Read Online Depravity: A Beauty and the Beast Novel (A Beastly Tale Book 1) by M.J. Haag - Free Book Online Page A

to offer to get me a drink after knowing I’d been gone all day.  Tiredly, I stood and fetched myself a cup of water.
    “Benella.  Really, where are your manners?  I’m asking you a question,” she said.
    “Water-On-The-Bridge,” I managed to say between gulps.
    “How unfair,” Bryn cried.
    Blye stepped into the room from our bedroom, two panels of fabric in her hands and pins in her mouth.  Bryn spotted the question in her eyes and explained.
    “Father sent Benella to Water-On-The-Bridge.”  Bryn turned back to me.  “We’re both older.  We should have been allowed to go.”
    I set down the cup with a laugh.
    “You would have walked twelve miles and back in a single day without any food or water?  I doubt not.”
    Bryn had the decency to look slightly embarrassed.  “I thought Father sent you in a wagon.”
    “With what coin?” I said, exasperated.  Her face took on a flushed hue, and Blye’s eyes rounded.  “I’m tired,” I said quickly before she could respond.  I turned to head to our room.
    Blye spit the pins out into one of her hands.
    “You can’t go in there.  I’m using your bed to lay out my dress pattern.”  I stared at her.  Using my bed to make another new dress for herself?  Perhaps, if I hadn’t been so tired, my temper would have sparked, but I couldn’t find the energy.
    Instead of answering, I turned and let myself into Father’s study, closing the door behind me.  His chair wasn’t very comfortable to sleep in, but the rug before his hearth would suit me fine.  I lay down on the floor and closed my eyes.

Five
    “Bini, child, wake up,” Father said softly, touching my hair.
    The shoulder pressing into the rug ached with cold, and my eyes felt hot and gritty as I blinked them open.  Outside, the wind blew, rattling the branches, and a slight breeze came down the unlit chimney in Father’s study.
    “Come eat some warm soup,” he encouraged, helping me to my feet.
    In the kitchen, Bryn and Blye waited at the table.  The unusual sight gave me pause.  They never held dinner for me.  As soon as I sat, Bryn started serving a thick vegetable soup.
    “I assume everything went well at the Water, Bini?” Father asked while we waited.
    “The Head was absent, but Tibit said they were pleased you were considering their offer.”
    “What offer?” Blye inquired.
    “A private teaching position.”
    Bryn paused in her ladling. 
    “That’s the one you considered before we moved here, isn’t it?  Four years is a long time for a position to remain open.  What’s wrong with it?”
    “The position is fine.  The pay is slightly more than I make now,” he assured us.
    I watched my sisters’ eyes glimmer with excitement, but I felt wary.
    “Why didn’t you take it four years ago, then?” I asked.
    Bryn passed the soup around.  It filled the void in my stomach and warmed my blood.
    He gave me a slight, sad smile.
    “The cottage is not fit for a family of four.”  Before my sisters could ask how he meant for us to live there if there wasn’t enough room for all of us, he added, “But now you are of an age to marry.”
    Blye clapped her hands with a huge smile.
    “You’ve accepted the baker’s request for Benella, then?”
    My stomach dropped, and the soup I’d recently eaten soured in it.  Surely, he wouldn’t force me to wed the Baker after what I’d told him.
    “Benella is still too young to wed, just as you were too young in my mind four years ago.”
    Blye’s face turned to stone.  “Surely, you don’t expect one of us to wed the baker.”
    “I will not force a groom onto you if you have no care for him.  That said, are there any you care for?”
    “I’d accept Tennen if he asked,” Bryn said demurely.
    “I’m afraid that match wouldn’t suit you, dearest.  The Coalre family is as out of coin as the rest of us, and I would not have you going into a marriage with false ideas or hopes,” he said calmly between sips of broth.
    I