at the foot of the bed, in a gown like a tatter of grey cloud. Her pale hair was a tangle of cobweb, full of twigs and mummified insects. Isabeau was breathing quickly.

  ‘Your heart is not his!’ hissed the Fairy. ‘If you let it freeze again, you will become a monster of your own making. Do not blame him!’

  ‘But—’ I struggled to bend my mind to what she was saying.

  The Fairy caught my gaze and held it. In her terrible eyes I saw the anger and sorrow I remembered from years before, but also a depth of pity.

  ‘You are not just your father’s son,’ the Fairy continued ruthlessly, ‘other blood flows in your veins. Your vices and your choices are your own.’

  A light dawned in my brain, a revelation so simple and piercing it tore the breath from my lungs.

  Your heart is not his … a monster of your own making …

  Do not …

  … blame …

  … him!

  There was an abrupt change in the atmosphere of the room, as though the full moon was suddenly shining out from behind a cloud. Had I thought the Fairy’s hair wild and unkempt? It was a gleaming fall of silver. Her gown was not rags, but surely silk, rich with moonlit iridescence. She was not at the foot of the bed, but beside me, leaning over to touch my face.

  Isabeau drew in her breath sharply and pressed close against me. Through the fabric of my shirt I could feel her heartbeat, racing like mine. I tightened my arms around her as I felt the Fairy’s cold fingertips on my cheek.

  ‘You have your grandmother’s eyes,’ said the Fairy. Her own eyes were bright and tears shone like stars upon her cheeks. ‘My Marguerite. For her sake, I would see you happy.’

  Isabeau shifted slightly and one of her hands searched out and found mine. I slid my fingers through hers.

  ‘Ah,’ said the Fairy. And, with a sigh like the wind through trees, she vanished, leaving nothing but a shimmer of moonlight dancing over the walls.

  I looked down at Isabeau.

  Her face was tilted up to mine, the warm light of the slumbering coals touching the sweet curve of her cheek.

  I was still terrified. My heart was pounding in my chest. But I gathered all my courage together and this time I kissed her.

  We did not go back to sleep straight away. We did not try. But, with everything we had to tell each other, Isabeau’s first question surprised me.

  ‘Who was Marguerite?’ she asked. She was still curled upon the bed, wrapped in her shawl, watching me as I added more wood to the fire to drive off the night-time chill that hung in the air.

  ‘My grandmother,’ I said.

  ‘And who was that?’

  I did not need to ask who she meant.

  ‘She laid the curse,’ I said.

  Isabeau nodded. ‘Well, I am grateful to her.’

  ‘Grateful?’ I asked, startled.

  ‘If she had not cursed you, I would never have known you,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ I agreed.

  I returned to the bed and sat down beside Isabeau. She reached over and took my hand, threading her fingers through mine.

  ‘I still don’t understand it,’ she said. I looked down at my human fingers, tangled so happily in hers.

  ‘My father was a vile and violent man,’ I said, the words still difficult. ‘He was a lecher, and a violator and abuser of women.’ My throat closed over with the strength of my repugnance. I found I was trembling.

  ‘After he died, I was so adamant I would not be my father,’ I said, ‘I fear I let my anger at him govern me. I first encountered the Fairy after my grandmother died. She rebuked me for causing my grandmother grief and told me to mend my ways, but I did not understand her.’

  Isabeau’s hand tightened around mine.

  ‘But, then, some seven years later, I was visited by a cousin of my mother’s. He wanted money, which I refused to give him. He grew angry and accused me of treating my mother’s family ill, as my father had treated my mother. He said I was just like my father.’

  I had to stop and take a breath.

  ‘I always feared I would prove susceptible to the same vices,’ I said. ‘We duelled and I nearly killed him. I destroyed my father’s portrait that night and threatened to burn my cousin with it. The Fairy came back.’ I shuddered. ‘I always thought she had cursed me because my father’s capacity for depravity and viciousness lurked in me.’

  Isabeau reached up and turned my face to hers. Her gaze found mine and held it.

  ‘There is nothing of that in you,’ she said firmly.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ I asked, shakily.

  ‘I know you, Julien,’ she said with conviction. ‘When I’ve needed you, you came whatever the hour. You have been nothing but gentle and gallant. I have sat with you, drinking mulled wine in my nightdress—’ She went pink, and dropped her hand from my jaw.

  I was momentarily robbed of speech, remembering the intimacy of those nights.

  ‘You may not have been so polite in my dreams,’ said Isabeau, looking away and blushing furiously.

  It took all the courage I had to overcome the trepidation that seized me. I lifted her hand and kissed it.

  ‘Nor in mine,’ I confessed.

  She smiled at me self-consciously. I put my arms around her and she leaned happily against me. I was dizzy with bliss, despite the edge of anxiety making my pulse race. Isabeau slid her hand under my robe to grasp at the neck of my shirt. Her fingers were warm against my chest.

  ‘Your heart is beating so fast,’ she murmured.

  I nodded and closed my hand over hers, holding it against me.
I kissed the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her and she turned her face up to mine again.

  ‘I am so glad I came back,’ she said.

  ‘What changed?’ I asked. ‘Why did you come back?’

  Isabeau’s eyes clouded.

  ‘I saw you fall,’ she said, a catch in her voice. ‘I was sitting in René’s cart and I closed my eyes. I don’t know how, but I could see you. I wasn’t dreaming, but I could see you so clearly. But I was so far away!’ I pulled her closer.

  ‘I didn’t know if my ring would work,’ she continued. ‘I couldn’t even see the trees of the forest any more, we were over the hill. I saw father and Claude turn to look at me, but then I was here, in the music room.

  ‘I ran out, but none of the doors would open and nothing helped me. I didn’t know where you were! And when I found the break in the hedge I thought I might never get inside to you!’ She shuddered against me. ‘Beast, I have to apologise.’

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘Why?’

  ‘For being so stubborn and refusing to see you clearly,’ she said, her voice quavering.

  ‘Isabeau—’ I protested.

  ‘No!’ she insisted. ‘If I had admitted it when I first began to love you—’

  I laughed shakily.

  ‘How could you?’ I asked. ‘I was a beast.’

  ‘My Beast,’ she said passionately.

  I could never hear those words without pleasure.

  ‘I have always been yours,’ I said in a low voice, my throat tight. Isabeau hid her face in my chest.

  ‘I thought when I went back to my family I would miss you a little, perhaps,’ she admitted. ‘But I kept seeing you in my dreams and I just wanted to come home.’ She swallowed and glanced up at me, as though looking for reassurance.

  ‘Then, my father …’ Her voice trailed off miserably. The room grew a shade darker.

  ‘Ah,’ I said.

  ‘I know it was you that warned me,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I owe him a great debt. I would mend the breach with him if I could.’

  Isabeau shifted in my arms, turning to take my face in her hands. ‘You will,’ she said seriously. ‘By showing him how happy you have made me.’

  ‘You will stay with me, then?’ I said breathlessly.

  ‘As much as I love my father and my sisters, my home is not with them any more,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ I agreed, lifting a stray curl from her cheek. ‘Your home is here.’

  Isabeau smiled at me in the dusky light. She brushed her fingers across my collarbone and over the curve of my shoulder. New warmth spread across my skin.

  ‘This is like a gift I was not expecting,’ she murmured. ‘Although—’ She paused, and her face broke into a smile that was positively devilish. ‘Oh! The trick I will be able to play upon Claude! I never did tell you about how I would torment her with my pet monkey, poor darling.’

  ‘You will marry me?’ I asked, wanting to hear her say it again.

  ‘As soon as I may,’ said Isabeau firmly. ‘And I am not leaving you again. I am too afraid I will wake up and find it all a dream.’

  ‘I confess I am a little afraid of that too,’ I said, smiling, ‘but I will promise to come and present myself to you the moment I awake in the morning so you may reassure yourself as to the permanence of my transformation.’

  ‘You misunderstand me,’ said Isabeau. I heard the all-too-familiar stubborn note creeping back into her voice. ‘I am not leaving your bedchamber. I am going to sleep here, in your arms, for I will not dream of you alone again.’

  I stared at her in consternation.

  ‘But—’

  ‘You will have to get used to it,’ said Isabeau. ‘Especially if we are to be wed.’

  I could not think of a response. But a cold sweat pricked my skin and my mouth grew dry.

  ‘You must trust yourself,’ said Isabeau firmly, ‘for I do. Now, lie down.’

  Haltingly, my face hot, I did as she instructed. Isabeau lay down beside me and dragged the covers over us. I did not know what do, but Isabeau curled herself close beside me and laid her head upon my shoulder.

  ‘There,’ she said, her hand settling into the centre of my chest. ‘Does this not feel right?’

  Wracked by nerves and insecurities as I was, I could not deny it was more than pleasant to be lying in my bed with her in my arms.

  ‘I could become reconciled to this situation,’ I said, attempting to disguise my unease. Isabeau giggled and a knot of tension unwound itself somewhere inside my belly. I was silent for a few minutes, listening to the quiet crackle of the fire, gradually losing myself to the sensation of her body against mine.

  As we lay together Isabeau gave a melancholy sigh.

  ‘You know, I will miss your Beastly face,’ she said sadly. ‘I believe I had grown quite fond of it.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked, unable to disguise my surprise. She pushed herself up on an elbow and made a show of looking at me closely. She smiled.

  ‘Well, perhaps not. Perhaps you don’t look so different after all.’

  It was my turn to sigh.

  ‘It is well that after so long as a beast, any shred of vanity I had is gone, and I am unable to be offended by that remark,’ I said sadly.

  Isabeau laughed and buried her face in the crook of my shoulder. She sounded almost as happy as I.

  I could not resist. Without hesitation, I drew her to me and kissed her. She wound one arm around my neck and kissed me back, meeting my passion unequivocally with her own. Every dark thought and creeping fear that had ever possessed me evaporated in the wave of intoxicating sweetness that engulfed me as I relinquished myself entirely to her.

  And that moment of sweetness seems a fitting end to my tale. I could tell you about how the magic gradually faded from the house, how the forests receded a little, and how the gardens were never quite as fabulous again.

  We do not miss the magic, though. For my chateau, so silent and empty for so long, is now full of human voices and human industry. It’s true that sometimes I grow wistful for the time when it was just Isabeau and I. But we have our little sanctuaries, and they are the same as they have ever been. Her music room, my study, the library, the rose garden. And, of course, when the weather is fine and we have the time, you can still find us in the orchard beneath boughs heavy with blossom or with fruit. We are no longer so young that we can lounge carelessly in the grass as we once did, but there is a bench in our favourite spot. We sit there together and Isabeau can still lean against me as I read to her.

  I could tell you how we restored my portrait to its place. We have added several new paintings to the walls since. I am not alone in my new portrait and if I have any criticisms of this one, it is that I look a little too self-satisfied and the artist sadly failed to capture Isabeau’s true radiance. Isabeau laughs at me and tells me I look happy and that her own likeness is very well. But neither of us spends much time contemplating portraits any more, surrounded as we are by our living, breathing loved ones.

  I could tell you of how Isabeau took me back to meet her family. She wrote to Marie first. The letter simply said:

  I have freed him. I am bringing him to meet you.

  I was terrified we would be met with spears and pitchforks but, as the cart we hired in the village rolled up to the farmhouse, it was Marie and René who came out to greet us, their faces alive with cautious curiosity. I cannot pretend those first few hours were comfortable, not least because René’s farmhouse seemed to fairly throng with people. But Isabeau’s family heard my petition for their forgiveness with grace and granted it in exactly the manner Isabeau predicted. Claude forgave me my trespass upon her father and sister on the instant and immediately set about making me feel welcome in the family. Marie was polite enough, but reserved her judgement until the following day, after I had undertaken that most important interview with her father and Isabeau and I could announce our betrothal. Since then, however, I can truly say I know what it is
like to have an older sister who will not hesitate to give me her affection, her censure, or her counsel, frequently in the same breath.

  Monsieur de la Noue was the hardest to convince, having suffered the most harm at my hands. Oh, he said the words of forgiveness I begged him for and he granted us permission to wed readily enough. But it was a long, long time before he could look at me without a certain wariness in his gaze; and he did not come to the chateau again until there came a time when Isabeau herself could not leave it for the happiest of reasons.

  I could tell you about all these things, and more, as we continue to write new chapters in our lives together.

  But what I most want to tell you is this: the revelation of her trust that Isabeau granted to me was not the last of her gifts, by any means. And each new pinnacle of sweetness she brought me was as sharp and true as those that came before: the moment she pledged herself to me on the steps of the tiny village church; the moment I brought her home and together we stepped through the gates that had held me prisoner for so long; and of course the moments when she gave me our sons, Jean-Pierre and Louis, and our daughters, Marguerite, Marie-Claude and little Isabeau.

  And after everything, I think in fact she loves me just as much as I love her, and gleans as much joy from our life as I do. Sometimes more so: of course it was she who gained the greatest satisfaction from watching our little firstborn son in her father’s arms, pulling on his beard with impunity, and then in their turn his brother and sisters. Even now, while we both await the joy we brought to Isabeau’s father, watching our own Marguerite approach motherhood, I believe it is my Isabeau who feels it most deeply.

  And that never-ending joy, I think, is her overwhelming gift to me. My Isabeau. My font of sweetness. For her I would have endured another thousand years of solitude.

  Ah yes. And the Fairy.

  To this day there is always a vase of fresh flowers to be found beneath my grandmother’s portrait, even in midwinter. And a single candle burning. But I never saw her again.

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost I have to thank Thorne Ryan and the team at Hodder & Stoughton for taking a chance on my story and for loving it as much as I do, and being such a dream to work with. Huge thanks also to Fleur Clarke, Kate Sinclair, Jo Myler and Daren Newman for using their design brilliance to make The Beast’s Heart look so very beautiful. I owe a debt of gratitude to Anne Perry, too, for pulling me out of the slush pile.