Beauty and Her Beastly Love
Table of Contents
About this Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Sneak Preview: Cinders & Ash – A Cinderella Story
About the Author
Also by Rosetta Bloom
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Copyright 2015 Rosetta Bloom
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About this Series
Many of our favorite fairy tales from childhood, such as The Princess and the Pea, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella, originated centuries ago. Over the years, they’ve been told and retold by different authors in different media, each retelling adding its own spin. Here, we take these classic tales and give them a spin that is full-on sexy. While these tales are not the bedtime stories you would ever read to a child, they are definitely meant to be enjoyed in bed. These retellings preserve the base of the story, but add new twists and include passion, lust, and the fulfillment of carnal desires. I hope you enjoy them.
-May your love always be in bloom.
-Rosetta
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Chapter 1
Beauty ran her finger over the imprint of the rose on the leather-bound book, savoring the supple feel of it beneath her fingertips. It was smooth and firm, yet soft enough that it felt almost like skin. She wondered briefly if it felt like the skin of a man’s erection. The type of man she’d read about in this book. In the other books like it.
She smiled to herself, her red lips curving crookedly as she thought about what she’d just read in this book’s pages. The man and woman in their bedroom, the passion with which he’d removed her clothing: speedy, furious, ripping, tearing, beastly. The moans of pleasure that escaped her as he took her. Their bodies naked, groping, clinging to each other.
Beauty wondered if these books were true. Yes, she knew that men and women bedded each other, but the passion with which the people in these books acted and reacted seemed unreal. Were there really people out there that loved each other so fully, that reacted so primally, fiercely and all-consumingly? Did people really do those things? Did they really touch each other like that? The warmth between her legs hinted that it was very real indeed, but she didn’t know for sure. She might never know. Beauty was rarely allowed around others. She lived in the country with her father, Pierre LaVigne. He was a kind man who made his living farming. He grew grapes and made wine, but he lacked spirit.
He was a man broken by loss. The loss of her mother, Celine. Renowned for her beauty and horticultural skills, her mother had taken ill suddenly and died when Beauty was just six years old. Pierre had persevered, and her older twin brothers, Marcel and Maurice, had pitched in to help. The vineyard had run smoothly until Beauty turned 12. Until then, Beauty had been able to walk the two miles to town and attend school or visit the shops or market. Then Marcel and Maurice had become ill working in the fields. They died within a day of each other. It was so sudden, so quick, that Pierre was in shock. He could do almost nothing.
Nothing but pull in the reigns. He farmed less land, grew fewer grapes, made less wine, and demanded that Beauty stay at the homestead only. He allowed her to help press the wine, but never to work in the fields the way her brothers had. She milked the cow, tended the vegetable and flower gardens and sometimes read over the gardening journals her mother had left.
Often she read. Her father indulged her love of books, letting the local shopkeeper, Giselle, bring her books from Giselle’s personal library. Giselle was also supposed to answer feminine questions that Pierre, as a man, would have no clue how to answer. Beauty loved Giselle’s visits and all the books she brought. When Beauty was younger, she offered to read to her father or asked him to read to her, but he wasn’t a man who enjoyed whimsical books like she did. He enjoyed the farmer’s almanac and sometimes books on hunting, but nothing like the fantastical things Beauty enjoyed reading. In the last year, Beauty had been glad of her father’s disinterest in her books. He rarely looked at the books Giselle brought.
About a year ago, right after Beauty had turned 17, Giselle had looked Beauty in the eyes and handed her a leather-bound book with the imprint of a flower on it. It had no real title, in terms of what one thought of as a traditional title. It simply said “Volume I” at the top. In the center of the cover was the imprint of a rose pressed deep within the leather, and at the bottom, in seductive script, was the author’s name: Ferus Lucunditas.
The old woman, her graying brown hair wrapped neatly in a scarf to keep out the oncoming winter chill, whispered to the girl: “These are special books.” Giselle’s dark brown eyes glanced around the room, as if she expected Beauty’s father to come in from the fields and chastise them. “This is the first volume, and it discusses things women should know, things you ordinarily might learn only when you are in your husband’s home. But, your life is so sheltered here, I worry that your father will not ensure your betrothal, or that you will fall into a pattern of contentment here, that you won’t push to leave him. Read this so that you may learn there is more out there.”
Beauty had looked down at the book, the curiosity Giselle seeded already beginning to grow. More. Giselle had called it more. Yes, there was more to the world than this quaint vineyard outside of town. There were bakers, shoemakers, blacksmiths, artisans, bookkeepers. There were families with husbands, wives, and gaggles of children. Beauty knew all these things, but the way that Giselle had said “more,” she’d known it meant something else, something that was so much more.
She’d known instinctively by Giselle’s demeanor and words that she should not read the book around her father. Even though he never expressed much interest in her books, she knew this one should be kept from him, that it would not be right to even read the book in the same room with him.
She was so glad that she had trusted her instincts. The night she’d read that first volume, she had been so shocked she gasped. Then she read it again, because she liked it. She read it a third time and touched herself, her fingers getting slick as she tried to create the sensations that had been described so vividly on the pages. She could almost feel the young man from the volume caressing her breasts, the way he’d caressed the heroi
ne’s, sliding his fingers slowly, softly down her abdomen until he reached the tuft of wild hair that shrouded her womanhood. The thought made her shiver with desire.
The door to the house banged open, and Beauty sat up straighter, lifted the book from her lap and tucked it into her sewing basket, just as her father entered the room.
“Beauty,” he said, pronouncing her nickname with warmth. Though her given name was Angelina, everyone had called the girl Beauty since she was old enough to walk. “Are you alright, dear? You look flush.” He turned and looked at the roaring fireplace, then at the windows, which were shuttered for the winter. “Are you too hot?”
Beauty shook her head at her father. Pierre was a stout man, with white hair atop his head and a matching beard. Some of the school children thought he looked like St. Nicholas, but Beauty simply laughed at the notion. Her father was a kind man, who happened to look older than his years because he was so marred by experience.
“I’m well, Papa,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”
He sighed. “Sometimes, I think that’s all I do, Beauty.” He took off his coat and hung it on a hook near the fireplace in their cottage. The front door opened into the main room. The house also included a kitchen and two tiny bedrooms. One for Beauty and one for her father. Had Beauty’s mother, Celine, lived, there might have been more children. But they all had died: Celine, Maurice and Marcel. Now, it was just Beauty and Pierre.
Beauty stood and walked to the corner, where a jug of ale sat. “Father, would you like me to warm you a mug?” she asked as she picked up the jug and a tin cup that she could warm over the fire.
Pierre shook his head. “No, my dear,” he said, sighing. “Sit, sit. I have news for you.”
Beauty set the jug down and walked back to the armchair she’d been sitting in when her father had entered. He sat across from her in the other armchair. Their home was modest, but these chairs, pieces her mother had brought with her from her own home, were ornate and plush, even after all these years.
“What is the news, Papa?”
He looked down at his hands, then at Beauty. “My dear, you know your kind tutor who brings you books each week, Giselle?” Beauty nodded. “Well, for some time she has been prodding me to arrange for your marriage. She says I’m getting older and if these things aren’t done, and something were to happen to me, you would be destitute, and no telling what would happen.”
Beauty nodded. Giselle had told Beauty much the same. And she had given her the books. So, Beauty had yearned for her own reasons to be wed. She tried not to smile at the thoughts of what that would mean, at the pleasure of what she would experience upon being wed, assuming she were wed to a kind man, like the ones in the books. “You’ve found a match?”
“I think,” he said. “I need to set off tomorrow to finalize the deal. The young man’s family is a day’s ride from here. His father sent word he’d like to make the arrangements tomorrow, before winter takes hold too strongly. And then in spring, when the thaw comes, you will be married.”
Beauty smiled, an appropriate smile. “Papa, I thank you for your hard work on this,” she said. “Might I inquire more about my husband, briefly?”
He smiled kindly, for he always seemed to appreciate Beauty’s inquisitiveness. “Of course, Beauty.”
“Is he kind?” she asked, for that was the only thing that mattered. She didn’t care if he were handsome, as that faded over time. Her father was the perfect example. He was supposedly quite a catch in his day. His looks were gone, as were a few of his teeth, but his kindness remained. She imagined a cruel man would be forever cruel.
Pierre chuckled. “You always get to the heart of things, my dear.” He pursed his lips and thought for a moment. “From the accounts of many in town, he is a prosperous young lad who hopes to inherit his father’s business as a lumber man. No one has told me they have seen him being cruel, so I can only assume he is a kind man. I actually met the man at Giselle’s shop. She is a good judge of character, so I’m sure him being with her is a good sign.” He smiled and gave Beauty a reassuring pat on the hand.
Beauty nodded. Giselle was a good judge of character. Beauty’s smile grew wider, as she thought briefly of the passage she had read the other day. “He was gentle and kind to all he met, but at night in the bed chamber, his kindness caused screams of pleasure to me, his mistress, as he unleashed his unbridled passion on me.”
Her father chuckled again. “Beauty, you are positively delighted by this news,” he said. “I am surprised. I thought maybe I was rushing you, that maybe I was mistaken, doing this too soon.”
“Oh, Papa,” she breathed out. “Part of me is sad at the thought of leaving you, but the other part of me does yearn, a little, to know a life in my own home, as an adult.”
He reached out and patted her hand again. “You shall, my dear. Soon enough, you shall.”
Chapter 2
Pierre set out the next morning, the air freezing. He wondered if they should have just put off their negotiations until spring. He knew he’d get to keep his beloved daughter, the only remnant of the family he’d once had, through winter, but he hated setting off now to promise her to another. A day’s ride wasn’t a bad trip in the grand scheme of things, but he wished he could’ve found his daughter a suitor in town. Only the men in town didn’t have what Pierre needed, which was money.
He had borrowed and borrowed to support their meager existence, and now it was all coming due. Too quickly, he had been told they would take his home and throw him and Beauty out on the street if he didn’t settle his debts. Only, how could he settle debts in the winter when the grapes didn’t grow, when he could barely make wine. Perhaps he should have had Beauty help, but he couldn’t. Not after the twins had died that way. A sickness they’d caught in the fields, the doctor had said. He couldn’t lose another child that way.
But, it seemed he was willing to lose a child this way. Willing to sell his daughter to pay his debts. He had met Monsieur Dumas at Giselle’s shop. Giselle was a friend of Celine and had a portrait of Celine and Beauty that had been painted a few months before Celine’s death. It hung in the corner of the shop, and Beauty was just six, but she still was beautiful. M. Dumas had remarked how beautiful the woman and girl were, and Pierre had said that the girl was even more beautiful now. Dumas had asked if Pierre knew the girl, and Pierre had admitted it was his daughter. Dumas said he was a lumber man from nearby and he was looking for a wife. He thought Beauty might make a good match. Pierre laughed, but M. Dumas did not. Giselle had come out with the man’s book, and seemed cool to him. When M. Dumas told Giselle of his suggestion to marry Beauty, the kind woman had simply said, “No, you need an older girl, one who can handle you better.”
The man left, and Pierre had thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn’t. M. Dumas came to the cottage one day. He had learned of Pierre’s debts and said he could clear them all if Pierre would let him marry Beauty. Pierre had told Dumas he needed to think about it. That same day, Giselle had come by to deliver more books to Beauty and pick up the old ones. When he asked Giselle about Dumas, she admitted the rumors said he was cruel and that Pierre should not let Beauty marry him. Pierre was stunned, as Giselle almost never said a bad word about anyone.
When Dumas returned a few days later, Pierre had turned down his betrothal request. That’s when Dumas had said Pierre had no choice. Beauty would become Dumas’ wife, or Pierre and Beauty would spend the winter in the frozen snow. Dumas had paid all of Pierre’s debts and now held the liens. If Pierre did not come sign the betrothal agreement within the next week, Dumas would foreclose on the property and put Pierre and Beauty out on the streets. But, if Pierre did sign them today, Pierre could keep Beauty until spring, and the marriage would take place then
Pierre felt guilty for lying to Beauty about her suitor. But, he knew nothing else to do. He couldn’t tell her he’d promised her to an awful man so they wouldn’t die in the harsh winter. He’d have to figure out somethi
ng over the winter, some way to keep Beauty away from Dumas. But he needed to sign the agreement today. He was sure he could determine a better solution if he gave himself this extra time. Beauty didn’t have to go anywhere until the spring. That was the saving grace, Pierre told himself as he rode down the path. His hands shook as he held the reins. It was too damn cold. He shivered as he approached the fork in the road. He would take it left, and onward to see Dumas.
And that’s when it happened. Everything went white. A blizzard, seemingly from out of nowhere. He couldn’t see anything, not even a few inches in front of him. He prodded the horse to go on, though it seemed it didn’t want to go in any normal pattern. It trotted this way, then that, and then in a circle. Pierre didn’t dare dismount though. Wherever this horse was taking him in the sea of white, he would get there quicker and more reliably on those four legs than his own two.
Pierre’s face hurt with cold, his lips cracking, and his hands numb, as he tried to hold on to the horse. Finally, the wind stopped howling and the snow stopped swirling around them. He’d been out there for hours, and it was dark. The only light, from the moon, shone down on a wrought iron gate that encompassed a large manor. Pierre dismounted his horse and pushed on the gate. It opened. He guided the horse through and closed the gate. He found a stable that had stalls and fresh water. Thankful, Pierre settled his horse there, tying him to a hitching post and handing him a carrot. No, it wasn’t Pierre’s home, but surely under the circumstance, even a true brute would understand the need to water and feed a horse after such a journey.
Pierre left the stable and wandered around to the main house. He went up to the front door and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again, and this time the door opened a crack. “Hello,” Pierre said. No response. He pushed the door open wider and went in. He saw no one. He closed the door and found himself in an entryway that was completely dark. Around the corner, he could see light emanating from another room. So, he headed toward it and was immediately struck by the warmth coming from the area. The room was a large entertaining room with a giant fireplace. There were fancy sitting chairs, a piano in the corner and two chaises. Next to one of the chairs, on an end table, was a plate filled with food. There was cheese, fruit, warm bread, hot pheasant, and a carafe of wine.
Beauty and Her Beastly Love (Passion-Filled Fairy Tales Book 2) Page 1
