The Gentle Prisoner

There was a curious similarity between the fairy tale of "Beauty and the Beast" and Shelley Wynthorpe's relationship with Nicholas Penryn. The Beast lived in a remote house, surrounded by high walls; so did Nicholas. Beauty's father brought her a white rose from the Beast's garden; so did Shelley's father, when he visited Nicholas and they came to their strange arrangement that Shelley should become Nicholas's wife. The Beast was hideously ugly — and Nicholas, badly scarred, was convinced that no woman could ever feel anything but revulsion for him. But. .. after a year and a day, Beauty had fallen truly in love with the Beast. Would Shelley, with her gentle ways, be able to bring her own love story to its happy ending?