Page 77 of Legacy of Roses

“Yes, yes,” Oscar said. “We know how touched you are to have four people who take such care of you.”

“Touched?” The fire in Rosalie’s eyes leaped into full flame, and Dimitri seized her arm to keep her from finding and whacking her brothers.

All three of the triplets laughed, however.

“Don’t worry,” Vernon said. “She’ll hold it in. Just. She always does.”

“You must have more patience than I realized,” Dimitri said to Rosalie, making her laugh.

“Every time I think I’m going to erupt at them, one of them does something sweet.” She sighed. “Even this was sweet in its own way.”

“Oh good, so everything is all sorted?” Daphne asked from the top of the stairs.

“Once again your nap was perfectly timed, I see,” Rosalie muttered.

“Now that they know we’re here, does that mean they’ll do their own cooking?” Vernon asked hopefully.

“Unfortunately, no,” Daphne said. “They’ve been capable of cooking the whole time, but we all need to keep to our roles.”

“We are capable of cooking,” Rosalie said quickly. “So you can all go home now. We don’t need servants to make this little play work.”

“You want us to leave when the manor was just invaded by an army?” Vernon cried. “I saved you, remember!”

“So that was you three with the coal and the knives.” Dimitri was reluctantly impressed. “It was quick thinking.”

“Thank you,” Vernon said smugly. “But we certainly won’t be leaving.”

Rosalie wilted, but Daphne spoke again.

“That’s right. We’re as much a part of this as you two. But we can’t risk upsetting the play by stepping out of our assigned roles. If we stop acting as servants, we might turn visible, and that could mess up the whole thing. Your family will be left with a chest of gold, but what about poor Dimitri? Do you want him to be stuck as a Beast forever because the Legacy dropped him halfway through?”

“I wouldn’t mind so much,” Vernon muttered rebelliously. “Personally I think he looks better now than he did before.”

“Like sister, like brother,” Daphne murmured, making Dimitri look at Rosalie.

She didn’t appear to have heard her friend—or she was pretending she hadn’t. What had Daphne meant? Did she really think Rosalie preferred the way he looked now? Surely that was impossible. Although she had certainly been softer and warmer to him after his change than she had been before.

He frowned. Did that mean that when—hopefully, not if—he went back to his true form, she would go back to being constantly irritated by him? It was a disheartening thought, but he refused to believe it. Thinking that way was unfair to Rosalie and the connection they had forged over the last few days. She actually knew him now, and she wouldn’t see him differently just because of his appearance. He hoped.

That night he made the rounds of every external door and window in the castle twice before he could sleep. And he made the same circuit as soon as he woke in the morning, checking that nothing had been disturbed. The morning and evening circuits became his ritual, and he confiscated the housekeeper’s set of master keys, refusing to let the triplets touch them.

Once Rosalie explained that Ralph’s distracted oversight had given Jace and his men access, they didn’t even protest. Much.

But that was the only relief any of them got from the boys’ complaints. Dimitri’s concern over the possibility of their silent presence was soon replaced with a desperate desire for them to return to being quiet, unseen shadows. Now that they weren’t trying to hide their presence, they accompanied all their actions with an endless stream of commentary.

“I have now entered the room,” Vernon said at the evening meal one week after Jace’s attack. “I am gliding quietly and gracefully across the room like a true servant. No one would even notice my presence, but I wish you to be aware that all private, personal, and nauseating conversation should now cease.”

The plate that had been floating through the air lowered onto the table in front of Dimitri.

“I am now serving the great and glorious master of the manor, known to his relations and close friends as the Beast.”

“Some feel this is a rather pompous appellation, given he strikes fear in no one’s heart,” Oscar said. “However, everyone is too polite to mention that fact.”

Vernon cleared his throat reprovingly, and Oscar’s plate paused in midair. “I offer my most abject apologies. It is, I, Oscar, and I too have entered the room. I glide even more effectively than the most revered servant, Vernon. Some have been known to faint at the wonder of my silent gliding.”

“If only it was silent,” Dimitri muttered, poking listlessly at his food.

“Are you three ever going to stop that?” Rosalie asked as Oscar finally put her plate in front of her.

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