Read Beauty for Free Online Page B

Grumpkin down to the stables to live with Martin for a time and then report the cat disposed of, which he would have been, in a sense.
    Since the feelings I have about Giles are often very hot and tempting ones, I usually try to stay as far away from him as I can. Usually I manage it fairly well, but this time I was so grateful to him about Grumpkin I did not stand a distance from him. I stood very close, where I could smell the warmth of him, and handed Grumpkin to him, telling my good cat to be patient and wait for me. Giles touched my arm when he took Grumpkin from me, not meaning to, I think. I can still feel the place he touched.
    All of which made the whole matter even more troublesome and upsetting! It seems that Weasel-Rabbit was determined to take everything away from me. First my room and then my cat! I tried to think what else I might have that Weasel-Rabbit would want, but I couldn't think of anything at all, which just shows how naive I was. The rest of her plan emerged late this afternoon, before the final banquet.
    I am not supposed to go into the small anteroom adjacent to the muniments room, which is between the small and large dining halls. The anteroom is a cosy warm place where Papa's steward and bailiff and the scribe work during the daytimes and where male guests sometimes retire after dinner to play at dice or cards or chess and talk about their travels in ways they cannot do while the aunts are present. Hidden behind the tapestries is a little oriel window, covered over because it lets in the cold, and under it a low seat just large enough for me. Sometimes I go there to hide. It is the one place no one has ever found me. If one can bear the boredom of hearing the same stories over and over, one can learn quite a bit about swiving and having one's pleasure and what men of Papa's sort think of various classes and types of women. I have learned that men talk about women quite a lot, when they aren't talking about hunting or fighting, though considering that they use the same words and the same expressions for all three things, perhaps there is not much difference.
    I hid there because I wanted to be alone. I was upset over Grumpkin; I was upset over how I felt about Giles; I was trying to keep my resolution, trying very hard to exercise Christian forbearance, which Father Raymond constantly suggests that I do. At any rate, there I was in the oriel window when I heard voices through the tapestry. One, which I had learned to know well, was Sibylla's mama. The other I assumed was the abbot, for Sibylla's mama cooed at him in a tone she uses only with royalty and people of importance.
    "Sibylla feels that she cannot take responsibility for the girl, Your Reverence. We have all heard about her mother." The words "her mother" were said in a very low, meaningful voice, the same tone of voice in which Aunt Tarragon talks about certain bodily functions, as though they were both repellent and inevitable. "Sibylla will undoubtedly bear children. She would not want those children exposed to ... well, you understand. Sibylla feels, and I must concur, that it would be wisest to send Beauty to the convent where her aunts are. She can be with her kindred there. As a nun, she may perhaps expiate some of her mother's ... well, you understand."
    Evidently the abbot did understand. He hemmed and hawed, but he said he would discuss the matter with Phillip, Duke of Monfort, Westfaire, and Ylles, that is, Papa, and see if something couldn't be arranged.
    Sibylla had not been content to have only my room and my cat. She also intended to have my future.
    Somehow, without even intending it, I found myself back here in my tower room, at my work table with a new quill, a pad of ink, and a bottle of water. Spread out before me was the second page of the letter from mama, which I had rolled backwards to make it lie flat. Mama's writing is not unlike my own. We both write a fine, curly hand. There was plenty of room at the top of the