CHAPTER 38
THAT night, Claire tried to sleep, though her dreams were accompanied by the sound of the ominous low rumbling booms of the thunder that crashed outside, and the roaring winds of another blizzard threatened to sweep the land of France into a cold spell.
The storm had started around midday, a few hours after that Gold bloke and Gaston had left, the warlock she still planned to have a few words with upon the man's return. The storm had continued incessantly throughout the day and the coldness very nearly made them all numb and well into the night. Both Claire and Belle were sure that they had never such a slow-moving monster of a blizzard.
She had tossed and turned after picking listlessly at bites of her dinner, once more brought to her room. She had not gone to see the Prince's physician per Adam and Belle's request, not feeling comfortable with it if the man was not going to treat her with the utmost respect and discreetness that she so craved.
Worry shrouded her face as she buried her head into her pillow, her sobs muffled by the fabric of the pillow. She prayed that Gaston was unharmed as he and Gold steered their horses through this violent, unforgiving storm. Her heart seized in terror and remorse to think how coldly she had acted towards him when Gaston had told her that he was leaving, and how she had behaved in the hours since.
He was risking his own life and possible imprisonment to kill Monsieur D'Arque to ensure that she and Belle and the Prince would stay safe, that D'Arque could no longer torment anyone else with his wicked vileness.
And she had barely spoken to him, much less been able to stomach looking into his eyes. Her arms ached to hold him.
The way that I should have done last night and this morning, Claire thought bitterly, deciding she hated herself and became wracked with intense guilt.
She had not been able to give him that kiss that Gaston had so desperately wanted of her, to send him off lovingly on his path, that she could have given him cause to hope, something to look forward to and come back. Why hadn't she?
At least, she could have said, "Goodbye," but she'd not managed even that. She tortured herself with immense regret.
Her last thought before she cried herself to sleep, was how terribly she hoped that Gaston and Gold had found some shelter.
ALONE in the desolate darkness of her chambers, the nightmares came for her. She was walking a few feet behind Gaston, following closely behind him at his heels, unseen and unheard. The military captain and hunter lurked silently through the hallways of a dank and dark corridor that smelled of rot and decay, staying in the shadows and alert and on guard.
She didn't recognize this place, but she suspected that her mind's eye was showing her his fortress. Claire swiftly moved in the hunter's footsteps, and even her breaths seemed to be timed to his, as though they were one whole person instead of two.
But she did not feel like her body was moving at all.
This was cause for alarm, and she very nearly cried out.
"Gaston," Claire whispered his name, trying to reach the shell of his ear. The military captain made no indication that he had heard her. Gaston instead stopped in front of a pair of ornate-looking doors and breathed in a deep and steadying sigh before wrenching them open.
As his strong, calloused hand wound over the knob of the door, the door made no sound as it was opened. The soldier stepped forward and proceeded to enter the dark chamber stealthily.
He was not aware of Claire was trailing on his heels.
Once her eyes adjusted to the dimness of what appeared to be a desolate-looking chamber, her breaths caught in her throat as she saw, across the room, D'Arque.
Clad entirely in a set of thick, woolen black robes, she caught a glimpse of the owner of the insane asylum. He made no move to turn and face them, though Claire sensed the older Frenchman was aware of their presence. She felt Gaston tense in front of her, almost as if the military captain were trying to shield Claire from him.
Gaston crept towards the disgusting, sallow-faced man, D'Arque's thick shoulder-length formerly shadow-raven hair now streaked with flecks of grey at the side of his temples, and silently drew his sword from its sheath at his side, like a whisper, and crept forward like a phantom.
Claire's head throbbed, her mind struggling to understand and unable to comprehend how they had come to be there and where were they.
Was this a room in the man's asylum, this massive fortress? Before she could part her lips to voice her concern, D'Arque turned, the edges of the man's thin, wormy lips curling upward and his nonexistent eyebrows raising high up onto his forehead.
"I knew that you would come," D'Arque announced in a smooth, languid voice that was almost a buttery purr to Gaston as he folded his jeweled fingers together in front of himself, his robes swishing with every movement.
D'Arque's eyes found Claire's and he strode towards Claire, ignoring Gaston and was too quick for the soldier as his hand shot out and cupped Claire's cheek firmly, not letting go.
Before she could react or wrench away, D'Arque's other arm not holding Claire captive reached out and raised a dagger of his own, hidden within the depths of his robes, and shoved it straight into Gaston's chest.
Claire screamed his name as her scream echoed off the cold cobblestone walls, but D'Arque and Gaston did not react. Gaston staggered backward and barreled into Claire, coughing, and spluttering wildly, the blood pouring from his wound and out the side of his mouth. The strength in his knees gave out as he collapsed to the floor, his dark eyes growing glossy and vacant as the light was starting to leave him.
"Gaston!" Claire frantically screamed his name as she fell to the stones beside him, trying to splay her hand across the man's chest, hoping to stem the precious life force that was steadfast draining his life right before her eyes. "Gaston!" she cried again, snapping her blood-slimed fingers in front of his eyes, and trying to coax Gaston to look at her.
When the man's eyelids fluttered closed, she whiplashed her head sharply upward and looked hatefully up at D'Arque. The man's devilish glower and morbidly curious glower never left Gaston's face. Claire turned back towards Gaston and rested her forehead against his, trying to will some of her own life into his that she rapidly sensed was failing him.
"Don't, Gaston. Please. Please don't leave me, don't do this to me, not again, don't go," she begged, tears sliding down her ashen cheeks as her words caught in her throat and left her as a half-choked tiny sob.
The same way that she had the first time he had left to venture into the Wolves Woods. The night Gaston had died. Finally, the soldier homed in on the sound of her plea. He lifted his blood-soaked fingers, which were violently spasming, and caressed her cheek. Claire, without hesitation, took his hand in hers and held it to her face with as much tenderness as she could muster up.
With a haunting smile that burned itself into her retinas and her mind's eye forever, the life force ebbed from him, and his eyelids then fluttered closed.
"Gaston!" She screamed, her voice hoarse, her throat hurting.
His name was the only word that she could utter.
The ringing sound of D'Arque's dark laughter caused Claire's eyes to shoot wide open, and the dim light of her chambers obscured her vision. She bolted upright in bed, her lungs starved for oxygen as she gasped and heaved for breath.
Her mind groped into the darkness as her brain tried to make sense of the visions it had just shown her, trying to understand how and why she was back in the safety of the most spacious and luscious bed she had ever been in. It took Claire a moment to realize that she was back within the stone walls of the Prince's castle, and she was relatively safe from harm.
Dry, heaving gasps rose from her throat as she felt the familiar spoil of her stomach rise in her throat. She shook her head violently and forced herself to swallow it back down.
As her eyes adjusted to the dimness of her room, with a flash of realization that left her body feeling cold and numb, the baker's daughter realized that the images of the soldier's death were nothing more than a horrible nightmare.
She did not know how long she lay against the mattress stunned and helpless as her eyes grew more accustomed to the flickering light of the smoldering fire in the hearth across the room.
Claire could feel the softness of the mattress that she was sprawled across and felt the dampness of the constricting sheets that had entwined themselves around her body as it had broken out into a cold sweat in the throes of her sleep. She slowly forced the breath to go back into her lungs and struggled to sit up, her hands finding purchase in a twist of the crumpled bedsheets.
She was safe. Gaston had not been murdered that she knew of. Her memory showed her the remains of the nightmare that had torn her from her fitful slumber.
Even now, Claire could plainly envision Gaston's lifeless body slumped on the cold cobblestones of D'Arque's private study, drenched in his own blood, his dark eyes desperately searching her face as she'd helplessly watched him bleed to death there on the cold stone floor, unforgiven by her.
She swore she could almost feel that wretched bastard, D'Arque looming over them. Her entire body began to shake as she was overcome with guilt, shock, and started to cry.
Unable to fight against the onslaught of tears that pricked at her eyes and marred her vision, she collapsed back onto the bed and buried her face in her pillow, her scream muffled.
"I should have said goodbye, Gaston," Claire lamented as she lifted her head from her now-drenched pillow that was soaking wet with her tears. "I should have kissed you as you wanted me to," Claire nearly screamed her remorse, hoping it would carry on the winds of the blizzard to the man she loved, and had always loved. She did not return to sleep.
For the rest of the night, she sat instead by the fire in the hearth of her room and willed Gaston to come back.
THE day of their departure, Gaston and Gold rode a great distance through the blizzards that ravaged the lands, stopping only to feed and water their horses. The man's journey continued much the same during the days that began to pass him by in a daze.
Gaston traveled along the path that had once taken him and Belle on horseback towards LeFou's parents' home nestled in the woods. Desperate to return to Claire and to see this thing through to the end, Gaston remained careful and took no chances. He was relieved Gold was of a similar mind.
Gaston was leery at every possible turn but knew that he would easily be able to defend himself and keep their pace steady. He noticed that while on occasion, patrols did still pass him by in the far off distance on the other side of the Wolve' Woods, they were fewer and farther in between, which gave the military tactician and former captain reason to suspect that Monsieur D'Arque somehow knew that he was coming and was expecting him.
Otherwise, man would have commanded his archers to take him and kill him with an arrow to his eyes upon first sighting of him, but that moment had not come yet. So unsure of what he would find once the pair of them reached the man's fortress, Gaston and Gold continued on their path.
Thoughts of Claire were his constant companion along the way.
His heart ached to think back on the way that Claire had looked at him when he had ridden his horse through the gates of Adam's estate. Claire's angry and blatant refusal to kiss him farewell, much less look him in the eye or even speak to him cut through Gaston like a blade right through the heart.
It wounded him more than any weapon piercing his skin ever could. Gaston took advantage of the silence between himself and Gold to reflect upon their last encounter. He understood Claire's reluctance to accept his plan and where it came from.
Someplace nestled deep within the confines of her heart would not allow her to trust the promise that he made to her, that he was going to stroll through the gates of the Prince's castle alive. He had created this chasm that now existed between them. He was not sure if he could ever forgive himself for the hurt he'd caused her.
As they steered their horses through the jagged path of the Wolves Woods that would eventually take them out the other side and hopefully towards D'Arque's fortress, Gaston could only wistfully dream of the day that he would come riding back triumphantly through the gates of the Prince's shining castle, and back to Claire.
This final task of getting rid of D'Arque once and for all would be the final thing that would ever pull him from Claire's side, he vowed through gritted teeth as he led the way astride his massive Frisian beast of a horse.
He swore to himself and God, if He listened to a bastard like him, that once he returned to Claire, he would never leave her side again. This, Gaston promised.
CLAIRE faced her waking hours as the days passed in a hazy fog. What precious sleep she did get was plagued by her nightmares of Gaston's death.
No rest would come for her, and her thoughts were filled with dread and terror for the soldier, and animosity towards Gold for making Gaston do this.
Her mind still haunted her, whispering malicious thoughts into the shell of her ear that she would never see him again, while her heart still clung to the hope of seeing the soldier clad in red ride valiantly and nobly through the castle's gates, returning to her for good this time.
It had been three days since Gold and Gaston departed, and Claire found herself aimlessly wandering the library, letting the pads of her fingertips ghost along the spines of the books as she passed them by. Her face was careworn and exhausted.
She could not help but wonder if Gaston and Gold did not return, how long the Prince's castle would continue to remain a sanctuary for her and Belle and the Prince. If D'Arque would find a way to get to them somehow by means of men and force.
She was just about to exit the library in the hopes of finding the kitchen in search of food, though at that moment, she jumped, quite startled and taken aback by the soft, shy voice of Belle coming from right behind her.
"Claire?" Belle chirped in a jovial tone. "Here you are," she breathed, sounding relieved she had found her.
Claire guiltily spun on the heels of her boots, looking both surprised and shocked to see Maurice's daughter and something of a friend to her standing there, looking at Claire expectantly, awaiting an answer.
She glanced sheepishly around the Prince's magnificent library, feeling as though she were trespassing, but considering this was the last place she and Gaston had spoken, the last place where he had kissed her, she had been hoping to feel some presence of him, somehow.
But Belle strode swiftly down the long aisle towards her with a bright smile and a cheerful nod, looking a vision of loveliness in a dark emerald, green velvet and gold embroidered gown this morning, two or three books held in her hands, looking happy to see her.
"F—Forgive me, Belle," Claire stammered, a fiery heat creeping to her cheeks. "I—I didn't mean to intrude, I—I thought that I was…near the kitchens," she lied, her chest tightening as it heaved with anxiety and worry.
Belle chuckled and tucked a lock of her dark hair that had come loose of its braid back behind her ear.
"Not at all, my friend, the kitchens are located on the southwest corridor, but I would be happy to walk you there," Belle murmured politely, continuing to regard the baker's daughter warmly as she shifted the books to tuck them under her arm so she could use her free hand to take Claire's hand and pat it.
Belle was only too aware of the discomfort Claire Renaud was sure to be feeling, away from home for perhaps an extended period of time, and with Gaston gone, was eager to draw her attention away from this.
"The castle and its rooms can be quite a maze if you don't know where to go," Belle smiled in understanding. But then she glanced down at her feet as if embarrassed and had to lift the hem of the skirts of her dress to avoid tripping a bit as Belle stepped forward. "I apologize that you have been feeling ill these last few days. The doctor confided in the Prince that it's stress what's got you feeling so poorly but you need not worry. Gaston and Monsieur Gold will be back soon, Claire."
Belle nodded earnestly as if she were already sure. Claire frowned, wishing she could be certain.
But Claire could not listen to her friend's reassuring words any longer. She shook her head to cut Belle off, preventing her friend from speaking any further.
"He won't be coming back, Belle." Claire shook her head numbly and tried furiously to fight against the onslaught of tears that threatened to prick her eyes.
Belle's face fell in confusion as she calmly and quietly eyed the baker's daughter, having always liked Claire and thought her a friend, wishing she could help. The deep roots of the young woman's pain were shown in her hazel eyes. Belle could feel her heart breaking.
Claire had hidden her pain and sorrow well from her and Adam and the rest within the castle walls over the last few days, but Belle knew all too well the dutiful façade she was showing to her and the rest of the servants, having adapted the same way much when she spent her first week here in the castle as Adam's hearth keep.
The way the baker's daughter was looking at her now spoke of a heart broken, perhaps beyond repair, at least until Gaston and Gold returned to them.
Belle was afraid of just how right she had been. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again as she searched her brain to formulate a coherent enough reply, hoping to supplicate Claire some and ease her friend's worries. She could not very well ask Claire to trust Gaston and the man's motives while the two of them were lingering in the long and open, exposed aisle of the Prince's library.
"Would you take tea with me in my room?" Belle asked Claire hopefully, her arm shooting out and her fingers winding around Claire's arm before Claire could even part her lips to protest.
"O—of course," Claire accepted, eager to leave the room that she now knew held none of Gaston's presence. Even the ruined bookshelf the military captain had destroyed had been carted away and since replaced with a new one.
There was nothing of him here, and she had been a fool to hope for it otherwise.
Claire and Belle walked in silence along the wide corridors that led towards Belle's new chambers in the West Wing, just across from the Prince's own quarters until the two of them were married and Belle switched beds.
She flagged down Mrs. Potts along the way, the matronly Head of Household quickly jumping into action and practically scuttling off towards the kitchens to prepare a hot herbal tea and procure a plate of cookies for them.
Once they entered into Belle's warm and spacious quarters, Belle shyly bid for Claire to take a seat near the warm roaring fire that looked to have been just lit in the hearth which now sent its warmth and light flooding throughout the room.
She situated herself in the opposite armchair. The two friends waited to speak until Mrs. Potts entered Belle's chambers and set the metal tea service tray in her hands on the small wooden table that existed between them.
Once the steaming fragrant liquid had been poured into a teacup made of the finest china and Claire numbly plucked one of the biscuits off the plate and began to nibble at it, she voiced her worries.
Claire shook her head, unable to stand her friend's attempts to provide her with some small modicum of comfort. "Gaston and that other bloke aren't coming back." She raised her emotionless eyes to Belle, feeling already certain of her words as if it was a certainty.
Belle frowned, not at all liking her friend's pessimism that was driving her to the brink and making her physically ill and causing her to lose out on her sleep.
"Claire, please. Don't worry about Gaston, you, and I both know that there's no one could best him whenever that man wields a sword or a bow and arrow. He's a soldier, a decorated war hero, and a former captain, only death itself is going to stop him coming back."
Belle tried to ease her friend's dismay with a promise.
But Claire was not about to be so easily swayed. She curled her hands around her cup of tea as her expression shifted from one of defeat to one of contemplation, remembering seeing Gaston move so swiftly once when a brawl had broken out in his tavern. How she wished that were the only thing troubling her. She shook her head and tried to explain to Belle.
"That's not what has me worried, Belle," Claire stammered, afraid that Belle had misinterpreted her anxiety, and she could tell across the way as she looked at her friend, that Maurice's daughter didn't comprehend. She searched her brain for the words.
Belle frowned and all but scoffed at Claire's sudden silence, thinking she knew the direction in which Claire's suggestion was heading and found it appalling.
"Oh, but Claire, you cannot possibly be of a mind to think that Gaston would…willingly stay with D'Arque?"
Belle set down her teacup on the small wooden side table and looked at the baker's daughter in disbelief.
Claire heaved a frustrated sigh and rested her cheek in her hand, her elbow propped on her chair's armrest.
"I don't think Gaston wants to, no." Claire frowned and sat staring into the roaring fire in the hearth as if her mind's eye was forcing her to view the unwanted images in her troubled conscience whether she liked it or not. "I don't think he'll have a choice, Belle," Claire said at last, flatly, after a rather lengthy pause of quiet.
Belle shook her head, trying to send Claire's words away as she toyed with the ends of her plait and bit down on her bottom lip. "What do you mean, he won't have a choice, Claire? I—I don't understand?" she questioned, truly alarmed at the baffling grimness of her friend's unfounded fears. "Help me to make sense."
"That man is a snake, Belle. He—he's wicked and cunning, I—I don't think you need me to tell you that. He will weave his spell around him once more," Claire growled through gritted teeth, her hazel eyes showcasing the sad certainty that she felt. "Whatever D'Arque wants from Gaston, the man eventually gets," she murmured, casting a rather skittish glance about Belle's chambers as if she were afraid to voice her dread too loudly in the event that somehow D'Arque had eyes and ears even within the very walls of Adam's estate. "I know Gaston promised and wishes to return to us, Belle, of course, I know that, but no matter how much he might want to, D'Arque is sure to say something to him that is going to make him stay with him, I'm almost positive. I don't think I'll ever see him again," Claire warned. "That is why I'm going home back to our village, Belle, as soon as this weather clears up," Claire said flatly in a cold, distant, matter-of-fact tone.
She lifted her chin and jutted it out just in time to see Belle's complexion had gone pale, almost grey in despair upon her mind processing Claire's confession.
Belle's fingernails raked down the armrests of her chair and she almost half-rose from her seat in protest.
"You can't!" she protested, her voice rising a level.
She flinched as Claire shirked away at the shrillness of her tone and Belle blinked rapidly a couple of times as she sank back down into her chair and rested against it.
It took her a moment or two to cool the fires of her anger and worry that were worming their way into the pit of her stomach before Belle finally found her voice.
When she tried again, her voice was softer this time.
"I beg of you, Claire, as your friend," Belle beseeched, her dark brown eyes glistening with unshed moisture that was not exactly that of her tears, but her despair. "Please don't let your faith in Gaston leave you so soon. He loves you," Belle pointed out, her words clumsy.
"Then he should have stayed with us here, where we would be safe," Claire conjectured, her tears beginning to slip from the edges of her eyes despite her best efforts to tamper them back as she swallowed hard.
Belle nodded sadly, an understanding look flitting across her features as she let out a ragged, heavy sigh.
"I understand too well what you must be feeling, I do. I agree that I think there could have been another way," she nodded, the briefest expressions of anger at Gold's insistence that it had to be Gaston and him alone accompanying him to D'Arque's fortress flitting through her darkening gaze as her eyes narrowed.
Belle had more than a few choice words to say to Gold when the warlock and the soldier returned, and none of them were going to be pleasant, and she suspected, by the nearly identical look on Claire's face, that she did too.
But her anger was not going to help her here, so she let go of the resentment and anger she was nursing within her chest for the strange Monsieur Gold and forced her attention back to Claire for the moment, who needed the comfort more than Gold needed a solid tongue-lashing for his part in all of this.
"He left to protect you. To protect all of us," Belle felt the need to point out why the soldier had left them. "He was terrified that D'Arque would come for us again," she lamented, briefly looking towards the window at the blizzard outside before turning back to look at Claire. "I believe Gaston doesn't want to see you hurt."
"But he hurt me by leaving! By dying! D'Arque killed him the once and it nearly killed me!" Claire nearly exploded as her fingernails dug into the fabric of the material of her armrests on her chair, almost crying.
Belle nodded in saddened agreement, pursing her lips, and suddenly looking thoughtful.
"That's why I'm sure Gaston is not going to let that snake in his tower live this time," Belle promised, the ugly expression her face temporarily contorted into caused the skin around the scar on her cheek to pull taut, and this time, Belle thought it was she who was the monster, not Adam back when he had been cursed. "I don't pretend to be an expert on peoples' emotions, Claire, but I love to read, and I like to think, over time, I can read peoples' emotions well enough." She shrugged her shoulders and tried to brush off the look of awe the baker's daughter was shooting her. "What they're thinking, what they're feeling. It's in their face and in their eyes. I saw it at the gates when he left, in his eyes. Gaston has paid for that mistake ever since Gold brought him back to life." Belle shyly lowered her gaze and fidgeted with her hands resting in her lap. "Even by your side, I don't know if Gaston will ever forgive himself for leaving."
Belle looked towards Claire in earnest, eager to make her dear friend understand the military captain's reasoning and convince her to wait here, where she would be safe within the Prince's shining castle walls.
"Oh, no, my friend." Belle shook her head assuredly as she tucked back another wisp of hair that had come loose from her plait.
Huffing in annoyance, she swiped it out of the way, thinking she would have to find Mrs. Potts or perhaps the maid assigned to her chambers, Colette, to help her fix her hair again before dinner.
"Gaston is not going to let anyone or anything stand in his way of returning to your side and keeping his promise." Belle gave her friend a confident white smile.
Claire did not know what to say to that at all, so she compensated for the awkward silence that lingered in the air between them by quietly sipping her tea instead. She wanted desperately to trust and believe in Belle's wise words, thinking that her friend was wise beyond her years.
Probably a result of all those books she reads, Claire thought, the faintest ghost of a smile tugging the edges of her lips upward, but she did not let it form.
But Claire's heart and mind fought one another, both of them urging for the young woman to heed them.
Belle's eyebrows rose in alarm as she was able to sense the conflicting turmoil of Claire's thoughts that were shadowing her face. She swallowed down hard and thought that she had one more claim in Gaston's defense, perhaps the most important one.
Her eyes briefly widened as she realized for the first time in her life that she was defending a man whom she had previously allowed herself to think that she despised. But now, she felt ashamed, as a cold wave of guilt flooded over her and almost set Belle shivering a bit, as she could not see Gaston Dupont as anything but the handsome hero that the soldier actually was for Claire.
"I don't think I've ever seen Gaston so happy, so content, and in love, like he is around you, my dear friend." Belle smiled worriedly.
She hoped to ease Claire's concerns and convince her to stay here, not only where she would be safe from the likes of D'Arque and his men and God knew whatever else was waiting for them out there, but too for a more selfish reason. That she might have another woman her own age to converse with and spend time with. As a good friend.
Claire raised her gaze, more than a little confused and astonished. Belle swallowed.
She couldn't be sure, but she thought she saw the briefest flickers of jealousy flit across the young woman's hazel eyes as she regarded Belle across from her in silence. But before Belle could mull this over in her mind, Claire spoke up and effectively shattered the silence that existed between them.
"But everything he has done for you, Belle?" Claire asked, her eyes searching Belle's face for meaning. "He saved your life. He has killed for you," Claire declared, bewildered, as she shuddered, pained.
"No more than any handsome knight would do for her lady, but I am not Gaston's lady, you are," Belle boldly asserted. "He behaves differently around you," she told her, reading the sorrowful look on Claire's face and wanting to set the matter to rest and hoped there would be no discord or jealousy on the baker's daughter's part for Gaston's former obsession on her. "You have given him all that he could never have with me," Belle told Claire as she smiled, somewhat sadly. "Love, compassion, caring, selflessness, things that he needs in order to ground him." She smiled thoughtfully. "Gaston now has you in his life and has the love of a good woman. In you, he will have a family when he returns. That's something worth coming home to." Belle smiled and raised her teacup in a toast.
Claire breathed in a heavy, scattered breath and tried to breathe slowly through her sobs that were currently sticking in the back of her throat, despite her best efforts to fight them away. She recalled the exhilaration of the sweet but passionate kiss he had given her three mornings ago in the Prince's library.
She had felt the man's love even then, the emotion had been plastered all over his face and lingered in his dark eyes, even if Gaston had trouble saying the words.
It seemed to pour from him whenever he touched her. Claire looked away as she processed Belle's words and for the first time, allowed her mind to absorb them. Claire swore to herself that she was going to be Gaston Dupont's salvation if the man needed it, just as he had been hers when he had located her brother.
She would not let herself give up on Gaston so easily.
The walls around her tender heart were crumbling, and Belle as she sat in silence, could see it happening. Belle pressed on.
"Gaston loves you, Claire." She smiled. "The man that he is with you, is different than any other time I've ever been around him. He allows himself to be his true self with you. Perhaps maybe even for the first time in his life," Belle said proudly, almost as an afterthought as she tapped her chin. "Please don't leave the castle. It's not safe and you would not make it back to the village in this blizzard. Wait. Just a few more days. Gaston will come home, and he will return to you." Belle swore on his behalf.
Claire fell silent for a moment that felt like it lasted an eternity, the only sound that existed in Belle's chambers was the sound of the logs crackling and popping in the fireplace as she let Belle's words sink in. She felt her heart fill with so much love for the soldier that she thought it might actually grow wings and burst.
She sighed, thinking that perhaps she was finally and truly accepting Gaston's love for her to be genuine, that she was not merely a replacement for the love that he could never have in Belle as she did not want his heart.
"Very well." Claire smiled, almost relieved. "I'll wait."
Belle smiled and shot Claire the whitest smile the baker's daughter had ever seen as if to tell her friend that she could not be more pleased with her decision.
Claire looked shocked but less so than she expected to be as a hesitant smile flitted across her features as the two women sat in silence. As friends.
As the pair of women spent the duration of the raging blizzard in Belle's chambers, unbeknownst to Belle, the Prince was preparing himself not to make a fool of himself as he had requested to speak to Belle's father alone, so that he could ask Maurice perhaps the most important question he would ever ask in his entire life.
If the man would give his blessing to let him take Belle as his wife.
I promise, I have not forgotten about Gaston, Gold, or D'Arque, but I kind of wanted the D'Arque mess to come up in an even chapter, so that will be chapter 40, which we might be needing quite a strong stomach for as Gaston prepares to enter D'Arque's fortress and unleash the utmost Dupont hell upon the man because no one kills like Gaston XD. I would understand if you would choose not to join me in that fortress, but I can respect it if not as well.
I hope you will stick around as the next chapter prepares the Prince for the truly awkward conversation of speaking with Maurice after everything and as always, my lovely readers, my work is at your terrible mercy or wonderful praise. Stay safe everyone!