Many thanks to my reviewers. I love you all (tee hee). Anyway, sit back and enjoy.

Chapter 12

Jeanine turned a full, slow circle, letting the light catch every thread of her precious red silk dress. The seamstress nodded with satisfaction; she was a wise woman and would not show anything but satisfaction for Miss Jeanine. She had learned that very quickly.

"It is very becoming, is it not?" Jeanine said.

"Oh yes, Miss Jeanine! I do declare you will be the most beautiful woman in the country. Not that you aren't already," the seamstress added hastily, rectifying her error.

"I shall be in next week for another fitting for my blue silk," Jeanine said, allowing the seamstress to undress her and carefully bundle the gown into a package. "I will pay you amply if you satisfy me." She deposited a few pounds in the woman's hand and swept out the door.

Veronica was waiting in the carriage, examining her perfect nails. Life since Piper's absence had treated them very well; their father's business had fairly skyrocketed and they were receiving money faster than they could spend it. They had almost forgotten about their sister, and completely forgotten about the old man who had visited them in their sad shack one cold winter's night only a month back. They had moved to a large manor in the city and moved in only the best social circles.

"Where is Father?" Jeanine asked as she entered the carriage, adjusting the beautiful dress on her lap so it wouldn't wrinkle.

"He wanted to stop and get a new hat," Veronica said, not looking up. "He should be back in a moment."

As if on cue, Mr. Harris appeared around the corner, carrying his new hat snugly under his arm. He had almost reached the carriage when suddenly, without warning, he keeled over, falling onto the cobblestone street.

"Father!" Jeanine screamed. If he died, there would be no money ….

"Mr. Harris!" The coachman leapt down to help his master who was now shaking convulsively, his whole body in a seizure of pain. Jeanine watched in horror as his face became white as the snow that still blanketed the ground and he went limp. The coachman heaved up her father's limp form and set him in the carriage.

"We must go to the doctor," he said, his face almost as white as Mr. Harris's. "He's still breathing but who knows how long that will last."

He climbed aboard and shouted to the horses. As the carriage clattered off, Veronica looked at Jeanine, white to the lips. She realized exactly what her sister did. If their father died, life as they knew it would cease to exist.

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Christmas dinner. Raoul could not stop thinking about it. As Christmas Day came and went, he became more nervous as the hour drew nearer. What if he humiliated himself? What if his manners were so poor that she could not bear eating with him ever again? He was used to wolfing—he cringed at the pun—down his meals in the solitude of his chambers, which he had now moved back into. The gloom and darkness used to satiate his urge for unhappiness and misery but now he wished he was anywhere but there. More particularly, he wished he was still in Piper's sunlit, joyful room. He thought he would be delighted to return to his den, so to speak, with its broken glass and shattered dreams but it hadn't happened. He was miserable and uneasy.

The canvas, still portraying the worst moments of his life, hung untouched in the center of the room. He avoided looking at it; the dagger of pain was still pointed at his heart.

"What are you planning on wearing tonight, master?" Tovu's voice startled Raoul out of his reverie. Embarrassed to be caught dwelling on unpleasant memories, he turned to the manservant angrily.

"I thought it was usually your custom to knock before you entered," he snarled. He would have thrown something but restrained himself; Piper would not be inclined to dine with him if she knew.

"I'm sorry, master. I just thought you would like some help. If you don't mind me saying so, master, it has been a great many years since you have wooed a woman."

Raoul flushed. "I am not wooing her," he muttered but he had to admit Tovu was right. The last woman he ever remembered was a princess of something-or-other and she had hardly been impressed with him—other than his status, of course. Fighting hard, he buried his pride and opened his closet doors wide. "Well, Tovu, I confess you are right. I am in desperate need of your assistance."

There was a silence as Tovu digested this information, this wonder that Raoul had admitted he was in the wrong. It had never happened before. Tovu looked at Raoul, a frown in his eyes. This girl was having more influence on the master than he had thought. He only hoped it was not too late.

"You will look nice in the navy," Tovu said and so began the arduous process of selecting clothes.

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No less nervous, Piper paced the length of her bedroom floor, the green silk dress rippling around her. It was four thirty, only half an hour until she would eat with Raoul for the first time since she had been here. How long had it been? She paused, trying to count the months. The days had run together so that she had lost track of time and Raoul kept no calendars about the castle; it only reminded him of the all the time lost to the curse.

Raoul … Piper's eyes softened. She had not thought it possible that he could change, even in the smallest degree, but it had happened. Subtly, carefully, but he had begun to change. Of course, he wasn't a polite, calm, mild-mannered man by any stretch of the imagination, but he tried. She knew he sincerely tried; she could see it in his eyes. Those cold dark eyes had now begun to soften, to open up a gentle part of him that she had not seen before, a part of Raoul desperate to please and to be accepted. Still, there was something else in his eyes that worried her. She had pretended to ignore it at first, that slight longing that flickered in his eyes for a split second when she would walk into the room, and she knew he tried to hide it, but it could not be brushed away. More than that, there was something deeper that she could not quite place her finger on whenever he looked at her.

Shaking herself, she stood by the window, gazing out onto the grounds. She never thought she would see the day when she actually enjoyed being in the castle. It was a change from the cruel existence of her life before when her family had treated her so abominably … no, she thought, that wasn't right. They were not abominable people and she still longed to see them, to let them know she was all right. She still believed they cared a little for her. Just a little. There must be some degree of affection for her in their hearts.

A knock on the door made her jump and she crossed the room, opening it. She heard Mrs. Lamphrey gasp.

"Why, Piper, you are simply breath-taking! You look absolutely lovely."

Piper blushed. "Surely you are exaggerating," she said.

"No, my dear, I most certainly am not. But nevermind that. We have a marvelous dinner prepared for you and an orchestra and the ballroom is decorated—"

"Ballroom?" Piper halted, eyeing Mrs. Lamphrey's general direction suspiciously. "Why is the ballroom decorated?"

"I thought you would dance—"

"Dance! With whom?"

"The master."

"Raoul would sooner cut out his heart than dance with me. I know him that well."

Mrs. Lamphrey smiled to herself in the secret of invisibility. "You would be surprised, child," she murmured to herself, looking at Piper with all the affection of a mother. "You would be surprised."

Piper was trembling with anxiety, nervousness, fear, and another emotion difficult to place by the time she reached the top of the great staircase. She turned to Mrs. Lamphrey.

"Am I doing right, Mrs. Lamphrey? What if he goes on one of his rages?" She looked up at the kindly housekeeper, her eyes pleading. "I'm frightened."

"Oh, child," Mrs. Lamphrey said and enveloped Piper in her arms. "He would never hurt you now."

"Will you be there?"

"Yes, dear. I will."

Slowly, Piper turned, took a deep breath and emerged at the head of the great staircase. She laid one shaking hand on the bannister and took a step forward, feeling strangely as if she were moving toward her destiny.

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Raoul was standing at the foot of the stairs, wringing his hands when he heard a small cough from Tovu. Turning, he looked up and his eyes locked on Piper.

She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She wore a green silk dress he had never seen before; it was tasteful and becoming but not so revealing as some he had seen others wear. Her deep auburn hair fairly glowed in the soft light and her face reminded of an angel—sweet and kind and gentle. He could not take his eyes from her and every step seemed to echo in his heartbeat. She came closer, closer, until she was standing right above him and he could smell the tantalizing aroma of her hair.

"Merry Christmas," she said and her voice broke the spell. He flushed deeply, horrified to be caught staring at her in such a forward way, and offered her his arm.

"You look beautiful," he said and his face reddened again. He avoided looking at her as she slipped her arm in his.

"Thank you," she replied and her eyes sparkled. "You are looking quite fine this evening as well."

"Thank you."

There was a long silence as he led her to the table and pulled out her chair. He sat down opposite her at the end of the oak table, feeling as if the silence was pressing down on him. The invisible servants set down the first course: a delicious, thick, creamy soup. But Raoul could scarcely take a bite. His eyes kept drifting down the table to Piper despite his best efforts. He was dreadfully uncomfortable and his hands shook as he lifted his spoon. After a minute he set his spoon down and was surprised to see Piper by his side.

"Would you care to dance with me?" she asked.

The whole room waited with bated breath. Raoul stared up into her soft grey eyes and cleared his throat.

"I would be delighted," he said and took her hand.

She guided him to the ballroom floor, her hand soft and warm in his. When she reached the center of the massive room, she turned to him, set her hand on his shoulder and caught his free hand with hers.

"I have not danced in quite some time," he said, stalling, desperately trying not to notice her nearness. She was so close he could see the slight sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks, hardly visible in the soft light.

She laughed, a light, musical sound and he wanted her to laugh again. "Neither have I," she said. "But shall we?"

The orchestra, whose instruments had long been forgotten, began to play. Mrs. Lamphrey had instructed the maestro to choose the most romantic music he could find and he had not failed her. As the sweet melodies of a waltz began soaring through the room, there was not a servant in the place who wasn't watching the two fly across the floor, lost in their own world of sound and light and, Mrs. Lamphrey thought happily, love.