Froggy Style (8 page)

“A
re you sure?” I asked Beauty’s butler, Marvin, for the tenth time in the last thirty seconds of our phone conversation. “Sleeping can look a lot like dead.”

“Yes, sir,” Marvin again reassured me as to Beauty’s continued breathing. “I checked the lady myself. She is fast asleep. No need for worry.”

“Are you sure?” I asked one more time, my heartbeat finally slowing to normal. Marvin answered by disconnecting the call, leaving me listening to the harsh buzz of a dial tone.

“So what did the butler say?” Karl asked, wringing his hands against the steering wheel as we flew through the streets of Cin City on our way to save Sleeping Beauty.

Not that she’d appreciate it.

I took a deep breath. “Beauty’s fine. She’s been fast asleep since she called me last night.” Apparently, Marvin was under strict orders not to disturb her, so he’d flatly refused to let me speak with her to verify that she wasn’t worm food. Yet.

“Thank God,” Karl said.

“Karl,” I said to my faithful servant, “we have to hurry. If anything happens to her . . .”

“Don’t fret, sir,” Karl said. “Sleeping Beauty will live a long, happy life.”

I grunted. As long as she said “I do,” and I didn’t revert to my froglike state, I couldn’t care less about Sleeping Beauty’s happiness. In fact, once we were officially married, I’d send her off to live out her sleepy days locked in the tower.

Just like dear old Dad had done.

Hell, give her a blanket and a pea-less mattress and Beauty would probably be as happy as a clam.

A few minutes later the limo pulled up the yellow winding brick driveway that led to Beauty’s palace. The hot desert wind whipped along the valley below, and an eerie sound, almost like E-I-E-I-O, reverberated around us.

Groundskeepers and gardeners tended to the overgrown bushes lining the drive to Beauty’s home. Roses, gardenias, and lilac bushes spouted from the landscape like a plague of wicked witches. Oddly, there wasn’t a cactus in sight. The lush, emerald grass mocked the dry heat. Thank God I wasn’t the shmuck paying the water bill.

“Sir, we’re here,” Karl, manservant of the obvious, said from the driver’s seat.

“I can see that,” I said, not moving.

“Shouldn’t you rescue Princess Beauty now?”

“Right.” I nodded, but still didn’t move an inch. What the hell was I going to say to Beauty? If I told her the truth, she was bound to break our engagement. Even the king wouldn’t stand for his future son-in-law plotting the murder of his bride.

Karl cleared his throat. “So . . .”

“I’m going.” I rolled my eyes, pulling open the passenger-side door. The hot desert air blasted my face. I blinked, trying to restore moisture to my now-sandpaper-like eyeballs. Slowly, like a condemned man, I headed up the golden walkway and knocked on the diamond-encrusted front door.

Marvin answered quickly enough, barely sparing me a glance; instead he nodded up the staircase and then disappeared down the hall, his boots clicking on the highly polished floor.

I stepped through the door, struck again by the opulence surrounding me. Gold and jewels sparkled from every surface. Million-dollar pieces of art hung along the walls, lit by the glow of fairy butts. From the wealth around me, one thing was clear; the Vaniteuse family loved money. I had my doubts the same could be said for each other.

And the bastard king had stuck me with the dinner check.

I supposed that explained the king’s desire to marry Sleeping Beauty off to the highest bidder, sight unseen. After all, the La Grenouille name resembled an unlimited credit card. You could buy anything, anywhere. No questions or credit check required.

Sometimes I hated having gazillions of dollars.

Not often, mind you.

Really only on tax day. All those forms to sign. It was exhausting.

“Jean-Michel.” Pretty, her olive eyes and blond hair sparkling in the sunlight, appeared in front of me. “What’re you doing here?”

“I’m here to see your sister, of course. I’ve missed her.” I forced a smile to my lips.

Pretty shook her head and curls danced around like Old King Cole on a fairy-dust binge. “I don’t think so.” Apparently the sisters shared rudeness as well as their looks.

I tilted my head. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.” Color stained Pretty’s pretty cheeks. “It’s just . . . Can I ask you a question?” She took a fortifying breath after I nodded my agreement. “Why Beauty? I mean, I love my half sister . . .”

“But?”

“Well, she’s not,” her voice turned as silken as whey, “exactly queen material.” The “unlike me” part of her statement hung in the air between us.

True enough, but for some reason Pretty’s words annoyed me more than I cared to admit. Beauty wasn’t that bad. I’m sure, under all that flannel, there lurked the heart of a queen. A really annoying and tired queen, but a queen nonetheless. “Yes, well,” I began. “Beauty is special.”

“So the psychiatrists say,” she said.

“Be that as it may.” My tone grew cold. “Mademoiselle, if you’ll excuse me, my bride and I have much to discuss about our upcoming nuptials.”

“Of course,” she said quickly. “I apologize for my rudeness. It’s just . . . you’re so . . . perfect, and Beauty’s so . . .”

“Sleepy?”

“Exactly.”

“I understand.” I bowed slightly. Poor Pretty, she was another victim of my frog prince charm. Eventually, after a few years of therapy, she would be all right. I patted her shoulder, wincing as she stared up at me, her heart in her bright eyes. “Yes, well . . . I should go find Beauty.”

Her face fell, but she managed to utter, “Yes, of course.”

Taking a deep breath, I headed up the staircase, Pretty’s intense gaze burning into my back.

Once I reached the second floor, I stopped, my eyes fixed on Sleeping Beauty’s bedroom door at the end of the corridor. Less than a hundred feet separated me from the woman who could end my curse or damn me for eternity.

Given my luck over the last couple of days, the latter seemed much more likely. With a sigh, I took one step toward my future, my heart thundering in my chest.

“Ow!” I yelped as a sharp pain radiated from my foot. I glanced down, surprised to see Jimmy Cockroach, his top hat askew and the umbrella in his hand bent at an odd angle.

Glaring up at me, he brandished his tiny, bent umbrella at me. “Watch where you’re walking, you dolt.”

Dolt? Really? Who talked like that? I grimaced, lifting my foot to examine the damage left by his umbrella. A small hole dotted the insole of my shoe, a handmade loafer designed by an old woman who sure knew what to do with shoe leather.

Without further comment or apology, Jimmy Cockroach scurried down the hall, pausing at the top of the stairs to glare at me.

“Nice to see you again too,” I said with a wave, which caused him to spin on his tiny heel and murmur something about the sorry state of eligible princes these days.

I shook my head and continued on my path toward the woman I would soon call my wife. Or a corpse. Sadly, I wasn’t sure there’d be a really big difference between the two.

A door two rooms away from Beauty’s stood open. I peeked inside as I passed. The room was empty with the exception of an industrial-sized sewing machine with an extremely long needle threaded with yarn, yarn the same golden color as Beauty’s hair. Murky sunlight crept in through a fogged window. Cobwebs covered the sewing machine, yet the rest of the room looked freshly dusted. I sniffed the air. It smelled faintly of decay, as well as something sweet and familiar, something I couldn’t place. A shiver ran down my spine.

The sooner I got Beauty away from this place and tucked safely away in a tower somewhere, the better.

I
tapped lightly on Beauty’s bedroom door. The soft sound of snoring greeted my knock. Well, she was still alive. That counted for something, right?

Sighing, I took a step into the bedroom, my eyes sweeping the shadows for any sign of danger. On the far side of the room sat a window with cheerless curtains pulled tight against the afternoon sunlight. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

My bride lay on her back, her kinky blond hair spilling across her pillow and framing her pale face. Silken sheets were pulled past her chin, obscuring most of her face. Her breathing sounded harsh, as if she’d run a great distance. A soft snore escaped her lips, followed by a louder snort.

Dark eyelashes flickered in her sleep, sort of like a hushed little baby swinging from a treetop. I stopped just inside the doorway, my heart in my throat. This was the woman I would marry. The One. My one. The woman I would spend the rest of my days with. Lying there, against the silken sheets of her bed, Beauty looked as innocent as freshly fallen snow.

I never liked the snow.

My eyes locked on the nightstand by Beauty’s bed. A half-empty box of nighttime cold medicine sat next to a vase filled with wilted flowers. No wonder she slept a lot. FairyQuil was known to knock out an elephant.

On the opposite side of the room stood a dresser with a large jewelry chest and an array of framed photographs on top. I tiptoed my way toward the dresser, careful not to wake the princess sleeping mere feet away.

“Frog!” I yelped as my little piggy, the anorexic one, caught the edge of the dresser. I jumped around on one foot until the pain went from blow your house down to merely a huff and a puff.

Marvin, the butler, burst into the bedroom, a bat in his hand. He glanced around as if searching for a threat. “Sir? Did Princess Beauty call out?”

I blinked away unshed tears.

“But I heard a loud girlish scream.”

“Manly,” I corrected.

“What?”

I exhaled loudly. “A manly scream. You heard a masculine scream. Sort of like a wild beast.”

“No, sir.” His eyes darted around the room. “The scream I heard resembled that of a little girl.”

My fists clenched, but my voice stayed calm. “Whatever. As you can see, Lady Beauty is just fine.” I rubbed my toe through the leather confines of my shoe. The throbbing eased a bit.

Marvin glanced at my future wife and then to me, his forehead wrinkled. “Well, then, since Lady Beauty is in no immediate danger,” he stressed the word “immediate,” “I will return to my duties.”

My eyes narrowed. Was Marvin referring to Spindle? Or was Beauty in more danger than I suspected? Before I could question Marvin, he tipped his bat my way and left the room. When the door closed behind him, I glanced at Sleeping Beauty. A string of drool slid from her lips, dribbling down her silken sheet.

I rubbed the back of my neck. I was being paranoid. Because, really, how many assassins could one tiny and tired princess have? The number twenty-eight popped into my head, the number of jilted fiancés, to be precise.

Speaking of fiancés, I noticed the sparkle of diamonds winking out from the wooden jewelry crate on the dresser. Since I’d yet to slip a ring or anything else on my intended’s finger, again my cat-killing curiosity got the best of me.

Sitting among piles of gold chains, strands of roping pearls, and expensive jewels in a rainbow of colors shiny enough to make Ali Baba and his contingent of thieves jealous were rows and rows of engagement rings in various shapes and colors. Forty-carat diamonds mixed with emeralds and the occasional ruby, each tagged with a handwritten number. One through twenty-eight.

I picked up a ring labeled with the number seven. A big diamond encrusted with sapphires. Pretty perhaps, but not Beauty’s style. In fact, none of the rings in the box seemed right for my future wife. One was too big, another too small. None fit her just right. No wonder she’d never married any of those guys. Not that I was husband material either, but I wasn’t nearly as clueless as fiancés one through twenty-eight.

“Fools,” I whispered.

“You got that right,” someone said, the voice too soft to pinpoint its location, let alone the gender of the speaker. The hair on the back of my neck rose.

I spun toward the bed. My bride looked as peaceful as she had when I first entered the room. Her eyes closed, her breathing even and deep. My eyes scanned the rest of the room, finding no one other than my sleeping bride. Maybe I was losing my mind like Lollie had predicted.

Turning back to the jewelry box, I set number seven’s ring back in its rightful place and closed the lid. My eyes locked on a framed photograph sitting next to the jewelry box. A picture of Beauty, age seven or eight. She smirked at the camera, a toothless grin, as if she didn’t have a care in the world, and yet, her lollipop eyes told a far different tale, one of loneliness and longing. In the background, Handsome stood next to his father, the king, and a fresh-faced four-year-old Pretty as well as a shadowy figure barely in the frame.

I peered closer at the picture, unable to make out anything other than the outline of a child. Was this a long-lost Vaniteuse relative? Not that it mattered. The picture was worth a thousand tales, none of them the happily-ever-after kind. All the children held ice cream cones in their hands, while Beauty’s hand was suspiciously empty. Perhaps my bride was lactose intolerant? But I had my doubts.

In another picture, one with a thumbprint obscuring the left half of the frame, the family sat at a long table, each smiling and happy expect for Beauty. She sat a few seats away, her head in her hands, her sad eyes locked on her happy siblings.

For a kid who grew up without much in the way of parental love and with a pair of frog legs to boot, I understood the yearning in her gaze, the need to be a part of something, to be loved. For all Beauty’s faults, and apparently there were quite a few, she deserved better. What the hell was wrong with me? I was the Frog Prince. A man women loved to love. Hell, I’d kissed more princesses than Rapunzel had split ends.

The stress of the wedding was getting to me. That was all this sudden girly, emotional crap was. I didn’t care one iota about Beauty or her upbringing, as long as she said “I do.”

I set the photograph down on the dresser. A speck of paper on the back of the frame caught my eye. I peered closer. Someone had tucked a piece of paper between the picture and the frame. Carefully, I tugged at the note, inching it until the paper worked its way free. Thick block letters formed the words:

“What the frog does that mean?” I said, but deep down I knew the answer. I rubbed at the B-shaped birthmark on my chest. “B” for “Beauty.” One more sign that Beauty was my One. My fate was sealed by a benign, disfiguring lesion. Figured.

My sleeping bride mumbled something in response, something I couldn’t quite make out. I moved across the room, to her bed, and leaned in. Beauty’s breath tickled the ten-in-the-morning stubble hugging my chin.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

The vase next to the bedside, an inch or two from Beauty’s head, exploded, showering us in glass, water, and flower shrapnel. Velvety petals flew in all directions.

Beauty shot straight up, her eyes wide. Without thinking, I yanked her from the bed and onto the floor, covering her body with my own. My heart slammed wildly in my chest. Frog! Spindle and, very likely, the lying Lollie Bliss were outside, waiting for a chance to blow Beauty’s tiny little brains out.

Silence reigned in the large room. Water from the fatally injured vase pooled on the floor around us, soaking into my pants, water that could’ve just as easily have been my intended’s blood.

Anger exploded inside me. That damn Spindle. I vowed to stop him. Any way I could. No more Mr. Nice Frog Prince.

I glanced down at Beauty. Her hands covered her face in an expression of surprise. She stared up at me for a long moment. “Jean-Michel?” she said, her voice husky with sleep.

I brushed her hair out of her grape-colored eyes. Tenderness and something quite foreign, almost like decency, rose inside me. Twenty-two years ago, Sleeping Beauty had saved me from my curse, albeit accidentally, now it was my turn to return the favor and save her from a killer, albeit one I’d accidentally hired to kill her. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I won’t let anyone hurt you,” I vowed.

Sleeping Beauty’s lips curled into a frown. “In that case,” she said, “get off me, you’re crushing my spleen.”