Taming The Beast Read online

  But she stirred, hummed a bit in her sleep, and even that sound was despondent.

  Roderick waited until she was still again, and then rose to his feet slowly, soundlessly. He was pressing his fortune—ha!—staying here, daring to even breathe in her presence. Should she awaken and find him—a beast of a man, scarred and broken—a black monster, she would be rightly terrified. Roderick was ashamed.

  He slipped behind the well-oiled panel and into the tiny cubicle that led to the corridor of his own wing.

  A week passed, and although Roderick continued his nightly visits to Miss Fortune when she was least aware, he was relieved to note that she no longer seemed to be crying herself to sleep. But a pair of faint creases had begun to etch themselves between her delicate eyebrows as if life for her at Cherbon was exacting a great toll and required her complete concentration.

  He hovered over her for only a pair of minutes each time, trying to absorb as much of her as he could in the quiet dark, as if it would lend him insight to her person, her very soul. He wondered at her motives, both in coming to Cherbon and in staying, when no other woman had been able to bear the castle or its lord. But there was no revelation to be found on the smooth surfaces of her eyelids, and so each visit only left Roderick wanting, and this night was no different.

  Hugh and Leo were waiting for him when he returned to his chamber, and as soon as he swung open the door, Leo scrambled to his feet from where he and Hugh had been lounging on the thick rug on the floor and ran to greet him.

  “Good ee-binning, Wod-wick,” Leo said, catching himself just before he barreled into Roderick’s legs, but his smile was pure and wide and bright. He looked back over his shoulder at Hugh as if for approval, and Hugh nodded and winked at the boy.

  “Good evening, Leo. How was your day?”

  “Fun! But Aid-ee Mike-lah no pick fowwers and singed wif me today—busy-busy. But no soos. And no bad Harliss.”

  Roderick nodded seriously. Could it have been Leo that had upset Miss Fortune those handful of days ago? Perhaps something the boy had said? Her mysterious tears haunted Roderick still, and his concern of them troubled him even more deeply.

  “Does Lady Michaela enjoy herself when the pair of you go about?” he asked the boy.

  Leo nodded. “Sometime her get somefing in her eye, tho’, and then her go to bed. Wod-wick pay soul-jer wif me and Hoo, now?” The little boy reached out tentatively, as if to take Roderick’s hand.

  “Not tonight, Leo.” Roderick winced inwardly as Leo’s hand stopped in midair and he snatched it behind his back. “I must speak with Sir Hugh for a moment and then I’m going to bed, as well. Should you also be?”

  Leo was looking at the floor now. He nodded slowly and then turned to dash back to the rug and throw himself down amidst the wooden toys scattered there, his little back to Roderick. Hugh reached out and ruffled the boy’s hair as he stood.

  “You may play for a bit longer, Snot, and then it’s off to bed with you.”

  “All wite, Hoo.”

  Roderick collapsed in his chair and Hugh dragged over another to join him. “It seems our Miss Fortune has received a letter.”

  “From whom? I saw no strangers about today.”

  “How could you? You didn’t leave your chamber until after the evening meal, when most everyone had quit the keep.”

  Roderick shrugged.

  “Any matter, the letter came last week, when Cope returned from Tornfield. He carried with him a message from Tornfield’s young daughter, Elizabeth.”

  Ah. So there it was.

  Roderick would not admit even to Hugh his secret trips into his childhood chamber, and because he knew Hugh could not keep even the smallest sliver of gossip to himself, Roderick could feign disinterest.

  “How lovely for Lady Michaela,” he said, letting an extra crinkle of sarcasm muss his words.

  “They want her back.”

  The chalice Roderick was bringing to his lips paused, but only for an instant. He didn’t think Hugh noticed.

  “Oh?” He drank.

  “Mmm-hmm. Seems Tornfield was more than a little surprised that Miss Fortune took off like she did. Apparently he wanted the chance to speak with her, explain some things.”

  “Well, too bad for him, then, isn’t it?” Roderick paused. “Is she going back?”

  “No. She’s told me and Friar Cope as much. Says she’ll stay here until you throw her out.”

  Roderick released the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

  “Apparently her family is in such dire straits, and her pride was so badly bruised, she wouldn’t have Alan Tornfield on a silver platter. She’s determined to win you.”

  Roderick thought of Leo relating that Lady Michaela had gotten something in her eye and then gone to bed. Whatever was in the missive from the Tornfield girl had obviously been the thing that upset her, and Roderick was angry that he was just now hearing of it.

  “Why are you telling me this at this late date, Hugh? Besides your usual penchant for salacious gossip?”

  “I’m only warning you,” Hugh said mildly, sipping from his own chalice that had been set aside earlier, assumedly when he’d brought Leo in for their nightly play. “And I only found out myself today. If Tornfield decides to press his suit and Miss Fortune is as in love with him as I suspect, she could be worn down. Perhaps she’ll return to him after all.”

  Roderick grunted, and his heart pounded. “What? To live out her days as a child’s nurse?” Roderick scoffed.

  “No, Rick—likely as his mistress,” Hugh explained patiently, as if the information did not faze him in the least. “Or whatever Miss Fortune demands. Besides her being modestly good-looking, I suppose, if you like the pale-faced, shepherdess type, you’re not the only one keeping track of the days until your thirtieth birthday. ’Tis likely your dear cousin would try to woo Miss Fortune away if only to be certain you do not inherit Cherbon.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Roderick spat. Then he looked at Hugh. “Isn’t it?”

  Hugh shrugged, took another sip. “I daresay I would not be surprised if more messages begin to arrive. And then it will be gifts, and minstrels, and on and on.” He waved a bored hand.

  “No more messages—for anyone at Cherbon—before they come through me. I will approve all correspondence.”

  “Miss Fortune is a step ahead of you in that area, Rick,” Hugh said. “Her feminine pique already prevailed of the fat friar to deliver no more messages to her from Tornfield.”

  “Oh. Good.” Roderick felt very unsure. “We should start my increased practices soon though, should we not? Perhaps if I’m well enough—”

  “I do think it would be best. And who knows? Perhaps Miss Fortune will not be repulsed by you.”

  “Thank you, friend,” Roderick said, and quirked an eyebrow.

  “Now, Rick, come on—you know I didn’t mean it in that way.” Hugh reached over and gripped Roderick’s forearm, but Roderick shrugged it away. “It’s only that—”

  “I know, Hugh.” Roderick bent over and began the nightly struggle with his boots. “I tire. Do you move the squires’ toys tonight?”

  “Yes. As soon as Leo—”

  “Very well. Good night, Hugh.”

  Hugh sat for a moment longer, as if he wanted to say something else, but Roderick’s glaring glance caused him to rethink the wisdom of it. He sighed instead.

  “All right, Rick. I’ll leave you to your sourness.” He rose, setting his chalice on a side table. “Come along, Grub. Nighty-nighty, doggies bitey. Say your good night to Roderick.”

  Leo reluctantly got up from the floor and dashed to stand before Roderick, who had to drop the laces of his boots to keep the tyke from barreling into him. As soon as his hands grasped the boy’s small upper arms, Leo took it as an embrace and threw both hands around Roderick’s neck.

  “Good night, Wod-wick. See you ’morrow.”

  “Good night, Leo.” Roderick felt awkward with the boy hung about hi
m, but he patted his slender back dumbly before setting Leo from him. “Run along now,” he said gruffly.

  At the door, Hugh was smiling strangely. He held out an arm, shepherding the boy as Leo flew past him. The lad was forever running full tilt. “Oh, I nearly forgot,” Hugh said, and leaned into the corridor. “Boil! Leo, stop! Wait for me, right there. Don’t move.”

  Hugh reentered the chamber and crossed to Roderick’s chair, reaching into his fine tunic. He withdrew a folded sheet of parchment. “From none other than Miss Fortune herself. I told her you wouldn’t, but as I’ve said, she is quite impossible.” Hugh handed the square to Roderick, saluted him, and then left the room, closing the door on his shout of, “Leo! You little arse-tick! Come ba—”

  Left in the disconcerting silence of Leo’s impromptu embrace and the unexpected letter from the woman he’d just been spying on, Roderick sat staring at the missive for several moments. He took a deep breath and opened it.

  My lord,

  I do think it unseemly that I assume the role of Lady of Cherbon without your input on some matters. It is my most sincere wish that we are introduced properly, and discuss several aspects of my duties. I will await you in the great hall at noon, as Sir Hugh has told me of your abhorrence for mornings.

  Respectfully,

  Michaela Fortune

  Roderick read the missive through several times. No one save Hugh dared demand Roderick do anything anymore, and for the better part of an hour, while he struggled with his boots and removed his heavy clothes, Roderick fumed at the girl’s audacity.

  But then he recalled the tear-streaked face in the moonlight, and the instance of the Tornfield girl begging her to return—telling the old friar, no less, so desperate was the hold to have her back, and Roderick was torn.

  Should he meet with Miss Fortune in the light, so soon after her arrival, it was very likely she would pack her belongings and be off to Tornfield by sunset.

  Though should he refuse her, he could very well suffer the same outcome. For how long could a wounded bird such as she beat her beak on a cold iron piling? Especially when a comfortable nest called to her? Roderick knew she had not felt welcomed at Cherbon, by the serfs, by Hugh, and especially not by Roderick. Perhaps she found some little joy in Leo, but Leo was only a child. He could not be expected to carry the whole of Cherbon on his young shoulders.

  You were, a small voice reminded him. Who had a care for your childhood? Not your father. Not Harliss. Not your poor, young-dead mother. But he shut the voice behind the heavy, black door beyond which it lived.

  If Michaela Fortune had been so heartbroken by Alan Tornfield, and if she was as impossible and headstrong as Hugh related, Roderick did not see her returning to his cousin anytime soon. And besides, Miss Fortune need learn that no one commanded the Cherbon Devil. Not now, and not ever again.

  The morrow’s noon would find her waiting.

  Chapter Ten

  It was a strange feeling, sitting in the great hall at the lord’s table all alone. The room was beginning to look much improved already since Michaela’s arrival, ten days past: the stacks of tables and benches and armchairs at the far end were no more, the furniture now pulled out, polished and orderly before her. Candelabras shone from the center of each table, only waiting for a flame, along with small pots of lavender and rosemary each to either side. The floor was not only cleanly swept, but had been recently washed, and the room smelled a little like a wet cave—the scent was not unpleasant, but made Michaela shiver all the same, as if remembering some old nightmare.

  The fire in the massive, square open hearth in the floor crackled at an acceptable level, built so that it could be grown at a moment’s notice. She had ordered new draperies for the walls to adorn the whitewashing between the plaster murals, but they would not be ready for several weeks. She was content enough though, not having to look upon sweeping cobwebs, macabre swags of dead vines, and the black smudges of old soot.

  So the great hall was well on its way to being restored to what Michaela suspected was its former glory—it was clean, orderly, and smelled pleasant. But it was obnoxiously empty.

  It was noon, at least, she guessed. Likely much later than noon, were she to be honest with herself. Michaela had been sitting at the table for the better part of an hour, waiting for the appearance of Roderick Cherbon, with no luck at all. He had sent no reply to her message, either yea or nay, and so she had gathered up her optimism and waited. She must speak to him, about her duties, their future, Sir Hugh, Leo…everything. She was more than a little proud of herself for outlasting by far any other woman who had come to Cherbon, and she felt it was now past the time of initiation, when she should be granted the privilege of an audience with the lord of the demesne. Not an unreasonable request, and one that she thought she was owed after the hell Cherbon’s other residents had put her through.

  And still she sat alone, facing the doorway she expected him from, as the seconds turned into minutes and the minutes turned into another long, tense hour. Servants passed through the hall on swift, busied feet, and a pair of them had even inquired of her needs—a great improvement from ten days past. Still, Michaela was beginning to feel quite foolish the longer she sat alone, with no obvious purpose in the room, and no task to busy her hands.

  What would she do if he simply did not come? If he cared so little that he would ignore her request? What would she do? Leave Cherbon? And what? Return to the Fortune hold until the family was thrown out?

  Would she go back to Tornfield? To Alan, to sweet, lovely Elizabeth? How she missed them all, here in this dark, hopelessly grand castle, full of shadowy past.

  Then the sound of hinges squeaking drew her attention, but not to the corridor she faced. The main entrance door to the hall opened behind her and she turned in her seat, wondering at the change in Roderick Cherbon’s habits, to be out and about the keep grounds before dark. Michaela felt a queer mixture of dread and relief that she was at last to meet her intended.

  But contrary to the twisted monster of her imagination that rumors had led Michaela to expect, it was a quite able-bodied man who entered Cherbon’s hall. A blond, mustachioed man, sweeping aside his rain-dampened cloak as he strode swiftly down the main aisle of tables toward her. A handsome man, with his jaw set, his eyes pinned to her.

  It was Alan Tornfield.

  “You will gather your belongings immediately,” he said to her before he had even come to stand before the table, his voice surprisingly angry and unlike anything she had ever heard from him. “If you hurry, we can be returned to Tornfield before nightfall.”

  Michaela sat staring dumbly at him for a moment, at once not believing he stood in Cherbon’s hall and at the same time so very happy to see him. “What are you doing here?” she asked faintly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Michaela—I’ve come to fetch you home. Now, do please hurry.” He then walked around the table and reached down to seize her hand in his warm, strong fingers, and tugged her. His eyes darted to the far corners of the room. “Come—where is your chamber? I shall help you.”

  And then the memory of when she’d last seen Alan Tornfield crashed back upon her, and she snatched her hand away, leaving Alan to walk a pair of steps before realizing he no longer had hold of her.

  “I will do no such thing! You have assumed too much, my lord, if you think me to accompany you anywhere, especially to Tornfield to reside alongside your new wife!”

  Alan threw his hands up in the air. “So that is why you’ve run away!”

  Michaela gaped at him. “Was there ever any question in your mind, the reason why? And I did not run away, I simply left! After the humiliating blow you dealt me before all the land, can you fault me?”

  “No, you ran away, not giving me the chance to explain or the courtesy of a farewell!”

  “Oh!” Michaela shrieked and shot to her feet. “You would speak to me of courtesy? Truly? Were you courteous when you decided to marry that wretched woman and bring her into o
ur home without so much as a hint to me or your daughter?”

  Alan stormed back toward her, his eyes afire. “I did what I did for us—for you!” he insisted, slamming his knuckles down on the tabletop before her. “Yes, Lady Juliette convinced me of the scheme, I admit—her own funds were aught that would save Tornfield! If I had taken you for my wife, Michaela, and Roderick had married, how would our dues be paid, hmm? That lucky ring you wear ’round your neck, mayhap? Is it made of gold? Is it silvered?”

  Michaela was so furious and hurt, she could not gather a sufficient response before Alan continued.

  “No. No, it’s not. And then Roderick would have demanded his due, as is his right, and where would that have left us, Michaela? Tossed out of Tornfield Manor, that’s where. Penniless. Who would care for us, support us, then? Who would care for your parents? My Elizabeth?

  “But now, we can be free, without poverty’s shadow haunting us ever again! All you have to do is come home. Come home with me, Michaela.”

  “I can not—I will not—love another woman’s husband.”

  “You prefer Roderick over me, then? Is that it? A malformed beast of a man who would take you as his wife only out of desperation?”

  “Is that not why you married Juliette? Out of desperation? Or are you in love with her?”

  “It is not the same.”

  “It is.”

  Alan shook his head. “It isn’t,” he said quietly. “I know you, Michaela. Unlike any other who walks this earth do I know you. I know your mind, your dreams—”

  “Stop it!”

  “—your heart. Roderick can never care for you the way I do, not if given a hundred lifetimes to try. I know that, as well.”

  “You are right. He will never care for me the way you claim to because he will make me his wife! You don’t know what it’s like, Alan, to live your entire life on the edge of acceptance, never being invited in or wanted despite who or what you are. Yes, Roderick Cherbon would likely have taken any of the other women who came to this keep had they stayed. But they did not stay, and I am here now, and I believe there is a reason for that. That is all that matters to me.”