Chapter 5
Beau sat alone in his room for many hours. At first, he listened for Beast’s footfalls outside his door, but the house seemed even more silent than usual, as though Beau were entombed in it, totally alone.
He had pulled a chair up to a window, opening the plantation shutters, and quietly watched the day descend into darkness. At one point, the mountains became brilliant, almost glowing tangerine, painted by the dying sun opposite their peaks.
It was hard to absorb what he had seen, what Beast had revealed. Beau ached to ask him what his real name was. The moniker, Beast, had seemed mysterious and playful—a reference to the man’s size.
Now, with what Beau had witnessed, Beast seemed jarringly cruel, all the more poignant because it seemed Beast himself had come up with the nam
