They went downstairs to the library together the next morning. The Beast arranged a table and chairs at the window and perched there awkwardly, watching Belle's progress around what still felt like unfamiliar territory. Now and then she would seize a volume with an almost catlike pounce, sample a couple of pages and then either return it to the shelf or give it to one of the maids who were trailing after her with, he couldn't help observing, frequent nervous glances in his direction. For all he knew, they'd looked at him like that for the last two years – he could, after all, have them sacked or even executed on a whim – but he'd never noticed it before.
Belle came over to him eventually, flanked by the maids. "Here we are," she said, taking a pile of books off each maid as she spoke. They scurried gratefully away. "This is a book on etiquette from sixty years ago, but the Enchantress strikes me as someone with old-fashioned values." She took a moment here to indicate, in a surprisingly vivid facial expression, exactly what she thought of the Enchantress's values. "These," she continued, "are philosophical works on morality, which should give us some insight into right and wrong. These are all the books we seem to have on magic." She held up a forlorn collection of pages. "This one's been violently torn in half."
His tail flicked involuntarily. "Cogsworth brought it to me in the West Wing a couple of years before you came. He'd marked a couple of passages he thought I might find useful." He swallowed. "I, uh, didn't."
Belle nodded and lowered the book again. She didn't need to pursue it any further. The destruction of a book pained her a little, but she understood. There were parts of her husband's past that neither of them wanted to explore, and she knew that no amount of reading would ever give her the imaginative power to even begin to understand what he had been through. It broke her heart to see it happen again. She relieved the final maid of her pile of books and put it on the table. "These are fairytales," she said. "I know it sounds silly, but if this Enchantress can just go around casting spells on people when she feels like it then I think we have to consider what might have influenced her, exactly what she wants you to learn and how." She sat down beside him. "Where would you like to start?"
The Beast eyed the mountain of books with a slightly queasy feeling. While his reading had necessarily improved with all the paperwork that confronted him each day, he still struggled to find in it anything like the joy his wife did. "I don't know. What do you think?"
She recognised the cause of his hesitation and reached for one of the fairytale books. It wouldn't exactly cheer him up, but he might have an easier time with those than Right and Wrong – An Introduction, which had seven hundred and eighteen pages and lettering so small it might have been transcribed by philosophically-minded insects. She flipped to the contents page of the fairytale book and pointed out some stories that contained transformations. "See if anything in here seems relevant."
It struck Belle as she heaved Right and Wrong open that that was the first time almost since their honeymoon that she had heard him use those words. What do you think? It wasn't that he ignored her or controlled her, it was just that there was never any need to consult her on anything. They were separated for most of the day while he dealt with matters of state, for which he had Cogsworth and various other people to advise him, and when they were together the time felt so precious that each would accept the other's suggestions about how they might spend it without discussion. It was almost as though this was the first time they'd had anything to work at together.
Her skin prickled with cold realisation. Was she grateful for the curse? Of course not. It was a horrible thing to happen to her husband and she'd give anything to end his suffering.
But the fact remained that they were together now. They had taken breakfast together, and then Cogsworth had come to ask what he wanted done about various political matters before dashing off again to take care of it, leaving them alone together.
Alone together. Just like those early days, when she had started to get to know the Beast.
They would fix this. Of course they would. To even contemplate the alternative was unthinkable. But perhaps, in the meantime, it wouldn't be all bad.
She peered in a determined fashion at Right and Wrong but, under the table, as though it were a secret, she slipped her hand into his huge, warm paw and squeezed it gently.
He looked up at her then and was struck by a similar thought. "Do you remember Romeo and Juliet?" he asked her.
She gave him a puzzled smile. "What do you mean?"
"That day in the library when we read Romeo and Juliet?"
Her smile widened. "'For never was a story of more woe...' Of course I do."
He stroked her hand gently with his thumb. "I remember realising then..." He was struck suddenly with embarrassment and stopped.
"What?"
He turned a little in his seat towards her. "I remember realising then that there might be something worse that could happen than not breaking the spell. I thought the worst possible thing had already happened to me, but for Romeo, when he found Juliet in her tomb... he'd have done anything to bring her back. I'd been waiting all that time to fall in love and I didn't even know what it was."
"It's not—" Belle hesitated. She'd been going to say that love wasn't really like Romeo and Juliet, that being star-crossed was only the beginning, that the love in books was all she'd known until she'd come to love him but this was so much better than she could have imagined, but it would have spoiled the moment. She knew what he meant. Instead, she stretched up and kissed his furry cheek.
He smiled. "Shall we go for a walk?"
Belle hesitated, jarred. "What?"
"Let's go for a walk together, just you and me. We haven't had a chance to spend much time together lately."
"What about the books?"
"We'll only be an hour or so. I'll still be cursed when we get back and we can do it then."
Belle wavered. He'd been so miserable the night before and she'd begun to be very afraid of how the curse might affect him. She didn't know much about those long, lonely years before she had arrived at the castle but she had an idea that there was a darkness there that her presence, however determinedly she stood by his side, might not be enough to shield him from now that the curse was back. If a walk would cheer him up, perhaps it was a good idea. They could look for answers in the book later, and it would do them both good not to spend every waking moment thinking about it.
"Alright," she said. Then a thought struck her. "Oh, but wait."
The Beast had stood up and now looked down at her, crestfallen. "What is it?"
Belle struggled for a moment. What they had both forgotten was that things were different now. The castle was no longer the secluded place it had been, years ago. Now it was something of a political hub. Cogsworth had a full programme of diplomatic events today and a quick glance out of the window confirmed her suspicions. Two merchants gossiping on the lawn weren't exactly a crowd, but one person who'd seen the princess out for a morning stroll with a seven foot Beast was one person too many.
He followed her gaze. "Oh," he said.
"Perhaps we could go tonight, when it starts to get dark?" she suggested.
What happened next really frightened Belle. She had known her husband to get into some really foul tempers, though usually directed at himself more than anyone else. What she had never seen, from either man or Beast, was the blank, unresponding look that she now observed on his face.
He sat down again. "Yes," he said. "Perhaps."
He didn't want to walk in the dark. He didn't want to hide from people who might see him, to lurk in shadows, to force his beautiful wife into that secretive, fearful, animal life he thought he'd escaped. He'd only survived it because he'd had to. Belle... Belle didn't have to.
Belle stared hard at the words on the page but they wouldn't sink in. Tears were beginning to distort them, though she wiped them away quickly with a handkerchief under the pretence of blowing her nose. She wasn't at all sure she was ready for this. Was that wrong? She had sworn to be his best friend, to support him no matter what. He was her husband and she loved him.
But they already knew that love wasn't going to be enough this time.
In the immortal words of Marty McFly: "Heavy."
I wavered a few times while writing this chapter. I don't want this story to basically boil down to "The prince has been cursed again and this makes him very unhappy", but we see him go to a pretty dark place in the movie (you know, for Disney) and I really do feel that it would be worse this time, because it always is when you think a bad situation has gone away forever and then suddenly you're right back where you were. So I think I'd be undermining my story if I tried to have too much fun with it (don't worry, a chapter where Lumière impersonates the prince at a formal dinner party is on its way!), but please let me know if any of this angst seems gratuitous. Or, I suppose, if you think there should be more! I really want to get the balance right.
You may or may not have noticed my chapter titles. Yes, I do have a post-it note by my computer on which I've written all the words I can think of that start "re" and yes, some of them do work better than others! I'm quite pleased with it, though. And you know what else starts with "re"? Review!
Sorry, I couldn't resist.