Taming the Beast (17 page)

“Indeed, I would be,” he said.

Before her bravado could slip away from her, Michaela stood and stepped to stand perpendicular to the Lord of Cherbon. To her surprise—and her fearful excitement—he, too, turned, so that they stood facing each other, little more than a handsbreadth apart. Michaela looked up into his once more darkly shadowed face, and before she could hesitate, she reached up with both hands and pushed the hood back from his head.

He flinched, but Michaela paid him no heed, letting her arms go back slowly to her sides and her gaze rove over his face, his scars, his full lips, his beautiful, dazzling eyes, sating her curiosity as she'd not had chance to since first seeing those green depths. The only sounds in the room were their breaths meeting and swirling together before dashing toward the crackling flames to be washed up the chimney.

“You dislike this chamber?” he asked suddenly, quietly, and Michaela watched his mouth as he spoke.

“I loathe it,” she admitted.

Roderick nodded. “It was my boyhood room. I, too, detested every moment in it.”

“Little wonder no other women stayed, if this is where you interred them.”

Roderick's mouth curved into a smile, but jerkily, as if the motion was still largely foreign to him. “You may move, if you wish.”

“Why did
you
detest this chamber?” Michaela asked, wondering at the childhood Roderick had endured at the hands of Magnus Cherbon. She tried to imagine Roderick as a young boy, a tawny-haired Leo.

But it had been the wrong thing to ask. Roderick's face closed down with a nearly audible slam, and he made to move away.

But Michaela grabbed his forearm, realizing too late that it was the arm that had been so dreadfully injured. She felt, rather than heard, his intake of breath, and eased her grip, although she did not let go completely.

“Does it hurt?” she asked on a whisper, indicating with her eyes where her fingers rested, but quickly realizing that the question could mean so very many things.

“At times,” Roderick whispered back. “But not often, now.” His answer, too, was infinite.

Moving slowly, as if approaching a baby rabbit instead of a huge, dangerous mass of a man, Michaela raised her hands once more to his face, this time, laying her palms alongside his cheeks. She brushed his long scar with her left thumb.

“This?” she asked.

He shook his head, only a twitch.

She moved her right hand, drawing her forefinger lightly down the bridge of his nose. “This?”

Again, he shook his head.

Michaela's eyes went to the diagonal scar spanning his mouth, and she touched it with both thumbs, looking into his eyes and raising her eyebrows in silent question.

“No,” he answered.

Michaela let her hands slide past his ears to the back of his neck and pulled gently. She rose up on her toes and pressed her lips to his cheek, then to his nose, then to the thin white line over his lips, warm and smooth and soft. Then she let him go.

He stared at her for a long moment and then a rather unexpected snort came from him and he shook his head.

“He's always right,” Roderick murmured.

“Who is always right?” Michaela asked with a frown.

“Exactly.” Roderick drew his hood up once more and moved away from Michaela toward the door, his walking stick cracking impatiently.

“Good night, Miss Fortune,” he said gruffly.

“But—”

“I'll see you tomorrow evening,” he said, cutting her off as he swung open the door, slipped into the corridor, and left her with nothing but its solid slam and a mess on her floor.

Michaela sighed. “Bloody hell.”

 

Roderick stumped through the maze of corridors toward his own chamber as fast as his crippled, useless body would carry him, and the entire way, his father's cawing laughter rang in his ears. His mouth was set painfully against his teeth as he stomp-dragged-stomped, his lips still feeling the warm burnish of Michaela Fortune's kiss.

Fool, fool, fool
…

Yet all the while, his stomach clenched with traitorous excitement.

Fool!

He neared his door, and threw it open into the wall, startling Hugh from his usual post-Leo-bedtime lounge in one of the tall armchairs.

“God, Rick! Now look—you've made me spill wine on my best tunic,” he spat, brushing at the red droplets splattered down his front.

‘Twas the second time in an hour Roderick had been accused of such a thing.

Roderick clomped to his wardrobe, jerked open one half of the doors with his free hand, and cleared a shelf of miscellany with one swipe, revealing his small coffer of incidental coin. He threw open the lid, fished out a coin, and turned back to Hugh, leaving the wardrobe swinging wide.

Roderick nearly destroyed the table, slamming the piece of silver down. As it was, the tabletop let loose a splintering sound and wrenched to the side, causing Hugh to snatch at the coin before it slid to the floor.

“I'll be in the ring. You can join me or no.” Roderick turned to stomp from the room, not caring if Hugh followed.

To hell with them all.

As he disappeared into the black corridor, he missed Hugh clenching the coin in his hand, and the satisfied smile that spread over his mouth.

“You must wear your shoes, Leo.”

“No! No soos.”

“
Yes
. A proper boy must not go about barefoot. The keep floors are like ice—you'll catch a chill.”

“No soos!”

Michaela sighed as the little boy struggled free from her lap and dashed across the floor to collapse at his pile of toys scattered on the rug. She tossed the small leather slipper into the air and let it fall.

Forget the fool she'd made of herself with the lord of the keep last night, she couldn't even get a three-year-old to wear his shoes. How ever was she to make a proper lady of Cherbon? At any minute, she expected a smug Hugh Gilbert to appear, carrying the message that Roderick wished her to take her leave posthaste.

She hoped Hugh
would
show his handsome, smirking face. She was in this awkward predicament now, thanks to his insane advice. Perhaps his little scheme had worked flawlessly to seduce countless simple maidens, but with an argumentative, looming, wounded man—no. Most certainly it had not.

She had to get away from the keep for a while, clear her head, and give herself time to think.

She stood and gave a loud, dramatic sigh. “Well, then, I suppose I shall see you later this afternoon.”

He paused his chubby hand, holding a mounted soldier that had previously been intent on leveling the surrounding toys, and turned curious eyes up to her. “Where you go, Aid-ee Mike-lah?”

“Oh, I'm only going for a walk about the bailey. Too bad you shan't be able to come with me and keep me company.”

Leo shot to his feet, the mounted soldier left to the revenge of his fallen victims. “Ee-oh go, too!”

“No, I'm afraid not.” Michaela shook her head sadly. “You see, it is too wet for a lad to go about outdoors barefoot. And since you don't wish to wear your shoes…” She shrugged. “But I'll come and see you when I get back, all right?” She started for the door.

“No, no, no!” Leo wailed, and Michaela turned to see the little boy scavenging around on the floor, seeking the mate to his slipper. “Ee-oh has soos! Ee-oh has soos! Wait for Ee-oh!” He fell onto his backside with a huff as he struggled to pull on the leather shoe.

Michaela smiled to herself and went to him, dropping to her knees. “Shall I help you?”

“Yes.” Leo all but threw the shoe at her in his haste.

“Yes, what?”

“Pees.”

Michaela cupped his cheek in her palm, pleased with both the boy and herself. “Very good.”

Perhaps she wasn't so stupid after all.

It was only a matter of moments before Michaela and Leo were free from the oppressive darkness of Cherbon Castle, roaming the open bailey in the chilly, breezy sunshine. They were just coming around the northeast side of the keep when the familiar round form of Friar Cope emerged from a small, nearly hidden doorway.

“Fire Cope!” Leo shouted, as usual, pleased to see everyone he happened upon, and ran to the holy man.

“Good day, Leo. Keeping Lady Michaela busy, I see.” He raised his eyes to Michaela. “Good day, my dear. How are you holding up?”

“Oh, quite well, Friar,” Michaela lied. “Off on another mission?” she asked, eyeing the saddlebag seated on his shoulder.

“Another round through the demesne, before weather is upon us.” He looked briefly to the sky as if expecting a blizzard at any moment. “Have you seen Lord Roderick today?”

“No, not yet,” Michaela hedged, wondering if she would see him tonight as Roderick had promised. She tried to stamp down the nervous excitement the thought provoked in her.

“Perhaps you should seek him out,” the friar suggested mysteriously. “He has audience with a man whom I'm certain you will be very pleased to see.”

Michaela could not stifle her groan. “It isn't Alan Tornfield, is it?” Heavens, that man had caused her enough trouble, and if the Lord of Tornfield had come to speak to Roderick again, Cherbon's mood would be the blackest of black upon the blond man's departure.

The friar shook his head. “I cannot say. You must find out for yourself—they're in the chapel.” He nodded toward the door he'd come from and began to walk away, ruffling Leo's hair. “God be with you both.”

Cherbon Castle had a chapel? Of course, it made sense if Cope made his residence here, but there were no church services that Michaela was aware of. No servant had mentioned it, and neither had Hugh Gilbert or Roderick. Not even Cope, himself.

“Oh, Friar, wait!” Michaela called. She had just remembered an important question nagging her mind that the friar may know the answer to.

He turned, but continued walking backward, holding a palm up. “Press me not, Michaela. Lord Cherbon is putout enou—”

“No, it's not about the visitor,” Michaela rushed, thankful the words caused the older man to pause. She pointed to the faraway knoll, just visible over the curtain wall. “Are those graves?”

The friar's gaze turned to follow Michaela's arm, and he nodded. “Yes. Eight of them.”

Aha!
Michaela said to herself, pleased that her instincts had been correct. “Who is buried there?”

Friar Cope glanced at the keep, as if expecting condemnation. “Magnus Cherbon, Roderick's father; Dorian Cherbon, Roderick's mother. And six of their seven children. Good day.”

Friar Cope turned once more, and in moments had disappeared through the northeast gate, toward the stables and the place where Roderick Cherbon's entire family, save the son that now stood against her skirts, lay dead.

 

“Lord Cherbon, I beg of you,” the old man said to Roderick with a frown. “The friar is gone now. I know where the box is, and it will cause no harm to the altar. If you'll only let me prove—”

“Lord Fortune,” Roderick growled, already at his wits' end with his betrothed's father. “I care not one whit what damage might befall this waste of space in my home.” He looked around the long, tall-ceilinged, ornate room, grander even than the great hall, with scorn. “My refusal though, is twofold: I will not be party to any such religious superstition you have deluded yourself to be truth. And I will not allow exhumation of an item laid buried by my father. He was an evil man, and aught that he touched was also thusly. Let it stay buried.”

“You don't understand.” Walter Fortune shook his head impatiently. “Lord Cherbon, I knew your father well—and yes, he was an evil, black-hearted man. But the thing he buried here, he did as a kindness for me—for my wife and daughter. For Michaela. I must have it back—it cannot remain within the same walls as her. It is too dangerous, for everyone here at Cherbon. Especially you, my lord.”

“Had you forgotten of this item when you delivered your daughter to my doorstep, Fortune?” Roderick challenged. “Perhaps in your haste to secure her place—and yours—in my coffers?”

The old man flushed. “No, sire. I had not forgotten. I simply doubted that Michaela would stay.”

Roderick snorted and then studied the intense old man for several moments, thinking to himself. Fortune,
Fortune. Walter Fortune
…

Something about his wife, wasn't it? Something she'd lost or she'd cursed…?

Roderick caught a slight flash of light out of the corner of his right eye. When he turned his head, he saw nothing, and attributed it to one of the annoyances brought on by his injuries.

Any matter, Roderick still could not place the old man in his memory, which was no wonder—Magnus had not lowered himself to speak to his son often, unless it was to berate or shame him or his mother. “Is it valuable, this thing you seek?”

Walter shook his head. “No, my lord. No value at all. It's likely turned to dust after these score of years, yet I cannot risk—”

“Where is it, exactly?”

The old man threw a nervous glance over his shoulder, toward an alcove where an enormous stone carving of a winged warrior astride a rearing horse loomed to the left of the chapel's altar.

“Buried under the only perfectly square stone beneath the horse's raised hooves,” Walter almost whispered, and to Roderick's amusement, the old man began to withdraw a long, thin, iron bar from his tunic, of all places. “I can easily pry the stone loose and have—”

“No,” Roderick interrupted, shaking his head. “If it is a part of Cherbon, it belongs to me.”

“But look upon it, my lord,” the old man rushed. “If you feel it is of value, I will leave it to your guardianship. But I swear to you, it is useless to anyone other than m—”

The old man's plea was interrupted by the sound of a scuffle near the vestibule—where Roderick had thought he'd seen a flash of light. Had it been someone slipping in through the doorway?

Walter Fortune had heard the whispering, too, and his pose mirrored Roderick's.

“Who's there?” Roderick demanded. “Show yourself!”

Leo dashed from the shadows, his happy face coming into kaleidoscope view from the stained-glass windows set high into the walls. Roderick groaned as the little boy ran to him, knowing that where Leo went, also trod—

“Papa!” Michaela Fortune's face was a wash of surprise and pleasure as she saw her sire standing before Roderick, and she rushed to the old man and threw her arms about his neck. “How wonderful that you've come! Is Mother with you, as well?”

“Hello, my dear,” Walter said, forcing a smile and returning his daughter's embrace, although the look he gave Roderick over Michaela's shoulder seemed to beg:
Do not tell her
.

“No, your mother is at home. I only thought to look in upon you and see how you fared at Cherbon.” He drew his daughter away and looked her up and down. “You've thinned out a fair bit, I'd say.”

“Perhaps,” Michaela replied dismissively. “Leo does keep me rather busy. Papa, this is Lord Cherbon's son, Leo. Leo, this is
my
papa, Lord Fortune. Say your manners.”

Leo took a half step away from Roderick's legs and bowed his chin down to his chest. “Gooday, my lord.”

“Good day, Leo.” Walter smiled at the boy and then his eyes went to Roderick's. “A fine son you have, my lord. You must be protective of him.”

Roderick grunted.

“Will you stay, Papa? A day or two, mayhap?”

“No, no, I'm afraid not.” Walter Fortune looked at his daughter, but Roderick knew the old man's next words were for him alone. “I will be back, though. I cannot leave my only child's side for long.”

“Oh, Papa.” Michaela smiled. “But you're not leaving this moment, are you? Surely you've only just arrived! The journey home is lengthy, and you are no longer the freshest of men.”

Walter Fortune sent his daughter a mock frown. “I'll thank you to mind your pert tongue, young woman.” Then he let his daftly kind smile shine through again.

Roderick wondered how this man, seemingly so innocuous and simple, could have been connected in any way with Magnus Cherbon.

“But you are right. I would rest my bones this night and be off with the dawn. We all might share a meal together, in good will.” Walter looked to Roderick while Michaela clapped her hands together. “If it meets with Lord Cherbon's approval, of course. There are some matters I still have need to discuss with him.”

As far as Roderick was concerned, the conversation he'd had with Walter Fortune comprised the whole of their palaver, and he would not entertain the impotent old fool's fanciful hunt again.

Hunt
…

The word triggered a catch somewhere deep in Roderick's mind, but he swept it aside as nonsense, choosing instead to address his betrothed's sire.

“You need not my permission to stay, Fortune—Cherbon is your daughter's home now, as well. But I do not take meals in the hall, so…enjoy.” Roderick turned to Michaela, his eyes wanting to land and linger on those lips, whose feel and texture he still remembered so vividly from her folly last night. “If you'll excuse me, Lady Michaela.”

“My lord.” Michaela bowed her head slightly, and Roderick wondered if it was his imagination that showed him Miss Fortune's eyes straying to the location of his own mouth.

He moved, but had forgotten the accessory about his knee that was Leo.

“Turn me loose, Leo. I have matters to tend to.”

“Ee-oh go wif you. Ee-oh go wif him papa.”

Roderick looked up at Michaela pointedly, expecting her to intervene as Hugh would.

She only stared back at Roderick, a cryptic smile on her full, pink lips.

“Leo, you…I have—” Roderick tried to think of an excuse—any excuse—that would put the boy off. It shouldn't have been hard to think of a reason that would seem plausible to a three-year-old, but when Roderick looked down into the wide brown eyes, so like the beautiful, exotic Aurelia's, the greasy knot filled his throat again, and it seemed to dam logical communication between his brain and his mouth.