Love Is Never Ugly

Chapter 65

"Ah!" She shrieked. "You horrible, disgusting beasts! This dress was new! It came straight from Paris!"

Razzle started to chew and tug on the skirt of her new dress while Dazzle yanked on her hair as roughly as possible.

"Ow! Stop that! Get away from me you dirty little heathens! Charlotte control your so called pets!"

Charlotte was about to call them off but then an idea occurred to her. Now this was against her principles but desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Tell me where the ring is first."

"What?!"

"You heard me. Tell me where it is or I won't help you."

"How dare you blackmail me! Just who do you think- Ah!" Razzle bit her on the arm and Dazzle kicked more mud into her face.

"Will you tell me where the ring is now?" Charlotte asked.

"Never!"

Then Dazzle kicked her in the face, Razzle pounced on her and pushed her head deeper in the mud. Those goats showed her no mercy and if she tried to run away they would trip her and tackle her down. Charlotte only watched and waited. Waited for her sister to concede to do the right thing but despite the mud and pain, Helsa remained willful. That is until Razzle and Dazzle decided to give her the ultimate threat.

The climbed on top of Helsa and had her pinned to where she couldn't get up without Charlotte's say so. Razzle stood on his hind legs, exposing a very particular appendage to her. Dazzle turned around and lifted up his tail.

"No!" Helsa screeched higher and louder than a bat. "You wouldn't dare!"

But they would and they were already to.

"The fireplace!" She finally confessed. "I threw it into the fireplace! Now get these demons off of me!"

Charlotte commanded Razzle and Dazzle t o leave Helsa alone then ran back into the house. She hurried over the fireplace and started to dig through the ashes until she discovered the ring at long last. She quickly slipped it onto her finger.

"Don't do it Charlotte!" Before she could even think of the castle, she heard her father call out to her and found him standing behind her. His gaze was desperate. "Charlotte I know that I was wrong to deceive you but I knew no other way to stop you. I couldn't bear to think of you in the arms of a monster. Can you not understand that?"

"I can understand that Father but can you not understand why I must return? Mother would have!"

He became stiff as board at the mention of his first wife.

"How do you know what your mother would have understood? You never even knew her!"

"You told me that when you two fell in love nobody wanted you to marry her! Your parents thought that she was beneath you because she was a shepherd's daughter and hers thought you were a scoundrel who would only break her heart! But she wanted to be with you despite what her family thought and you were the same! You loved each other and that's all that mattered to you! So I know Mother would have understood why I want to be with Alastor and I thought you would have understood too!"

Lucifer was suddenly as quiet as a mouse. Regret and guilt quickly flooded within his entire being. He saw himself as a much younger man and his beloved Lilith alive, the two of them each begging their families to consent to their marriage. The many tears Lilith cried when her parents and his parents refused. One memory in particular stuck out in this moment.

The day Lilith's father told her that he knew Lucifer as a man who had many lady friends and that was true, he was a womanizer back in the day but he never considered any of those women for a wife. But with Lilith it had been different. He loved her and he wanted to marry her, she had caused him to lose interest in all other women. But Lilith's father didn't believe it and the belittlement of Lilith from Lucifer's own father only strengthened that disbelief. In the end the lovers had to elope and on their honeymoon Lilith made him promise that they would never do such thing to their own children. But here he was now years later, breaking that promise.

"Oh Charlotte." He fell at her feet in shame. "I truly never meant to hurt you. After I lost your mother, I lived in constant fear of losing you too. That's why I would subconsciously try to control you. To make sure that you'd never leave me. But now I realize that it was wrong and selfish of me. That I wasn't the kind of father your mother expected me to be. I don't expect you to forgive me for what I've done but I hope you can understand that I love you and that all this time I sincerely believed that I was doing the right thing."

Charlotte bent down to meet his gaze.

"I can't forgive you Father." She said. "Not yet. You lied to me, you took advantage of my love for you, and you purposely tried to cause harm to someone that I cared for. I can't forgive that easily."

"I know." He accepted.

"But I still love you Father. I know your intentions were good, I understand your reasons, and you have now acknowledged your mistakes so someday I will forgive you. It will just take time."

With that decision made she went upstairs to her room, laid down on her bed, and fell asleep with thoughts of her dear Alastor.