THE MERCHANT'S DAUGHTER -Chapter Thirteen (Patreon)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

The following afternoon, Beauty wandered into the main drawing room on a leisurely walk through the castle and soon found Beast sitting in a window reading. Having nothing else to do to bide her time, she asked if she could sit in the chair nearby.

“Certainly. I’ll just... I can return later so that you may use the room in peace.”

“No,” she disagreed, “I was rather hoping to simply sit in your company.”

“I just would not wish to bore you seeing as I am reading a volume. I can put it aside.”

Again, Beauty shook her head. “I don’t wish you to retire to another room and put an intermission in what you are doing because of me.”

There was a pause between them. “You are certain?” he inquired.

“Yes.” She could see he was a bit torn and confused. “How about then you read aloud to me?” she suggested.

He seemed a bit uncomfortable but slowly nodded his head. “Alright.”

At first, his voice shook a little and he seemed to be having trouble in making the words flow in a more natural pattern as he did with speech. But after glancing up several times and finding Beauty smiling and occasionally encouraging him to go on, he became more confident and more fluent in his reading out loud to her.

The two eventually became so absorbed in the activity that they only stopped when both realized their hunger.

They soon then realized they had another activity with which to fill their time together with and it became habit every day after that first week of doing so that at least one of them would read out loud from a book.

It felt good to finally be on friendly terms and more open with one another as a result of such terms. Where Beauty had once been a bit standoffish and reserved about her life she then became comfortable enough to share details with her companion. Beast asked many things about her life and Beauty happily offered an honest response within reason. First he learned about her family and daily life before and after her father’s financial ruin and eventually his questions led him to learn more about Beauty’s other interests and whether she had as many friends as she had often mentioned her sisters as having.

One evening as Beauty was reading out of Beast’s book they came across the topic of courting and suitors.

“Did you court anyone in your city?” he asked her when the reading had transpired.

“Me? Oh...” She trailed off shyly.

“It is a rather significant part of your society?” he inquired. “Or is it against decorum for me to inquire? Or perhaps it is against propriety to wonder about whom you were well acquainted with...”

“Neither of those things if I am willing to reveal the answer,” she replied, “And besides, it is not as though you know whom I would be speaking of anyway.”

He bowed his head in acknowledgement.

“I did not really have any prospects save for one time,” Beauty told him, “Lord Carrigan of Mulpepper Manor was the closest I came to an arrangement of close acquaintance with the intent of perhaps one day leading to marriage. It was an interesting situation.”

“How so, might I ask?”

“Well, when we first began the closer acquaintance between he and our family, my sisters had hoped he might choose one of them to eventually arrange marriage with. As it happened, his favour turned towards me.”

“And then how did you feel about such things?”

“Well it was not the most terrible thing to have happen to me,” she declared then instantly regretted her words. “I could have made a worse match I mean,” she added quickly so as not to offend his feelings about their current arrangement.

It did not appear her words had affected Beast so she went on: “He was kind, handsome, respectful... I found myself fond of him and flattered by his affections. I hadn’t until that moment quite concerned myself terribly with finding myself a proper suitor –that duty it seemed lay with my sisters! They were always trying to impress and find a suitor to take their hand in marriage... And then I found one. For their credit, they did not behave as I thought they might...”

He looked interested by this.

Beauty went on a little further, “It was almost humorous the way my sisters doted upon it all. I knew they were jealous and yet they were grateful he had chosen one of us. They thought an alliance with him and his connections might bring our family a certain degree of respect. I too was able to acknowledge that,” she declared honestly. “But ultimately, that is not what a match for marriage should strictly be about.”

“What then would you declare to be more important?” he inquired.

“I think two people should enter into marriage willingly not merely because they feel obliged to,” she declared.

He considered her words. “I do suppose that is sensible,” he agreed, “A mutual feeling is quite important in any arrangement especially I would imagine in one that will have a duration of such a long period of time.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “The entirety of one’s life.”

He nodded slowly.

“Forgive me but my stomach betrays that it is almost certainly quite time to eat again, Beast,” she murmured after several moments passed in silence between them.

His face crossed into somewhat of a smile. “Let us follow the advice of our stomachs then,” he proclaimed; leading the way to the kitchen to prepare their next meal together.

~*~

“Whatever happened with that Charleston fellow?” Beast asked her one bright afternoon several days later as the two attempted a game of Mullinkin which was quite similar to chess.

Beauty looked up in utter confusion. “Beg your pardon...?”

“The...gentleman that you spoke of; the one who wished to court you instead of any of your sisters...”

“Oh! You mean Carrigan!” she mused, “Well, what is there to know and why?”

“Simply interested in how you rid yourself of the fellow is all... You sounded as though things were quite... serious and far along before they concluded. I can only imagine that it was not easy to be done acquaintance with him.”

Beauty was silent as she kept her eyes on their playing board and slowly moved her piece to a new space. “I did not wish to rid myself of him,” she defended softly. “He... His acquaintance was like every other deal that occurred in that town; it ended with less than we came with...”

Beast frowned as he pondered this. They played on for awhile at their game and Beauty had thought the subject of Lord Carrigan had been dropped entirely until suddenly Beast’s gruff voice broke the silence and once more focused upon the man: “And you were upset by its end for it took from you more than you wished to give?” He phrased it almost like a question but there was something in the intentness of his stare that suggested he acknowledged his statement to already be true for her.

“Why are you so interested in a silly Lord from quite some time ago in my past?” she chuckled although he could hear the unsteadiness in which she’d issued that laughter.

“My interest grows the further you avoid the subject,” he answered honestly, “It makes me curiouser to know the truth of the matter the further you ride away from the subject. It is as though I have been given a glance at a portrait through a keyhole and have been tugged away from it suddenly before I could make out whether the subject was male or female...”

“That is a curious analogy!” she exclaimed with a slight bit of soft laughter.

“And why is that?” he mused in return; curious to know this also.

“Well, you have no portraits in the entire castle; only in books,” she noted, “Forgive me if I find your analogy curious...”

He frowned and nodded absently as though he understood the truth but was still having a hard time with placing it in his mind; as though something he saw there inside his mind’s eye was blocking his view of the truth to be the only truth. “Yes I’d quite forgotten...” he muttered absently, “No portraits...”

She took her next turn as she awaited his return to concentration upon their current activity. It did not take long.

“I realize the matter is likely quite private to you and I apologize for prying, Beauty, but I am curious to know whether you... how you felt upon the end of having the acquaintance of Lord Carrigan of Mulpepper.”

So he recalled the manor’s name; curious. “Upon termination of knowing Lord Mulpepper,” she shortened the title considerably, “I was relieved that I would not be bound nor my family bound to some propriety that would likely have caused some sort of misfortune or inconvenience down the road...”

“How so?” He moved his piece as he awaited her reply.

Beauty decided then and there to reveal the truth of the matter to him. There was nothing to lose from doing so and yet nothing to gain either. It would not be to her disadvantage therefore. “Were I married off to him, I predict I would have become unhappy. To marry simply on the grounds of propriety and esteem and desire to keep dignity of myself and some for my father did not seem...best. Or right. Had he chosen one of my sisters, he would have been extremely displeased. With choosing me, I fear he would have discovered he had made a mistake in aligning himself with my family. We were headed towards ruin –you understand– and I do not think he would have found it to his advantage to have such connections. Were he to have assisted my father back into a proper financial situation, I fear the debt of the kindness and...propriety of that action would have carried on not just for my father’s lifetime but my own and perhaps that of any children Carrigan and I would have borne together. I could not let that come to pass.” She moved her piece and it seemed she would say no more.

Beast, however, could not have things ended there. “You certainly gave the situation much thought,” he noted with some consternation.

Beauty inhaled slowly and tried to examine her companion to come to the root of what he was thinking about the matter and why he would comment thus. “It was my life and the life of my family,” she finally responded.

“That may be true and yet as I understand it, you gave little thought or argument to coming here,” he pointed out.

“I—” She could not think of how to respond to that at first. “Coming to this castle was something that would not be a permanent fixture in my life. I would be here and then eventually with the time passing I would return home and resume life as I knew it.”

He nodded his head slowly in acknowledgement to that; finding a fair point in her words –a point he had not quite considered before speaking up just moments ago.

“If I am to marry someone I would like it to feel... I would like more than a simple fondness for them. I believe if I am to marry someone; if I’m going to spend the rest of my life with someone, I should think of them much the same way my father still thinks of my mother. Whenever he speaks of her or looks upon her portrait, he has a look upon his face and in his eyes that transcends a simple fondness, it’s a look that I have never again seen in my entire life upon anyone else. Perhaps it has given me some sort of unrealistic response to the rest of the world but I would like at least to feel a little more than a tolerance and partiality for the man who is to be my husband; who is to be the one I am married and bound to for the rest of my life. For it is fine to be acquainted in a civil manner, true, but I can’t help but think that if I’m going to move away from my family to live with someone else for the rest of my days, I should much want to at least enjoy their company a little more than any other person who we might invite into our home. Does that sound...mad?”

Beast’s eyes had softened as she had been speaking and then squinted a little in consideration of this last statement. “No; no, no you’re not— it is not mad,” he disagreed softly, “I think that is actually quite sensible. I suppose I’ve never really given much thought to marriage, courting and all the like. I’ve read of it but there has never been anything that has been pertinent within my personal sphere of life and thus I’ve not considered things as you have to have done. And yet I cannot help but feel that the way— the point of view; the perspective you have upon it... Well, I cannot help but feel that your thoughts are utterly true and quite the way to go about perceiving the matter.”

Once he was finished speaking, Beast suddenly let out a soft sound. He shook his head slightly in dismissal of the way he was considering things so seriously. But he then saw in her eyes a smile; a kindness and so he did not feel as bad for speaking so openly and in such a raw fashion.

Beauty for her part felt quite touched and softened towards him by his words and a slight turn of her lips upwards into the hints of a smile portrayed something quite benevolent and her eyes became thoughtful.