The Beast Queen by Felicity Partington

Author:Felicity Partington [Partington, Felicity]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Golden Keys Publishing House
Published: 2019-10-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

The castle returned to normal almost as soon as the others got back. Nothing was said of the town meeting, nor of what it concluded. Isabelle was desperately curious, but she daren’t ask. It was bad enough knowing that they blamed her, worse that she didn’t much care. She would not be anything but pleased that Erik was spending more time here, with her, she wished he never left at all. When he was gone, her life felt empty, boring, she lived for the snatched moments where she would catch him watching her. His attention was intoxicating.

The morning was warm, and Isabelle was brushing down the horses. Erik had two, old enormous workhorses that she presumed had only ever been ridden back or too from here to the city. It was a shame; they were beautiful animals. Grooming them, cleaning out the stables, feeding them, it reminded her of being home. It made her miss Briar, the horse she had grown up with, with a painful yearning.

“Excuse me?” A voice interrupted, Isabelle spun expecting to see Thomas but surprised, instead, to see two unfamiliar men. Isabelle put the brush back down on the shelf, before walking over to the men. She twisted her hands in her skirts to clean them off as she walked to them.

“Can I help you?”

“Do you work here?” One of them asked brusquely.

“I live here.” Isabelle amended; offended that they would automatically mistake her for a servant. They didn’t apologise, nor let the revelation deter them.

“Do you mind if we ask you some questions? We’re from Knightsbridge, we work for a newspaper…” he spoke slowly as if he was speaking with a child, Isabelle rolled her eyes.

“Which one?” She asked they exchanged a glance. “Not a popular one then. What exactly are you looking for here?”

“Well this castle, in fact, the entire city, seems to be a bit of a mystery; some traders stumbled upon it a few months ago and it would be marvellous if we could put a name to the estate. Nobody is even sure which jurisdiction it falls under.”

“Must the estate have a name against it?” Isabelle enquired, “can it not just function as a community project?”

“It has to belong to somebody Miss.” The speaker looked to his companion with a smile at Isabelle’s expense.

“Why are you really here? Nobody cares about an old castle in the mountains, well, certainly not bottom of the barrel reporters anyway.” Isabelle was sceptical, she’d had nothing to do with journalists, but her father had spoken poorly of them. “If you’re honest with me I might actually be able to help you.” The taller of the two reporters leant forward.

“Okay. We’ve heard stories; about a huge, unnatural animal terrorising the woods.” Excitement was clear on his face; his eyes were sparkling with it.

“So have I.” She stated simply, they were after Erik, it made her automatically defensive. “But like most people, I stopped believing in monsters when I learnt that they weren’t real.”

“You said you live here, is this your castle? Do you have a husband, a father?”

“Everybody has a father.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.