Chapter 36
Oh, my dears! This is a beautiful day to post a new chapter!
SC Guest: I honestly am so glad you review every time. I have no idea if anyone is reading this or if it was really foolish of me to write it in the first place and when you review, even when you are the only one, I want to keep posting. You are keeping it going and it makes me so happy!
Alright! So I have to say this has easily been my favorite chapter to write. I love it and have been looking forward for you all to read it since I started posting. It pulls a lot of inspiration from Beauty by Robin McKinley, the original movie (obviously), and even some from The Scarlet Pimpernel. Adam has quite a Percy Blakney persona about him, doesn't he? Also, is anyone else getting a Jamie Fraser from Outlander vibe? Do I just watch too much television? Maybe!
If you are unsure what a bordello is it was the closest word I could find for "brothel" or "whore house" that followed a french tradition. I wish I was more up to date on my linguistics. This will have to do.
All in all, I am very pleased with this and I think this chapter is probably one of the biggest turning points in the story. Pretty much every chapter here on out is filled with so much awesome stuff that I am just bursting for you to read them all.
If you think perhaps to write reviews on important chapters, THIS would be a good one to do so! Hopefully I did the characters justice in such a pivotal moment and that it meets your expectations. I made a lot of choices in this chapter for very beloved characters and I hope you feel I have treated them well. I do understand how precious they are to you. They are also precious to me. Review and let me know.
Hope you have such a great week and I hope this makes it even better
Samson- Regina Spektor (SO sorry for the stupid spaces between the lyrics. is confusing and I don't know how to get it to stop doing that. It's such a great song and worked so well with the chapter I couldn't cut it down anymore then I did.)
You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads
But they're just old light, they're just old light
Your hair was long when we first met
Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told that I'd done alright
And kissed me 'til the mornin' light, the mornin' light
And kissed me 'til the mornin' light
Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed
Oh we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn't destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once
You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first.
Something was calling Adam out of whatever place he had been dwelling. He wanted to ignore it but the Beast in him was bored and his ears perked up at the sound of a familiar voice.
"Mistress Marie wishes to speak with you." He heard from far away. He tried to pinpoint the voice and was having difficulty remembering if he knew the person speaking or not.
Mistress Marie? Mistress Marie...Marie, Marie, Marie...
Suddenly it all came back to him in a snap and he turned his neck to look at the retreating backs of Cogsworth and Lumiere. The effect of moving his head after not having moved at all was like bending a tree trunk and hoping it won't break in half.
"What did you say?" He murmured in a voice so horse it could hardly be recognized as a voice. The two men stopped and turned to look at Adam in surprise. Apparently they had not expected him to respond to their message.
"Mistress Marie wishes to speak with you." Cogsworth repeated slowly. They were both looking at him as one would a tiger preparing to pounce.
"Why is she called that?" He whispered,
His Heads of House turned and looked at each other. "Perhaps because it is 'er name." Lumiere replied.
"It's not..." Adam murmured to himself and turned to look out the window again.
They both looked confused before Cogsworth took a step in Adam's direction. "Adam?"
"Are they alright?" Adam said distractedly.
"Zey are anxious to see you. You created quite a stir wiz your daring rescue."
"You don't under...understand...I can't. Not yet...yet...I..."
Adam struggled with his words and closed his big blue eyes as if to shut them out again. Lumiere circled the chair and stood in front of Adam. The expression on his face mirroring exactly how he had looked when Adam had asked him to use the pistol after the spell took effect.
"Mon Ami, what 'as 'appened? Cannot you tell us?"
Adam looked at his advisers and shook his head. "I cannot. I cannot say it yet. Please..."
"Very well, Master." Cogsworth gave a sigh. "What shall I tell our guests? Mistress Marie and her son ask after you every day."
There was a sigh that would have brought down heaven. "She truly wishes to see me?"
Lumiere nodded, a touch of interest in his gaze. "Oui, My Prince."
Adam would not have been able to deny this particular woman anything in any lifetime they were living and so he nodded. "Very well. She may come during..." And with that Adam looked around as if he could not tell what time of day it was.
"Evening Tea?" Cogsworth suggested.
"Evening Tea." Came the reply.
If Marie had been nervous to speak with His Lordship before, it was nothing compared to how she felt now. She tried to see past all the fanfare and eloquence of the castle and think of this encounter as just like any other with any other individual.
She knew it was folly, though. He was not like any other individual. Could he even be described as an individual?
When she was led into the sitting room of the West Wing she shivered. Something about this strange place was so familiar to her. As if she had seen it before in a dream. The whole idea of deja vu made her impatient and yet she couldn't shake it. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was entering into something real for the first time in her life and everything before that had been the dream.
The light was brighter here then her last encounter and she was not prepared to see His Lordship in full view again since she last saw him two days prior. He stood demurely as if he had learned his etiquette from the finest tutors in Europe.
She was surprised to realize that she was studying him. He towered over the tea service like a mountain and she found it hard to enter that shadow and take her seat. The footman that was in attendance was holding her chair expectantly and all she could do was stare.
More startling was that she realized that he was staring right back. His eyes, the color of Lapis lazuli, were transfixed on her and something tingled in the back of her mind. Where had she seen that color before?
To her surprise it was he that broke eye contact first. He looked down and an emotion flashed across his alien features that Marie knew all too well.
Pain.
Something in her gaze had pained him and thus he had looked away. "Would you care to join me, my dear Madam?"
Marie was flabbergasted. He had refereed to her as "My dear" as if they were so familial that they could be considered friends. Without being able to say anything she made her way to sit at the small table and to her dismay tripped on the borrowed dress she was wearing. It was at least three sizes too big for her and so finely made that just a brush with something sharp would tear it to pieces. She corrected herself in time to see His Lordship look rather concerned at her clumsiness.
When he had decided that she was quite alright he resumed his seat as well and allowed Lumiere to set up the tea for them both. She tried to go through all the requirements of refinement but she just felt silly. She was no grand lady. She was nothing more then a common washer woman. She wanted to say so but nothing in her life had prepared her for having a conversation with an individual that looked the way His Lordship did.
Before she was able to start some sort of dialogue and give reason for why she had requested an audience he cut in first.
"Are you well?"
His eyes held so much concern that for a moment she was breathless. "I am, My Lord. We are both very well, thanks to you."
He waved her thanks away impatiently as if it were an obnoxious fly. "Have you found comfort here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Food? Clothing? Warmth? Are you being provided for?"
"Of course, sir. We have been very well cared for."
He gazed in her direction for so long that she began to feel uncomfortable. She took a sip of tea and was again reminded of how different her circumstances were here in this castle then she could ever remember. And at that thought she chuckled a little bit.
Adam was taken aback at the odd sound the woman in front of him made. He had no memory of her ever chortling like that before. It was both deprecating and humorous at the same time.
"What is it?" he asked cautiously.
"It doesn't seem real to me."
"What doesn't?"
"Sitting here with you. Wearing clothing that cost more then anything I have ever owned, inside the Prince's summer palace, drinking tea, with...a character from a fairy story."
Adam cocked his head to the side. "You think I am from a fairy story?"
"I'm not entirely sure you are real at all, My Lord. I don't believe in magic or hokum and yet..."
"Here I sit."
"Indeed. I keep trying to get my bearings and I can't seem to grasp it. Something about this place...something about you..."
Adam saw the thin ice he was treading on and took a step of faith anyway. He needed to know. "Have you never seen anything...like me...before?"
"Are there other's like you, My Lord? I had come to assume you were some magical guardian brought up from the Underworld for unknown purposes."
Adam was both shocked and amused at her assessment. "You are acquainted with your Greek mythology, at least."
"I assume I am. Though I do not remember where I could have learned it."
"Don't you?" He asked, feigning innocent curiosity.
She put down her head, as if to guard him from something. "I'm afraid I don't, sir."
He instantly felt ashamed and looked down as well. "Forgive me. I do not mean to pry into your privacy."
"I suppose it is only fair as I have now barged into your...lair? Twice, to be sure."
Adam looked about the West Wing thoughtfully. "You think it looks like a lair?"
"What do you call a room that you, personally, would stay in?"
He shifted in his seat and looked at her uncomfortably. "A gentleman's quarters."
She ducked a smile and then looked again at him through her scarf. "Well, they suit you."
He was sure she had wanted to say something else. "You are welcome here any time. I meant what I said to Gabriel. This can be your home now. Barge in all you like."
"It seems a trifle grand for us, don't you think?"
"I suppose that would depend on you. In my experience we are as grand as we allow ourselves to be."
"The wine we drank at dinner cost more then my entire house in the village. I doubt it had anything to do with allowance and everything with opportunity."
"Can this be your opportunity?"
"An opportunity like this is for princesses. Not strange girls from small villages."
"You can't believe that."
"It's alright, really. Even if I could remember who I was, I am sure it wasn't so different as anyone else. The truth is, I am not sad for myself as I am for Gabriel. He has such dreams. I think I want them for him even more then he wants them for himself. I have always wondered where he got that spark for life from. If I would ask anything of you it would be for him, not myself."
A thick silence settled in and Adam did his best not to shout at her the truths that sat in plain sight. "Forgive my boldness, Mistress, but you have more of that spark for life then anyone I have ever met. I believe he gets it from you. I cannot imagine what you have been through but you must know you are worth more then just being a 'strange girl from a small village'."
Marie had no notion of what to say this. It was so beyond what she thought he was going to say that she was stunned into silence. "I am sure if I could remember my childhood I would have a better idea how to answer that." She finally said softly before taking another sip of tea. It had gone cold and it made her sad.
"What do you recall?"
Marie looked at him again as if he had been impertinent but nodded her head, deciding that it was necessary to open up a bit. "I recall...my son. Something...happened to me... a long time ago. A woman in the village said it was the judgments of God... I guess I believe her. I don't know where I come from or who I am. I don't know why I..." She paused as if swallowing the last of her pride. "look like this..." Her fingers trailed the edge of the scarf covering her face. "I only remember my son. They brought him to me and he was so fat and beautiful and they said he was a miracle but I never knew why or how. I didn't know where I was or who I was but I knew that I loved him. He kept me alive when I don't think I should have been."
"Who are they?"
Marie caught her breath and she looked down at her plate and gave a small sigh that was laced with shame and discomfort that Adam almost retracted his words.
"The women in my village. They called me..."
"A witch." Adam finished for her. It tasted bitter on his tongue.
She looked to her left and nodded. She shrugged her shoulders but it wasn't a natural gesture. There was a practiced air to it. As if she refused to let anyone see her loneliness. She quirked her visible eyebrow in a slight smirk and looked at him as if they shared a secret. "Perhaps in some ways that would have been easier."
He tried to catch his breath at the way she was looking at him and tilted his own head in response. "Easier to be a witch?"
"Indeed. A witch carries a level of anonymity. No one comes near you if you play your cards right."
"Until they burn her." Adam responded matter-of-factly.
Marie gave a small chuckle. "Ah, yes, well, that is the risk. At least in my situation they only threw us out of town. Burning may have kept us warm…but only for a few moments."
Adam realized this was supposed to be playful banter but he couldn't help himself. He couldn't stop himself from gleaning every piece of information out of her that he could. "What was your situation aside from being rumored as the village witch?"
She put her cup down and the corners of her mouth immediately turned back down into a look of displeasure. She shrugged a little as if to try and keep the situation lighter but couldn't manage it. "Perhaps I should have told you when we first arrived but it seemed such a horrid thing to announce to someone I have just met."
"Told me what?"
"About my reputation in the village. They all knew, somehow. And I suppose you would have found out soon enough."
"What do you mean?"
She took a calming breath and then continued with her head up. "I cannot tell you how or why...but my son was born in a...bordello... I have no husband that I know about and the evidence...is glaringly obvious. When they told me where I was I would have left right away but I could not seem to walk...I had been hurt...somehow...I stayed there until the old washer woman came for me. The women there...were kind. I assume I was once one of them."
Adam leaned back in his chair and sagged a little. His beautiful wife...his bride...giving birth in a bordello? His thoughts traced the open wound of that confession. He looked at her with his baleful blue eyes and was only slightly surprised to see her sitting up strait and looking at him with an open face and just a hint of pride on her features. As if she would walk through a crowd of whispering gossip-mongers and refuse to take their bait. He knew this look on her and he couldn't help but feel terribly proud of her.
"The women who lived there...they called me Marie. Your Master Christoph thought it was for the Holy Mother. It was not..."
Understanding looked back at her from Adam's face. "It was the Madeliene..."
She nodded as if the whole idea were both curious and wearying to her. "I did not want to lie to you after you had been so kind. I cannot even give you my real name so the least I can do is give you the truth."
"My lady...You have nothing to be ashamed of here. I am not your judge and this is not a prison."
"I can see that now. I am a little out of place here, regardless. Perhaps if I can find a way to discover who I was then I might be able to leave some of the ugly truth behind. If not for me, then at least for Gabriel."
Something tingled at the edge of his mind, something that he knew he needed to ask before he could not bring himself to speak any longer.
"How old is your son?"
She looked up at him a little apprehensively. "Twelve, My Lord."
Adam quickly did the math in his head and then turned his face away again. So then...Gabriel was not his son... He was too young. His child with her would have been nearing fourteen. And with the revelation about the bordello he could not ask for more details without revealing things he should not know.
His stomach churned while a thousand questions swirled in his mind. Not for the first time he desperately wanted to know what had happened to his baby. His arms ached as if he was reliving it all over again and someone was tearing his child away from him. Without realizing it, Adam made a soft sound and put a paw to his mouth to hide the tremble.
Marie shifted in her seat as if to make her excuses "I beg your forgiveness, My Lord. I would not have troubled you with such tales if I had thought..."
"Who are your parents?" He asked in a rush, desperately trying to make her stay.
"I beg your pardon, sir?"
"Who are your parents? Do you remember anything from your childhood?"
She continued to look at him in confusion and he felt like a boy being scrutinized by a firm headmaster.
"I am not sure…..I assumed that….if I was found in a bordello I might not have any. I've always wished maybe they would find me and tell me that it was all a mistake but…they never did."
"Surely you came from somewhere? You don't remember anything?"
"I remember...a little... I remember a short man with white hair and a mustache smiling at me...I remember animals and homes...little girls running in fields and hearth fires with tea and biscuits...it must have been very nice. But I just cannot remember it."
The words washed over Adam like a balm. There was something there! Her father, the homes she had lived in. They were there inside her! She could describe them. Perhaps he was still in there too!
Marie sat nervously looking at Adam. When he finally realized how uncomfortable she was, he gestured to her tea. "Please...stay a little longer...If you would like." He finished lamely and waited for her to resume her plate. She looked to the door as if she would escape, and then bit her lip a little, in the corner, and finally refreshed her cup.
"Are you angry now that you have given us sanctuary?" She finally said twisting her fingers underneath the table.
Adam looked at his paws before looking back up at her. "Madam, I am a beast. I am the last creature on this earth to judge you for your past. You have no need to be ashamed when it comes to me."
"Even though you are the master of this castle?"
He gave her a curious look "Hmmm...those titles always seem to come and go at will. I wouldn't put too much stock into them."
"Until the Prince came into my home, the very thought of those with titles were something you heard about but never really encountered."
Adam leaned back in his chair, glad that the conversation was finally taking a lighter turn. "Does it matter more to you that he was a Prince or that he reacted like a mad-man?"
"Both!" She said and actually chuckled again. "In the world were I came from it was foolish to wish for something you had no right to. Or at least, that's what the women of the village told my son when he said he wanted to be a knight."
Adam almost smiled at the idea. "Do you think I am foolish? A beast that has command over His Highness's entire summer palace?"
"It does seem rather odd." And there was a distinct smile in her voice.
"If you only knew..."
"I would like to."
Adam looked at her in surprise."You would?"
"I would. If you would allow me, Your Lordship."
"Even though I am a terrible, man-eating, monster?" He asked ruefully.
She looked aghast at him and then down at her hands. "Please, forgive me."
"I do." He responded without hesitation. "My lady, this is your home. At least for now. I do not wish for you to be afraid of me."
"I'm not. I don't think I ever was. I am more afraid of what you might think of me. In comparison to the kinds of guests who should be staying in a place like this."
"If you would allow me, Madam, I would be honored to show you my good faith."
"Such honor for someone who doesn't even know her real name?"
"Perhaps I can help you to remember it."
She paused and took a deep breath as if this was all becoming too much for her. "Why are you doing this, My Lord?"
Adam again, almost smiled at the irony. "Once upon a time, a young woman came to this castle and helped me to remember who I was. It is high time I returned the favor."
Marie ducked her head as if the whole idea amused her, "She sounds like another character from your fairy story life. A young woman who comes and tames a mythical beast."
"Well, Madam, you are becoming part of that story. Whether you like it or not."
"Marie."
Adam paused while she continued. "Marie. It's not my real name but...I would like you to call me Marie. If only to make it sound like we are now friends."
And Adam had to turn his head to hide his smile. "You can call me Beast if you like."
She actually had the audacity to wrinkle her nose. "To your face? As I would call my farm dog 'dog'? And then slap my leg to get him to come?"
Adam looked affronted at her. "I would hope you wouldn't put it that way..."
"You don't have a real name?"
"You and I have more in common then you think."
She sighed as if to bare a great burden. "Alright then, Beast it is."
Adam voice was rueful laced with sarcasm. "How gracious of you."
It must have sounded more obscure then he intended because to his amazement she laughed. Not a loud laugh or a long one, but a laugh. And it sounded identical to every laugh he had ever heard from her. He wondered how he could have ever doubted it was her from the moment he met her. This was HER and he had almost missed it.
He smiled again at the revelation but it was such a sad smile that she stopped and set her tea cup down. "The hour is much later then I thought. I should go to Gabriel. He will be dying to know what you said."
"About what?"
She waved her hand. "Oh, anything. Any words that come from your direction are God's law now."
"Strange boy."
"It's not every day that you're rescued by a magical beast. Let him cherish it."
"I will. Perhaps we can have a discussion tomorrow."
She nodded and then looked him in the eyes once more. "Would you join us for dinner tomorrow? We both feel so misplaced in your large dining hall. It's all a bit much for us."
Adam's eyes danced with amusement. "Are you inviting me to dinner in my own home?"
"I believe I am."
"Then I accept."
She smiled again. It was as if she wasn't used to the sensation and the scarf made it a bit lopsided. She rose from her seat and he rose with her and watched as Lumiere gave him a baffled backwards glance and led her out of the sitting room. Once he had resumed his seat, he continued to do so after the footman had vacated.
Like a man possessed he reached over and picked up her cold tea cup and pressed it to his beastly lips and would have sobbed if he had had any tears to cry.
"Belle." he whispered through the emotion. "Your name is Belle."