Page 116 of Dearest Beast
“Why aren’t you at her home fighting for her hand?” Fannie asked.
Roger lifted his son into his arms, setting him on his lap as he sat on the bed, his daughter joining at his side.
“Because this is not a storybook. And I’m certainly not a prince.” He stroked his daughter’s hair. “Besides, the one I’d be fighting is her. One doesn’t usually fight the princess. At least if you aren’t a villain,” he explained, only feeling slightly silly. After all, his children should understand metaphors. “Besides, I don’t want to fight her.” No. Not in the slightest.
“You’re a prince to me,” Fannie said, planting a kiss on his cheek.
Roger closed his eyes for a moment, Michael burrowing into him,his tiny heart beating against his own chest. His daughter tucked herself back under his arm.
“Papa?” Fannie whispered after a moment.
“Yes, darling?” he returned, his voice a little choked.
“What if the princess doesn’t know she’s a princess?” she asked, studying his face with her rather serious light brown eyes.
Frowning, Roger turned the question over in his head, unable to make heads or tails of it.
“Beg pardon?” he asked.
“Perhaps she’s been told too many times by too many witches that she’s not a princess, and now she can’t see what’s real,” Fannie suggested, narrowing her eyes at him, her expression especially shrewd for a mere nine-year-old. “And maybe the prince doesn’t need to fight but to break a spell of sorts. Like in the story Miss Teres mentioned about the woman and the beast.”
Roger stared at her for a moment.
Because she was… right. Well, except for the beast part. Rebecca wasn’t a beast. No matter how much she tried to convince herself and others that she—
He’d been corrected. Fannie was more than right. She was brilliant.
Far more than he could ever be.
A very good thing.
“Perhaps,” he returned. “But what if he doesn’t know how?” he asked.
“Experimentation?” his daughter offered after a beat, her voice a touch stronger.
Roger smiled at the word. At the memory of the person who’d last used it in this house. The person who should be here with them. As none of their lives, but especially not his, were complete without her.
Yes, he’d failed once, but if the past taught him anything, life wasn’t finished until it ended. And he was alive, damn it.
“Perhaps.” He paused. “No.” Shaking his head, he set Michael down beside him. “Not perhaps,” he told his children, who followed him off the bed. “You’re indeed correct. And very advanced.”
More than any governess could ever properly ascertain.
“You’re going?” Michael asked. Fannie clapped her hands together, a bright smile on her face.
“Most certainly,” he affirmed, bending down to give them each another kiss on the head. “Mind your brother while I’m gone,” he told his daughter as he raced into the hall, calling for Lopez to ready the carriage, snow be damned.
However, it turned out that a carriage was not needed, as when he opened the door, he was greeted by a figure nearly covered in snow, her bonnet and cloak almost completely white from the stuff, the only sign of her identity, several stray waves peeking out from beneath it.
“Rebecca?” He gasped as he pulled the shivering woman over the threshold. “Is that you?”
“I think, perhaps, I should’ve called a hack,” she said through chattering teeth, bracing herself with a gloved hand. “I was afraid the horses might have trouble,” she continued as Roger reached around her waist to steady her now swaying form. “It’s windy out here. And quite cold.”
“You don’t say,” Roger murmured, scooping her up in his arms. “Come on, darling, let’s get you inside,” he said, somehow managing not to slip as he carried her into the house. “Lopez, Marguarite, I need help,” he shouted.
Footfalls rang through the house as what had to be his entire staff raced toward them.
“I’m really quiet fine,” Rebecca protested, though she lay her head against his shoulder, yawning a touch.
