Taming The Beast Read online

  “You hair yong,” he said shyly.

  Michaela smiled a bit wider and gave him a wink. “Yes, it is long. And a mess likely, since I’ve just come from bed.” She looked up at Leo’s keeper. “All right, Hugh?” she asked quietly.

  Hugh grunted. “Come on then, Puke. Perhaps you may visit with Miss Fortune later this afternoon, after you’ve had your lie-down.” He turned to go but halted as Michaela rose to her feet, and his words were meant for Michaela’s ears only. “If you ever do anything to endanger this child again, I will flay the skin from you. I think you’re a walking disaster as it is, and not to last out the week. But I will give you the courtesy of a warning this one time only, Miss Fortune. Do we understand each other?”

  “No, we do not,” Michaela whispered back. “I made a mistake, Hugh, and one that I will rectify to my own satisfaction this very morn. I don’t care if you are Lord Cherbon’s man—do not threaten me again, or accuse me of aught which you do not know as fact, or you would be wise to lock your chamber door upon retiring at night. If you are too put out by the duties your lord has charged you with to tolerate my presence, then you may tell him to deal with me himself, for the only way that I shall ever leave Cherbon is upon his word. Good day.”

  Michaela turned back to her chamber and closed the door before Hugh could respond. She threw the bolt for good measure.

  Then she walked calmly back to bed, lay down carefully, and let her trembling overtake her at last.

  “She is turning Cherbon inside out,” Hugh said disgustedly, as he helped Roderick in his daily stretches. “I’m telling you, Rick—she simply will not do.”

  “Argh! Hugh, not so far—my leg is pulling from its socket!”

  Hugh eased back immediately. “Sorry. I was throwing her out this morn, after the incident with Leo. I would have, too, did I not know how conniving Harliss can be. I’m giving Miss Fortune the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Very kind of you,” Roderick said dryly.

  “It is, yes. Although I must say that I’m impressed with how she handled Heartless.”

  Roderick raised his eyebrows, waited.

  “She is now Cherbon’s garderobe mistress.”

  Roderick chuckled darkly. “Fitting. Would that I had thought of that myself.”

  “Ingenious, I agree. But still, I fear she will not do.” Hugh released Roderick’s knee and gestured for Roderick to twist his hips toward him now. “She is…strange. Not at all what I expected.”

  Roderick lifted his knees up and over to his left, and sighed at the stretch. This side was always so much easier. “Cherbon is not exactly a den of normalcy, Hugh.”

  “True, but I don’t care for her, any matter. She is brazen. And quite mouthy.”

  “Perhaps you see a bit of yourself in that?”

  Hugh snorted. “She demands to see you on every unfortunate occasion of our meeting.”

  “That’s not so strange,” Roderick offered. “Haven’t all the candidates expressed such a wish? To see the man they would marry?”

  “They have, yes,” Hugh said with patience. “But I believe Miss Fortune actually means it.”

  Roderick’s pride stung a bit at that. But he let it go. Hugh was honest and blunt, and Roderick appreciated those qualities in his friend in every other aspect of their lives at Cherbon. He told himself he could not pick and choose where Hugh could and couldn’t be honest. Roderick was no simpering maid who required his truths coated in honey.

  “Where is she now?” Roderick asked, seeking to change the subject lest he be plunged into one of his dark moods.

  “She is out in the bailey with Leo, picking flowers and singing,” Hugh sneered. “I would have disallowed it, but he insisted. I doubt Miss Fortune will let any harm to come to him after my terrible dressing-down this morn—she seemed properly chastised. And it gives me a moment’s peace. Let Cherbon have a respite as well, I say. She’s not stopped since Harliss—ordering cleanings, whitewashings, new candles!” Hugh shook his head and chuckled. “There is such a thing as overenthusiasm.”

  Roderick grunted his assent but held his tongue through the remainder of the stretch. He was intrigued by Michaela Fortune, and damned his crippled self for preventing him from seeking her out in the light. He had little hope that she would stay, but her so-labeled overenthusiasm for keep affairs was heartening, and Roderick wanted to do nothing that might frighten her away. He wished he was more improved, more mobile, less scarred and hideous. Perhaps if he had the lights put out for the evening meal, and came in his hood…

  But no. That would likely frighten her more. He would simply have to wait.

  He could still see her in his mind, though, from his memory of her arrival, and his nightly forays….

  “I think it is good that she seeks to spend time with Leo,” Roderick said as Hugh helped him from the floor and to his chair. “You’re no child’s nurse, Hugh.”

  “The two of us get on just fine.”

  “I know you do,” Roderick said, accepting the chalice of wine that also held a powdered herb to help with the stiffness and pain he always felt after his daily torture sessions. “And I do not fault your care of him in the least. But your social life leaves much to be desired. You needed to beat the women from you in Constantinople—what sport do you have here?”

  “You’re to lecture me on entertaining lovers?” Hugh said. “Besides, you’re forgetting the Tornfield feast—I fared quite well there that night.” He winked at Roderick, and Roderick laughed.

  “Good on you, Hugh. I should have known.” He sat for several moments, contemplating his cup and waiting for the warm, tingling sensation of the powder to take effect. Perhaps there was more he could be doing to better his physical condition. Perhaps more work, more practice. “What do you think if I were to increase my exercises, Hugh?” he asked suddenly, before his nerve could leave him. “Perhaps I could get around a bit better?”

  Hugh’s eyes widened. “Do you jest? Rick—that is precisely what you need! I’ve been thinking of other things that we might do besides the stretches Aurelia showed us—things that are actually relevant to your station!” Hugh set his chalice aside and dropped to one knee at the side of Roderick’s chair. “We could make use of the squire’s practice!”

  “Do we have any squires?”

  “No, of course not,” Hugh said, and waved his hand. “But the soldiers’ quarters are still possessed of the rings, the dummies, the wooden weaponry! It would—”

  “You’d have me play with child’s things?” Roderick frowned.

  “Think about it, Rick! The lighter weights, the simplicity of the exercises—your body knows how to do these things, we only need strengthen it!”

  Roderick did think about it, and the more he did, the more the idea made sense to him. A crazy little bubble of excitement welled up in him, but he recognized it and burst it.

  Hope had no place at Cherbon.

  Hugh grasped his shoulder. “What do you say, Rick? Will you give me permission to have the props brought out?”

  “Brought out, yes, but not in the practice arena. I don’t wish for anyone to see—”

  “Of course not,” Hugh rushed. “I’ll have them brought t—”

  “No, no—you bring them, Hugh. At night.”

  “Yes, yes. I see. Where shall we—”

  But Roderick already knew the perfect location for his childish, painful, humiliating practice before Hugh could finish his question. Where he was sure his father could watch Roderick take back the life he’d tried so hard to destroy.

  “Take them to the ring on the knoll, near the stables.”

  “…and they rode all the way to London town!” Michaela ended the song on a clap and Leo joined in enthusiastically.

  “More!” the little boy demanded with his beautiful smile.

  “Again? Leo, we’ve sung it a dozen times already!”

  “No more?” He scrunched up his nose and then, as if the idea had just come to him, he grabbed up the scragg
ly bunch of mangled and wilted stems and thrust them at Michaela. “Fowwers?”

  Michaela laughed. “I think we’ve picked all to be had today.” The ragged greenery was little more than frilly weeds—all that was readily available as winter bore down on the land, but the picking of them had given the boy such joy, and Michaela felt her load lighten at just being with Leo Cherbon. The boy’s very existence had been a shock at first, but Michaela was thrilled by the lord’s young son and she hated to leave his company.

  “Mayhap we can go about again on the morrow if Sir Hugh will allow it, eh? But right now, I must return to the keep. I have chores to attend to, and you likely are wanting of a morsel to eat.”

  The boy’s round face fell again, but only for a moment before he suddenly bolted to his bare feet in the grass and ran past Michaela, shouting, “Fire, fire!”

  “Fire?” Michaela twisted around with alarm, but only saw Leo dashing toward a rotund figure in a brown robe.

  Friar. It was Friar Cope, a man Michaela was most familiar with, having seen him recently at the wedding of Alan Tornfield and Lady Juliette.

  She had hoped to escape that memory here, and she wondered with dread what the holy man was doing at Cherbon.

  Leo hurled himself at Friar Cope’s knees, and the kind man laughed and patted the boy’s head. “Good day, Leo! What are you doing about alone? Where is Sir Hugh?”

  “No Hoo. Aid-ee Mike-lah! Ee-oh pick fowwers!” Leo announced, thrusting his bouquet at Friar Cope and then pointing backward in Michaela’s direction.

  The friar allowed the little boy to take hold of his hand and pull him closer, and Michaela groaned inwardly at the pitiful little smile the friar gave her.

  “Good day, Lady Michaela. I see the rumors I heard were sadly correct.”

  “Good day, Friar. It’s nice to see you again.” It wasn’t. “What business have you at Cherbon?” she asked, choosing to ignore the subject of her own new residency there.

  “No business, my dear. Only coming home, at last. Being the demesne seat, Cherbon is the base of my ministry.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize,” Michaela said lightly, but inside she screamed in temper, pounded her fists and stomped her feet. Now she would be faced with the damning memory of Alan’s betrayal and her own humiliation on a regular basis. “Welcome home, then.”

  “Thank you, my lady. May I sit?” The friar indicated the flattened patch of dead grass Leo had recently vacated, as if asking permission to dine at a grand table.

  “Of course,” Michaela said, although Leo was already tugging the man onto the ground by pulling on his hand with both arms.

  “Fire sit—Ee-oh pick more fowwers!” And he was off a short distance away, perusing the buffet of weeds and grass for anything remotely blossomlike.

  Michaela and Friar Cope sat side by side for several moments, watching the three-year-old in heavy silence.

  “Michaela, my dear, what in Heaven’s name are you doing at Cherbon?” he asked quietly.

  “What am I doing here?” Michaela reiterated quietly, ruffling a palm over the crackly grass near her hip. “What am I doing here? Well, I hope to be saving my parents from poverty, is what I’m doing here. Since I was so recently relieved of my position at Tornfield. Which you obviously already know all about.”

  “You were not relieved of your position,” Cope argued gently. “I’ve just come from Tornfield and you still have a home there, should you want it. Cherbon is no place for you—Roderick is no man for you to be setting your sights on.”

  The mention of Tornfield caused Michaela’s heart to clench. “Why? Because I am the least of nobility in the whole of the land? Is silly Miss Fortune not worthy of such a grand home as Cherbon? Lord Roderick too lofty an ambition?” She knew she sounded defensive, but she didn’t care—she was.

  “Not at all,” Cope answered. “You are very special, my child. I have known that since your birth. But this place is—” He broke off, looked around the deserted grounds, and Michaela knew he was seeing the vine-covered walls, the gloomy, abandoned atmosphere. “Haunted, for lack of a better word. Many sad and terrible things have taken place at Cherbon. And Roderick—he was not always the hard man that he is now. Indeed, before he left on his pilgrimage, we all had great hopes for the day when Roderick would take his father’s place. A kind man, gentle, then. Fair in word and in deed. But I fear he has come to resemble his father in actions and rule so much that there is little that could be done to redeem him. He is scarred, and not only from his physical injuries.”

  “I didn’t know Roderick Cherbon before I came, nor did I meet his father. So I shall reserve my opinion of him until I know him well enough on my own.”

  “But, my dear,” Cope insisted, “so many women—most more experienced than you, if I may be so bold—have tried and fled. There is—”

  “Ninety-six, to be exact,” Michaela said lightly, plucking a short, rough leaf from the grass and rubbing it between her thumb and finger. “I am the ninety-seventh.”

  Friar Cope was quiet for a moment. “Your parents are worried for you. Your father, especially. He knew Magnus Cherbon—”

  “Magnus Cherbon is dead, though, Friar,” Michaela interrupted. “And I am getting along well enough so far. I must succeed here. There is no other hope for my parents, or for me.”

  Cope reached into his robe. “Mayhap this will sway you?” He handed Michaela a folded scrap of paper.

  She didn’t want to take it, but she did, and unfolded it carefully. Her throat tightened at the familiar, dainty, scribbling script of Elizabeth Tornfield.

  Dear Michaela,

  Why did you leave? I am sad. Lady Juliette is horrid. I hate her. Please come home. Please.

  Elizabeth Tornfield

  Michaela hastily brushed at the tears on her face, folded the letter back and returned it to the friar.

  “You don’t wish to keep it?” he asked, his eyes wide.

  “No, I don’t. Thank you.” She swiped at her nose with the back of her hand, not caring if it was uncouth. “Lord Alan would likely be much put-out that his daughter sent me that message. I assume you read it?” It was not an accusation, only a statement.

  “I did, yes. And I do doubt that Lord Alan minds—he gave his blessing for me to carry the message to you.”

  Anger welled up in Michaela at the thought of Alan’s attempted manipulation. “I shall forget I ever read it. And if you by chance happen to be asked to carry another to me, please do not.”

  “Michaela—”

  “Leo!” Michaela called in a loud, shaky voice, standing and cutting off Friar Cope’s sympathetic tone. The little boy turned his bright, eager face to her. “Come along—’tis time we returned to the keep.”

  Friar Cope too stood. “Do not begrudge Lord Alan his choice, Michaela. He was doing what he felt was best for all at Tornfield.”

  “Certainly. Which is why I am no longer at Tornfield.” Leo dashed to Michaela’s side, swinging himself about on her skirts. She reached down to seize his hand and began walking away from Cope without so much as a glance. “Good day, Friar.”

  “Gooday, Fire!” Leo twisted about to call back and wave over his shoulder. Then his little voice seemed directed upward. “Aid-ee Mike-lah ky-in’?”

  “No, Leo.” Michaela sniffed and did not look down at the boy lest the tears spill over her lashes. “I have something in my eye, that’s all.”

  Chapter Nine

  Something had greatly upset Miss Fortune, and Roderick could not help but wonder at the cause, as he was fairly certain it was not him.

  She had cried herself to sleep; he could see that even in the almost complete absence of light of her bedchamber, staring at her still form on the mattress through the cleft of the bed curtains. Her face was turned toward him on her pillow as she lay on her side on the very edge of the mattress—as if she had stared longingly out—and she clutched a length of the coverlet to her face. The murky light from the faraway window illuminated her cheek
s and hair just enough for him to see the puffiness of her eyelids and the downward turn of her mouth, even in the darkness.

  Damned to shadows as he was, Roderick’s night vision had become quite spectacular.

  As he crept about, he had found no evidence for her distress in the chamber that had housed him through his boyhood. Everything was in its place, nothing strewn about in a pique of anger or despair. And perhaps ’twas only the hopeless feel of the room Roderick had always and still hated, but he didn’t think so. Miss Fortune was unhappy.

  He wanted her to be happy here. But he didn’t know how to make it so. Indeed, in his longest memory, no one had ever been happy at Cherbon, save mayhap his father, and he had been a demon who found happiness only in others’ misery.

  Magnus had likely died ecstatic.

  Roderick took a chance and crouched awkwardly at the bedside, his left leg held straight, his face mayhap only a foot away from the sleeping Miss Fortune’s. In all the time since women had been coming to Cherbon in hopes of becoming his wife, Roderick had never made use of the secret panel of his old room. But since he’d first seen Michaela Fortune, it was as if he could not stay away from her. Although he could not bring himself to speak to her face-to-face—quite possibly sending her screaming from the keep in mad terror, like the last woman—this way he could look in upon her, mayhap glean some small piece of information that would aid him in keeping her.

  His injuries had made him like the animal people rumored him to be—his night vision was superb; his hearing—despite his temporary deafness in one ear—was sharper than a bat’s; his sense of smell so keen that he could tell an oak from a beech with his eyes closed. And he could smell her—loudly, it seemed—from where he crouched. Her fresh, green scent, like the newest heather crushed underfoot, and her sadness. It was a sweet smell, but rather sorry, like wet hay stacked in a stable and then forgotten.

  “What happened?” he breathed, his own fine hearing barely even registering the words.