Beauty's Cursed Beast

  Beauty’s Cursed Beast

  A Cursed Beauty Novel: Book Two

  Mary E. Twomey

  Contents

  1. Unexpected Guest

  2. Unwelcome Visitors

  3. A Word from the Sheriff

  4. Striking a Deal

  5. A Unique Wardrobe

  6. The Master Doesn’t Like Change

  7. Someone Worth Getting up in the Morning For

  8. Waltzing Partner

  9. Dining with Adam

  10. The West Wing

  11. Adam the Philanthropist

  12. No Longer Welcome

  13. Fleeing in a Snowstorm

  14. Hunted

  15. Woman in Red

  16. Bedside Manner

  17. Bathrobes and Bedtime

  18. Don’t be Cold

  19. The Nature of Gabe Aston

  20. A Second Dance

  21. A Present for Belle

  22. Dining Alone

  23. Howling in the Night

  24. Unexpected Arrangements

  25. Keys to the Castle

  26. First Impressions

  27. The Serious Nature of Girltalk

  28. Agent McNally

  29. Politics Over Cocktails

  30. A Ball for Six

  31. Seeing the World

  32. A Race to Belle’s Father

  33. Help from Remus Johnstone

  34. The Final Battle

  35. Adam’s Transition

  36. Magic at Work

  37. A Miracle

  38. Anywhere and Everywhere

  Beauty’s Cursed Sleep

  1. Rory Johnstone’s Shortened Life

  Books by Mary E. Twomey

  Copyright © 2018 Tuesday Twomey

  Cover Art by Shayne Leighton

  of Parliament House Book Designs

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  All rights reserved.

  First Edition: June 2018

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  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

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  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For information:

  http://www.maryetwomey.com

  For my dad,

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  who took me to Beauty and the Beast 3D when it came out in theaters, Disney on Ice’s Beauty and the Beast, the off-Broadway musical show of Beauty and the Beast, and bought me a Beauty and the Beast snow globe just to make me smile.

  * * *

  It did, and you do.

  1

  Unexpected Guest

  “You shouldn’t have a Pulse!” Audra exclaimed as she set the tea tray down on the stand. There were so many people milling about; she wanted to guard the delicate china cups, lest yet another of them chip. They were down to two-hundred-forty-four, which was barely enough for the crowd Adam had packed into the castle. Though, to be fair, they preferred shot glasses to tea cups.

  Adam laughed at his housekeeper, his eyes dancing with mirth. “You’re only saying that because you got stuck with putting people at ease as your Pulse. Mine’s actually useful.”

  Audra leaned over and flicked his nose, just as she’d done when he was a little boy stuck in fits of petulance. “Yes. If only you were useful, as well.” She was only half-joking, but she squinted her eyes at him all the same. “If you hadn’t been gifted with the ability to persuade people as your Pulse, you wouldn’t have a dime to your name.”

  “Oh, Audra. Persuasion is such an ugly summary of what I do. I merely strip away a layer of inhibition so they can see themselves and their options clearly. People love to be coaxed into doing things they’d otherwise be too scared to enjoy. Look at her up there. Isn’t she a beauty?” He motioned to the mid-twenties woman who was dancing on the stage, stripping off one piece of clothing slowly for the viewers. “Now, if I used my Pulse on you, there’s no way you’d end up on the stage doing a striptease for my friends, because you know who you are and what you want, which isn’t that.”

  Audra shuddered. “Oh, my boy. These people aren’t your friends.”

  Adam took a canape from her tray. “This girl wanted, in some buried part of her, to be up there doing exactly that. I just gave her a nudge.”

  “I believe that’s the same logic used by drug-dealing scum.”

  “Oh, you.” Adam batted his hand at the maid who could easily pass for his mother, and had served that function on many occasions when his own mother was away on her many social engagements. Now that his parents were deceased, Audra was one of the few chances he had at a conscience.

  Just then, two guests came up to Audra to kiss her goodbye. Rory and Henry had been regular fixtures in the castle since they’d been children, but ever since Adam had taken the reins of the family fortune, they’d started leaving his parties earlier and earlier. “Goodnight, Audra,” Henry said, kissing her wrinkled cheek that still possessed a bit of plump to it.

  Adam frowned at his two best friends. “You’re leaving already? Come on. It’s my birthday! You can stay in your bedroom here.”

  Rory sank into Adam, her head resting on his chest. She looked dainty and frail in his thick arms, but he was always gentle with her. She was only fourteen, and by far the youngest in the castle. “I thought about that, but there are people up there making babies in my sheets. I think I’ll just go home with Henry.”

  “You could always join them, you know.” When his joke didn’t garner a giggle from his best friends, but only stiff looks of disapproval, Adam released her with a frown of displeasure. “You never stay for the whole party anymore.”

  Rory glanced up at the stage, frowning at the impromptu strip show. “Can you blame me? This isn’t exactly a proud moment for women.”

  Henry’s arm coiled around her, as if to shield his friend from the debauchery. Though Henry was eighteen, he was much too old for parties like that, and took it upon himself to stay by Rory’s side the entire night.

  Adam frowned at Henry. “And you? What’s your excuse for passing up on good whisky on my twentieth birthday?”

  Henry shrugged, his blond hair still perfectly intact after the evening of dancing and mingling. “You know I can’t be seen at events that devolve into this. My father wouldn’t approve.”

  Adam scoffed with too much attitude to be overlooked. He’d started to do that more and more after the death of his parents. “Tell King Hubert that his son needs the royal scepter removed from his ass.”

  Henry tilted his head to the side, as if to silently ask if that’s what Adam truly wanted to say. He paused, and Adam’s bravado shrank marginally. Henry sighed heavily, and then brought Adam in for a hug. “I love you, even when you’re an arrogant prick who forgets everything about the people he loves.”

  When the men released each other, Henry donned a wide grin for Audra. He always treated her as if the maternal affection she beamed was meant only for him. She pinched his cheeks to fill in the holes growing up without a mother had left on the boy. “Do stop by the kitchen on your way out. I made those cookies you like. Chef Bouche put them on top of the microwave.”

  Though Henry commanded many a room with his tall, built and handsome stature, he turned into a boy for her, bouncing on his toes with excitement at the doting. “Really? Did you put the peanut butter chips inside?”

  Audra scoffed. “I’d like to know who you think you’re talking to. I would never cheat my boy out of anything.” She pulled him in for a hug and kissed hi
s cheek. Instead of releasing him, she stole a moment to whisper in his ear, “Don’t give up on Adam. He needs you.”

  Henry softened, savoring the hug that turned him from man into mischievous boy. “Never.” Then he turned to Adam with a forced smile. “Happy birthday. I must say, that’s the most unique wall-hanging I’ve ever seen.” Henry’s eyes darted to the large printout hanging directly across from the front door, so it was the first thing one saw when they entered.

  The banished and feared former queen of Avondale, Malaura, had taken to sending Adam letters in secret, hoping to entice him to join her league of outcasts. The offers turned to love letters, one of which Adam had blown up and hung in the foyer for all to see. It was a shock for each guest when they entered, giving them guilty giggles at the scandal that Avondale’s Most Eligible Bachelor was handsome enough to turn even the wicked ex-queen into a blushing schoolgirl.

  Adam’s grin widened as he glanced up at the poster with bravado. “Why, thank you. You should’ve seen the one I wrote her in return. Some of my raciest poetry to date.”

  Henry rubbed the nape of his neck. “Are you sure it’s wise to string along someone as powerful and vindictive as my Aunt Malaura?”

  Adam rolled his eyes and pulled Rory into his arms, kissing her atop her straight, raven hair. Rory said nothing of the blatant poke at Malaura, and snuggled into Adam’s side, closing her eyes as if she sorely missed her friend, even though she was currently holding onto him. “Happy birthday, Adam.”

  Audra’s nose crinkled in distaste when the only two guests she enjoyed exited the party. “Your mother would be ashamed of you, Adam. Your father had that stage built for your violin performances, and this is what you use it for now?”

  Adam’s smile froze on his face at mention of his deceased parents, but it didn’t fade. His expression twisted with a haughtiness he wore when challenged with integrity. “The violin doesn’t amuse me. But this?” He leaned against the gold wallpaper that gilded the ballroom in a veneer of wealth and beauty. “This amuses me. Besides, I’m not strong enough to force anyone to do anything. All I did was strip her of her fear.” He waggled his eyebrows at Audra. “She did the rest of the stripping all on her own.”

  Audra bit back her scoff of disgust, and set to pouring tea for the guests who wouldn’t have noticed if she’d opted for the good tea. She’d selected the sub-par garbage from a bag instead, and no one said a thing. Most of them were drunk, as they were at all of Adam’s monthly soirees. “Enjoy the cesspool you’ve created for yourself.”

  “I always do.” Adam took the teacup and sipped the hot beverage with a sneer of distaste that she’d used the cheap stuff. “This is rubbish, and you know it.” Still, he downed the cup, much to Audra’s amusement.

  “I’m glad you hated it. I laced your cup with a laxative.”

  Adam’s thick chestnut eyebrows rose in alarm. He was highly desired due partially to his stunning chiseled looks, and partially because he’d inherited the largest fortune in history, along with taking over his father’s profitable mortgage company. Though, he could’ve won the title on looks alone.

  He eyed his tea cup skeptically. “You did what?”

  “I’m tired of cleaning up bras from your floor. At least this way, there’ll be no women coming after you for child support if you get careless. You’ll spend your night in the bathroom, not the bedroom.”

  Adam glowered at her and placed his teacup on the tray. “You don’t have to worry about things like that.”

  Audra patted his cheek, softening at his smile. “I always worry about you, you stupid, stupid boy.”

  Adam grudgingly kissed her cheek, and left her to join the others, who were hollering at the woman on the stage. She was down to her underwear and bra, which usually meant that it was nearing on midnight.

  Audra yawned, but kept on her job, cleaning up the empty bottles and plates as she went. She caught Lucien’s eye across the way, and the two exchanged a sad smile. Lucien’s Pulse was that he could increase your happiness with a simple touch. He could have been put to great use in a nursing home or a preschool, but he was posted in the castle, shaking the hands of everyone as they walked inside. No matter what misgivings they’d had on their way in, the partiers left their caution at the door, smiling at the Pulse of happiness they were given upon entry.

  Lucien sauntered over to her with a slight wickedness to his smirk that gave Audra a hint of a giggle. Though he was twenty years her junior, he always made it a point to dote on her. Even without Pulsing happiness into her, Lucien had a way about him that made everyone glad. His hips moved in a tango as he caught her up in a dance that made her feel young and enchanting, rather than the constant mother who, it seemed, would never be finished raising the man-child they’d all been entrusted to watch over.

  “You look like you could use a little dance,” Lucien pressed his torso to hers to coax a tango out of her. He was exactly her height of five-foot-ten, but had a longer nose than her modest one, and the ability to make a joke out of anything.

  Audra kept up easily with the steps he slowed for her. “Oh, Lucien. I only dance for you.”

  Lucien had the kind of deportment that made everyone want to be his friend. While Adam had been blessed with stunning handsomeness (a gift from his far humbler father), Lucien had a smile that touched his eyes, and transcended mere superficial pleasantries. He looked into Audra’s gaze and saw the sadness in the makeshift matriarch. “You’re disappointed in our young man?”

  “I don’t want to be. I just can’t shake how hurt his parents would be if they saw all this waste. Adam didn’t used to be like this. He’s barely turned twenty, and he’s been given the wealth of a small country, and too much freedom without the life experience he needs to be able to handle it all.”

  “He’s not going to run the company into the ground. He’s like his father – brilliant eye for business. He just needs to get his head about him.” Lucien looked as if he was about to say more, but the doorbell rang, which was his cue. He stopped the tango with an apologetic tilt to his head, resuming the duty that was truly beneath his talents.

  “Mind your post,” Bosworth chided Lucien, coming down from the stairs in his military jacket, which had fit him far better a decade ago. That was before Adam’s father had offered him a salary he couldn’t refuse. Bosworth checked his pocket watch and frowned. “The storm is getting more troublesome out there, and the guests are tracking mud into the foyer. See that Vivienne mops it up.” Bosworth’s pooched belly was sucked in, but it hardly made a difference to the strained buttons on the brown and red jacket. As head of the household staff, he made it his job to see to everyone else performing to Adam’s satisfaction, no matter how depraved the parties became.

  Lucien wasn’t put off by Bosworth’s haughty scolding, but blew the man a kiss, as he often did to throw Bosworth off his game. “Whatever you say, you old tease.”

  When Lucien opened the door, it wasn’t one of the many twenty-and-thirty-somethings all dolled up for a night of debauchery at Adam’s infamous parties. His eyebrows rose at the wrinkled old woman with a long nose and gnarled fingers. She wore a black cloak with the hood pulled over her head, shrouding her eyes in shadow. “The rain’s really coming down out there. My car got stuck in the mud half a mile away, and you’re the first house I’ve seen. Can I trouble you to make a phone call?”

  “Of course, young lady. Come on in.” Lucien doted on older women by referring to them as “young” ladies, which always garnered him a smile. He reveled not in using his Pulse, but in drawing out happiness in others without the use of magic. “Oh, it’s really coming down out there. Here, let’s get you into a chair and put a hot cup of tea in your hands.”

  The woman smiled at him, and took his arm as she trembled from the chill.

  Adam stumbled out with two women, both drunk and cackling at something “hilarious” Adam had said. When the man of the house saw the old woman, he stopped short. “Go on up without me, girls.
I’ve a matter to see to.” He narrowed his eyes at Lucien, who pretended not to see the disapproval. “What is this?”

  Lucien straightened, his deportment fitting in nicely with the polish of the marble floors and the dust-free golden sconces that bespoke of good breeding. “This is a woman, and her car broke down. She’s coming in to warm up while I ring for someone to assist.”

  “We have a dress code,” Adam reminded his attendant, his chest puffing out to show off the expensive three-piece suit he wore. Though Adam was tall, muscular and built for chopping down trees, he’d been bred for real estate and taking over small companies. The tailor-made jacket was unbuttoned, but the blue vest beneath still made him look dapper and powerful. “She can wait in the stables. I don’t need the guests seeing a sopping old crone standing in my foyer.”

  Lucien balked at his boss, whom he’d taught to ride horses and instructed on many a dance lesson. Now that Adam was an adult, Lucien wasn’t “Uncle Lou”, but rather the servant who was expected to obey at the cost of kindness. “Adam, surely you don’t mean that. She’s not bothering anyone.”

  Adam didn’t act as if he cared when his guests disapproved, but his frown was more prominent when Rory, Henry, Audra, and now Lucien tried to control his behavior. “This is my home, and you’re my servant, are you not?”