But I grasp the ring on its ribbon and tuck it firmly back into my bodice. “I am not leaving you, Beast. I am never leaving you again! We will do this together.”
Something indescribably sweet warms in his dark eyes as he gazes at me for another instant; then he reaches out his paw and takes my hand. We dash out to the second-floor landing of the grand staircase. Voices are shouting and yodeling below, but we dare not try the back stairs, where we might find ourselves trapped in a closed turret. Beast lowers himself to all fours.
“Beastliness has its uses,” he growls, nodding to me.
I climb astride his back, squirm in between the feathers, dig in my knees, and press myself flat against him, knotting my fingers in his mane.
We move down to the bend in the stairway, keeping to the cover of the portrait wall, past the glazed eyes of Beaumont ancestors, staring out in haughty impassivity. But as we creep by, one by one, the paint in each portrait begins to melt. The colors all run together, and their faces dissolve into masks of gaudy paint. All but Lady Christine, Beast’s mother; in her portrait, she smiles radiantly. I can feel her warmth as if she were standing here beside us on the stairs, sorrowing no more, peaceful at last. I know we have pleased her. Beast feels it, too. We pause for a heartbeat to look at her portrait and say farewell.
But as we descend to the landing, Beast pauses again. He is looking at the last portrait in the row, the portrait of the present chevalier, but the old Jean-Loup, cruel and beautiful, is nowhere to be seen. In his place, elegantly outfitted in his suit of burgundy and gold, stands the true chevalier: my Beast, mane, horns, hooves, all captured in oil, his expression fearless. Warmth and humor shine out of his gold-flecked eyes, so like his mother’s. He is ready to claim his place in the family at last, now that he is leaving it forever.
I feel tension in Beast’s sinewy muscles beneath me, and he springs from the landing and gallops down the last of the stairs, bounding over four or five at a time. Guardsmen with swords race toward us across the black-and-white tiled floor, and servants and stableboys shake clubs and fists, faces contorted with yelling, eyes huge. But they balk and stumble backward to see this terrible beast in all its monstrosity hurtling toward them. And their weapons, if they have the wit to use them, miss their marks; swords sweep harmlessly; clubs drop in confusion.
I hide my face in Beast’s thick mane as he leaps off the stairs and gallops for the open double doors. It feels like flying, sailing out over the porch and down the wide front steps. I hear his hooves crunching gravel behind us as we race across the flat upper courtyard, amid the shrieks and shouting of wedding guests. I see Rose’s sisters on their feet at their table, throwing themselves together in terror, clutching each other like children. They have heard their father’s stories and Rose’s, but perhaps they have not truly believed them. Until now.
“Our sister’s monster!” Blanche gasps, calculating, perhaps, how the sudden appearance of this apparition might have changed their sister’s fortunes — and their own.
“He will eat us!” cries Violette, whose concerns are much more practical.
“Perhaps he has eaten our sister,” Blanche chimes in hopefully.
“Help! Save us! The monster has eaten our sister!” they shriek together, adding their voices to the din that rages behind us.
I would laugh if I had time; Blanche and Violette are far more likely to make a meal of their sister than Beast ever was.
We make for the driveway into the protection of the arch of roses. I can smell their heavy fragrance as we pass beneath them, and I wonder if Beast suffers much to be leaving them behind. As we speed down the drive, I dare a glance backward and see a marvelous sight. All the glorious red blooms on every stem in every terraced hedge and the arch overhead all turn toward us as we gallop by. And every one we pass releases its scarlet petals into the air, like a flurry of snow, like a shower of rice thrown over a bridal couple, so the air is thick with fluttering red rose petals. It’s a farewell to Beast from his beloved roses, a cloud of red petals to camouflage our escape. And the wonder of it momentarily freezes our pursuers. The mob of servants and guardsmen and a few brave guests clatters to an uneasy halt on the steps behind us, struggling against their own amazement before they dare to spill down the rest of the way after us, rattling their weapons.
But ahead, the gilded iron gates have clanged shut; we are trapped like one of Jean-Loup’s deer. And the gatekeeper leans out the upper window of the gatehouse, a long-handled crossbow at the ready in his shaking hands, pointing at us.
“Halt!” he shouts.
Beast stops, animal muscles stretched out at the gallop freezing on the instant, with scarcely a stumble. He rises up slowly on his hind feet, shaking me gently to the ground behind him; he spreads his arms and raises his paws, feathers rising slightly along his back. He is Beast Rampant, in all his terrible glory.
“If you mean to kill me, Man, you are welcome to try,” Beast rumbles at the gatekeeper, who is too stupefied to respond. “But harm this lady in any way, and you will answer to me — phantom or flesh, dead or alive!”
The weapon wavers in the gatekeeper’s grasp; his hands can scarcely steady it, and his nervous finger barely stretches to the trigger. He can’t think what to make of this nightmare that speaks with a human voice. Beast remains on his hind feet, and I realize it is to shield me, his feathers fanning out nearly to the ground.
“If you let her go through,” he growls to the gatekeeper, nodding at the gate, “I will consent to be your prisoner.”
“You will not!” I cry, and I dart in front of him.
“But let us pass, and you will sleep well all the rest of your days,” Beast goes on, catching me gently by the waist from behind, “knowing you have done a great kindness for your fellow beings.”
The gatekeeper stares at us, astonished to hear a cornered animal plead so eloquently for its life. He can’t know this frightful beast is the chevalier who employs him. But the gatekeeper appears to have no desire to kill a creature for sport, especially one who can reason and speak so persuasively, and the tip of the bolt in his bow dips slightly. That the creature speaks at all must be evidence of a miracle, or perhaps witchcraft, and it’s plain the gatekeeper doesn’t know which possibility to fear more.
The mob is cascading down the gravel driveway behind us, but even as the gatekeeper lowers his weapon in confusion, I realize there will never be time for him to throw open the gates again. But in the next moment, I feel myself swept up in Beast’s great, padded paws. Gripped in his strong arms, nestled against the warm fur of his chest, I feel we are rising in the air, higher than Beast could possibly leap. The ground is falling away, and, angling my head to look at his face, I see his two enormous feathered wings rising up behind him. The deep whoomp-whoomp of their stately beating echoes in the air as we are carried higher still, until we are sailing over the gilded gates. He glances down at me, joy and awe sparkling in his dark eyes; then he leans again into the task, cradling me snugly against himself. I can feel the taut power in his animal body as we gain the sky under his angel wings.
He is beautiful!