Beauty and the Beast (Faerie Tale Collection) Read Online Free PDF Page A

stone you were sitting on, and I will be sure to stay and wait for you.”
    ***
    Cecelia never expected to see the wolf again. Her own world was centered on pleasing her mother and attempting to make the most of her crushed existence after Lord Willington. The last thing she needed was to create clandestine meetings with a beast in which she poured her remorseful little heart out and wept even more.
    Instead, she focused her time arranging formal handwritten apologies to all of the guests invited to the nonexistent engagement ball and holding her head up high when those who wished to gossip about her, came as morning callers. Their purpose was to glean information to spread around the village, under the guise of consoling and pitying. It was indeed a sad reality for dear Cecelia, but there was no hope for it. Nothing would bring him back and what’s done must be done. She had to make do as best she could and suffer through it as many a young lady had before her, and many a young lady were destined to after her as well. For she was sure handsome young men would never cease to break hearts.
    However, it was after a few trying weeks, and a couple of days in particular, where her mother proved to be too much of a nuisance, inviting William’s friends over as particular dinner guests to court her forlorn daughter—Cecelia had had enough.
    She needed help, advice, something. Someone who could be on her side, someone who would listen to her and not judge or gossip or snicker…she needed a friend. And it wasn’t until that moment, after Lord Willington left, and after the world divided itself from her, did she realize she truly did not have any friend to confide in. No one who was there just for her. She was lonely and uncomfortable with the feeling.
    Growing up she’d always been well liked and well talked about, now it would seem she was only well talked about. Without her father around as a buffer to life and to make her laugh and poke fun of herself as he used to, there were only her own thoughts to contemplate and peruse.
    Many times a day she would be drawn back to the peculiar short conversation with the wolf in the forest. Her memory would naturally settle on them both chuckling at one another and his soft wit and wry sarcasm. There was something strangely magnetic about the beast that drew her thoughts toward him far more than she was comfortable with. And yet, once she was away and had examined the incident with him more fully, she did believe truly—not just with jaded instincts—but truly believed, she could trust him. Which is perhaps what worried her most and kept her away from him, until now.
    With shaking hands she placed her mother’s delicate pink rose upon the small boulder she had been sitting on the night she’d met the wolf. The sparkling sunlight broke through the leaves of the trees surrounding the brook and caressed the flower, causing it to glow upon the dark stone. It was simply beautiful, and looked to be a magical good omen of things to come.
    Cecelia hastily hurried back toward the house. Her mother had invited another of her brother’s friends to dinner and she would have to change soon. She would have naturally dreaded the evening, but the promise of tonight, with the hope of a new friend, altered everything.
    She wondered if he would really come.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    ALEXANDER WANDERED PAST THE rose without really noticing it at first. It was a couple of hours before nightfall, and he found himself pent up in the castle and needing to roam while he was still in his human form. Since he first saw Miss Hammerstein-Smythe sitting near the small stream, he had come here often. He made sure it was always during a time when the family would be sitting down to eat, so as not to disrupt her, but he enjoyed feeling the commonality of spirit with such a peaceful place.
    The prince had often wondered how she was doing and if she still found the need to cry all alone. He’d nearly given up hope she would