Disclaimer: I do not own Beauty and the Beast.

The Beast slept late the following morning. Not only had the court session left him drained, but there hadn't been a close call like that in years. The man had actually gotten close enough to almost touch the curtains before he was caught and hauled away.

Jacques had immediately set one of the invisible footmen to follow the man for as long as he was still in the castle and eavesdrop. That evening the footman reported that the man only seemed angry about the judgment handed down. He hadn't seemed frightened or disturbed, nor did he mention to anyone glimpsing anything out of the ordinary behind the curtain. From this, Jacques and the Beast concluded that they were safe. The curtains had done their job.

Still, it took the Beast hours to completely calm down enough to sleep at all. As soon as he could reasonably extricate himself from cloak, crown and curtains he had gone for a hard run all the way around the castle grounds. That had worked off most of his nervous energy and the animal dislike of being cooped up for hours, but even while he ate dinner he could see his knife shaking slightly in his paw. Relaxing enough to sleep was very difficult and his dreams were fitful and disturbed.

The morning was nearly half over by the time he went to the library to find Belle. The girl was paging through one of the primers sounding out letters she recognized, and she had filled all the available slates she could find with practicing her alphabet. She looked up, saw him, and seemed to tense and shrink back simultaneously. Throughout the morning she was very quiet and several times he caught her watching him out of the corners of her eyes when she should have been looking at her slate. She went to extra pains to do everything he told her as perfectly as possible, but she lacked the enthusiasm he'd come to associate with her while she was in the schoolroom. When it was time for lunch she all but fled the library, walking in such a way that while she moved quickly, her slippered feet made almost no noise. As a man, he might not have noticed any of these things, but his enhanced animal senses told him something was off about her behavior.

What had caused this change? She had been full of vibrancy the past few days, eager to learn all he showed her. Today she had been subdued, a shadow of her usual self. He asked Jacques if he had noticed anything strange about her behavior at his breakfast etiquette lessons, but the steward shrugged in puzzlement and reported she had seemed perfectly fine. Better than fine, she had appeared in a good mood.

The Beast was so concerned that he snuck back into the library himself to observe Belle while she was working on her assignments that afternoon. Perhaps between breakfast and his arrival she had begun to feel under the weather.

No, now she seemed perfectly content, even humming to herself slightly as she scribbled. What was wrong with her this morning?

It was on his way back to the West Wing when it hit him like a ton of bricks. It was him. She was afraid of him. She had immediately sensed when he arrived that he was not in the best mood and she feared what he might do if she antagonized him in any way. Her demeanor had been like a deer keeping an eye on a bear across a clearing, one that might or might not be hungry. Even her movements had been calculated to be quieter and draw less attention than usual, and she wasn't exactly a noisy child to begin with. She had grown so comfortable around him since he had saved her from the stream that to see her uneasy had gotten his attention.

Now he felt every inch the monster he appeared. He hadn't intended to frighten her again. Yet she had to be well aware of the harm he could do her if he so chose. He wouldn't—he had a better lid on the animal side of himself than that and he'd never been the type of noble who struck someone who offended him—but she had no way of knowing that. They still had only been acquainted for a few days. And from things he'd gathered about her father, she had good reason to tread with great care around things that were large and powerful and in a bad mood.

She seemed more her usual self the following morning, but he still felt compelled to say, "Belle, I'm sorry if I made you nervous yesterday."

He'd startled her. "What? Yesterday?" The slight darting of her eyes told him she knew exactly what he meant, however.

"I just didn't sleep very well. I might have been grouchy, but it had nothing to do with you. I…I don't want you to be scared of me." This last sentence had just popped out unbidden.

Belle stared at him for a long time. Her posture still said she was wary, but he thought he saw reluctant trust in her eyes. Her eventual smile was small, but real. "I was a little scared of you yesterday," she admitted. "I didn't think you noticed."

"I could tell you were nervous and taking extra care to be as quiet as possible. I thought perhaps you weren't feeling well but when I came back to check on you later you seemed fine. Then I realized it must have been me making you nervous. I didn't mean it, I promise. I know that doesn't mean much coming from a monster like me," he glanced sadly as his paws, "but I truly didn't intend to scare you."

"Oh, you're not a monster," said Belle breezily. "At least, I don't think so. No monster would apologize for scaring someone."

A short laugh huffed its way out of the Beast, but he could tell that despite the slightly humorous edge to her voice she meant it sincerely. Her childish logic touched him. He'd gotten so used to thinking of himself as a monster, something to be hidden away and feared, but he supposed she did have a point. There were many ways to be a monster; he'd striven hard over the years to be one in form only but he'd never felt he truly succeeded. No matter what he did, unless he completed the impossible task of finding a woman to love him, he would always be a Beast. Belle, on the other hand, offered a different way of looking at things. She'd lived with a monster who masqueraded as a man all her life. She, more than most others, would know the difference.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome," said Belle. She gave him a sweet grin and held out a slate for his inspection.

On the surface, their lives did take on a pattern over the next three weeks as the Beast had predicted. However, any tedium was mitigated, at least for the Beast, by the progress Belle was making in her studies. For a girl with no book learning until age ten—he had begun his own formal education at four—she learned quickly and worked extremely hard. She could recognize short words and was beginning easy sentences. She carried a slate and chalk with her everywhere now and she and the servants were enthusiastically communicating using them. Jacques reported that even her small vocabulary was enormously helpful thus far. If the servants had to use a word she didn't know, Belle could often sound it out or apply to Jacques for clues from gestures. Very rarely, she had to come to the Beast for help.

On fine days, Belle still spent a decent amount of the afternoon outside before coming to the library. Sometimes when he didn't have too much paperwork the Beast would join her and they'd roam the gardens together. To his amusement and Jacques's chagrin, Belle developed a band of faint freckles across the bridge of her nose from all the time in the sun. Jacques began insisting she wear a wide-brimmed straw hat to protect her complexion and though Belle was outwardly compliant, sometimes she did slip it off once they were out of sight of the castle. It seemed she had taken the Beast's words about etiquette to heart.

One evening the Beast came into the library to say goodnight to Belle to find she was done with her assignments for the day and wandering the shelves, wistfully trailing her fingers down the spines. He could see the longing in her face and posture: she yearned to be able to pull down these books and access what they contained. It tugged at his heart.

"Belle," he said, very softly so as not to startle her.

She turned with a smile. "Good evening. I was just…looking. I know I can't read these yet."

"Not yet." His mind drifted back to when he was younger. Even before he could read properly himself, his nurse had read to him at bedtime from books that were too advanced for him but she knew he would enjoy. They'd continued the tradition for years after he was perfectly capable of reading any book he chose on his own; he'd found her voice soothing. "Would you like me to choose one to read to you?"

Her eyes lit. "Really? Would you? I'd like that very much."

The Beast tried to recall what books he had enjoyed at her age. He had been very fond of adventure stories such as Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels and the tales of Robin Hood. But he had also enjoyed the old classics like Le Morte d'Arthur, The Aeneid and The Odyssey. Then he remembered something his nurse had begun reading to him when he was around Belle's age but had never gotten the chance to finish because she had left to care for one of his much younger cousins. The One Thousand and One Nights. He had occasionally wondered about the conclusion but for some reason had never returned to the book—it had seemed to belong firmly in his childhood and not the adult world he was entering. He recalled it being full of all kinds of stories: adventure, mystery, romance, and fantasy. He thought the variety might appeal to someone so new to the world of books and stories as Belle.

"I think I have something in mind," he said. He led her off down the rows of shelves and pulled down a thick book bound in blue leather. Belle ran a finger over the embossed gold lettering of the title, then looked up at him.

"One Thousand and One Nights," the Beast read out for her. "Come over here by the fire. These are stories that are supposed to be told at night, right before bed, so I think they'll be perfect."

-0-0-0-

Jacques poked his head past the library's door as quietly as he was able. He knew the Master had come in here to find Belle, but neither of them had emerged. The fire was still burning, he saw, so likely they were still in here.

There, seated side by side on a comfortable couch before the fire, sat the pair he was looking for. The Beast was hunched over a book in his lap, reading aloud. The girl leaned in close, hanging on his every word. They were clearly both totally absorbed in the story. Belle showed absolutely no fear in the Beast's presence, while he in turn was at perfect ease with no sign of discomfort or awkwardness, even when he occasionally fumbled turning a page.

Well, who'd have thought? Jacques said to himself. No one could have imagined a more different pair. And they didn't exactly have the most enviable beginning, but they seem to be finding more common ground than anyone, including them, suspected. Maybe she is the right person to reach him, when no grown woman could have touched his heart while it was burdened with all of his responsibilities and this dreadful curse besides. By some miracle of fate she appears to need him just as much, deprived of any encouraging, protective presence as she has been in her young life.

And who'd have guessed they'd come together on their own? I thought I was going to have to work a great deal harder to get them to spend time together, but here they are seeking each other out with no prompting from me at all. I suppose they were both so lonely it might have been inevitable, but I still see something special growing right before my eyes.

His mind was already arrowing ahead. His table etiquette lessons had begun largely because of his own scruples about what constituted proper behavior, but they could prove much more useful than he'd thought if the girl would be staying on, as was looking increasingly likely. She would need to know so much more than basic manners if she were to be a credit to the prince. Even if the curse were not broken—perish the thought—there would still inevitably be times when she might be called upon to represent the Master—the presence of a human being who could speak could in fact prove to be very valuable in many ways that Jacques hadn't even begun to consider until this moment. That she was a little girl was an obstacle, but she wouldn't always be. She was bound to be here for at least seven years, and at the end of that time she would be seventeen—nearly a woman grown. And in that time, there was a great deal she could learn, not only from books, but also from him about how to conduct herself properly as a representative of the Master and his house.

He could afford to take his time with the lessons and introduce new things gradually. There was no need to spring everything on the girl at once—she would be with them for quite some time. The prince himself had had schooling for years before he was trusted to go out in public as a royal representative. Still, the entire situation was rife with possibilities.

With a smile, Jacques slid his head out of the room again and closed the door without a creak.


Author's Note: The first published European translation of the Thousand and One Nights, often titled in English The Arabian Nights, was into French in the first decade of the 18th century. It was so popular that many editions were soon in print and it was rapidly translated into other European languages as well. There are a lot of discrepancies between editions, and some of the stories best associated with the Thousand and One Nights, most notably the tale of Aladdin, were not in the original Arabic collections of the tales but were added later from other near-Asian sources. The frame story for the tales, that of the cuckolded Sultan Shaharyar who vows to marry a virgin each night and then kill her the next morning before she can betray him, only to be stayed when he marries the clever Scheherazade who for a thousand nights (almost three years for those of you keeping track at home) begins a tale but then does not finish it until the following night so the Sultan allows her to live so he can find out what happens next, has some elements in common with Beauty and the Beast and thus is a story I'm drawn to. The tales themselves are a very eclectic mix ranging the spectrum of comedy and drama, with many of them using frame devices of their own so in some cases you're getting a story within a story within a story. It seemed like something that would appeal to both the Beast and Belle as a before-bed read, and they say reading aloud to your kids is the best way to instill in them a lifelong love of reading and books. My parents certainly followed this philosophy, and I think it turned out pretty well.