Beloved Beast

Chapter Three

          Darkness had brought the Rossetti Beast. Gareth's heart plummeted to his feet as an icy, unforgiving dread clutched at his chest while the villagers all but announced his arrival.

          His wife stiffened beside him, clutching at the skirts of her dress as the last remnants of color drained from her face to an ashen white. "Gareth?"

          "Everything will be fine, my dear," he consoled gently, but failed to quell the trepidation in his own voice.

          "Papa, surely there is something else we could do?" Elsa implored, her voice strained with the effort of holding back her tears.

          "I'll not let him take me!" Esme spat, anger setting flame to her blue eyes.

          Despite his fears, Gareth straightened with a wince, gathering what little pride he maintained to peer sternly at his daughters. "Mind your tongues, daughters. Our lordship has provided us generously, and you will remember your manners – "

          "Your manners are wasted."

          Gareth froze, fear shackling him in place as his gaze swiveled to the menacing frame of the Rossetti Beast looming formidably at his threshold. A man of large and broad proportions, Rossetti's shoulders spanned the width of the door-frame, blocking all view of the villagers piling outside. He heard his daughters' hitched breaths as they gazed upon the wicked and perilous Don Rossetti. Garbed entirely in black, naught could be made of the face obscured in the shadow of his hood, but Gareth knew the harsh masculinity that lay within. All that could be perceived was the unsettling, glint of his unworldly steel-gray eyes.

          He ducked beneath the door-frame and stepped further into their hut, his massive size all but overpowering the limited space of the wattle-enclosed room. Gareth cringed, a lump lodging in his throat as his daughters drew closer to his side.

          He could feel Rossetti's intense perusal as he studied the four of them beneath the brim of his hood, and then he asked the question Gareth feared most.

          "Where is the third?" he grumbled darkly.

          Gareth blanched, "Third, my lord?"

          "Do not play me for a fool, Duncan." Rossetti snarled warningly. "You have three daughters."

          His stomach churned as dread prickled beneath his skin. He hadn't wanted a life of servitude for Elle. Not his gentle, fragile Elle. She could not withstand Rossetti's cruelty. He shook his head and motioned with a trembling hand to his fair-haired daughters, "My lord – "

          "Do you challenge the terms of our bargain then?" Rossetti's voice became harsher, colder.

          Gareth gave a morose shake of his head, "Of course not, your lordship."

          "Then you will not delay any longer in producing the third to me."

          His shoulders bowing, Gareth shifted to Cora who appeared all the more stricken as he instructed gingerly, "Find Elle, my dear."

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          Rossetti studied the two women presented to him from beneath the brim of his hood and felt naught but displeasure and ire. It wasn't as though they were uncomely – on the contrary, they were both strikingly beautiful with flaxen hair and fair eyes, but 'twas the fear and revulsion that gleamed from their blue eyes that enraged him.