Beauty and the Werewolf Read Free Page B

things Granny liked best: a bottle of sweet wine, a block of good yellow cheese, the end of the roast beef and the ham, and a pound of butter preserved in a jar. Granny was quite self-sufficient; she grew all her own vegetables, had chickens and had good trade in her herbs and medicines for just about anything else she needed, but Bella liked to bring her little luxuries. That was trade in a way, too; the goodies for Granny’s teaching. Bella was fascinated by the art of healing, but of course it was completely impossible for a woman to become a doctor, and even if she could get the training, who would use her services? Perhaps in a place where there were no doctors—but not here, in this neighborhood. The doctors wouldn’t think kindly of competition, and Genevieve would be mortified.
    Somewhere in the back of her mind, Bella saw herself doing what Granny did one day, though probably not out of the cottage in the middle of the woods. That would be for another Granny—someone this Granny was working with even now, Bella suspected—and anyway, she knew that she was much, much too young to be trusted as Granny was trusted.
    When the kitchen staff realized that she was going to visit Granny, she found the basket taken away from her and filled with other tasty odds and ends: some uneaten tarts from last night’s dinner, honeycake from breakfast, a parcel of bacon ends and rinds. She flung abright red cloak with a hood over herself, gathered up her basket and went out into the cold.
    The hooded cloak—a riding cloak—was entirely inappropriate for a young lady; it had been her father’s, from the days when he still had time to go foxhunting with the gentry. But it was warm and cheerful, and besides, when she went out into the woods, she had no desire to be taken for a game animal and shot.
    As she made her way out of the city, taking the route that led her down a street lined with shops that catered to this neighborhood, she reflected on her own future. Now, what she had in mind was a little shop with living quarters above, perhaps in a neighborhood that had no Apothecary. If the twins were married and she was left a spinster, she had an independent settlement in her father’s will, which would more than pay for such a thing. And the truth was, such an outcome was very likely. Try as she might, and she did try, she just couldn’t picture herself married.
    She nodded to the poet from next door in a friendly fashion as he emerged from the butcher’s with what was clearly a goose done up in brown paper under his arm. He saluted her with a grin and passed on, and she smiled to think how horrified her stepmother would be to know he was doing his own shopping. Now…if she could find a young man like that…
    Alas, thus far, she hadn’t met any young man of any station that she would have been willing to consider with warmer feelings than mere friendship. She wanted intelligence, and she required that a young man be willing to accept her as his partner, not regard her as his possession, his inferior, his toy, his casual companion or his convenience. So she was very likely to end up a spinster. Certainly Genevieve was not going to put forth any effort to get her married, not when she had two of her own girls to get properly “placed.”
    Deep in thought, she was startled to find herself at the city wall,where guards oversaw everyone coming in and out. She knew most of them on sight, and waved to Ragnar as she approached.
    â€œBella Beauchamps!” Ragnar saluted her. “Going out to visit Granny?”
    â€œWell, it is certainly too cold to gather mushrooms, even if one could find them under the snow!” she said, laughing. “Ragnar, you look half-starved. Isn’t that wife of yours feeding you properly?”
    He looked sheepish. She laughed and tossed him a honey pastry.
    Ragnar’s appetite was legendary, and twenty wives probably couldn’t have