Once Upon a Romance 02 - As The Last Petal Falls (25 page)

“Give it up, Ben, I wager she’ll never do it.” Fain spoke over the general uproar, and everyone heard. The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he’d made a mistake.

“Oh really, Fain MacTíre?” Belle looked at him challengingly. “I think I’ll take that wager.” And with an audacious smile, she sauntered off and began gathering up her performers.

For the next two days, the whole keep was in an tizzy. Eight men had bet on Belle that night, but she pleaded, wiled, and outright bribed man after man, until more than a score were working on her little “project.” Those who weren’t actively working on the performance were engaged in rampant speculation over what it was to be. Even Fain was on fire with curiosity, although he managed to suppress it better than most.

At last the night of the big performance came. When the men rushed into the great hall, they found that all the trestle tables had been pushed together to make a rough stage by the far door, and the benches spread in rows of semi-circles around them. As they jostled and jockeyed for spots at the front, Belle quietly entered and stood in front of the lone chair positioned at the foot of the stage. A hush fell when the men noticed her, and she smiled out across the room.

“Tonight, for your enjoyment, we present
Before the Bells
, a play in three acts.”

Whistles and shouts greeted this humble introduction, but it was nothing compared to the uproar when Marlplot, dressed in a draped bedsheet for a flowing skirt, mounted the stage and began declaiming his opening speech.

“
Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do?

The money’s all gone and the mortgage is due!

Stepmother’s a spendthrift, her daughters lack sense;

We’ll be out on our ears, for we haven’t two pence!”

The play was a hit. Each new character, played by one of the keep’s men in ridiculous drag, brought forth an answering roar of appreciation. Connelly, as the redoubtable Dame Merriweather, was brilliant, but the real star of the show was little Billy Notter, playing Princess Vivienne. Belle had coached him well, and he flounced across the stage with a royal petulance that made the Princess a figure of comedic greatness.

Fain watched his men as they cheered and clapped for Belle’s production. They looked different. Previous winter snows had seen the men grow somber and grim, missing their families and dwelling on the lives they’d left behind. They all still yearned for their families, but they seemed more content with their lives now, and happier in each moment.

He wasn’t a fool. It didn’t take much to figure out the source of the difference. She was standing at the front of the stage, prompting Marlplot on his lines. When the actors didn’t need her, she, too, scanned the faces in the crowd, and Fain saw the genuine delight she took in their enjoyment. She had worked hard on this production, and it was more than a bet to her. She truly wanted to make these men happy.

Baines had been right, when he said this was the kind of girl he would once have taken home to meet his father. He could imagine just how it would have been. His mother would love her wit and charm, while his father would love her wide-ranging knowledge of the world. His little brothers and foster-sister would love her free spirit, and her air of rebellion. He could imagine just how she would fit into his family, and into his old life.

But that life was gone, and he could never have it back. It didn’t matter how charming Belle would look, seated across from him at his family’s great candlelit table—that would never happen. Even if Baines came back and said that every word had been true, that she wasn’t a spy, Fain still had no family home to offer her. His place was here, in this ramshackle old keep, and her place was somewhere else, full of grace, and light, and warmth.

He would curb his imagination. No good could come of daydreams about a thing that could never be. He ruthlessly wrenched his eyes back to the stage, where Marcus Shapherd, playing Max Wellesley, was reciting:

“
I’ll save you, fair Ella, just give me the chance!

I’ll help with your business. Shall I take off my pants?”

Vivienne basked in her triumph. The “losers” of the bet, and the men they had recruited to help them, were being toasted like heroes, and everyone was talking about what the next production could be. Even Fain was smiling, but he held himself apart from the general sea of congratulations. Finally she could stand it no longer, and she presented herself before him with a graceful bow.

“Did our humble players meet with your approval, your lordship?”

“Of course they did. It was very well done.”

“Then perhaps,” she replied archly, “you would be so good as to
tell
them so?”

Fain sighed and shook his head, but he leapt up on the stage and held up his hands for quiet.

“Gentlemen, you have given us a rare entertainment tonight; you have my thanks.” This was echoed from nearly every man in the hall. “Now, for those of you who were there on the night the forfeit was assigned, you will be aware that another wager was made.”

The hall went still in anticipation.

“Mistress Belle,” he addressed her with exaggerated humility, “what shall you claim as your forfeit?”

Vivienne beamed out across the crowd of men, inviting suggestions with the lift of her brows. Catcalls ensued, suggesting everything from dressing him in bloomers to making him dance a quadrille, but Vivienne already knew what she wanted.

“I would like to invite you all to gather here in the great hall every night between now and our Yule festivities, when Master MacTíre…” She drew it out for suspense, and then finished with a flourish, “will be reading us all a bedtime story!”

There was a dead pause, and then the men began laughing. Fain opened his mouth, but Vivi held up a hand. She had one more thing to add.

“
With
the voices. You won’t want to miss this. He does
excellent
voices.”

“
… gazing across the room, the little soldier spotted a dainty ballerina with but one leg, like him. In that moment he fell in love, and pledged her his loyalty.”

Vivienne moved around the great hall, tying up holly boughs and pine wreaths as she listened to the beloved tale. Fain’s “storytime,” as it had come to be known, had lasted well over an hour on this, the last evening. Tomorrow was the beginning of the Yule festivities, and his forfeit would be paid. If she hadn’t been so busy, Vivi would have been curled up on a hearthstone near Fain’s knee, her regular spot for many of these past evenings.

“
And so he melted into the shape of a heart, a sign always that he had been loyal until the end.”

The men clustered around the fire clamored for another tale, but Fain shook his head with a laugh.

“I have paid my debt to Mistress Belle, and you will all have to be content with more mundane enjoyments from now on.”

“Aye, at least until the lad loses another wager.” Connelly had been there for almost every night of storytime, and now he spoke from one of the benches near the hearth. With a general rumble of laughter at his comment, the gathering broke up, heading to bed. Everyone wanted to retire early, as the next night no one would sleep before dawn.

After saying goodnight to his men, Fain walked over to where Vivienne was setting candles out on the trestle tables. He looked at her thoughtfully while he hefted the volume of fairy tales.

“Did you know they’d enjoy it so much?”

“I suspected.” She paused, and pushed her hair out of her face with impatient hands. “They’ve got so little to occupy their minds during these storms, that’s why they plan such elaborate forfeitures. Everyone needs some entertainment.”

“But fairy tales?”

“Is it really any different from the tall tales that Connelly spins? They’re just stories, after all.”

“And I suppose it’s only coincidence that it’s just what a father would read to his children? You weren’t, by any chance, trying to trick me into following your advice?”

“I don’t know to what you could possibly be referring.” She winked, then spoke in mock seriousness. “What do you think of the hall?”

“It’s beautiful.”

Vivienne gazed around the great hall. It
was
beautiful, with the green needles and red berries accenting the stonework. Connelly had been enlisted to show her how to make the beeswax candles, and honestly, dipping and re-dipping the many tapers had been a long and tedious process, but it would be worth it when the hall was bright and cheerful until every light was extinguished at midnight.

“Well, then my work here is done. John?” she called to her faithful guard, “Are you ready to retire?” At his enthusiastic nod, she smiled, and then cast a final, arch look at Fain. “I’ll see
you
tomorrow.”