Midnight Roses

❀Chapter One: Beauty in Name❀

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2012 by Amber Hanscom

❀Chapter One: Beauty In Name❀

Four Years Later

My name is Belle. Yes, my name means beauty, and I have been told, more often then not, that I am considered to be 'beautiful'. No matter how many times I look at my reflection on the looking glass, what I see in its depths isn't beauty. I saw a girl of fourteen who was too tall, and thin, with hair that's too dark to be fashionable, and eyes that are big and wide like the doe who lives in our wood, though their color is like the lapis lazuli beads that Papa brought back from Egypt. My skin isn't fair as a lady of my class should. It is slightly golden, noticeably enough among my peers that it makes me . . . different.

Beautiful women, true beautiful women, have skin pale as a Gardena's petals. With their full lips that are naturally rouged, pale locks of gold, platinum or deep fiery red. And their small forms, their figures rounded in the right places. Beauty was meant to be soft, and sweet, something you want to cherish and protect. In my mind, I was the farthest thing from beauty.

My sisters-my half sisters-were everything beauty should be. They were the product of my father's first marriage to a comtesse. She was very beautiful and very rich, which benefited my father in his business transactions. My father was a merchant-one that has a knack for the business and ships. My eldest sister, Desiree, was nearly seventeen, and was engaged to wed a wealthy Vicomte, Julien de Calias.

Vicomte was a nice enough man who was quiet and affection towards Desiree, always bringing her flowers and some small trinket. My second sister, Marion was sixteen, two years older than I. She was to wed into a barony, one of little land not much money, though Marion's dowry would supply the baron with both.

To be fair though, I believed Baron Labonte did indeed love, or was at least fond of Marion. They go on long walks in the afternoon and spend many hours talking nonstop about politics, and Papa's business.

But mes sœurs weren't the only ones with suitors. Since my fourteenth birthday, a young Marquise, Gaston de Heroux had come to the manor more than once seeking Papa's company. At dinner he escorted me on his arm, as regal as a peacock. One particular night he came for supper, along with both of my sisters fiancees. After super was done, he asked me for a walk in the gardens. I looked to Papa for permission. Papa merely smiled, his thick mustache tiwtching as he did.

I found that I couldn't seem to take my eyes off of him. In all my years I had never seen anyone as handsome-nay, beautiful, as this man was. He was tall, taller than me, by at least a head. He had thick black hair that he wore bound in a white ribbon. His face was all sharp angles and lines, his nose aristocratic and straight. And his eyes . . . they were the darkest shade of black I had ever seen. Mon Deiu! It was like looking into a fine polished onyx stone.

"Mon cher Belle," he whispered, leaning close so that his lips practically caressed the tender flesh of my ear. "You are more beautiful than any flower in this garden. Par Dieu, you are the most beautiful maiden in all of France. Any man, be he a lowly pauper or the king himself, would find himself doubly fortunate to have you as a wife."

I blushed the color of Papa's roses, surprised by the overwhelming feeling of embarrassment that filled me at his lavishing remarks. No one, not my father or any of his associates had ever sent my heart to racing as Gaston did with only a few words.

He leaned closer, his black eyes staring into my blue ones, as if he could see into my heart, mon âme.

"Have you ever been kissed, mon cher?" he asked, his voice a low, deep rumbled.