The Beauty of the Wolf. Wray Delaney

at their days and whose actions bring naught but destruction upon our world. Her spirit is not one given to melancholy. It is an emotion that belongs to man, along with endless regret.

      The Widow Bott had given her a desire to see this young Lord Beaumont. It would surprise her not if she too had fallen under his spell for such beauty was designed to have the power to awaken desire in all those about it. The sorceress wondered, though, why the old witch was not wise enough to know this and thought she must remember the dire consequences beauty has had on plainer mortals. Once, not that long ago, the widow had searched out the sorceress with a request from a gentlewoman of these parts who owned a fine house and fine horses but felt her looks to be her one tragedy. She asked if she might not be given a potion to make her beautiful. Being less bitter then than the sorceress is these days she could see the folly of such a wish and told the widow to advise against it. But the gentlewoman paid a higher sum to have the widow ask her again and the sorceress granted it. And then such was her beauty that it awoke evil in the hearts of all the good women of her acquaintance who turned against her and their jealousy was to be her death.

      The sorceress judged that beauty in a young man would have the same potency as beauty in a woman. Impatient to find the boy, hither and thither she went and she heard the conversations and the thoughts of the household. Few of the servants remembered Lord Rodermere and those who did recalled him with no fond memory nor had a good word to say about him. All had heard stories of his debauchery and none doubted that he was a tyrant. There was not a young woman high born or low who had been safe from his lustful advances. The sorceress relished blowing on the dust of these old tales. She whirled them up on the winds of gossip so that by the afternoon there was not a settled mind to be found in the House of the Three Turrets. All wondered what was to become of their master, Gilbert Goodwin and his new wife, Mistress Eleanor Goodwin, of young Lord Beaumont Thursby and Lady Clare. The question weighed heavy in their hearts.

XXII

      She finds him in the long gallery by a tall window, juggling three wooden rings. He has the art of it well but it is his face – no, his whole demeanour – that steals her breath and makes her delight in her powers. His hair raven black, thick his eyelashes of the same colour framing golden eyes. His lips sensuous, full, made for pleasure, he possesses a natural allure that shines in him, a charm, she would call it, that bewilders even her. He is both male and female, united in one body.

      Up the three rings go as the sunlight that has failed to make an appearance all day breaks through the snow-filled clouds and casts him in a rose gold light. An artist would give his soul to paint him. He moves with a natural grace, the very air around him accommodates his being. Here is an ethereal creature who man or woman both would desire, would lose riches and reason for one night of passion. All then is as it should be. He is empty of emotion, of that she is certain. He is indeed almost perfect in every respect, his beauty but the mask of an unfeeling monster. Try as she might she cannot hear his thoughts; his is a shallow vessel, nothing inside his head but the mirror of his own perfection. The Widow Bott, blinded by his looks, had failed to see that nothing lay beneath the surface but her own imaginings. The sorceress is not so easily duped. Oh, she thinks, but this is too joyous – he will be the light of all men’s desire, he will be the heart that no woman can possess. Take pride in your work, enjoy what is about to befall those who enter his domain.

      Beau catches the rings and puts two on a side table. He turns and seemingly stares directly at her. That disturbs her. He cannot see her, no man can unless she wills it and to prove the point she moves but the point is unproven: his eyes follow her. Under her breath she whispers to the icy draught words that protect her from the gaze of human eyes.

       I am born from the womb of the earth, nursed with the milk of the moon. Flame gave me three bodies, one soul. In between lies my invisibility.

      It does not ease her as it should.

      ‘There you are,’ he says.

      He is speaking to her in her language. This cannot be. She holds her breath.

      ‘Beau.’

      The sound of his name comes from behind her. She moves further into the wooden shadows.

      It was not her but his sister, Lady Clare, the boy addressed and the sorceress anticipates that she is about to see the nature of young Lord Beaumont. His sister’s thoughts she can hear clearly and she will tell her her truth of him for the sorceress is beginning to think he has no soul. A pity about her face. If it was not so blemished the sorceress would say she was a striking young woman. She is of twenty-two winters with an enviable figure and holds herself well. The sorceress thinks she was a fool to worry that she might be visible – Lady Clare cannot see her.

      What is this? Lady Clare laughs as he tosses a ring for her to catch and she is thinking that she would rather die than be without him, that the very notion of being parted from her brother is unbearable. And what does Lord Beaumont think? Nothing. His mind is blank parchment that the sorceress can easily write upon and shape his character to her desires.

      Beau smiles at his sister, takes her hand and kisses it. He looks in the sorceress’s direction and seems to hold her gaze before he turns back to Lady Clare.

      ‘We have not spoken in that language since we were children,’ she says. ‘This house seems full of spirits today. Beau, did we dream what happened to us in the forest?’

      He puts his finger lightly on his sister’s lips.

      The sorceress waits to hear his reply expecting it to be cruel. And then she catches Clare’s thoughts – glimpses of a memory dance in her head, children running into the forest – then they are gone.

      Lady Clare sighs. ‘We must put aside such childish nonsense. Alas, no one has the magic to alter what has happened.’

       Speak, Beau. Let me hear your voice.

      The sorceress goes to stand beside him lest she miss a word.

      ‘Do you believe,’ says Lady Clare, ‘that it is possible for our father to return after so long without the years marking his disappearance?’ Again Beau looks at the sorceress. ‘What is it?’ Lady Clare says, following his gaze. She drops her voice. ‘Is someone listening?’

      ‘These oak beams listen,’ Beau says quietly. ‘Have you seen our mother this morning?’

      His is a voice a stream would envy, a voice that is neither low nor high but has a quiet command to it. Oh, Robin Goodfellow, look what she created in your honour.

      ‘Not yet,’ says Lady Clare. ‘But, Beau, tell me you will leave with us.’

      Delight of delights. The sorceress sees a tear in her eye. All this love for an empty shell of an androgyne, a man for all desire, shallow as a puddle.

      ‘Sir Percival had the alchemist, Thomas Finglas, brought here from London last night,’ she continues. ‘He is locked in the turret with our father. It is hoped he may bring him to his senses.’

      ‘Then there is even more reason that you must be gone before Lord Rodermere wakes further from his trance and his temper rekindles.’

      He takes her hand and walks with her down the long gallery.

      She says, ‘He will not miss you, he does not know you. He does not believe you are his son.’

      ‘That was last night,’ says Beau, ‘but he is by all accounts an irrational man.’

      He gives her a look of such tenderness. The sorceress sees how well he acts the part. Oh, beauty, what a beast you make.

      ‘What will I do without you?’ Lady Clare says. ‘Who will see me as you do?’

      ‘It will be for a short time only, I promise.’

      And he turns round and looks straight at the sorceress.

XXIII