Beauty and the Werewolf fhk-6

by Mercedes Lackey

  After spending most of the morning attempting to get useful information from Sapphire, Bella’s head hurt. It was time for a change, something else to do. Which brought her back to her original plan. “Is there a hothouse?” she asked, finally. “A place where the flowers and vegetables are grown?”

  “Yes,” Sapphire wrote.

  “Take me to it, please,” she ordered. “I’d like to have some notion of what is in there.”

  There was no evidence of confusion. The blue ribbon obediently led the way out the door.

  More corridors — ordinary ones as well as murder-corridors. More rooms, most of them with the curtains closed and the hint of dust in the air. Then, finally, Sapphire flung open the door on what seemed at first as if it was outdoors, so bright was the light streaming inside. Yet there was no burst of freezing air — in fact, the air that puffed out toward Bella was warm and moist as a spring day.

  She stepped across the threshold and into summer.

  At least it smelled like summer. Green and moist and warm — it was really warm here. And she had never seen so much glass in her life — the walls, the roof, were all made of it. The place was perhaps half the size of the Great Hall of the Wool Merchants Guild and it must have cost a fortune to create all the glass panes, bring them out here and put them together. There were plants in raised beds everywhere, with narrow walkways between them, and in the middle, trellises covered with vines that reached to the roof.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had been expecting something that looked like a garden. Well, it did look like a garden — a kitchen garden. There were a few beds of flowers, but most of the space was taken up with raised beds growing vegetables and herbs. Even the vines were peas and beans.

  Once she got over her initial disappointment, however, she began to appreciate it. The beds of fresh herbs alone were a marvel, and the vegetables like asparagus and lettuces, the peas and beans in several stages of ripening trailing upward over trellises that one only saw in summer, here with a background of snow outside the glass — well, it really did seem as much like magic as Sapphire.

  And it was so warm here, as warm as a hot summer day. “How is it kept so warm?” she asked Sapphire. Surely it wasn’t just the sun —

  “Hot spring,” said a laconic voice from behind them, electrifying her with a jolt of panic. She jumped and squeaked, turning at the same time, not sure whether she should look for a weapon or utter a greeting.

  Eric von Teller lounged in the door frame, arms crossed over his chest. He was dressed in his Gamekeeper leathers, without the cloak. Now that she knew what to look for, she could see a definite family resemblance. He and Sebastian had the same cheekbones, the same brow, the same nose; their hair was very different, though. And their eyes. Sebastian’s were a gray; Eric’s were dark, some color close to the slate of a storm cloud. He raised one black eyebrow as she relaxed marginally.

  “Don’t bother asking anything complicated of the menials,” he continued, with a little smirk. “It’s rather like trying to teach a cow to fly. You get nowhere, and annoy the cow. They’re obedient, they will do what you ask of them provided you phrase it the way you would phrase an order to a dog, but they are of no help whatsoever when it comes to anything even a child would understand.”

  “I see,” she replied, in as neutral a tone of voice as she could manage, and gestured behind her back, hoping Sapphire would understand that she should hide the slate and chalk. “Well, since you can talk, and obviously know a bit about this place, what do you mean by ‘hot spring’?”

  “There is a spring of hot water underneath this place. It’s why it was built here in the first place,” Eric replied, not moving at all from his spot in the door frame — meaning that when she wanted to leave the hothouse, she would have to somehow get by him. “Originally, when this was just a hunting lodge, it was used for heat. Later, when the place was rebuilt, it was repurposed. It’s not a very big one, and once the Manor expanded to its current size, it couldn’t be used to heat the place as it once had. Now it supplies the hot water for bathing, and keeps this glasshouse warm.” He shrugged. “The glasshouse was a conceit of the late Duke’s father. I think this is a waste of effort, really, but he liked to impress his guests with spring and summer vegetables in midwinter.”

  “Was that so important to him?” she asked, curiously.

  He grimaced a little. “The Duchy is a farm, a forest and a few mines. The small size never troubled anyone up until that point, but I suppose Sebastian’s grandfather felt differently. I will say that getting hot baths whenever you like is very welcome. And since Sebastian’s slaves are the ones doing all the work here, it’s not as if it was costing us anything to keep it up. It would be different if we needed to keep a staff of human servants to tend the plants.” He nodded at the ribbon around Sapphire’s arm. “Clever idea. I’ll order mine to wear armbands so I know when they’re in my rooms. I don’t like the feeling there might be something looking over my shoulder all the time.”

  He seemed to be making an effort to be pleasant. She regarded him with as neutral an expression as she could manage. “It is unnerving,” she agreed. “More so for a woman, I think. I don’t believe that men have our natural modesty.”

  He raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical, but said nothing for a moment. Finally, he shrugged. “I’m not going to apologize for our meeting in the woods,” he said abruptly. “It’s my job to be as unpleasant as possible, especially around the full moon, to keep people out of there after dark. Now you know why.”

  She frowned a little. “If that is your job, you are doing it very well.”

  “It’s been Duke Sebastian’s orders,” he pointed out. “I have to do so in such a way as to prevent people from getting too curious about why I’m running them off. I’m the Woodsman, so people expect me to act as if everyone I meet is a potential poacher, so that’s what I do. It saves on explanations.”

  Bella tilted her head to the side. “That — actually makes sense,” she agreed, with great reluctance.

  “Of course it does — it’s the clever way to handle this situation.” He shifted his weight a little, and the leather of his outfit creaked. “If I was solicitous and warned people nicely that there might be a savage monster out there, ready to rip their limbs off, they’d assume I was hiding something besides where the deer lay up, and do their best to find out what it was. So I’m a bastard about it. Too bad, if I frighten people. I want them frightened. Just because we’ve managed to keep Sebastian locked up so far, it never followed that we could always count on doing so.” He unfolded his arms, and made a little gesture of impatience. “Sebastian assumes the best. I assume the worst. That has been my job since he changed. I don’t want potential victims in our woods, and I’ve done a damned good job of keeping them out of danger, since you’re the first accident we’ve had since Sebastian started changing.”

  It was a very reasonable explanation. And she might have believed him entirely, if it hadn’t been for that other little encounter she’d had with him at the Guild festival. He was in disguise then and presumably thought he would not be recognized — and he wasn’t in the woods, trying to frighten people out of them.

  So, while she would accept his explanation about chasing people out of the woods, so far as the caddishness went —

  I think not.

  “We got off to a bad start,” he continued, and finally smiled. “Like it or not, for the next three months, we are going to be in the same household and are bound to encounter one another. I’d like to be able to exchange civil words with you, and believe me, it will be a lot more pleasant for both of us if we can. Truce?”

  He was right about that — even if she had no intention of remaining here for that long.

  “Truce,” she said, still keeping her voice and expression neutral. For now, she added, internally, rather glad that she was not pledging a time period.

  “Good enough.” He studied her a moment and she did not flinch from his
stare. “Sebastian says there is no place in the Manor that you can’t go. So it’s just as well that my house is outside the Manor. I’ll ask you to stay out of it as I like my privacy. And pledge you that I’ll stay out of your rooms unless you invite me there. I’ll go further than that — I won’t set foot in the corridor that leads to the guest apartments where you are. That should set your mind at ease about my intentions.”

  “That’s reasonable,” she replied, even though her hand itched to slap him, because there was an undertone in his voice when he had said unless you invite me there that suggested that he fully expected that she would. He really did think his charms could not be resisted!

  “I’ll also warn you about wandering down to the dungeon on nights of the full moon.” He gave her an opaque look. “If you are curious about Sebastian on those nights — stifle it. Though I realize that asking a woman to stifle her curiosity is a little like asking a mule not to be stubborn.”

  He smirked, and she quietly counted to ten, because she was getting close to losing her temper with him. Again. It seemed that was going to happen on a regular basis with this man. It was as if he was going out of his way to say the most provoking things.

  “Seriously, now,” he continued, “I don’t know how he got out two nights ago, but you should have the image of when he savaged your foot branded in your mind. You have seen the wolf. You really do not need to see him any closer or clearer. He nearly killed you. Think of that if you’re tempted. He’s all right alone down there. He just paces and growls and digs at the door, but put prey in front of him? I wouldn’t make a bet on the door holding. I’ve never gone down there once he changes, and I’ve been in charge of him since it started. So don’t be foolish.”

  His expression said the opposite — that he fully expected her to take this as a challenge, or that telling her not to do something was a guarantee that she would do it.

  He really did not have a high opinion of females, at all.

  “I heard him howling last night,” she said, instead of answering him directly. “It was fairly bloodcurdling. It’s not the sort of sound that would tempt me into coming down for a visit.”

  “He doesn’t howl like that, usually,” Eric told her. “But this is the first time he’s gotten out to hunt, and that might have changed something. Must have been because he scented you here in the manor, and you were the prey that escaped him.”

  But…I didn’t, she thought, startled. I didn’t escape. He stopped attacking. Why did he stop?

  She started to tell Eric that, and something made her pause. Instead, she nodded. “Is it just for the three nights of the full moon?” she asked him. “Is that the only time he changes?”

  “That’s what it’s been before. I don’t know why things should be different now.” Now, at last, he moved, pushing himself away from the door frame and taking a step away from her. “Tonight should be the last night for a month that you’ll need to worry about it. If he howls and you can’t get to sleep, stuff wax in your ears. I might see you at supper tomorrow night. It depends on if I have anything I need to discuss with Sebastian.”

  And with that, he just walked away down the corridor into the Manor, without so much as a polite goodbye, leaving her exasperated, a little intrigued and, to tell the truth, a little afraid.

  The other three suites of rooms in her corridor were a great deal like the one she already was in. The only difference was that two of them looked out on the wall, the gates and the front courtyard, the one she had found herself in when she first arrived. That, at least, oriented her. And it looked as if no one had used these rooms in years, of course. There was a slight musty smell, and a hint of damp, exactly as you would expect from rooms that had been closed up, unaired, for all that time.

  Since she saw nothing to recommend them over the ones she was currently using, she just shut the door on them again, and went down to dinner.

  She saw to her pleasure that her orders for the meal had been filled exactly. Sebastian was not there, and neither was Eric, but a few moments after she sat down and the invisible servant filled her plate, the Duke arrived.

  “I hope you slept well,” he said, as he sat down. “The door seems to have held last night.” The servant tended to him, and he began eating hungrily without appearing to notice that there was not the superabundance of food that there had been at the past two meals they had shared. “All I can guess is that for some reason, the latch didn’t set. I wish the servants could talk — they might be able to tell me something.”

  But they can — she thought.

  “Then again, they probably don’t come down there when I change, and I wouldn’t blame them.” He sighed, and reapplied himself to his food. “At any rate, I’m still waiting for word from the Godmother, personally, although I have been sent a message from her people that she does know about the situation, and you are still to be held here for three months until we know for certain that you aren’t going to turn.”

  She opened her mouth in indignation, then closed it again. The Godmother was the highest authority on magic in this and several other Kingdoms. There really was no reasonable objection that she could make.

  “I’ve also gotten word that she is going to send something along so you can at least keep an eye on your family,” he continued. “We should have it in a day or two. That way you’ll know that your father is all right, although the King has promised me to make sure that your family is watched over properly.”

  Watched over properly. And how is the King going to make sure that the household runs smoothly, that Genevieve doesn’t turn to some quack who will actually harm her, that father doesn’t fret himself to pieces over me? “And what has my father been told?” she asked, subdued, a lump in her throat threatening to choke her. The thought of him being afraid for her, or worse, grieving over her — it was just too hard to bear.

  “I don’t know.” He stopped eating and looked up at her. He had that expression again; the one that looked like a puppy that knows it has done something wrong, but doesn’t quite know what it could be. “That would have been the King’s business, and I don’t know what he decided to do in cases like this. I mean, obviously he has to say something, and it can’t be ‘Oh, I am very sorry, but I’ve had to send your daughter off and she’s never coming back’ because it’s even odds that you are coming back and he wouldn’t want to have to explain how that happened and — ”

  Strangely enough, the running stream of words broke the weight of despair that had begun to form. Sebastian was just trying so hard to reassure her, yet tell her the truth at the same time, and failing at both!

  He stopped. “I’m babbling, aren’t I?” he asked, sheepishly.

  “Yes, you are,” she said, dryly.

  “It comes of not having anyone to talk to, I suppose. Eric isn’t exactly a good conversationalist and there’s no one else, really.” Now he looked down at his plate. “It’s rather nice, actually, having someone across the table from me. I mean, I know it’s horrible for you, but it’s nice for me.”

  Her tone became so dry it practically sucked all the moisture out of the air. “I’m glad to hear that I’m being useful.”

  He looked up quickly, blushed and looked down again. “I really am bungling this.”

  She took pity on him; he couldn’t possibly be feeling as awful about all this as she was, but on the other hand, he was doing his best to make the horrible situation as comfortable as it could be. “Oh, I don’t know, I suppose if I were in your place I’d be babbling, too.”

  The face he presented to her was full of such gratitude that she was touched. “You are being incredibly decent about this,” he said warmly. “I mean, really, truly decent. Better than I deserve.”

  “I would have to agree with that statement.” But she was smiling as she said that. “On the other hand, you actually are attempting to make things up to me. I know very well that the King could have just ordered me thrown in one of his dungeons for three months. Or you could have
sealed me up in one of the cells downstairs for a similar length of time.”

  “I am going to have to do that for the three nights of the full moon next month,” he pointed out. “Or the first one, at least, because you might turn, and we can’t have you loose. But there’s no reason to throw you into a cell now. I mean, you know what’s at risk here, and the very last thing someone like you is going to do would be to try to run off and put people in danger. Right?”

  Numbly, she nodded. It was something that she had avoided thinking about, but he was right. She couldn’t leave, not until they knew for certain that she was safe. She’d heard enough stories; the first thing that a werewolf would seek to kill was the person it loved best.

  He crumpled his napkin. “Look, I don’t know how to entertain young ladies very well. Is there anything, anything at all that I can do to make things better for you?”