Taming the Beast (16 page)

“What? No. No, I don't think that at all,” Michaela grumbled, thoughtlessly mirroring Sir Hugh's pose.

“Good. Because you don't,” Hugh said without apology. Michaela flashed him a glare before he continued. “You want to try and win him, is that it?”

“Would you please go away?” Michaela groaned. “I have no desire to discuss my personal motives with you, Sir Hugh.”

Hugh held up both palms and leaned away from the table. “Fine. I am simply trying to help. I would think you to welcome assistance from the one person at Cherbon who knows Rick better than any other, but”—his chair skittered back on the stones as he stood—“I can see that my help is neither desired nor appreciated. So, forgive me for my impudence and good night, Miss Fortune.” He turned to go.

Michaela sat with her head resting on her fist as she reluctantly mulled over Sir Hugh's words. Of course, the exasperating man was right—who else knew Roderick better than the man who had lived through battle with him? Traveled from faraway foreign lands back to Cherbon, and who now stood by his friend's side faithfully, helping to raise Leo as well as resurrect Cherbon from the ashes?

Michaela raised her head. “Were you
offering
to help me?” she called into the shadows after Hugh, half hoping that he was already too far to hear her.

He was not.

The man materialized from the gloom like silky smoke, but remained on the perimeter of light. “Well, I wouldn't have brought it up otherwise, would I?”

Michaela frowned. She still did not like Sir Hugh Gilbert, although she didn't know why. So she asked the first question that came to her mind.

“Why would you want to?”

Hugh slowly walked back toward the table, his hands hidden behind his back. Again, he was dressed as if for a morning at the king's court, and Michaela had to admit that he was a beautiful man, although she was surprised to realize that she found Hugh Gilbert's appearance lacking next to the Lord of Cherbon's. Hugh was perfect, sculpted, charming; Roderick Cherbon was towering, dark, breathtaking.

“If Rick loses Cherbon, I have no home,” Hugh said quietly. “I took debt upon everything I owned to join in the crusade, and when I came back with nothing to repay my creditors…” Hugh shrugged then the sardonic smile was returned to his face. “I fear I have few skills useful to trade. I dress fairly well, I can pen a decent rhyme, and I sit a horse better than any man in this land. But, where would that take me, eh? A traveling balladeer, perhaps?” He chuckled and shook his head. “I am but a frivolous decoration anywhere other than Cherbon.”

Michaela nodded. It made sense, although it did strike her as darkly humorous that so many were dependent on Cherbon Castle for their very lives. Perhaps the lord himself, most of all.

It was possible that she had judged Hugh Gilbert too soon and too harshly.

“A friendship between us may be to the benefit of all,” Michaela mused aloud.

Hugh's eyebrows rose. “It may, indeed.”

“All right, then. What can I do?” Michaela asked.

 

Roderick was just finishing up his fourth cup of wine in little less than an hour when Hugh rapped lightly on and then opened his door.

Roderick knew his friend would come. Hugh could not possibly retire for the night without sharing some comment about the evening's events—he'd explode before the cock crowed.

Although Roderick valued Hugh's friendship—indeed, Hugh was the only friend he had since coming home to Cherbon—Roderick dearly wished he could spend the long dark hours alone, mulling over his predicament with Lady Michaela Fortune.

Miss Fortune, indeed.

“Never a dull moment, is there?” Hugh asked brightly, coming to flop in the chair next to Roderick's and helping himself to the carafe. “I do vow, Rick, there is more intrigue here than at Aurelia's brothel.”

Roderick snorted, and drained his chalice. Hugh obliged him with more wine.

After Hugh took a long, noisy drink, he sighed contentedly. “So, are we to continue the exercises tonight? I know you're likely sore from the ride, but it will do you good to warm up your muscles, perhaps ease the stiffness.”

“Not tonight, Hugh,” Roderick said, having completely forgotten about their new schedule of creative torture. “I'd be useless in the ring—my leg…”

“Your leg, my arse,” Hugh scoffed. “I do believe Miss Fortune has you in a humor.”

“No, she doesn't,” Roderick argued childishly, not wishing to discuss his feelings for the woman with Hugh.

“No?” Hugh challenged. “Any matter, that one's trouble, Rick. I know our time is running out, but I believe you would do better to cut Miss Fortune loose and take your chances on another arrival—any other. Marry the next one immediately, I say, warts and all.”

“What have you against her?” Roderick asked. “She's younger than three score, not hideous, and
she's
here
now
. It appears to me that she is as good as any other. You've nagged at me enough over driving women away—I find it odd that you would encourage me to do that very thing with this one, Hugh.”

Roderick's friend was oddly quiet for a long moment. “You find her attractive, then?”

“What?” Then Roderick snorted again as he realized his friend had picked up on only one thing he'd said—that Michaela was not hideous. “Of course not.”

“Planning to take her to bed, are you?”

“Hugh,” Roderick sighed.

“Your pride would be all that prevented you,” Hugh cut in. “But, whatever you say, Rick. Besides, I don't think Miss Fortune would actually throw you out of her bed.”

Roderick's head spun around quickly. “No?”

“Oh, don't look so hopeful. I do believe she is somewhat of a trollop.”

Roderick laughed. “Oh, bloody hell, Hugh!”

“Laugh if you will, but…” Hugh shrugged and raised his chalice to his lips.

Roderick grew solemn once more. “What would lead you to believe that? Desperate as he is, I doubt my cousin would be so eager to have a trollop in his home, keeping his daughter company.”

“Well, Miss Fortune slept with him, and they weren't married—not even betrothed, so…”

“How could you possibly be certain of their intimacy?” Roderick demanded, wanting to think that perhaps his fears about Miss Fortune's relationship with Alan Tornfield were unfounded.

“Oh, come on, Rick—it's all anyone at Tornfield could talk about at the feast! Why do you think she was so humiliated when he wed that other woman? They were quite predictable—Tornfield accompanied Miss Fortune to her chambers each night, after the daughter was abed.”

Roderick said nothing, trying to digest this new bit of information. After a while, he said, “Whatever happened between Lady Michaela and Tornfield before she came to Cherbon has no bearing on the present or the future. She chose not to return there, so I can assume anything between them is over.”

“Assume all you like, but Miss Fortune is in love with him,” Hugh said easily. “If you marry her, it will put you in quite the awkward position, having your wife take your cousin for a lover.”

“You are too dramatic, Hugh.”

“Am I? What of when she begs you for Alan Tornfield's pardon for his dues? When she flaunts their affair both here and at Tornfield? You'll be the laughingstock of the land. For all we know, her presence at Cherbon is naught but an intricate scheme concocted by both she and Tornfield.”

“She won't go back to Tornfield.” Roderick didn't know how to explain it, but he felt in his gut that whatever feelings Michaela Fortune had for Alan Tornfield had been but juvenile daydreams which he had dashed in a most rude, adult manner when he'd married another. And Roderick simply did not believe that Alan Tornfield would find it in his own best interest to plant Michaela—as a lover or otherwise—in the lair of the Cherbon Devil.

“All right, perhaps not Tornfield,” Hugh conceded. “But a woman like that likely won't keep a lonely bed for long.”

Roderick shrugged. “I care not. She can take a lover if she so chooses, as long as she's discreet.”

“And bear another man's child for you to rear?”

Roderick sent Hugh a swift, dark look.

“I'm simply saying, Rick, your generous nature can only be tested so far.” Hugh stretched out his legs and drained his cup. “Trust me, Miss Fortune's first order of business will be to have you wrapped securely around her bitty finger, under the brilliant ruse of the two of you becoming best mates. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if she went so far as to seduce you.”

Roderick laughed harshly, even though the idea of Michaela Fortune's seducing him to her bed stirred his manhood. He shifted in his chair. “Oh, I do doubt she'll go that far.”

“I don't know, Rick—she seems quite desperate,” Hugh said, and Roderick felt as though his friend had punched him. It was one thing for Roderick to think such low thoughts of himself, to himself, but quite another to hear them from the mouth of his best friend.

But Hugh swept right over the slight as if it had never been. “You know—I'll wager one silver piece that when next you two are alone she tries to get you to kiss her.”

“What?” Roderick laughed, thinking to himself how close he had come to doing that very thing before Hugh and Harliss had appeared. And how very much Roderick had wanted to kiss her. “Hugh, you are too much.”

“Scared you'll lose? Or scared I'll win?” Hugh taunted with a grin. He dug inside his tunic for his small leather purse and then jerked open the laces. “Come on then.” Hugh slapped the small silver coin down on the table between their chairs. “Put your coin where your convictions hide, Lord Roderick Cherbon, you devil!”

Roderick couldn't help but laugh. “All right, all right! I will take that wager, Sir Hugh Gilbert, Lord of Nothing.”

“Bloody right.” Hugh held his hand across the tabletop and coin toward Roderick, and Roderick readily grasped it, sealing the bet. “Now, off your arse—I have torture to inflict, and you sorely deserve it after the way you treated poor Heartless. Let's go, Rick.”

As Roderick struggled to his feet, he realized once more how lucky he was to have Hugh for a friend. Blunt and crass or not, it was because of him that Roderick lived now. And Roderick would forgive Hugh Gilbert any little slight.

Although having Leo for the afternoon was a great distraction, Michaela could still feel the thorny knots cinching tighter and tighter in her stomach as evening drew ever nearer.

She had demanded this meeting, and now she had no earthly idea what they were to talk about. Of course Hugh Gilbert's advice gave her a good start: seek to be his friend. Ask questions about his past and show interest in his family, his father, and the time he was away from Cherbon. Be bold with his person. He might balk at first, Hugh had warned, but she must be relentless in her pursuit.

Very well. Michaela would be relentless.

If she did not collapse in terror at his first growl.

“Aid-ee Mike-lah sing to Ee-oh tonight, yes?” the little boy demanded from beside her on the bed, drawing Michaela blessedly out of her own head. They had been playing with Leo's collection of wooden animals, and a menagerie of four-legged creatures lay scattered across the covers.

“Yes, of course,” Michaela acquiesced. “But your papa is to come and speak with me once you are off to sleep, so we'd best have a song or two here, in my chamber, before Sir Hugh comes to fetch you. All right?”

“All wite.” Leo dropped the cow in his hand and snuggled closer to her, laying the side of his face against her bosom, and it brought a warm smile to her face. He was so precious. “Sing about the aid-ee and the sip.”

“The lady and the ship?” Leo nodded against the fabric of her gown. “It's rather morbid for bedtime, but all right.” She cleared her throat and began the song by humming the refrain before singing the first verse.

“There was a young maiden from Surrey, who loved a young man of war. He went far away in a hurry, on a ship that followed a star. She begged him and cried for his leisure, but the young soldier paid her no heed; he left for a promise of treasure, his heart had been conquered by greed.

“Hoo-lah, hoo-lah! My lady awaits him, down where the sea meets the shore; Hoo-lah, hoo-lah! She'll wait there forever, for a ship that will sail there no more.”

Through three more verses, telling of the loyal maiden and her greedy lover's fate—the violent storm, the watery grave for the heartless fellow, Michaela sang the sad song, and Leo grew more limp against her. She held him close and dropped her voice to nearly a whisper as she finished the final refrain. “Hoo-lah, hoo-lah! She'll wait there forever, for a ship that will sail there no more.”

“Well, if that doesn't give the lad nightmares, I don't know what will.”

Michaela jumped, causing Leo to stir in her arms and sit up. She had been so immersed in the song and the feel of the little boy against her that she had not heard her chamber door open or Hugh Gilbert enter. Her stomach did a funny tumble when she saw Roderick Cherbon looming in the doorway behind him. Fledgling friendship or nay, Michaela sent Hugh a disapproving frown.

“What?” the knight implored, coming to the side of the bed and holding out his arms for Leo. “We knocked. You obviously didn't hear us with all your caterwauling. Hello, Slime. Had a good day, have you?”

“Yes, Hoo. Papa!” Leo pushed aside Hugh's arms and slid from the bed on his backside, his feet running toward Roderick before they had met the floor properly. The little boy once more launched his arms around Roderick's long legs beneath the cloak, and although Michaela saw the pained look on Roderick's face, she was oddly pleased that he dropped a hand down to Leo's back. The pats were awkward, but they were pats.

“Leo,” Roderick replied gruffly, “why are you calling me Papa, of a sudden?”

“You my papa, Papa,” Leo said simply and Michaela let loose the silent breath she'd been holding against Leo confessing her part in the Papa business. “And Aid-ee Mike-lah say call you what I call you. Papa!” Leo tilted his head back and grinned up at Roderick.

Michaela cringed as Roderick shot her a questioning look, but she was spared any further comment as Hugh took firm but gentle hold of the boy. “Let's go, Weevil. Nighty-nighty, doggies bitey.”

“'Night, Papa.”

“Good night, Leo.”

“'Night, Aid-ee Mike-lah.”

“Good night, Leo. Dream happy dreams.”

As the man and boy quit the chamber, Hugh gave Michaela an exaggerated wink and a smile, and it bolstered her courage.

Until the door closed and she was left alone in her dark, quiet room with the Cherbon Devil.

Relentless
, Michaela reminded herself.

“Good evening, my lord.” She sent him what she hoped was a friendly smile, although her nerves were making her lips tremble. If he looked too closely at her, he would think she had palsy.

Even though he had spoken readily enough to Leo, Lord Cherbon's reply was little more than a growl. He still stood near the door, as if he expected their initial meeting to last only moments, so that he could make a ready escape.

“Won't you come in?” Michaela asked, indicating with one hand the small pairing of table and chairs near the hearth. Michaela had ordered the fire built to blazing, so that even though the few candles illuminated the darkest corners of the chamber and the bedside where she and Leo had played, the brightest spot in the room was the warmest.

And also the most intimate.

Roderick Cherbon's permanent scowl was barely visible in the deep recesses of his hood, but Michaela could see the crevasses on either side of his mouth deepen. His arms were crossed, and his walking stick dangled from the crook of an elbow. “Forgive me if I do not,” he began. “Is there aught which—”

His hasty excuse was cut short by a soft rapping on the door, and Michaela sent up a silent prayer of thanks for the interruption—some of the servants in the hold were actually beginning to heed her on nearly a regular basis.

“My lady,” the voice of the maid called through the door. “I've the tray ye called fer.”

“Pardon, my lord.” Michaela smiled sweetly as she moved nearer to Roderick, causing him to do the very thing she expected—and desired: he moved away from her, farther into her chamber. Before she opened the door, Michaela saw Roderick turn his back to the room, facing the roaring fire.

Michaela took the tray from the maid with a smile and murmur of thanks and kicked the door closed with her heel before walking carefully toward the giant black shadow near the table. She stumbled over the edge of the rug, but caught herself with a gasp as plates rattled threateningly. She had to remind herself to smile despite the urge to roll her trembling lips inward and bite them still when he turned to apprise himself of her progress or impending crash.

“Here we are,” she said cheerfully, setting the tray of fresh bread and wine and a slab of white cheese on the table.

Lord Cherbon's hood twitched as he glanced down at the table, and then the dark oval of shadow faced her. “Did you miss the evening meal?”

“Ah, no. No.” Michaela tried not to stutter. It was quite difficult—the man was the most intimidating person she'd ever met, not to mention entertained alone in her bedchamber. “But I know you have the habit of dining late, and I thought perhaps we could enjoy a light repast together while we talked.”

“I'm not hungry.” He turned back to the fire, his posture rigid.

Could he really dislike her so much, already?

“All right.” Michaela struggled to keep hold of her nerves. She reached for the carafe. “Perhaps some wine, then?”

“
I don't want any bloody wine, either!
” Lord Cherbon barked, causing Michaela to jump and the wine coming from the mouth of the carafe to overshoot the chalice and splash over the entire tray. The vessel slipped from her hands, despite her attempts to grip it even tighter, somersaulted over the bread, and clanged to the floor, where it rolled away in the darkness.

“Now look what you've made me do!” she shouted, her embarrassment spurring her words before she had time to think upon the implications of them.

“I made you do naught,” Lord Cherbon growled. “I didn't wish this meeting, and I don't wish to be here now. I do not appreciate being dictated to in my own home, and you can be assured that my generosity is at its very end. Save your hospitality, Lady Michaela, and if you have aught to say to me, I beg you, do get it out.”

It was the final straw for Michaela. Despite her resolve to be a stronger, more willful woman now that she was at Cherbon, the strain of being here was simply too much on her brave façade. Alan Tornfield had been right: Cherbon was no place for a woman such as she. And that thought set loose the first tears. Covered in wine, trembling from fear and nerves, at her own end and not caring what Lord Roderick Cherbon thought about it, Michaela sat down hard on one of the chairs and dropped her head onto her arms, sobbing to her deepest humiliation.

“You are a h-horrible, h-horrible man!” she wailed into the tabletop. What did it matter now, what she said to him? No one at Cherbon had any care for others' feelings, and if Roderick Cherbon wanted to throw her out for voicing her misery, then so be it.

“I don't know why you seem so shocked,” Roderick said gruffly. “I told you as much myself.”

She ignored his defense. “All I've done at Cherbon since my arrival is try to better this hold. I've tried to friend Leo, even that…that obnoxious Hugh Gilbert!” She found her stride then, and raised her head to swipe at her eyes with the heels of both hands. “I miss my mother and father—I've no one to talk to here save a boy who has not even seen three years! I've put up with surly and disobedient servants—not to mention Harliss, herself—and all the while I've had to retire to this wretched, horrid, sad room to spend my evenings alone, wondering why the man who might one day be my husband will have naught to do with me or his son or anyone who does not…who does not dress in red calfskin boots!”

Michaela drew a deep breath, blew it out in a whoosh, and wiped her nose on the hem of her skirt. At least she was no longer trembling. She fully expected Roderick Cherbon to turn on his heel and stomp from the room, but he remained before the fire, motionless.

“Do you also miss Tornfield?” he asked gruffly, and Michaela nearly fell from her chair in shock.

She was taken so off guard that she answered honestly. “I do. Lord Alan and Elizabeth…they grew to be like family to me. I have never been happier in all my life than when I lived at Tornfield Manor.”

“Then why did you flee there? Why did you not return when Tornfield invaded my home and begged you like a spineless coward to return?”

Her throat constricted again. “That is absolutely none of your business.”

“It was because he cuckolded you, was it not? You were his lover and yet he chose to marry another, setting you aside like rubbish.”

Michaela was so outraged she could not speak.

“It matters not to me,” Lord Cherbon continued mildly. “You may take a lover, if you wish.”

Michaela could barely choke out, “Why, thank you, my lord.”

Her sarcasm was obviously lost on him, for he merely shrugged. A long pause fell between them, and during that time, Michaela realized that this was the longest and most civilly Roderick Cherbon had spoken to her since her arrival. He still had not moved from before the fire, as if he were made from the same heavy stones that comprised the hearth.

“Will you?” he asked suddenly, turning that black oval of hood toward her again.

“Will I what?”

“Keep a lover.”

What a strange, strange place Cherbon was. And what a strange man, as well. He had her so confused by the way his topics of conversation flitted from one thing to the next. Michaela shrugged, because she didn't know what else to do.

“I've not made up my mind.” She let another pause stretch out between them before asking, “Is it your wish that I do so?”

The black hulking figure jerked. “If it pleases you. Lord Alan, mayhap?”

“Lord Alan is married, remember?”

The hooded figure seemed to look at his feet. “But you would also be married.”

Michaela nodded, and she couldn't help but feel that Roderick Cherbon was testing her, trying to draw information of a mysterious nature from her. “Indeed I would be.” Perhaps it was his manner, to see the strength of her mettle. If so, then she would return the favor to him. There was little more damage she could do at this point.

“What if you become my lover…Roderick?” Just saying the words caused her heart to race, and she could feel the flutter of her own pulse, like a tiny bird thrashing against the curtain of her throat.

Lord Cherbon was entirely motionless, and for the time it took Michaela to count twenty, he neither moved nor spoke.

At last she sighed. “But, alas, that would not do, either.”

Roderick's profile twitched her way, and his hood shifted the smallest measure, throwing a bar of stuttering gold across his ruined cheek.

“Why is that?”

Michaela smiled. “Because you would be a married man, as well.”

The rough curve of his scar lifted on his cheek, like a craggy cliff shifting, sliding, into the rocky field of a shadowy grin.