Matters of the Heart: Beauty and the Beast

By Xlibris US

Mlord, where have ye been since the ball last night? The whole servant staff has been looking for ye, said a very worried servant of the young prince.
Robert, I was out with a maiden, the prince said in a matter a fact-ly tone. He had come in very late in the afternoon the next day after the royal ball. He had a certain glow about him with his clothes wrinkled from lying on the floor for a good majority of the day while he was bedding a willing young woman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493157914

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by B. H. Broadbent.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 06/17/2014

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Contents

Chapter 1:   The Royal Family

Chapter 2:   The Servant’s Wife’s Blessing

Chapter 3:   The Unexpected Fortnight

Chapter 4:   Wearisome and Vapid Brides

Chapter 5:   Tenacious Novice

Chapter 6:   The Incredulous Mercury

Chapter 7:   The Wretched Truth

Chapter 8:   Come, Be Our Mistress, Our Princess

Chapter 9:   Grief

Chapter 10: The Goblin King

Chapter 11: The Unanticipated Guest

Chapter 1

The Royal Family

Year 1400 small kingdom in Wales

"M’lord, where have ye been since the ball last night? The whole servant staff has been looking for ye," said a very worried servant of the young prince.

Robert, I was out with a maiden, the prince said in a matter a fact-ly tone. He had come in very late in the afternoon the next day after the royal ball. He had a certain glow about him with his clothes wrinkled from lying on the floor for a good majority of the day while he was bedding a willing young woman.

Your parents are egger that ye find yourself a wife.

May I speak plainly to a friend and not to a servant? The prince annoyed by the mention of his parents. I do not care what my parents think of my activities, but it would be no different else where. New times are coming forth and why should I bind myself to old foolish traditions?

M’lord, as a friend and as a member of this country, I admit I am disappointed in your willingness to bed any woman ye set your eyes upon and lust after, but ye will be a king soon and a king is the only example that the people will truly look to. They will either praise ye for your virtue or despise ye for your disloyalty.

But I am not king yet! I am allowed to have fun in my own sport, and the sport that I desire to partake in is the bedsport.

The servant knew that the prince would not understand that he must act as a king now. He shook his head and sighed. The king and queen have sent for ye to meet them in the Great Hall.

Very well. The prince said and turned to bath in the tube with scented hot water. He called a servant girl barely of age of womanhood to join him. The young woman came blushing furiously and undressed him while he seduced her with his kisses and his hands. He undressed the woman, caressed her, and enjoyed once again his favorite sporting while bathing and getting ready to see his parents. She smiled in secret enjoying her jealous victory.

Meanwhile there was a poor young woman in labor who has lost her virginity to the prince in what she thought was an act of true love, but only found the harshness of his lust. He had sneered at her and dismissed her into a shame that was supposed to be his also. Her only living parent, her mother, fought feverishly with her to keep her life from the gruesome hands of death; but the poor young woman had no jest for life anymore and cared not if the babe lived or died.

The prince came in to the Great Hall an hour later, dressed and refreshed from his activity. The two servant girls left with smiles on their faces and swollen lips from the kissing.

Mother! Father! Ye called for me? The prince welcomed his parents who were sitting upon their thrones.

Where have you been? growled his father.

The same servant girl that the prince had enjoyed earlier came in with refreshments.

Father, I was only having some fun with a willing maiden, the prince noted nonchalantly as he gazed at the bottom of the maiden.

Swiving, no doubt, he growled even more deeply in his anger. One of these days, we’ll have a- A huge scream shrilled over the castle along with a slam and a bang of the doors.

The royal family stood and looked toward the noise concerned to what was happening. An old and horrid looking witch stood in the grand hallway with a glass green eye swirling dizzily in her left eye socket and pointed a knotted finger from a hand covered with warts at the prince. She wore rages with had blood all over her from her desperate fight to keep her daughter and covered in mud from her hurry to get to the castle to seek revenge.

You! she shrieked. Ye killed my daughter!

I did no such thing! shouted the prince trying to be heard over the echoes of her shrieks. I have not killed, but only that beast in the forest just last week!

Ye… ye bedded my daughter and she gave ye a dead child outside of wedlock, only to sacrificed her life for it. She practically spit out the last word with a livid nod.

And who is it that I have supposedly bedded and disgraced?

Isabeau Marian! A knight came in with a maiden limp in his arms. A cloth covered her. He set her down and the prince took the cloth to uncover her face and gasped. He first bedded this woman nine months previous; she was the first and he had no intentions in marriage and dismissed her when she begged him to marry her.

The witch smiled an evil smile that brought chills and goose bumps to his skin. She pointed a finger and chanted:

"Wicked, disloyal Beast

Young naïve maidens do ye feast!

Become as what thou art

And die as part!"

Thunder shuddered through the command of the witch and the earth trembled under the authority of the spell. Screams rise quickly after with rushing feet as a beast now stood in their mist and the witch lay dead. The spell zapped her of her life energy. Moreover, the King and Queen quivered in fright to the floor knowing not what to do, but yell for their trusted servant, Robert!

Robert ran into the hall and saw what had happened, pale and stricken. He looked at his grotesque prince, felt pity for him, and gazed sorrowfully at his frightened King and Queen.

My good King, what was said for this to happen?

The King stared at him with whites in his eyes and pure terror carved into his olive tone skin, and squeaked, She said, ‘Wicked, disloyal beast, young naïve maiden do ye feast become as what thou art and die as part!’

Robert nodded and added his own spell upon the beast in hopes for a better future for his dear friend and master.

"Dear Beast, find thee true love

From a maiden sweet as a flower

This spell will rise above

From thee, but only in the future

Will the opportunity will come

Thrice a dozen times

True love will find itself in structure.

Twice must ye find thine answer;

Once in each form.

For thine freedom of heart, be complete,

Ask thine dear heart every night:

Wilt thou marry me?"

The servants and the people in the castle turned invisible and some asleep in an eternal youthful sleep, and forever waiting for the maiden sweet as a flower who will show this beast true love; all except for two. No one saw the young servant maid who was still visible to the eye smile and with a determined glance at the prince who was now a beast turned slowly turned barely visible in a ghostly appearance. The servant turned to the King and Queen and said with a melancholy, My King and Queen, your son will live till he finds a maiden who will love him and be no’ afraid. He must ask and he must prove to this maiden that he is worthy of her love. My dear King and Queen, I am so very sorry, but I did not put ye under this youthful sleep or this spell for soon ye will pass. This is the only way. With a tear, he turned and vanished, while the King and Queen wept for their loss and it was said that over the years it was heartbreak that killed the King and Queen.

Chapter 2

The Servant’s Wife’s Blessing

Husband, what has happened? The servant’s wife asked with worry and concern, The earth trembled and the castle has disappeared!

"My dear heartling, I grieve to say

Reviews for Matters of the Heart

[soosthemoose · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Decent book. Not as much depth as I would have liked.

[dbhutch_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book. I was pulled in from the start. In this story Hope is a photographer who is well known. She is contracted to do a photo shoot for a well know author named Finn O'Neill, after doing his shoot they meet for dinner, then he shows up a week later at her apartment in New York they spend Christmas as well as the next few months together as much as possible, Hope tells Finn everything and shares everything with her , he wants to get married and have a baby ... she becomes pregnant and losses the baby and she starts to see a very different side of Finn that makes her start to question him and his motives and it is a long and scary ride for her until she is free of him in one word pshycopath