Beauty & the Beast: Christmas Regency Romance (A Regency Christmas Book 1) Read online

  Beauty and the Beast

  A Christmas Regency Romance

  Charity McColl

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  © 2019 PureRead Ltd

  PureRead.com

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Facing Life

  2. The Yearning Heart

  3. The Unexpected Guest

  4. Through the Wall

  5. Bright Night

  6. A Changed Man

  7. Is This Love

  8. Love at Last

  Epilogue

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  Prologue

  Spring 1815

  “From dust to dust,” the old vicar’s voice droned on and Ariel Dixon stared at the wooden coffin that was being lowered into the gaping hole in the earth. “From the earth you came, Margaret Dixon, and to the earth we return your mortal body, to await the resurrection of the saints.”

  Ariel looked around the cemetery. Her mother had been a well-loved woman, always welcoming everyone with a big smile on her face. No one was considered a stranger by Margaret, and she’d always treated everyone with kindness and respect.

  The small cemetery was packed with mourners who all had only good things to say about the dead woman. It all looked surreal, and Ariel’s glance rested on her father, whose heaving shoulders told her that he was still weeping for his lost love. He’d not stopped crying from the moment the doctor pronounced her mother dead two days ago. What had started out as a mild headache had soon developed into a cough that wouldn’t stop, and Margaret had soon collapsed. She slipped into unconsciousness and never woke up. Hours later, she was dead.

  That her parents had loved each other so deeply was obvious in the way there had always been laughter in their home. Even though her father was a mere blacksmith and her mother a seamstress and their fare was small, yet their home had always been filled with laughter and love.

  “Ariel,” her mother had once told her, “It’s not material wealth that makes for a happy home. What is in here,” she touched her heart, “Is what makes a home a loving one. Your father and I didn’t have much when we met, and even now, life is still a struggle. But we have each other, and you our beautiful daughter.”

  “Mama, when I grow up, I’ll marry a rich prince and then you and Papa can come and live with us in our palace,” Ariel said.

  “My darling, it isn’t riches that will bring you joy. Ariel, if you meet a simple and humble man who loves you, don’t reject him because he isn’t rich. There’s no wealth in the world like that of a peaceful home that is filled with laughter and happiness. Always remember that.”

  Ariel could still hear her mother’s sweet voice telling her to be strong for her father. She didn’t want to believe that she would never behold her mother’s beautiful face again. Never sing hymns tunelessly with her and all the while both of them giggling like two small children. Or hear her father lovingly admonishing them for terrifying the birds off the trees with their terrible singing. The three of them would then collapse into laughter, and to Ariel, her simple life had been perfect.

  Now all that was gone forever, and when the first spade of earth hit the coffin with a dull thud, she screamed.

  “No, stop!” She tried to run to the graveside, intending to jump in, but strong hands held her back. “Mama, please come back to us,” she sobbed in anguish, and the dam finally burst open. Ariel hadn’t shed a single tear when the doctor pronounced her mother dead. Nor had she cried when the embalmers came to the house and disappeared into her parents’ bedroom to prepare her mother’s body for burial. Nor had she cried as she followed the pall bearers into the church and then to the graveside, refusing to accept that her mother was really gone.

  But it all came pouring out now. The reality of what had happened finally hit her and the seventeen-year-old girl was inconsolable.

  “God will take care of you,” were the words whispered to her over and over again, and she wanted to scream harder. Where was God when her mother had suddenly fallen ill and then left them?

  1

  Facing Life

  Winter – 1815

  “Pa, I’m going out now,” Ariel looked at her father who was seated on the frayed couch in front of a fire that was dying down in the grate. “I’ve brought some wood in, so the fire won’t die down. I’m going to find us some deer or hare for dinner. Maybe I’ll even shoot a fat duck for our Christmas Day dinner in two days’ time,” she tried to joke but it fell flat.

  Her father man sat silently through the conversation, taking an occasional sip from the whiskey bottle that was in his hand. It was the very cheap kind of liquor and smelled terrible. But Arthur Dixon didn’t care at all. It at least numbed his senses, and he didn’t have to think about the woman he’d loved for nineteen years and lost last spring.

  Ariel twisted her lips and sighed, picking up her sling and small satchel bag that contained nicely rounded pebbles chosen carefully from the brook just a few yards from their little cottage.

  She had kept the family going for the past eight months and she felt like she was reaching her breaking point. But she’d made her mother a promise that she would take care of her father. Even if he pretty much ignored her most of the time and didn’t care if she ate or slept hungry. His drinking was getting worse by the day, and her greatest fear was him one day being found dead in a ditch somewhere. Even a drunk father was better than being left as an orphan and all alone.

  As she walked out of their two-bedroom cottage, she turned back for a last glance at her father.

  “Pa, please be careful. I’ll be back as soon as I can to prepare something for us to eat.”

  The only response she got was a grunt and the raising of the half-filled bottle to his lips. Ariel felt really sad. This was going to be the first Christmas without her mother, and she knew her father was drinking himself into a stupor so he could forget his pain.

  “But what about me,” she wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Her father had his strong drinks to help numb his pain, but what about her? Who would take away the pain she was feeling?

  In past years, at such a time like this, their house would have a small fir tree that would be decorated with scraps of colourful material left over from customers’ gowns. The house would be filled with the warm and pleasant aroma of ginger cookies and pies. Her father would go out and return with one or two ducks, which her mother would then dress with herbs grown in the small garden behind their cottage.

  The garden was now covered in snow and Ariel didn’t think she would ever work in it again. The memories of the time spent out there with her mother were too raw and painful. It was while they were working together that her mother would give her words of wisdom about life, and Ariel missed all that. In the months after her mother’s death, she’d sold the herbs that had still been growing in the garden so they could have food on the table. But she refused to continue cultivating it, and it had soon become overrun with weeds.

  Wiping the tears from her eyes, she made her way to the path that led into the thick woods that were a short distance from the house. Her father wouldn’t miss her for a while, but she intended to return soon and think about what they were going to
do for Christmas.

  From when she could walk and follow her father around, he’d started taking her hunting with him whenever her mother permitted it. And there weren’t many things that Margaret permitted her husband to teach their little girl. From the way her father treated her, it was clear that he’d longed for a male child, and so whatever skills he had, he’d imparted to her.

  With time, she became so skilled at hunting that people started calling her the Great Huntress of Berkeley. And she loved her nickname because it denoted everything she loved. From climbing trees in the woods to pick wild fruit so her mother could make them jam and pudding, to fishing for trout in the stream, Ariel did them all. And while her mother had protested that a young girl should be taught how to keep house and home, her father was very proud of her achievements.

  Ariel smiled in fond remembrance as she plunged into the thick woods, using a stick she’d picked up to clear a path for herself. Though the air was chilly, Ariel ignored the cold and walked on, her old boots making a squishing sound as they crunched the snow beneath her feet. The sun was up and most of the snow had melted, which meant that the pond would have some ducks swimming on it, hoping to catch a fish or some snails. There wasn’t much game to be found in winter, but she was sure of shooting one or two ducks. That would tide them over until Christmas Day.

  But they had also run low on other essential foodstuff, and she needed to catch a few more animals or birds to sell. And then the rent was also due at the end of the year. Just thinking about the obligations that she had to meet before the year ended filled her with dismay.

  When her mother was still alive, her parents had barely managed to scrape by and now that her father did nothing other than drink whatever wages he got from his job, it was left to her to ensure that they never went hungry and that the rent was paid in good time.

  Their cottage was part of a baron’s estate, and the nobleman, though absent from his seat for most of the year, had someone managing the place for him. Which meant that the caretaker had to collect the rents, and he was a tough man who didn’t accept any excuses. And Ariel always made sure she had the rent so the man would take it and leave. He always made her feel uncomfortable whenever he came around, and many times she wished her father would be in his right senses so he could put the man off from ogling her so shamelessly.

  Ariel glanced up at the trees that loomed above her. Droplets of snow hanging at the ends of leaves glimmered in the sunshine like small diamonds. She longed for the father she had loved to return and be the man he used to be. The man who would swing her up in the air and hoist her onto his shoulder as she laughed giddily, while her mother watched them nervously from the small veranda. It was only when she got too big and heavy to lift that her father had stopped his game of swinging her around.

  But even after the lifting stopped, the gentle hugs and promises of safety had always remained, but sadly those had lasted only until her mother’s death.

  “Oh Papa,” she sighed as she went deeper into the woods. “I don’t know what to do to bring you back to your normal senses. I’ve failed Mama, and I don’t know what to do.”

  The deep silence around her made stop and look around. This was unfamiliar territory, and she then realized that she’d strayed far from her usual path. This was a part of the wood that her father had never once brought her to. He’d warned her over and over again about going too deep into the woods. All manner of dangers lurked out there, and she needed to be careful.

  Just as she was turning to go back the way she’d come, she glimpsed part of a wall, and her curiosity overrode any fears within her. Ariel had never met any challenge that she didn’t want to overcome and scaling the wall was something she just had to do. There was something beyond the wall and she wanted to find out what it was.

  2

  The Yearning Heart

  Lord Trevor Welsh, the Duke of Berkeley, stood at the window of his large, empty, and cold manor, staring outside with unseeing eyes. All he could see were patches of snow all over the lawn.

  If it had been during summer, the garden just outside his living room would be full of weeds that needed uprooting. He’d not had a gardener for close to three years now because he wanted to be alone. And in three years, he hadn’t been back in London either, and couldn’t see himself doing so in the foreseeable future.

  London held too many painful memories for him, something he didn’t like thinking about. Had it been possible, he would have erased a large part of his mind so he wouldn’t have to remember all the humiliation he’d suffered when he was last in the capital city. But as it was, memories were like bad recurring dreams. They waited for the moment that a man’s defences were down, and then they struck mercilessly and viciously.

  Like especially during the holidays when all a person yearned for was family, like he did right now. Three years ago, he’d been looking forward to what he envisioned would be a wonderful marriage with a very beautiful woman. A woman he would have given up everything for, but who turned around and stabbed him so hard in the back that even today, he was still reeling from the shock of the betrayal. And what’s more, she’d even seduced his best friend, and they eloped together. But not before they had stolen as much as they could from him, both money and jewellery that his grandmother had left him. And they had left him with deep scars on his face, and one unseeing eye.

  But even as he stood at the window, he acknowledged that it wasn’t loss of the money and jewellery that hurt him so deeply. It was the fact that for a moment, he’d been deceived into thinking that he would have the loving family he’d always craved. All he had ever wanted from when he was twelve was to have a family of his own. Both of his parents had died in the same year when he turned twelve and he’d had to come and live with his paternal grandparents. But the Duke and Duchess were cold and distant and never showed him any affection. He spent many hours with governesses, and at fourteen, he’d been sent to Eton.

  Even among his peers at the prestigious school, Trevor had made very few friends because he was shy and withdrawn, not wanting to draw any attention to himself. It was a great relief when he turned twenty and left school, returning to Berkeley where his grandparents preferred to live.

  Percival Wilson was the only friend he let very close to him and they would spend holidays at each other’s homes. Cuthbert was the son of an Earl and next in line for the title.

  It was his grandmother who had insisted on him meeting young women with the intentions of getting married. The moment his eyes fell on Lady Chloe Mercer, the daughter of Lord Byron Mercer, the Earl of Bedrock, he’d lost his heart to her. He had no idea that Percy had also fallen in love with his fiancée but had held his emotions in check out of respect for Trevor. Sadly, Chloe pitted the two friends against each other, even though she tried to make it as if she were jesting.

  It didn’t matter to Trevor that the woman got along very well with his grandmother, which should have warned him that she wasn’t right for him. But he was too infatuated with her beauty to listen to his inner voice. When she agreed to become his wife, he had believed that all his dreams of having a family would come true. But those dreams turned out to be nothing but fading mists.

  He leaned his face against the cold windowpane and sighed deeply. Now that his face was disfigured, he knew that he would never find the kind of love his heart yearned for—the gentle hugs and kisses of a woman who loved him for himself, her sweet smile that would make him feel like he was the most important man in the world.

  He and Chloe—and this had occurred to him only recently—had not talked about anything. He’d tried too hard to please first his grandparents and then his betrothed, shutting his eyes to the fact that Chloe had never loved him at all. He was a means to an end, that of gaining a higher title by marriage. He’d convinced himself that love would come later; all they needed to do was get married.

  Now he told himself that he would never again beg for a woman’s affection like he’d done with his grandmother,
and then Chloe. He would never again expose his heart to such pain and anguish. The yearning for love and a family had left him vulnerable to manipulation, and that was a road that he would never travel down again. When he chose to love a woman again, she would have to be someone who needed him as much as he needed her.

  Then he groaned out loud, falling to his knees. What was he thinking? What kind of a woman would want to live with a man whose face was so deeply scarred that he was even afraid to look at himself in the mirror?

  Even with his deep desire for love and family, where would he find a woman such as the one he yearned for?

  Getting over the wall was easy for Ariel as it was overgrown with creeping plants. The stalks were thick enough to hold her weight and she was soon on the other side. Her feet landed in a garden full of weeds and she heard the scurrying of little rodents in the undergrowth.

  Looking around her, she noticed an old path that hadn’t been used for a while. She made her way to it, treading carefully so she wouldn’t slip in the melting snow. Her boots were frayed and full of holes, allowing some sharp plants to prick her feet. She winced but was determined to find out where the path led to.

  The wall had surprised her, and she walked for about fifteen minutes and then stopped short. Before her stood an imposing two-story manor, and in the winter sunshine the white walls sparkled. In better days it must have really been beautiful, she thought. Even now it still was, but all the windows seemed to be bolted with planks of wood across them.