Bo and the Beast (Book #1) (Completed)

16. What Is It Like?

Dent woke her when the sun had barely risen, and she had been given a few minutes to dress in a pair of fresh clothes someone had left folded on a table in the closet. Nothing fit very well, but it was at least a pair of pants and a white shirt instead of a flouncing yellow dress. She braided her hair and tied it off with a ribbon, and slid on her familiar boots. Then she'd followed Dent out into the house, where he gave her a small breakfast of bread and cooked meat, which she ate as he gave her the tour of the house. He showed off the kitchen, pointed out the doors to the study and dining room, both of which she had been in before, and showed that the room she had first broken into was actually once a ballroom. This was all, apparently, so that she could know where to go for her new job of cleaning. Dent gave her a bucket stuffed with cleaning supplies, and Bo scowled at it.

"I would suggest you start in the dining room," Dent said. "It is one of the hardest rooms to clean."

"Nice," Bo said, but she hefted the bucket and turned with determination toward the door in the culdesac. She might be a slave, and she might want to show the Beast that she could be the biggest pain that ever gave him a headache, but she also couldn't escape the fierce surge in her blood that she got when she was faced with a challenge. If she had been given the task of cleaning by someone who thought she wasn't going to do a good job, she had to prove to them she was the best cleaner on the entire planet.

"Wait a minute, Bo," Dent said, zooming in front of her. "I have to tell you one more thing. The upstairs is taken care of by myself and the other Service-Matons, so you are to clean all the rooms I showed you downstairs. However, the room behind the large double doors is off-limits. That is the Master's study, and he does not allow others into it without permission."

Bo remembered the room stuffed to the gills with random items and furniture. That had been where the Beast had made her stand in her yellow dress while he stared at her. She had no idea why that room would be off-limits, or why it was called a study when there was no desk or other scholarly items anywhere in view, but she knew that Dent wouldn't leave her alone until she acknowledged his ban.

"Understood," she said, standing rigid and saluting him in the way Aston had always been nagging everyone in the camp to adopt.

Dent didn't seem to understand this gesture, and turned to zoom away without even remarking on it. Bo rolled her eyes, wishing she'd gotten Fil or Madame, who were more likely to interact with her beyond bossy orders.

She spent the whole morning cleaning the dining room and kitchen. It was mostly dusting, as the house was old and the Beast wasn't exactly a fan of minimalism. She only met a few more of the Service-Matons, two female-voiced ones called Com and Plon, but they said hardly a word to her and continued on their way to tend the gardens. The house stood empty after that, as if she was the only one in it.

After just an hour, she had been dying of boredom, and by the time the lunch hour rolled around she was ready to jump out a window. Going from patrolling the walls of her camp to make sure no roving bandits or starving animals were poised to attack, to sitting in a room running a damp cloth over the ten millionth ceramic statuette, was just about as maddening a downgrade as Bo could imagine. She wanted to be out in the open, under the sun, covered in sweat and with her mind whirring as she thought of strategies and plans. Instead, she set the final pastoral lamb back on the mantel of the kitchen and fought to keep her eyes open.

There were still around four or five rooms to clean in her downstairs jurisdiction, but they were mostly empty or stacked with boxes. How could the Beast or his robots ever know she hadn't been in there, anyway? She'd just call it for the day and go back to her room.