London Fairy Tales Book 2
highlight_author
Rachel Van Dyken
highlight_reads
84.0K
highlight_chapters
36
Find out if love prevails in this regency retelling of how Beauty tamed the savage Beast… Scarred at a young age, Dominique Maksylov, Royal Prince of Russia, has lived a reclusive life. As a musical prodigy, his music has made him famous, but few ever see his face. He never ventures into polite society, but when he discovers he is the only heir to the Earldom of Harriss, he goes to one ball. That one ball, was enough to change the direction of his life forever.
She didn’t know how hard it would be to love the broken. Isabelle Hartwell’s mother just sold her to the Beast of Russia. He’s mean, tem-peramental, and the most virile, handsome man she has ever encountered. But he has a secret, one he’s willing to die for and he refuses to let anyone in. Will she be able to reach his heart before it’s too late?
PROLOGUE
“Hold your hands like this, kiddo.” Mr. Field always had a gentle way of correcting, and for that, young Dominique was thankful.
He’d heard rumors that not all music teachers were as kind as Mr. Field.
A prodigy—that label hung over him like a neon sign. At eleven, even his young mind understood that his life would never be ordinary.
While other boys his age were outside, running and splashing in the streams, Dominique was inside, his fingers dancing over the piano keys.
Music was to Dominique what breathing was to everyone else. He couldn’t escape the melodies that pounded in his head—even in his dreams.
Often, he’d sneak down to the practice room in the middle of the night, his fingers itching to touch the keys of his beloved instrument.
If he didn’t play the music, sleep wouldn’t come.
The crescendos, the notes—they’d always been there in his mind.
The major scale of beautiful notes would wash over him in times of joy, the minor scales—the scales of sharps and flats—often during times of danger.
His teacher, Mr. Field, said it was a gift, that all prodigies had a sixth sense. Dominique, however, felt different, too different to play with others his own age.
So he threw himself into music as much as he could, much to his mother's delight. She was always fussing over him, telling him that one day he would be a great master and that people from all over the world would pay to hear his gift.
His father, the Royal Prince Maksylov, thought music was only for the weak-minded and often told young Dominique that unless he grew strong in body and learned how to play with others, nobody would ever follow him.
That he, as a musician, could never lead.
And so Dominique lived a life being pulled in two directions: one towards the piano room, and the other towards the outdoors.
Both directions held a mix of excitement and fear, for Dominique hated to fail at anything and often found it frustrating to have to focus on more than one thing at a time.
One evening, after his parents had another argument over his musical education, Dominique slipped into bed, careful not to let any of the servants see the tears pooling in his eyes.
He cried, not for himself, but for the love lost, for it seemed both parents never saw him as the boy he was, only what they wanted him to be.
After the servants had gone to bed, a slow, haunting melody began to burn in the back of Dominique's mind. He closed his eyes against the onslaught of music, pulling the pillow over his head.
But the music wouldn’t stop. Minor chords filled with dread and pain drifted in and out of his mind until he thought he would go mad.
Finally, unable to keep his body still, his fingers began to trace the melody in the air, imagining the piano's keys beneath his fingertips as he played the song that wouldn’t leave him.
The song grew angrier and angrier. The hair on Dominique's arms stood on end. Surely he would die this way! The music was finally coming for him!
There was no other option in his mind. He had always thought about how he would die. There was nothing simple about dying for any prodigy. For a musician, there was always music.
Always a benediction telling the sad tale of a life unlived.
With a cry, Dominique ran downstairs to the practice room.
If he was to die, he needed to be next to the music; the only hope, it seemed, was to play that song and pray it never returned to his head.
He flung open the doors to the practice room just in time to see his father pull back the trigger of a pistol and his mother fall to the ground in a bloody heap.
Then, his father turned hate-filled eyes toward Dominique. With a sickening fear, he noticed his teacher, Mr. Field, also lying on the floor, dead, just behind the couch.
His lifeless stare went right past him and his skin was a ghostly white.
“What are you doing, boy?”
“Papa!” Dominique froze in place. “Papa, you hurt Mama! What have you done? You—you monster!”
“Monster?” His father laughed, madness etched across his face.
He stumbled to the sideboard and poured himself more brandy, unsteady on his feet as he took a seat on the sofa, his booted foot only inches from Mr. Field's outstretched hand.
“I gave your mother everything! I gave you everything and she repays me with betrayal!”
His voice shook the walls in the room and suddenly Dominique knew where the music had come from. Just as his teacher had said, it had come from within.
He had sensed the danger, and the music, once silent as he entered the room, came back full force as his father turned his eyes on him.
Blood still dripped from the prince’s hands as he smiled and threw the glass of brandy on the floor, shattering it into pieces.
“So you think me a monster, boy?”
Dominique slowly backed away toward the door. It seemed his only hope was to somehow escape the nightmare he had walked into.
“Answer me!” His father wailed, throwing another glass to the floor. “Answer me now, boy!”
“No. No, Papa, you are no m-monster.” Tears fell from Dominique’s eyes of their own accord, streaking his face with the salty wetness of death.
In a flash, his father was behind him, locking the doors. The music crescendoed again. The finale—he could hear it; he could see it in his mind’s eye.
“Well, boy. Why don’t you go ahead and play. Play for me, play for your dead mother, and your wicked teacher. Play for us all!” His shout echoed in Dominique’s ears like a gunshot.
His father thrust his hands into the air as if conducting some invisible choir.
He was mad! The teacher’s body lay lightly across his mother’s; he needed to step over them to get to the piano.
In that moment, Dominique knew he would die, knew that he would never get to play with other little boys.
The cold stream by his house wouldn’t get any use, for he would be dead, and dead little boys did not swim in cold streams.
With a deep breath, Dominique sat at the piano and began to play the melody.
His funeral march.
His benediction.
“Ah, Dominique, your music is so sweet. It’s almost painful, like the longing your mother must have felt. Don’t you think?”
Dominique kept playing, his vision blurred by tears. Maybe a servant would hear the music and find it strange? He quickly dismissed the thought.
It wouldn’t be unusual for him to play music late into the night. But tonight was different.
As the song ended, his father demanded, “Keep playing!”
So Dominique played on, trembling as he did. He played the same song over and over, unable to think of any other melody.
His father approached from behind, casting a long shadow in the candlelight.
“For your sins, for your mother’s sins, I’ll punish you. You’ll never play again.”
His father grabbed the candelabra from the piano and poured hot wax and fire onto Dominique’s hands.
Dominique screamed in pain and tried to pull away, but his father held his hands next to Dominique’s, enduring the punishment alongside him. His father’s hatred was so intense that he’d rather hurt himself and his son than not punish him at all.
His father threw him to the ground and walked over to the fireplace, taking Dominique’s sheet music with him.
“No! Papa, no!” Dominique cried. He’d spent his whole life working on those songs. They were his everything. His father tossed them into the fire with a sneer.
“Follow them into hell for all I care.”
Dominique charged at his father, reaching into the flames to grab the remains of his music.
It wasn’t until his hands touched the burning heat that he realized his father was holding them there too.
Dominique tried to scream, but no sound came out. Darkness closed in on him, and he felt as if he’d truly died.
15 years later
The carriage jolted, waking Dominique from his nightmare. Always the same. Always that cursed song. Why couldn’t he find peace?
He looked at his hands, hidden beneath gloves and never to be seen by the world. Their grotesque scars were the stuff of legends and dark fairy tales.
The girl sitting across from him would surely faint if she saw the horrors beneath his gloves.
He sighed and leaned back against the leather seat. Had he made the right choice in taking her? Now he wasn’t so sure.
He looked across the carriage at the young girl. Her name was Isabelle.
Or Belle, as he thought of her, because the music that surrounded her was pure beauty, unlike anything he’d ever known.
The carriage jolted again, and Belle opened her eyes. “Are we there yet, my lord?”
“No,” Dominique replied. He hated conversation, especially with women.
He had no experience with them, unless he needed to satisfy his carnal needs. Even then, he never looked at their faces, never kissed them, and never removed his gloves.
Women were only good for one thing. Besides that, they were untrustworthy, full of deceit and lies.
Belle licked her lips and brushed her brown hair away from her face. “Are we close then?”
“Why?” he asked, annoyed by her questions. Was she going to pester him the entire trip?
“I’m thirsty.” She looked embarrassed; her hands trembled slightly. Damn, she was probably cold too. Did she think he was her caretaker?
“We’ll be there soon enough.” He ended the conversation by looking out the window, desperate for her to stop talking and stop looking at him with such curiosity and disdain.
“Why did you take me?”
Dominique took a deep breath and turned to look at her. Her intense blue eyes made him wish she’d stop staring.
If there was one thing he was consistent about, it was his honesty. So he told her the truth, not out of kindness, but because it was the only good quality he had.
His mother had lied, his father had betrayed him, and his music hadn’t saved him. Honesty was his only companion.
He took a deep breath and answered, “Because the moment I saw you, the music changed.”
