Beauty and the Werewolf Read Online Free PDF Page B

brought up at Court until he was eighteen.” Granny took another drink of tea. “I’m told he was pleasant enough to look at and pleasant enough as a person, but neither he nor his inheritance set any hearts on fire. Then when he turned eighteen, he came into his own and moved onto his estate, but for the first few months, until he was about nineteen, he continued to turn up all the time at Court. Daily, sometimes.”
    â€œDaily?” That surprised her.
    â€œRedbuck Manor is not that far from here,” Granny pointed out. “Iwould see him ride by on the road down there two and three times a week. Then something happened. He stopped going into the city every day. I stopped seeing him ride by, stopped hearing the horns of his hunting party in the woods. He withdrew, and no one knew why. And that was about five years ago.”
    Granny waited. Bella’s mind raced.
    â€œHe hadn’t any sweetheart, so it couldn’t be that. He hadn’t any close relatives left to shock him by dying, so it couldn’t be that. It wasn’t some accident or other?”
    Granny shook her head. “I’d have been called. Not accident, nor illness. In fact, I can think of only one thing that would cause someone to shut himself up on a lonely estate like that.”
    Bella waited.
    Granny paused portentously. “A curse.”

3
    BELLA CONSIDERED THAT. “IT’S POSSIBLE, OF COURSE,” she agreed. “But this is one of Godmother Elena’s Kingdoms. If someone had been cursed, wouldn’t she do something about it?”
    â€œShould she?” Granny countered. “He’s not at all important. And not everyone gets happy stories.”
    Bella gave her a mock scowl. “Really, that’s cruel of you, Granny. And I don’t know—I don’t know anything about the business of being a Godmother. But you have said that it’s not a good thing to have curses floating about at random. They tend to be like tarred brushes—everything they get near ends up with black, sticky marks on them.”
    â€œSo you were paying attention that afternoon. Good.” Granny put her empty mug down; Bella just then realized she had been clutching hers, and set it down, as well. “It’s possible that it’s a very complicated curse, and she still hasn’t worked out how to lift it. I wasn’t telling the whole truth about Sebastian being shut up inside the walks of his own Manor. He does come out, rarely, and only for those social events he really cannot avoid. He’s still eligible andhandsome, and yet he stays on the outskirts of society and is quite isolated. It’s quite the mystery.”
    â€œBut why put all your trust in a Gamekeeper? ” she blurted, then blushed. “Good heavens, Genevieve’s snobbery is contagious.”
    â€œNo, that is a perfectly legitimate question. And there is one tiny bit of ancient gossip that might explain it.” Granny raised an eyebrow. “It’s said that Eric von Teller is the image of the Old Duke in his prime.”
    â€œEh?” Bella replied, then, “Oh!”
    â€œIt’s only gossip,” Granny said warningly.
    That would certainly explain his arrogance, Bella thought. In fact, it would explain all of Eric’s behavior. He swaggered about the place as if he thought he was entitled to it, and that might have been because he did think he was entitled to it. And with Duke Sebastian being so reclusive, he might just as well be the master of the place.
    â€œWell, then, I shall have to give him an apology if I see him again,” she said out loud.
    â€œI don’t follow,” Granny replied, tilting her head to the side.
    â€œI told him he needed to be put in his place, or something of the sort,” Bella admitted. “I was wrong. If he really is the Old Duke’s son, even on the sinister side, he outranks me.”
    Granny made a rude noise. “I