Beauty and the Werewolf fhk-6 Read online

  The armband floated into the bathroom and returned. With the armband was a pile of things on a towel, including a steaming basin.

  She sighed as her ankle was bathed in hot water, given a new application of a soothing salve that smelled like roses and rebandaged. It felt much better. The invisible hands unlaced and pulled off her other boot, as well, though they left the stocking.

  She considered her options. At the moment, there were not many — and she was horribly, horribly tired. It had been a long and stress-filled morning.

  “I think I would like to take a little rest,” she told the armband, which floated obediently over to the bed. The coverlet, comforter, blankets and sheet were turned back, and the armband waited.

  She yawned, and sat on the edge of the bed, which was just as soft as it looked. “I’ll just lie down for a little,” she told the armband. “Wake me if something important happens.”

  Then she settled into the soft feather bed, put her head on the downy pillow and knew nothing until she felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake.

  5

  THE CURTAINS HAD BEEN PULLED CLOSED WHILE SHE slept; now the unseen servant whisked them aside. She saw to her relief that it was still daylight. Good; she’d be able to get an account of whatever progress had been made from Sebastian before he turned into a brute beast again.

  She threw back the covers and gingerly set her feet down on the rug — or started to. Before she could move very far, the armband intercepted her, and the invisible hands grasped her good foot, sliding it into a warmed sheepskin slipper. The hands did the same to her injured foot, then let her go.

  It was a very, very strange sensation, to say the least.

  She discovered as soon as she put weight on it that the injured foot was uncomfortable to walk on, but much improved. Encouraged, she began exploring, even if she was limping. She’d never let an injury stop her from doing something she wanted to do before.

  There wasn’t a great deal to look at in either the bedroom or the bathroom. While she liked the clothing well enough — to her relief it proved to be not as…fluffy…as the twins would have liked — it wasn’t the sort of thing that she would ordinarily picture herself wearing. Too expensive, for one thing, and not in practical colors for another; although since while she was here, she supposed that she wouldn’t be in and out of places where she would get dirty. But if she had any say in this, she wasn’t going to be around long enough to need any of it. The bathroom was still amazing in itself, and she was looking forward to having a long and leisurely hot soak tonight, but once she finished sniffing all of the bottles and jars to discover what scents were in them, she was done with that room for now. Although this was the room that also contained the water closet, so that was a relief to find.

  And I am going to sweep everything before me and lock the door before I use it, too.

  But the sitting room — now, that was another story altogether. She had barely glimpsed it on the way through to the bedroom, earlier. Now the armband circled the room, and oil lamps lit up with a soft glow in its wake as it turned up the flames.

  The bedroom was a place for sleeping — or at least lying abed. This was a room made for doing things in. It had a good desk and comfortable writing chair, a pair of exceptionally comfortable chairs on either side of the fireplace that would be perfect for reading, as each one had a lamp placed on a table beside it. The external wall was literally covered in bookcases — with more of those tin-bound books in them. Someone had thoughtfully supplied a sewing work-basket beside a chair at one of the windows. There was another pair of chairs at a second window with a chessboard between them, and an intricately carved set of ivory chess pieces on it.

  Although the carpet in this room was a little worn, it was also huge; it covered most of the floor, making the room that much warmer. The expertly built fire in the fireplace kept the entire room comfortable, with no drafts.

  “Well, this is pleasant enough,” she said aloud. “However…I would much rather be at home. So, take me to your master. I wish to discover what he has or has not accomplished so far.”

  The armband hesitated.

  She glared at it.

  Now it could not be possible for a band of cloth to signify chagrin, but somehow she got that impression from it. It moved toward the door, and she followed, closely.

  The unseen servant led her as far as the library, and then their path diverged. This was a much less welcoming part of the Manor; she passed many closed doors, plain and heavily built, before they descended a stair into a chilly cellar. More closed doors, though one was ajar, giving her a glimpse into a wine cellar, until finally, the servant brought her to a very forbidding part of the establishment indeed. And there she found her host, minutely examining a door that was at least half a foot thick, reinforced with iron straps, with a formidable lock.

  “What on earth are you doing, Duke Sebastian?” she asked, more than a little irritated that he was down here mucking about with a lock when he should have been doing something about her predicament.

  He jumped and yelped. She was immediately sorry.

  “Oh, I do apologize, I had no idea that you didn’t know I was here,” she said. “I had come looking for you to determine if you knew anything more than you did when we last spoke.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Well, I know that whatever happened to me last night, I didn’t break out of this cell. All I can think is that somehow the door failed to lock. I don’t know, perhaps it jammed. I’ll make certain it is secure tonight. I have contacted Godmother Elena, or rather, I have sent her a message, so if she doesn’t already know by her own methods about what has happened to you, she will soon know from me. I have also arranged for Granny to come here.” He smiled wanly. “That was fairly simple. I just rode out to the cottage and asked her to come.”

  Bella had to throttle down her indignation. What? He could come and go as he pleased, but she was a virtual prisoner here?

  But good sense completed the throttling. He had no reason to trust that she wouldn’t run off — after all, hadn’t she actually been contemplating just that? — so of course she was a virtual prisoner, at least for now.

  Wait, hadn’t he just said he had ridden out?

  “I thought horses couldn’t abide werewolves,” she replied, watching as he carefully oiled the lock mechanism.

  “Mine are fine with me as long as I’m not hairy,” he replied absently. “I really don’t know if that has something to do with me, or is another sign that I’m not the usual sort of werewolf. I would have asked you to come along, but you were asleep, and I didn’t know if you could ride.”

  She bit her lip. “Not…very well,” she admitted. “I mean, I can ride a hired horse that has to be goaded into anything faster than a walk, but…”

  “Ah.” He contemplated her for a long moment. “I don’t think I actually have anything you would feel safe in riding. All my horses are…well…spirited. And large. Hunters, actually. They — erm — like to jump.”

  She swallowed. The one time she had been on a horse that had jumped over anything, she had nearly felt her heart stop. She considered herself to be brave, but to be nearly the height of a man above the ground, on something that was moving, that then attempted to fly through the air — well, it had been unexpected and rather unwelcome. “Perhaps…not,” she said.

  “If you end up remaining here for a while, I can see about getting a mule?” he offered.

  “I hope I won’t, but that might be an option.” A mule, now, that would be better. She liked mules, although Genevieve would have been horrified at the idea of riding something so plebeian. Mules were quiet and sensible, and although you couldn’t get one to move very quickly, they were also a great deal more comfortable to ride than horses.

  “Well, Granny said she will come in the next few days.” He smiled. “At least she will be company for you. Who knows? She might have some good ideas.” He looked as if he might say mo
re, but she saw his sleeve moving vigorously, as if something was tugging on it. “And I beg your pardon, but sunset is drawing near, and I would really rather be certain that I was locked up securely. Follow your servant — that was a good idea with the armbands, by the way. Your servant will either take you to the dining room, or your own rooms, and bring you dinner there, if you like.”

  Involuntarily, the memory of that horrible beast trying to dig her out of her flimsy shelter last night swept across her, and she shivered. Charming as Duke Sebastian might be, she had no desire to encounter the wolf again. Ever. She had the feeling she wouldn’t be so lucky a second time.

  “Good evening, then,” she said, and turned to follow the floating scarf out into the cellars. Just as she reached the staircase, she heard the cell door slamming firmly, followed by a heavy rattling as Duke Sebastian tested it.

  She hesitated at the top of the stairs. The dining room was impressive but…it would be odd and lonely to sit by herself at that enormous table. “I would like dinner brought to my rooms, please,” she told the invisible servant, which turned back toward the direction from which they had come.

  She had a very good memory for direction, evidently. Where such a thing had come from, she had no idea, but she found she didn’t really have to follow the floating armband; she was picking out her way without its help. But when they got to her rooms — and she was resolved to try the other doors on that corridor, just to see what was in those rooms! — she was quite glad that she had left Duke Sebastian when she had. It must have been much, much later than she had thought, because the light coming in through the windows had a distinctly golden-orange tint.

  I must have slept far longer than I thought. Sunset cannot be far. She went to the window to look, but the high walls around the courtyard prevented her from seeing anything other than the sky. To her left, it was a very deep blue, and to her right, getting redder by the moment. The courtyard was so deeply in shadow that all she could see were the mounded hummocks of snow-covered bushes.

  She turned toward the armband. “I would like to go to the kitchen, please.”

  The armband went absolutely still, as if with shock.

  She tapped her good foot impatiently. “I am accustomed to running a household,” she told it. “I write the menus. How can I know what to order for dinner unless I see what is in the pantries?”

  And I can only pray that my orders are holding at home, or there will be war in the kitchen and nothing will be edible….

  There had to be a way to get word from home. And to home! Her poor father must be frantic. Genevieve, of course, wouldn’t notice unless things started going wrong, but the twins would certainly miss her, if only because they would be missing out on more of the Guild festivals. Surely she could appeal to the better sensibilities of the staff at this point to pull together and —

  She stopped, right there. Of course she could. The servants were probably just as upset about this as anyone; she had always treated them decently, and as if they were human beings and not automata without feelings and lives. She needed to get word back to them, not to chide them, but to reassure them.

  Heaven only knows what wild rumors and crazed stories they are hearing now. It stood to reason that if the King had gone to all this trouble to keep the truth of Duke Sebastian’s condition secret, he would not be breaking that secret by allowing her family and household the truth.

  Genevieve would have it spread all over the city before you could say gossip.

  She realized that she had been standing there, lost in thought, while the armband waited.

  “Do you have a name?” she asked it. I cannot keep thinking of it as an armband or an invisible servant, she thought. Especially since there are more of them.

  The armband did not bob. “I assume that means that you don’t,” she said to it. “Then is it all right if I give you one? It won’t be terribly original, I am afraid. I would like you to all wear different colored scarves or ribbons on your arms, and I will call you after the colors of those.”

  The armband bobbed enthusiastically. “Very well, then, you are Verte,” she told it. The scarf was a very verdant green indeed. With luck, any other “green” servant would bear a different enough color that she could use Verdigris, Emerald, Lime and so forth.

  “So, Verte, would you please take me to the kitchen?”

  The scarf — Verte — bobbed slowly. She sensed reluctance. Oh, well, that didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t order menus without knowing what was on hand. The waste that had prevailed at breakfast was not the sort of thing she wanted to see continue, pleasant though it had been.

  She took the precaution of taking a candle with her. It was going to be dark soon. She resolutely turned her mind away from what moonrise would bring. She really didn’t much want to think about it.

  The trip followed the same path that Verte had followed to get to the cellar, which only made sense, but turned off before they got to the staircase. Whoever had built this place must have decided that the kitchen area could easily be a point of penetration, for they proceeded down yet another murder-corridor.

  She wondered if these servants ever thought about that — or if they knew what the corridors were. At some point she was going to have to find a better way to communicate with them. This was very one-sided, and she was beginning to doubt the Duke’s assertion that they were not very bright.

  Well, it seemed that the servants might be invisible, but they still needed light. Verte sped ahead to open the door at the end of the corridor, and a flood of light and the scent of baking bread spilled out of it. She walked into a kitchen that was just as commodious and well-ordered as the rest of the Manor had been.

  It was also uncannily quiet.

  It looked unnervingly as if the kitchen had been abandoned in midpreparations. That was just an illusion, of course; a spoon poised in midair over a bowl proved that the servants were still here. She cleared her throat.

  “First, I would like to tell you that I very much enjoyed breakfast,” she said into the silence. “You are all very, very good. However… Oh, dear. I hate to call this a problem but — still, it is. There was far more food prepared than either of us could eat. I am told that the only other person here is the Gamekeeper, and I rather doubt he could have devoured the remainder by himself, not unless he is actually a Fire Elemental in disguise.”

  The spoon slowly lowered into the bowl. Otherwise there was no other sign from the servants.

  “Verte, are you and your fellows eating what remains when a meal is done?” she asked the servant still at her side.

  The armband waved from side to side.

  “So you are disposing of it?” Bobbing. “To the poor of the city?” Waving. “Merely throwing it on the midden?” Bobbing. She tried not to show how appalled she was.

  She took on a firmer tone of voice. “That sort of waste must stop. Don’t worry. I am going to help you. I shall do what I have done at home — I shall write out menus for you, and you will follow them. Do not concern yourself with the Duke. He is a man, and in my experience, since I’ve fed my father’s workers when he’s given them a dinner as a thank-you, and when I have ordered dinners for my father’s guests, as long as the food is as good as I know you can make it, and there is enough of it, he really will not care what it is. Now…could the lot of you please put on some sort of armband, as Verte has? And stick a sprig of herb into it so I can tell you apart.”

  There was a general…flurry and scuttle, was the best way she could describe it; when everything settled out, it appeared that there were a dozen servants here. Rosemary, Basil, Thyme, Mint, Parsley, Sage, Bay, Mustard, Lavender, Fennel, Lovage and Rue.

  “Which of you is the chief cook?” she asked. Thyme stepped forward. Well, drifted. “I should like you to come to my room every morning for the menus,” she told it. It bobbed. “And now I should like to see your stores.”

  She emerged from the storerooms, the pantries and cupboards with her h
ead reeling. There was enough food here to supply an army under siege for a month. She supposed there was some sort of magic preserving it, otherwise she could not imagine how it all kept from rotting away.

  Why would they keep so much on hand? Was it that they were still holding stores for the horde of human servants such a Manor would require? Or was it only that they were so isolated?

  I suppose that they don’t often get supplies, she mused, a little dazed. So they have to keep things stocked up. Still!

  It appeared that virtually anything she wanted to order for menus, she could.

  “What are you making now?” she asked Thyme, who displayed the lovely little dinner loaves she had smelled being taken out of the oven, and a finished meat pie of some sort. “I shall have a hot loaf, butter, a piece of that pie so big, asparagus, a watercress sallat, and cheese and fruit for dessert,” she told it. “I shall have wine with the meal and a cordial with dessert. I assume that when the Duke…is himself again, he is ravenous?”