Beauty Conquers the Beast Read online

  Beauty Conquers the Beast

  Jenny Schwartz

  Lady Nora and Prince Alexander were never friends, and she can’t think of anyone more deserving of the curse that made him the Beast of the Sighaway Forest. But when six princesses from neighboring kingdoms fail to break the curse, it’s more than just the big and brutish Alexander who is suffering.

  For her country, and out of an overdeveloped sense of duty, Nora will enter the beast’s castle. She’ll fight mysterious magic and confront the secrets of her heart, but the elusive beast remains untamable.

  The shocking solution to breaking the curse will change Nora’s life forever.

  “Beauty Conquers the Beast” is a short romantic fantasy.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Want More?

  Chapter 1

  My godmother, the Enchantress Morningstar, is the person who cursed Prince Alexander to become the Beast of Sighaway Forest. I love my godmother, but she is tricky. After six princesses from surrounding kingdoms attempted, and failed, to break the curse, she smiled at me. “Your turn, darling.”

  I folded my arms. All around me in the distillery was the heady perfume of summer roses. As the warm weather faded into the chill of fall, I was concentrating on distilling the oil from the last of the blooms.

  Morningstar stood in the doorway, her dress the exact shade of green of new fern fronds. It matched her witchy eyes. No one knew how old Morningstar was. My grandfather and his father had danced with her at palace balls when they were young, but she looked no more than twenty one. My age.

  “I do not want to marry the prince,” I said.

  “But this isn’t about you, is it, darling?”

  I glared at her. “You needn’t sound so smug.”

  Her laughter rang out, light and joyous, like the song of a lark.

  I knew Prince Alexander too well to be enthused at having to break the curse that bound him to beast form. He was four years older than me, and had always loomed big and brutal on the outskirts of my life, even when he’d been human. I said as much to Morningstar.

  She gave me an amused sideways glance as she sniffed a bottle of my lemon thyme oil. “Some women like their men that way.”

  “Brutal?” I scoffed.

  “Strong but capable of tenderness.”

  The idea sent a disconcerting tremble through me. “Prince Alex isn’t tender.”

  She replaced the bottle of lemon thyme oil on the shelf and drifted toward the door.

  I noticed that she didn’t answer me. When she’d gone, I stared unseeingly at the last sack of rose petals in the corner of the distillery.

  As willing as I was to leave Prince Alexander trapped in beast form, the curse affected far more than him. While he was a beast, his parents grieved the loss of their only child. So far, the kingdom remained strong, but all the gains of King Hugo’s famous diplomacy would be lost if the heir to the throne remained magically locked away in the Sighaway Forest as a beast. And then there were the servants at his castle. Inexplicably, they had chosen to be included in the prince’s curse, staying to serve him although Morningstar’s curse bound them to the forest and turned them invisible. They needed to be freed.

  It dumbfounded me that Prince Alex could have people so loyal to him. The other people of Sighaway Forest, the hunters and woodchoppers and charcoal burners, were far less happy. They told tales of terrible happenings as the curse changed the forest. There were rumors of gory carcasses discarded half-eaten. More than our princely beast prowled those woods.

  Six princesses had failed to break the curse.

  Each had returned sobbing to their respective kingdom, wailing of briar hedges twenty feet tall, of howling winds that chattered in the night, and of the beast himself.

  Prince Alexander was reportedly a furred monster with horns on his head, claws on his hands and feet, and teeth so savage they cracked bones.

  No wonder the princesses had fled in panic. Even marriage to a future king—the inescapable “reward” for breaking the curse—wasn’t worth the terror and hardship of tangling with such magic.

  But I wasn’t a princess, the daughter of a king. I was the only daughter of the Duke of Winsome. As Father said, kings ruled, but dukes got things done. In the same way, princesses posed, but ladies broke curses. With so many people suffering the ramifications of Prince Alexander’s curse, I, Lady Nora, didn’t have the luxury of languishing around.

  Someone had to venture into the enchanted Sighaway Forest, breach the castle walls, pass through the invisible servants, present herself as Prince Alexander’s prospective bride, and then, break the curse.

  It would have been useful if Morningstar had given me a hint as to how the curse could be broken. A kiss was the traditional method, and…I sighed heavily…I would try that first.

  Maybe Prince Alexander had some ideas?

  Could he even talk?

  I looked down at my blue gown, faded to gray from much washing. It was comfortable and ideal for my work in the distillery, but if I was to present myself as a prospective bride to the heir to the kingdom, I’d need my finest clothes. And breeches. I’d need to smuggle some practical clothing into my saddlebags when the maids packed. Who knew what the enchanted forest and castle held for dangers? I had to be prepared.

  Chapter 2

  My father, mother, two brothers and a guard unit saw me off at the edge of the Sighaway Forest. It was a gray day, the low clouds promising rain soon. The fields around the forest were bare after the harvest. Crows pecked up the last of the barley and wheat.

  “Be careful,” my mother said. “And if something goes wrong, come home.”

  Home, Castle Winsome, was a two day ride away.

  “What could possibly go wrong?” I asked ironically, gesturing at the gloomy forest.

  “Do you have your dagger?” Stephen asked. At seventeen, he was my oldest brother. He’d shot up in the last six months and was taller than me, now.

  William, my fourteen year old brother, hugged me, choking me a bit as I tried to answer that yes, I had my dagger. It was in my ankle sheath.

  Farewells complete, and a few tears surreptitiously wiped away, Father helped me onto my horse. I wasn’t an accomplished horsewoman, so my mare Daisy, was a placid chestnut. Even the Sighaway Forest wouldn’t spook her. Father regarded me solemnly. “We love you, Nora, and we’re proud of you for attempting to save Prince Alexander. You’re a determined young woman and I’ve never yet seen you fail at anything you decide to do.”

  I sniffed, overwhelmed at Father’s praise.

  He wasn’t finished. “We, your mother and I, know that you dreamed of a love match like ours, and that an arranged marriage with Prince Alexander ends those dreams. That makes your quest to break the curse all the more admirable. Go with our blessing.”

  “And return safely,” Mother added.

  I nodded. If I attempted to speak, I’d cry. Instead, I shook the reins, urging Daisy into the forest. It closed around us, cool with shadows, and smelling of fallen leaves, toadstools and pine. Daisy settled into an ambling pace. When the path forked, I always chose the least trodden way. The trees were too dense overhead to tell the passage of the sun, but when I grew hungry, I took bread and cheese from a saddlebag and ate without dismounting. I’d left my family mid-morning. When it started to rain, I pulled up the hood of my cloak and thought longingly of roaring fires and roasted chestnuts. A fuggy smell of wet horse soon enveloped me.

  The Sighaway Forest was enchanted as part of the c
urse, which meant that the speed of my travel didn’t matter. The forest’s paths would have their own way of bringing me where I needed to be. I recalled my godmother’s smile when she’d told me it was my turn to try and free the prince from his beast form. I had to trust that for all her mischief, she wouldn’t let me spend the night in a wet, cold forest.

  The thought seemed to summon the castle. Daisy and I turned a bend in the path and confronted a wall of briars. From my seat in the saddle I could just see the top of a tower of the prince’s castle over the thorny hedge.

  “How do we enter?” I asked Daisy. “Do you think you could turn into a goat and chew our way through?”

  She snorted.

  A drop of rain hit me in the eye. Dilly-dallying here would only make us both colder and wetter. And tireder. The sky above the tower showed orange-tinted clouds. It was evening. I’d been travelling all day. Daisy needed a dry stable and I needed a hot bath. We both needed food.

  I slid out of the saddle. The thing to remember was that I wasn’t dealing with an ordinary problem. I was here to break a curse in an enchanted forest. Other rules applied.

  I made sure I had a tight grip on Daisy’s reins, closed my eyes, and stepped forward. The path had led to the briar hedge and stopped. I needed to believe that it kept going.

  A few thorns scratched me. Daisy snorted, but followed me. My cloak tangled around my ankles as my boots slid on mud. The tangled resistance of the briars melted away. The smells and sounds that surrounded us were of a hedgerow, filled with the decay of dead leaves and the scurrying of small creatures. Then those vanished, too.

  I opened one eye.

  We were through the hedge.

  “Thank goodness.” I leaned against Daisy’s solid shoulder, while she snatched at grass growing at the edge of a well-kept garden.

  The prince’s castle was unknown to me, and although cold and tired, I took a moment to study it.

  The grounds were easily the equal of Castle Winsome. There were fountains and topiary, feature trees and stone follies, all laid out with geometric precision. At the heart, was the castle itself; a grand edifice in honey-gold sandstone that sprawled haphazardly around a central keep. It was obviously old and had been added to according to the whim of many generations.

  If I succeeded in breaking Prince Alexander’s curse, I would have to marry him, and this would be my home.

  The garden needed more flowers. There was too much unbroken greenery for my liking. I’d plant roses and lavender. Was there a sunny wall somewhere, against which citrus trees might grow?

  An earth-shattering roar erupted behind us.

  The unspookable Daisy reared up, causing me to release her reins and stumble forward. As I caught my balance, she galloped for the castle; leaving me alone to face the beast.

  Chapter 3

  The beast paced toward me. Someone had cleverly tailored clothing to fit his savage form. He strode as a man would, on two legs, and they were covered by brown breeches, a shade darker than the fur that covered his face, chest, hands and feet. The laces of his green shirt were untied, leaving it gaping open. He was seven feet tall and powerfully muscled. His face had a feline brutality to it.

  However, the worst feature of him was as he neared me and I saw his eyes. They were human, and I read in them his recognition of me, and his despair and shame.

  “Lady Nora.” Despite the sharp teeth in his mouth, his speech was clear.

  “Prince Alexander.” Sheer nervousness had me dropping into a curtsey.

  He snarled his displeasure.

  The threat of that sound set my knees wobbling.

  Immediately, his hand was at my elbow, steadying me. Faces close, we stared at each other.

  “Don’t curtsey to the cursed beast,” he said.

  I twitched my elbow from his hold. “I don’t know why I did. You’re only Alex.”

  I meant to remind him that I knew and discounted him from childhood, but he gave the comment a different twist.

  His lips peeled back from his teeth in an odd smile. “Almost no one calls me Alex. You wouldn’t even call me Prince Alex. I remember you at four. You had your arms folded and lower lip pouting. Your mother told you to call me Prince Alexander. And you said…”

  Unwillingly, I too started to smile as I recalled our first meeting. It was one of my earliest memories. “I said, ‘Why? He’s only a boy!’”

  “So much scorn for someone unlucky enough to be born a boy.” His growly voice had a teasing note.

  “Later that day you pushed me into a fishpond. You ruined my beautiful pink dress.”

  “I was trying to show you the biggest carp. It was your own fault you overbalanced chasing a frog. You bumped into me!”

  I stared at him. “I’d forgotten the frog.” I only remembered my sudden fright at bouncing off Alex’s bigger body and falling into the pond. The carp had swum away in wriggly fright. I’d screamed.

  “I did help to haul you out of the pond,” Alex defended himself.

  I giggled. “Then we walked into the palace, all the way into the throne room, looking for my parents. We trailed that awful swampy water everywhere.”

  “You were mad at me, but you held my hand.”

  Involuntarily, we looked down at our hands. Mine were scratched from the ride through the forest and from the briars. His were furred, with claws instead of fingernails.

  Alex stepped back. “Why are you here, Lady Nora?”

  “To break the curse,” I said simply.

  He shook his head, turning away. “It can’t be done.” He ran off, with grace and speed, leaping neatly trimmed hedges as if they were no higher than croquet hoops.

  I sighed. My cloak was heavy with rain and my boots thick with mud. The castle seemed an impossibly long walk away. I trudged toward it.

  The castle’s massive front door swung open at my approach. Evening had darkened into twilight while I crossed the garden. When I stepped inside, torches flared on the walls, illuminating a great hall. The hearth was large enough to burn whole trees and Alex’s royal coat of arms was carved on the stone above it. Unfortunately, it was empty and cold. I shivered.

  “Thank you,” I murmured to whichever invisible servant had opened the door, and now, closed it behind me. “Has my horse reached the stables? Is someone seeing to her?”

  A candlestick lifted from a side table, flame igniting, and moved up and down.

  I took that as a yes. Evidently, the servants were cursed to silence as well as invisibility. I was relieved that Daisy had reached the stables; for her sake, and for my own, since it meant servants would have brought my saddlebags in and unpacked them. “I would like a hot bath and dry clothes. Could someone show me to my chamber, please?”

  The candlestick bobbed up and down again, then led the way to the main staircase.

  My assigned chamber proved to be a large room with a vast canopied bed, a window seat beneath diamond-paned windows, and a cheerful fire blazing in the marble fireplace. A bath was set in front of it, and ewers of steaming hot water poured into it, supported by invisible hands. My saddlebags had been retrieved and unpacked. One of my gowns—the warm, red velvet one—lay on the bed.

  “Thank you,” I said fervently. And because they were invisible servants and strangers, I added. “I’d like privacy, now.”

  The four ewers floated out after the guiding candlestick, and the door closed.

  I sighed and unclasped my cloak. I draped it over the back of a wooden chair, then sat on the chair to deal with my boots. Within minutes I was in the tub and finally warm. I sighed and wriggled my toes.

  I mightn’t like Alex, but his beast form wasn’t as horrific as I’d imagined it might be, and he could talk. Despite his pessimism, I thought we had a good chance of breaking his curse. My godmother, Morningstar, had implied as much. I just had to hold onto my courage.

  Hunger drove me out of the bath before the water fully cooled. I dressed in silk underclothes, grateful for the fire’s warmth,
before pulling on the heavier velvet gown. It took a little fussing, but fortunately it laced in the front and I was able to complete my toilette alone. I brushed out my golden hair and braided it loosely. Anything more complicated and I would have had to call for assistance.

  I eyed the bell pull near the bed. At least some of the invisible servants were undoubtedly lingering nearby. They would want Alex’s curse broken as much as he did.

  My suspicions proved accurate when I opened the door to find the candlestick waiting opposite it above a chair in the hallway. It rose in a manner that suggested the person holding it had been seated. I approved of the hint that in Alex’s castle the servants weren’t made to stand at attention, but had sensible concessions made for their comfort.

  “Dinner?” I asked hopefully.

  The candlestick bobbed assent, and I followed it back along a maze of corridors and down a different set of stairs. I entered a room too cozy to be a formal dining room, but smelling wonderfully of roast duck with all the trimmings. Not that I noticed the food.

  Alex sat at the table. Like me, he’d changed into evening clothes. A midnight-blue jacket covered a white shirt, laces tied this time. His long, brown hair had been combed and pulled back in a ponytail. The effect was to emphasize the feline slant of his light brown eyes and his flattened muzzle-like nose. His mouth was a thin, unhappy line. However, he stood at my entrance, and held my chair.

  I let him seat me opposite him.

  As soon as he resumed his seat, covers whisked off the silver dishes and invisible hands began filling his plate and mine. A wine bottle lifted, but I covered my glass with my hand. “I’m too tired. Add alcohol and I’ll fall asleep at the table.” I smiled. “And I’d rather eat. Everything smells heavenly.”

  “Bring Lady Nora a pot of tea,” Alex ordered. He had a goblet near him, but seemed uninterested in it. At least he wasn’t responding to the curse by trying to drink himself into oblivion.