Taming The Beast Read online

  “Michaela?” It was her father this time, and she heard the creak of the floorboards as he stepped into the room, and then the door scraping to. “Are you awake?”

  Michaela did not reply, squeezing her eyes shut beneath the canopy of blanket, praying he would leave her.

  But she felt the mattress dip as Walter sat on the side of her bed.

  “Your mother is very worried for you, child,” he said quietly. “Would that you at least come take a meal so she does not think you to waste away to nothing.”

  “I hope that I do,” Michaela said bitterly, thinking that she had not wanted to speak, but the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She knew her tone was childish.

  Her father’s hand was warm on her calf through the thin blanket. “Oh, Michaela,” he sighed. “I know that you are hurt, and for that I am sorry. But hiding away in your chamber for years and years will not undo what has happened.”

  “I know that, Papa,” she said. “But if I stay here, I don’t have to face anyone.”

  “What have you to be shamed of?” Walter demanded. “You did naught wrong.”

  “What have I to be—?” Michaela snapped the covers off her head to look at her father, graying, portly, kind-faced. “I told Elizabeth that her father was going to marry me. I told her that we were going to be a family. And she believed me, trusted me. I made a fool out of myself before all the land. ‘Poor Miss Fortune, that she would think a handsome man like Lord Alan would marry her!’ ’Tis bad enough that everyone talks about us like they do. I’ll never be able to show my face after this!”

  “Nonsense,” Walter scoffed. “You told no one save Elizabeth your suspicions, and what she said at the feast, everyone likely took as the innocent assumptions of a young, troubled girl.”

  “Oh, Papa,” Michaela sighed. “You don’t understand.”

  Walter gave her a smile. “I understand more than you think I do. I, too, know what it’s like, having people say mean-spirited things about you and your family. Things that are untrue. Think you I am deaf, or slow-witted?”

  “Of course not,” Michaela said. “But it never seems to bother you, Papa. Me, it—”

  “It crushes, I know. But Michaela,” he implored, “the folk did not always hold the opinion of me and your mother that they do now. Granted, I was always looked upon with scorn, but for different reasons. Your mother, now, she was once highly revered and respected in the shire.”

  Michaela was intrigued. Her father had never spoken about the past, before Michaela was born. She held no hope that it would help her in her current situation, but she wanted him to keep talking. She sat up. “Tell me.”

  Walter nodded once. “I do not relish it, but all right. Perhaps it will allow you to understand a little better our station, and how we came to be here. Perhaps it will help you to bear your burden more easily.

  “When your mother and I were married, you may be surprised to know that the only man I owed allegiance to was the king.”

  Michaela’s eyebrows rose.

  “Indeed. I was one of William’s most favored lords, and he used me well. Not even to God—especially not to God—did I give a bended knee. I held a vast tract of land in the north of England for my loyalty, but before I could make a home there I was sent to Cherbonshire to help Magnus Cherbon gain control over his demesne for the king.”

  Michaela gasped. “You were in league with the Cherbon Devil?”

  “I was, although I am not proud to say it aloud. Your mother’s parents were vassal to Magnus Cherbon, and the instant I saw her lovely face, heard her speak, I knew I must have her.

  “She was a godly woman, but light of spirit, sharp of tongue and wit. And lovely. Oh, my dear, your mother in her youth was dazzling. It was no hard task to convince her father to give her to me, a favored warrior of the king, and a man who was destined for greatness, even if he was rumored to be harsh and bloodthirsty.”

  Michaela couldn’t help the chirp of laughter. “You, Papa?”

  But there was no merriment in Walter’s eyes. “Yes, Michaela, me. In assisting Magnus Cherbon, many a man went to his grave by way of the sword that hangs in our hall. I was ruthless in my ambition to become the greatest, most powerful lord outside of the king’s court. Greater even than the man I aided, Magnus Cherbon. I remember all too clearly my vow to the king: ‘A man a day by my sword until this land submits to your rule.’”

  Walter looked down at his lap as if the memory shamed him. “And I kept my word. No trials. Pleas of innocence and for mercy fell on the ground before blood. And when I had succeeded, when Cherbon at last knew an uneasy and fearful peace, I knew my glory was at hand. I was to bide the winter here, in this house we live in, with your mother until the spring. William had granted me license to build a grand castle on my land in the north country. Your mother was heavy with you, and so after you were born and we saw that you would live, we were to make the long journey to our new home.”

  “But we never left.”

  “Almost, but no. No, we didn’t.” Walter sighed. “When your mother went missing that winter, for the first time in my selfish life I felt fear for another human being. I was mad with worry, and could only think of seeing her again, safe. It took me two days until I realized what I must do, and when I did, you were returned to me. I had made a promise, and one that I would keep.”

  Michaela knew a bit of this part of the tale, when Walter had knelt in the village chapel and begged God to bring his wife back to him. But she still didn’t understand how this had anything to do with her own problem.

  “My time in Cherbon was done, and when the spring came, we set out—the three of us, and my most trusted men. On our second day of travel, I was summoned to the king’s court. He wanted me to assist in quelling a small uprising en route to my lands. But the man he’d known before Cherbon was not the man who stood before him. I refused. I told him that I would never fight again.”

  “What happened, Papa?”

  “Well, he did what any king in possession of good sense would do, faced with a subject who held valuable property and rights from him but would not fight.” Walter raised his eyes. “He stripped me of my lands, and my license. Sent me back to Cherbonshire to live here, in the least of the holdings.”

  “That seems rather unfair,” Michaela said in his defense.

  “Not unfair at all. Generous, really,” Walter argued. “He could have had me killed, my dear, for refusing him thusly after all the favors I had won. Instead, my punishment was to live out my days in the land I had painted with my own sword, under the distant heel of the Cherbon Devil. But it was your and your mother’s punishment as well, you see, that affected me so much more deeply. Agatha ridiculed, you shunned. I am paying for my barbarity, still. But I know the truth, and so I am at peace.

  “Which is what you need to accept, daughter,” Walter said, at last bringing his shocking tale back to Michaela. “Your own truth. Hold it inside of you and honor what you know is right and fair and good. You are right and fair and good. Angels watch you, watch over you—I do truly believe. You will find your place in this life yet, Michaela. It has only not been revealed.”

  She felt none the more enlightened by her father’s sad tale of loss and humility. In fact she was more piqued, and something was bothering her to no end. “But Papa, did not Magnus Cherbon wish to aid in your plight after you had helped him secure his own demesne? Surely he would repay you.”

  Walter chuckled. “Oh, no. Magnus was more than happy with the station I had been given. Although he’d heard that I had given up the sword, it always turned in his mind that I would one day take up my blade again. In a bigger hold, I could have revolted against him and usurped his place.”

  “Papa, truly?” Michaela said skeptically, although it was not like Walter to boast.

  “Truly. I could have disposed of Magnus Cherbon within a week’s time had I the will.”

  Michaela was stunned. And a little perturbed that her father had se
ntenced them all to this poverty and humbling station. Surely God did not wish them to suffer so?

  “You will marry one day, Michaela,” Walter continued. “And when you do, you will be removed from this place, into your own life. The life you lived at Tornfield was not yours—you were only borrowing it. You will forget what you now feel for Lord Alan.”

  “How I wish I could,” Michaela sighed. Although she would have vowed she hated Alan Tornfield, she missed him desperately already, and hated herself for that. And Elizabeth…She felt a burning desire to repay Alan for shattering her dreams and ripping her away from sweet Elizabeth. “I hate him, Papa. He is a cruel liar and he played me false.”

  Walter tilted his head as if what his daughter had said interested him. “Did he, though?”

  She did not want to meet his probing eyes and was glad when another knock sounded at the door, and Agatha entered, carrying a woven basket.

  “Oh, Michaela!” Agatha set the basket at the bedside and grasped her daughter’s hands. “You have come out of your burrow, at last!”

  “Only for a moment, Mother,” Michaela said as Agatha embraced her. “I still have yet to decide what I am to do.”

  “Of course, of course. And until you do, you may go through your things from Tornfield. They were sent over this morn by Lady Juliette with a note. Wasn’t that thoughtful of her ladyship?” Agatha waved a hand toward the basket on the floor.

  Michaela groaned and fell back onto the mattress, yanking the covers over her head once more. She wanted not one piece of anything she had so much as touched at Tornfield. It was bad enough that the now-hated rose-and-green gown lay wadded in the corner of her chamber. Her mother’s voice taunted her from beyond the blanket.

  “Oh, here are your nightclothes, and a pair of aprons, and—what’s this?” Michaela heard the crackle of parchment. “My goodness, it looks a royal decree, ’tis so fancy!”

  Michaela peeked out from the covers to find her mother holding a wrinkled piece of parchment. She immediately knew what it was, and memories of that intimate night in Lord Alan’s chamber flooded her so that she thought she would start crying once more. Oh, she hated, hated, hated that man!

  “Burn it,” she said, hiding once more. She had no wish to see the pathetic plea that had prompted Lord Alan to marry that wretched, nasty, beastly Juliette. And, un-Christian or not, she did not care in the least if Lord Roderick Cherbon ever found a wife!

  Michaela snatched the covers down once more and all but ripped the parchment from her mother’s hand. She stared at it a long time.

  And then Michaela smiled.

  Chapter Six

  If there was one positive thing that had come from Alan Tornfield marrying, it was that his wedding feast had prompted three more ladies to come to Cherbon in hopes of becoming Roderick’s very wealthy wife. Roderick suspected the women had been dazzled by Hugh’s handsomeness and charm and had hoped that Roderick would be equally as engaging. But of the three newest ingénues, one had not had the courage to come over Cherbon’s drawbridge after glimpsing the dark castle, and one had made it only to the bailey and the entrance of the hall before losing her nerve, leaving only one to successfully hear Hugh’s interrogation and have her trunks installed in a chamber.

  She had been here a pair of days, this new woman—whatever she was called—and Roderick had kept his distance, hoping that the girl would have space to accustom herself to the dank and morbid air of Cherbon before he thrust his own beastly presence upon her.

  But time was running out for Roderick, and so two days was all he could allow her. They would meet today, and perhaps the face Roderick looked upon would be the face of his bride. Obviously she possessed more fortitude than the others—only one had been in residence more than two days, and that woman had been nearly three score—her hearing and eyesight failing.

  Remembering that desperate spinster caused Roderick to chuckle darkly.

  He found his chair at the lord’s table in the great hall, pleased that his orders to have a roaring blaze in the square, open hearth had been obeyed precisely. He knew he was strict and unyielding with the servants, but Magnus Cherbon had obviously been correct in his method of handling the manor staff. The instant he’d died and left Cherbon unattended, the folk had turned savage, vandalizing and stealing from the very castle that had been their home.

  A firm hand was called for, and Roderick was in prime mental condition to rule over his past—everyone and everything in it.

  He stretched out his left leg to take the pressure off his knee in the quiet of the hall—he’d commanded that he was to be left completely and utterly alone when he was about during the day, unless he specifically called for attendance.

  “Bellowed, rather,” Hugh liked to say exasperatingly.

  As if thinking of his best friend had produced him, Hugh came through the arched doorway that led from the east wing, Leo spinning his plump legs over the smooth stones before him in his typical dash-about fashion.

  He would be three very soon, Roderick marveled to himself. Three years—nearly one year since he’d left his mother behind in Constantinople, so young that Leo had stopped crying for her long ago, likely remembered naught of her. But Roderick had not forgotten Aurelia—how could he? The little boy’s joyful eyes over his wide smile reminded Roderick of Aurelia in that instant, and his heart did a traitorous skip.

  “Wod-wick,” Leo called, flying to the table’s edge and catching himself just short of Roderick, his little fist gripping a table leg to swing to a stop. He always looked so eager. “Gooday, Wod-wick.”

  “Good day, Leo,” Roderick said.

  The boy edged closer, stretched out a hand tentatively, and patted Roderick’s left leg gently. His face was hopeful. “Ee-oh sit now?”

  “No,” Roderick said, his discomfiture causing him to frown. “Not today. I…I am quite harried today with keep business. I’m sure you understand,” he said gruffly, his words echoing in the empty room, across the empty table and empty floor.

  “Run along to the kitchens, Maggot,” Hugh said, taking the boy’s hand and turning his face toward him. “See if you can’t wheedle a biscuit from Cook to go along with your meal.”

  “All wite, Hoo,” Leo said cheerfully, but looked back to Roderick before he left, his face growing solemn once more. “Gooday, Wod-wick.”

  “Good day, Leo,” Roderick replied, and watched the boy dash to the opposite end of the hall.

  “She’s on her way,” was Hugh’s morning greeting as Leo left them. “Leo and I passed her in the corridor. Are you unnerved?”

  “No, I’m not unnerved,” Roderick scoffed. “Why would I be unnerved?”

  Hugh shrugged.

  “Is she comely?” Roderick asked suddenly.

  “I daresay no,” Hugh said, an eyebrow raising. “But she seems to have most of her teeth, so that’s something.”

  Roderick huffed a mirthless laugh. Oh, what he had been reduced to! More money than the church and yet he was naught but a beggar in this arena.

  Then Hugh set to his usual round of criticism. “God’s teeth, Rick, must you wear that blasted cloak, always? And I thought you were to have Harliss trim your hair last night.”

  “That was your idea, not mine. I’d no sooner let Harliss near me with a blade as I would dash through Henry’s court in my skin.”

  “Now, that I would like to see.” Hugh chuckled.

  “I wear the cloak because it’s mine and I wish it.”

  “You wear it because you are ashamed. At least lower the hood when you’re alone or with me. Christly goodness.”

  “I warn you, Hugh, you go too far.” But Roderick shoved the hood back onto his shoulders, feeling uncomfortably exposed. In truth, he’d become so accustomed to his costume that he donned the covering out of habit and never noticed it.

  “Someone must,” was all Hugh said, quickly. Then his eyes darted toward the kitchen and Roderick turned to see a tall woman in a drab dress the color of old bones. Even
from this distance, the figure was skeletal.

  Already Roderick imagined that sharing a bed with the woman would be like being tossed onto in a pile of sharpened sticks. He sighed. In his condition, he’d never bed her any matter.

  “Please, Rick—I beg of you—do not trouble yourself to frighten her. For all our sakes.”

  The journey to Cherbon was a long one—the miles and the hours tangling together and rolling along the rutted dirt road under Michaela’s feet. But the time between when the sun had risen two hours into their journey until now when it was high in the sky had given Michaela time at last to think upon her impetuous—and perhaps childish—decision.

  She was offering herself in marriage to the Cherbon Devil. Well, the son of the Cherbon Devil, at any rate. A scarred beast of a man now, according to Alan and the rumors slipping from everyone’s tongues. It was to be a repayment, on many, many levels, in Michaela’s mind, for not only would it crush Alan Tornfield should he not inherit Cherbon, but it would take from the coffers the coin Michaela felt was long- owed to her family.

  Blood money. And no matter how grotesque, how foul, how brutish Roderick Cherbon turned out to be, Michaela had vowed that she would marry him. She had to. There were debts that demanded repayment.

  Michaela was bone-weary of letting her own life run her over. She had tried to be a good person, a good daughter—obedient, meek, kind. And all it had gotten her was kicked and stepped on. Well, no more. She was a different woman now, with a different life just waiting for her at Cherbon.

  Even so, wild imaginings of what awaited her at the demesne seat ran through her mind as if she were a young girl once more, scared of a summer storm, or the shadows across her bedchamber floor. And this new, mature woman was heartened that both her parents accompanied her in the family’s small wagon on the long journey, Walter remembering the way still, although he’d not laid eyes upon Cherbon in years.

  They topped a small rise and, ahead, looming like a foggy, black specter even in the brightness of midday, the jagged battlements and craggy inner keep of Cherbon rose out of the surrounding gentle countryside like its own malevolent mountain range.