Belle knelt in a sea of cushions, her skirts pooled around her, adrift in her thoughts. She gazed thoughtfully over the top of her current tome, considering how a truly just society would function. Before she could organize her thoughts, the approach of footsteps announced the prince's arrival into her sanctum and roused her from reverie. Belle straightened. She had been avoiding him since their last encounter and had hoped he would have the common decency to reciprocate. With her back still to the prince she rolled her eyes at his cloddish approach to social situations as his footsteps grew louder.
She turned to look at him over her shoulder, eyebrow raised, pressing her full lips together in a way that subtly yet effectively communicated her irritation. He hesitated, she really was impossibly pretty, and he felt a rare flash of self-doubt but rallied his confidence and spoke.
"May I join you?" the prince asked, gesturing toward the cushions. He was dressed simply yet sharply in a white linen shirt, a deep forest green jacket, black slacks and hunting boots. She felt an involuntary flush at his nearness, but quickly took possession of herself and received him coolly.
"It is your castle your highness," she responded with strained civility, "You may go where you wish."
To Belle's further annoyance, Adam smiled and seated himself next to her on the floor, perhaps a few inches closer than decorum would dictate an unmarried man and woman should sit. Belle shifted away about a foot, and Adam's smile broadened.
"Are you in any way uncomfortable Madamoiselle?" Adam asked, feigning innocence. Belle frowned.
"Why should I be uncomfortable?" Belle countered, "It is an honor for someone of my station to be given such fine quarters in a prince's castle."
Adam flinched ever so slightly at the mention of the distance in their social positions. He realized he hadn't though of it lately, of how she was his subject, of the fact that she was obliged to serve him. Feeling the coldness in Belle's reception and hearing the ice in her tone, Adam wondered what had changed since they last spoke. As though he hoped to close the divide between them, he had a sudden urge to take her hand. Instead he raised his own to rub the back of his neck uncertainly, then composed himself.
"Excellent, you are a guest after all," the prince replied, toying with the cuff of his shirt in a way that caught Belle's attention. She had seen him do this before. Belle suppressed a smile as she realized his highness was nervous.
"And what of yourself?" Belle asked, arching an eyebrow, "Do you find yourself comfortable your highness?"
"I am always comfortable," Adam retorted, flashing a dashing expression that forced Belle to recognize his charm, if but for a moment.
"Yes your highness," Belle said, her own beautiful visage the picture of equanimity. Adam paused, a pensiveness SOFTENING HIS USUAL ARROGANCE. Belle avoided looking at the prince, straightening and smoothing her skirts. She damned her cheeks for wanting to blush at his nearness, but managed to maintain her composure. The prince cleared his throat, then reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and retrieved a book.
"I believe this is yours," the prince said gently, holding out a dog-eared copy of The Social Contract, the leather cover worn to a shine.
Belle's hazel eyes widened, surprise shining from her pretty face like a flame in a lantern. It was her favorite book. The one the bookseller had given her. The one the prince had confiscated. It balanced in the prince's fingers, a relic from another life, the totem that brought her here. Belle considered the volume, feeling as she did so that she was suspended between a past she couldn't change and a present she had even less control over. It was astonishing, really, that there could be such power in such a small thing, that her life was so quickly transformed. Belle reached out slowly to take the book from the prince but just as her fingertips grazed the leather he pulled it back quickly. She was reminded of Gaston taking her book away from her in town and of the prince's previous bad behavior and frowned.
"I have questions," Adam told Belle, trying to speak to her softly, respectfully, noticing her irritation.
"You wish to interrogate me?" Belle asked, again crossing her arms.
"I wish to have a conversation with you," Adam replied.
"Your highness," Belle said, laughing dryly, "I'm not certain such a thing is possible."
"Why shouldn't such a thing be possible?" Adam asked, assuming Belle was referring to the attraction that had led to their near kiss.
"A conversation," Belle began, in a tone she tended to adopt when she was being didactic, "Is an exchange of ideas. Yet how can we freely exchange ideas when you are my prince and I am a subject?"
"I invite your ideas," Adam replied, "I am granting you permission to speak freely."
"That's it exactly," Belle said, shaking her head at the young man, "You give me permission. You speak when you wish as you wish and I speak only by your grace. I am not free. It would be foolish of me not to know this and dangerous of me to say anything that could displease you."
Adam was silent for a moment. He wanted to order her to speak freely, but then realized that perhaps there was some contradiction in such an action. His gaze fell to the cushions then drifted to the fireplace. As he watched the flames he remembered sitting with his mother in front of the same hearth, perhaps they even sat on some of the same cushions, listening to her read aloud. It had been a while since he had thought of her, his mother, but now he nearly winced with how suddenly and sharply he missed her as though pricked by her memory. He thought of her warmth, her ease with everyone from servants to kings and how she was equally gracious with all. Adam glanced at his lovely company, Belle looking back at him inquisitively. It occurred to Adam that his mother would have probably liked Belle a great deal. Adam then realized he had never before thought one way or the other about whether or not his mother would have liked a girl. He felt his stomach clench, almost as though he were going to be sick, and wondered what was happening to him.
"Very well," Adam said slowly, confounded by this persistent desire he had to please her, "Let us not be prince and subject or master and guest or man and woman. Let us be two minds then."
"I've already told you that such a thing is impossible," Belle replied heatedly, "You have all the power. I am beholden to you."
"I relinquish it," Adam said, "For one hour, here in this room, with you, I relinquish my princely titles and position. Anything said between us in that hour is shared between equals. Think of it! No hierarchies, no ritual, no etiquette. We'd be like those primatives your Rousseau seems to fond of."
Belle tilted her head and regarded the prince suspiciously, but his gaze only returned earnestness. She sighed, and rose from the cushions to approach a spindly table that bore a pitcher of wine. She drew a goblet toward herself and poured the liquid, her thoughts perturbed. The prince's proposal was a thrilling one, there was no denying it. How often she had held arguments in her mind with the nobility about how the country should be run, how she dreamed of someone listening to her, how she longed to be treated as someone with a voice. Perhaps she could even persuade the prince, in some small way, to consider the needs of the people. After all, if she was going to be in his company regardless, why not use the time for at least some good?
Yet, it was important to remember that the prince held all the power and that he always would hold all the power, regardless of his current mood to experiment. It would indeed be foolish to take the prince at his word and risk offending him, especially when he had repeatedly shown himself to be a man of short temper. Belle turned to look at him, how he sat, at his ease among the cushions, one leg stretched and the other leg bent, leaning much of his weight on a muscular arm. He was nearly irresistible, especially now when he was trying to look innocent. And yet, it would be terribly reckless of her to forget that this man could have her and her father beheaded on a whim.
"As intriguing as that proposal sounds, your highness, I'm afraid I must decline," Belle demurred, bringing the goblet to her lips to take a drink.
"Why must you decline?" the prince asked.
"I dare not risk it," Belle responded.
"I have given you my word that there is no risk," the prince said.
"What if I should offend you?" Belle asked.
"Then I am offended," the prince responded simply. She looked into his face and found it clean of his usual ill temper. She drifted in his gaze for a moment, his eyes so blue she felt physically pulled by their intensity, as though she were standing on a shore as the tide ebbed.
"And?" She pressed, lifting her brushstroke eyebrows.
"And no harm will come to you," the prince told her, shifting his position on the cushions so that he was kneeling at her feet. He reached for her hand and kissed it, adding, "Or anyone you care for."
Belle looked down at him, her heart pounding. She wanted badly to believe him, and was somewhat furious with herself for her desire. Could such a thing be happening? That she could be equal to a prince if even only for an hour? Dare she consider taking his offer?
"How do I know I can trust you?" Belle asked, her voice quivering slightly. The prince heard the genuine fear in her voice and was moved. He thought for a moment about how he could reassure her, then stood, still holding her hand.
"This library was my mother's," the prince began, looking up at the soaring architecture with a wistful smile, "She loved books. I used to come here with her all the time."
"From what I hear she was a wonderful woman," Belle responded sincerely, thinking of how fondly the servants spoke of the prince's mother whenever the woman was mentioned.
"She was," the prince said softly. He was quiet for a moment, and Belle was struck by the weight of his grief, how she could measure it in the slump of his broad shoulders. He sighed and continued, "I would curl up on her skirts and listen to her read for hours. Story after story. I never tired of it. After she died I fell out of the habit of reading. It…reminded me of her. And it reminded me of the boy I was, the child who loved her so terribly."
Belle dipped her head sadly, not expecting to find the prince's pain so close to her own. She thought of her own mother, once so beautiful and vivacious, nearly as pale as the sheets she lay on, her limbs waxy as though she were a doll. The grief she felt when her mother died had been boundless, it could have filled the sky, every corner of her life was touched by the loss. She had no words, but she reached up and squeezed the prince's shoulder in communion, and he responded to her gesture with a small appreciative smile.
"This room is sacred space to me," he told Belle, "any promise I make in here I am bound to keep."
Belle took a deep draught from her goblet of wine. She feared she ought to know better, that she ought to play things more safely with the prince. There was, as always, the need for reason and caution. But then there was the way he was looking at her, somehow roguish even in earnestness, still a little wild even when trying to be refined, a fire ever kindled in the ocean blue of his eyes. He had a way of making her want to take his hand and leap with him. She smiled, she couldn't help herself. As she opened her mouth to respond to his proposal, the clock chimed loudly, marking the time.
"One hour," Belle said when the chimes ended. She smoothed a stray hair from her brow, then stepped toward the prince with her hand extended. Adam's face broke into a smile and he took her hand, shaking it slowly as he noticed both the gold and green that comprised Belle's unique eye color. He then released her hand, realizing, not without astonishment, how genuinely excited he was to listen to this woman talk while they were both fully clothed and (relatively) sober. Not sure whether to feel panicked or foolish or embarassed with himself, Adam laughed. Belle laughed also, similarly perplexed by her own emotions. He lifted the tray of wine from it place on the table and cleared some cushions away with his foot, laying the spirits on the floor. He settled on some cushions on the floor near the tray, motioning for Belle to join him so that they may talk and drink wine in communion and equality.