The days passed with small but marked progress in drawing Adam out of his room. The two laughed over meals, and worked and read in a quiet, pleasant rhythm together.
Though Adam had warned her not to invade his personal space in the West wing, she reasoned that perhaps he needed his boundaries pushed a bit, especially when she saw several letters marked “urgent” that had been left on the kitchen table. After she cleaned up the lunch, she scooped the letters up, holding them to her blue scrubs shirt. As she started to climb the steps, Lucien met her at the top of the stairs, which branched off in two directions. “Good afternoon, Mademoiselle,” he said with a bow.
“Good afternoon, Lucien. I need to give these to Adam,” she explained before trotting up the forbidden stairwell to the left.
“Actually, I can take those, if you like.”
“I got it.” She didn’t look back, but knew Lucien was worried for her. She’d survived four days with Adam. She was his nurse, and hadn’t even been able to give him a physical. Her nursing degree had been largely discarded for this job thus far, and while she didn’t mind playing the role of his housekeeper, she felt irresponsible not checking his living conditions. If his room was anything like the rest of the untouched house, he would never stop coughing, and would be at a higher risk of influenza and any number of respiratory hang-ups. The snow was falling fast outside, which meant the drafty house was just a bit nippier.
When she moved down the cobwebbed, unlit hallway, she was struck by the sadness of it all. There were tapestried walls, but they were so caked with dust that the soft blue hue was barely visible through the brownish-gray layer of neglect. One door was cracked open, so she ventured a guess that this might be his bedroom. She lightly rapped on the door, and then pushed it open. “Adam? I’ve got your mail.”
The light switch didn’t work, so Belle made her way over to the windows and slid open one of the heavy crimson curtains that stretched from the floor all the way to the ceiling. She sneezed over and over as the cloud of dust flew out at her, making her wonder when the last time was that these curtains had been opened. She glanced around, seeing an undressed bed in the corner, but no sign of Adam. There were broken trinkets everywhere, making Belle grateful she’d worn her shoes. A shattered glass lay near a desk in the center of the room, and something that smelled like scotch and regret stung her nose when she drew near.
Atop the desk was a glass dome that encased a red rose. It was suspended by some kind of magic. Belle possessed the basic magic everyone in her world developed by the time they hit first grade. She could make a few things levitate, change the color of fabric, and use her Pulse to touch people and grant them a burst of her particular gift, which was discernment. But she couldn’t make a rose float for prolonged periods of time, and certainly not out of her sight. Everyone knew you had to be looking at the thing you were levitating, but glancing around, Adam was nowhere in sight.
Belle’s breath drew in sharply when she realized this must be the rose that would bloom for ten years – until he turned thirty. Then he would go the way of the Lupine. Everyone knew the story of Malaura’s curse on Adam, but no pictures had ever surfaced of the rose that served as the ticking timeclock on his destiny. Belle held her breath, lest one false move cause a petal to fall and shorten the time he had left to entertain her with his endless shortcomings when it came to eating soup and pretending at politeness.
Beside the rose was a series of sealed envelopes that were all addressed from him, ready to be mailed. They were only missing stamps. Belle quickly traded the addressed envelopes for the stack of letters she’d brought up from the lunch table, making a mental note to send them out for him and take one thing off his to-do list. They were all addressed to Rory Johnstone, the Chancellor’s daughter. It was widely known that the beautiful woman had been betrothed to Prince Henry, but had bucked the arrangement and married a man of her choosing – a Lethal, which set the wheels of controversy spinning. Belle assumed it must be official political business he was writing to her about, since she was the only daughter of the most notable politician in the land, aside from King Hubert himself.
On her way back out, her eyes caught on a four-foot-tall slanted frame. The gold had long since lost its luster, but the oil painting was in far worse disrepair. Belle gasped, her fingers touching her lips as she saw Adam as he had once been, before the curse. This man wasn’t scarred, angry and hairy. Though she’d seen pictures of him before his change in the paper, this was different. This was a full-color oil depiction of the man she’d just flung soup all over. The haughty expression hadn’t changed over the years, nor had his stately deportment that came from having an expensive education. It his was green eyes that captivated her, though. In person, Adam’s eyes were always angry about something, and didn’t encourage careful study of his features. But here she could stare as long as she wished, soaking in the chartreuse that seemed to cover over his many thoughts about the world with an acerbic sharpness.
Heat rose in her cheeks, unbidden, confusing Belle with the swirling, unnamed emotions that threatened her casual demeanor. The deep green enchanted her, bringing out things she didn’t understand in herself.
Without meaning to, her fingers reached out, as if something inside of her wanted to touch his face. Confused, she retracted her hand, wondering what had come over her that she was so drawn to a painting of a handsome face that had once been the object of many women’s affections. She stepped back and clutched the letters to Rory against her breast, running out of the room and darting down the hall, embarrassed that she’d stared for so very long.
Belle busied herself picking up where she’d left off, cleaning the ballroom with the staff after she sent out his mail.