As the days passed, life fell into a familiar rhythm. The Beast would cook for her and tend to the house’s grounds, while she gradually transformed its interior through the determined application of a soapy cloth. In the afternoons, their reading lessons progressed, and Rose soon began to make her way through Little Goody Two Shoes at a much brisker pace. Their conversations at dinner became less awkward, and sometimes they would walk through the garden together to admire its kaleidoscopic blooms and verdant foliage. Rose became accustomed to The Beast’s turns of anger, and although they always scared her a little, they no longer bothered her so much afterwards. He never quite apologised, but he always seemed rueful once he had calmed, making a point of keeping a respectful distance until she was no longer afraid.

Often when he regarded her, his gaze would once again betray the barely restrained hunger she had detected in him on her first night in his company. It could surface along with any of his other moods, whether he was being stern and fatherly or friendly and conversational. What disturbed Rose more than the attention itself was the growing realisation that a part of her liked it. At dinner, when she noticed The Beast’s covetous appraisal, she would keep her eyes focused on her plate, allowing him to look for as long as he wished. When she played this game a shiver would run though her, and she could not tell whether it was the anticipation of a maiden awaiting her paramour, or the terror of a mouse about to be plucked from the ground by an owl’s talons.

During one of Rose’s reading lessons, she and The Beast were laughing at the earnest moralising of Little Goody Two Shoes when Rose accidentally moved her quill too quickly and spilled droplets of ink across the book.