The Prisoner of the Castle of Enlightenment by Therese Doucet

Author:Therese Doucet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: enlightenment, french history, beauty beast, magic mystery
Publisher: D X Varos, Ltd

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Later that week, I saw Séléné lead Tristan into the garden toward the fountain of the spring after dinner. On the same evening, Aurore confessed to me that she had let Donatien take her.

“I don’t know how to feel about it. I always believed in honoring my vows. I’m no Deist like the rest of you – I still hold to my faith in the truths of the Church. But then it didn’t seem I’d harm my husband or anyone else by it, which makes it hard to feel too terrible about it. It’s been so long since I felt wanted by a man or wanted one in return.”

“And – how was it, being with him?” I asked her.

“It was … strange. He was very passionate. But I expected my pleasure to be more. I felt as though he was mainly interested in taking something from me, not in giving to me. I felt hollow afterward, and he wasn’t very affectionate. I suppose I regret it. Though not as much as I probably ought to.”

That was her initial confession to me, but her mood worsened and her regret seemed to increase as time passed and Donatien continued to toy with her – taking her up and dropping her, repeatedly and coldly, even as he pushed her to do things she’d never considered doing in the bedroom before. At last she broke with him, only to be met with harsh indifference. After this I noticed Donatien began to watch me all the time, much as Harlequin always had, in a hungry way. At the same time he began to pay more attention to Clio.

I was not immune to his charm and felt inclined to forgive him. It was hard to turn my eyes away from him when he was in the room. His clothes were always near works of art in their tailoring and trims, their gorgeous fabrics and colors, and he moved with the confident grace of a lynx. As long as I didn’t succumb to his seductions, as long as I took wisdom from Séléné’s and Aurore’s suffering, I supposed there was no reason why I couldn’t admire him from a safe distance, appreciating the good in him and evading the bad.

I consented to walk with him in the garden one day, for I was curious to hear his side of why things had gone the way they did with Aurore. I had never met a man so free of scruples where seduction was concerned, and I felt a kind of botanist’s interest in studying and examining his character, trying to see into and understand the soul that underlay it.

“I know Aurore must have taken it badly,” he told me as we walked through the shaded, sweet-smelling bower under a roof of trellised white roses. “The last thing I ever mean to do is hurt anyone.” He heaved a sigh. “But I’m a strange man, I know, inwardly malformed and difficult to love.”

“She was very distressed, I can tell you.

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