Taming the Beast

Farewell

Cateline

“Do you have to go, Father?”

“Darling Cateline, of course I do. I’ve been going on journeys your whole life. I always feel happy knowing that your older sisters are here to take care of you. If you ever need anything, you can send a carrier pigeon to one of the inns on my route.” He chucked my chin gently, just like he used to when I was only five. “Sweetheart, I miss you when I’m gone, but I have to work.”

“I understand.” I fiddled with the ribbon in my hair. “Come back soon.”

“I will. Do you want a present, like your siblings do?”

“What did they ask for?”

“Your stepbrother wanted a new horse. Your oldest sister wanted a new carriage. And Aalis wanted new Parisian dresses. And you?”

I looked down at the book in my hand. There was a red rose on the front. It was the sort of book that my mother, if she’d still been alive, wouldn’t have let me read. It was full of stories of love and romance. “A rose, Father.”

“Just a rose? That costs almost nothing. Surely you could use some new dresses. Your clothing is starting to look a little frayed.”

“No, Father. You know I don’t care much about my clothes.”

He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “Yes, I know.”

I took a step back as he mounted his horse. His traveling companion was already ready to drive the carriage that would follow him on his journey to the coast, two days away. I stood there as long as I could see him go down the lane. Eventually, he was gone. I sighed.

“Cateline! Where are you?” Aalis was calling me. If I didn’t escape right now, I’d be stuck sorting through her dresses, sewing her hems up, embroidering things, and attaching lace. I hated sewing and clothes.

I escaped the same way that I always did. I ran into the stables and climbed into the hayloft. The stable boys and I had an agreement. Most of them couldn’t read and had never attended a school, so I taught a short reading lesson every day after dinner. In return, they left me alone when I came to the stable and didn’t tell anybody where I hid.

I kept a trunk up there of books that Father had brought me. He didn’t bother to ask me if I wanted them. Anytime that he saw something that he thought might interest me, he would bring it home. My older half-sisters teased me mercilessly, but I liked books far more than dresses. They said that nobody would ever want to marry a bluestocking.

They teased me for a lot more than that. Their mother, my father’s first wife, was the daughter of an earl, too. Her first husband, an earl, had died when their son Roul was only two years old. She’d been left nearly penniless. Technically, Roul had inherited everything, and it was administered by a solicitor. He gave her enough to feed Roul and not much more. Castles and households cost a lot of money to maintain. So Lady Johanne had been quite desperate, since she had never lived anywhere besides the lap of luxury.

She had been desperate enough to marry a mere baronet, my father, to protect the

baby earl and make sure that she could afford to give him everything that he needed and a good amount of things that he didn’t. From the day that Lady Johanne had married my father, she made sure to look out for his interests. As part of their marriage contract, my father agreed to sign over an amount held in trust by Lady Johanne.

They’d been happy enough together, happy enough to have my two half-sisters. Lady Melisende was the oldest, the one who loved to travel around the Continent and have adventures. Lady Aalis was the fashionable one, the one who loved to go to parties every night and dance past dawn.

Me? I was the boring one. My father had married above himself when he married Lady Johanne and took Earl Roul under his wing, but he was free to marry for love after Lady Johanne had died in childbirth with Aalis. My mother was a merchant’s daughter, his childhood sweetheart. His mother hadn’t liked her and relentlessly pushed him to climb higher. But when both Lady Johanne and his mother were dead, he was free to follow his heart.

He lost a second wife in childbirth when I came into the world less than two years later. He easily could have resented me for stealing his wife, but he said that I was just as beautiful as she had been. He saw her in me. My face was deceptively angelic. In our village, I was known as Belle Cateline and sometimes Belle for short.

My father never remarried. His business boomed as he threw himself into growing his business interests, and so he was often gone. I was raised by a nanny and then a governess, and I could have been sent to finishing school as my older half-sisters had been, but instead I had preferred to stay at home. I liked the solitude of our home, even if my sisters hated it. They threw it in my face that they’d gone and seen the world while I was a homebody who just stayed home. They had titles, too, since their mother was noble. They made me call them Lady Aalis and Lady Melisende. At most, I got an “Honorable” before my name, but it didn’t mean very much. We might have shared a father, but they were descended from royalty and I wasn’t. I learned at an early age that I needed to disappear as often as possible or they would make me play games where I was their servant.

Thus, my refuge in the stables.

I went up to the hayloft where I kept a bag full of apples with my books. I could stay there as long as I wanted to.

Return

Cateline

“Don’t you think that it’s strange that Father hasn’t returned?” I walked into Lady Melisende in the breakfast room. She was wearing an evening gown.

“Father? What nonsense is this?” She ate a bite of eggs.

“He’s not back. It’s not like him not to respond. I’ve been sending a carrier pigeon every day, but he hasn’t responded to me for a week.”