Read Online Dangerous Pleasures by Bertrice Small - Free Book Online Page A

should have given them some hint that Lizzie would not follow the prescribed plan. However, their mother was too busy planning Annie’s engagement party. And there was a wedding date to set, a trousseau to be assembled, a wedding dress and bridesmaids’ gowns to find, a reception to plan. And Dad smiled benignly, went to his office, and wrote the checks required of him. No one was paying a bit of attention to Lizzie.
    Sometimes, Annie thought as she sat in her luxurious bed, I wish I had been that focused, but I didn’t know what I wanted to be, and I loved Nat . A fantasy. She had to think of a fantasy. She remembered her grandmother Mumford, her mother’s mother, reading fairy tales to her when she was younger. She had a wonderful big, thick book with beautiful old-fashioned colored pictures in it. Grandmother had died when Annie was sixteen. Annie and Lizzie had helped clean out the old woman’s house. Annie had found the book and kept it to read to her own children one day, which she had done now and again. Were any of the fairy tales in that book fantasies worth living? If indeed this Channel thing were actually real. But Lizzie said it was, and Lizzie wasn’t a woman to lie.
    Cinderella? No. She had already had her happily-ever-after with her prince. Rapunzel? Nah. Who wanted to sit around in a tower all day combing her long golden hair? Definitely not Sleeping Beauty! Snow White? Annie had always thought there was something creepy about that girl and seven little men. And then she remembered her favorite of the fairy tales her grandmother used to read to them. It was “Beauty and the Beast.” There was something lovely about a girl who loved her parent enough to sacrifice herself—and a love so great that it could overcome evil. It might be fun to be that girl. Why not? Annie pressed the A button.
    She felt a slight tingling sensation, and then she found herself in a coach traveling through a dark forest. Shivering, she pulled her woolen cloak about her. Peeking out of the coach window as the vehicle slowed, she could see a walled and towered castle ahead of them. The coach passed through open iron gates, which were closed with a bang behind them. They finally came to a stop, and the coach door was flung open. A gloved hand reached in to assist her out. Taking it, she stepped from the carriage.
    The man who held her hand towered over her. He was dressed all in black, and a silk and leather mask hid his features from her, covering his face to just below his nose and above his mouth. “You will be Mistress Anne, the merchant’s daughter. You understand that your father has given you to me in exchange for his debt?”
    “Yes,” Annie answered. Her heart was beating furiously. This was really quite exciting, she thought.
    “‘Yes, my lord,’” he corrected her. “I am the master of this castle and the lands about it. You must learn respect, Mistress Anne, and I shall teach it to you.”
    “Yes, my lord,” Annie replied with a small smile.
    “You find this situation amusing?” he demanded harshly. His voice was deep and dark. “I can see you have much to learn, and there is no better time than now to begin your lessons in obedience, Mistress Anne. Come!” His grip on her hand tightened, and he half led, half dragged her up the broad stone steps and into the castle.
    I can stop this at any time, Annie thought to herself. Lizzie had told her she could if her fantasy frightened her, or wasn’t as much fun as she wanted. But right now Annie was so intrigued by what was happening to her that she didn’t want to end the fantasy. This tall man was rather exciting in a fierce way. So this was the Beast of legend. She wondered what was beneath that silk-and-leather mask he wore as she stumbled along behind him. Where was he taking her? Was it to his great hall? All castles had great halls, didn’t they?
    But the Beast did not take her to his great hall. Instead he led her down a narrow flight of stone