Taming the Beast (20 page)

“Are we going too quickly for you?” she asked.

“Of course not!” Roderick barked, jamming the tip of his walking stick into the dirt with each step.

“You needn't shout at me,” Michaela said mildly. “I don't malign you for a simple limp, my lord.”

Roderick laughed, but the sound held no real humor. “‘A simple limp,' says she,” he muttered.

Michaela's eyebrows rose, but when no further explanation came, she shrugged and let her eyes go to the pebbles and hoofprints in the dirt before her slippers overtook them. They were coming upon the northeast gate, where beyond lay the stables, and the knoll of graves, as well as the edge of Cherbon's cliff, where a path led down to a stingy, rocky sliver of beach. Michaela looked at Roderick again.

“Leo and I often sit on the rocks overlooking the sea—he enjoys tossing pebbles over….”

“It makes no difference to me,” Roderick growled, and Michaela wondered why he had even agreed to accompany them if he was going to hang on to his foul humor the whole of the time.

But she gave a smile anyway and the two of them followed the little boy through the gate, where the dying grass swooped in a long swag away from the forest and along the road to where the jagged, gray rocks stood lined like sentinels. Roderick went more carefully up the slope that led to the cliff, but Michaela did not hover to him, choosing instead to let him make his own way without audience. She found a rather level swell of ground only a few paces farther and sank to her bottom, her legs crooked to one side, and leaned on her arm.

Roderick reached her in only a moment, but remained standing, staring out over the wind-tossed waves of the infinite ocean.

“Stay back from the edge, boy,” Roderick barked, his frown deepening. “Leo!”

“All wite, Papa!” Leo's wind-softened answer flew back to them.

Michaela smiled to herself over the concern Roderick was showing for his son, and then she remembered what Hugh Gilbert had told her this morning:

Well, what would
you
call a woman who tied a yoke of stone around her neck and walked into the sea? Hmm?
Sane?

What a fool she was, leading an already reticent man to the very site of heartbreaking tragedy. She may as well have gone up yonder knoll to dance a jig on his family's graves. Michaela was so aghast, she could not bring herself to speak.

His voice startled her. “Why do you believe your mother?”

“Beg pardon, my lord?”

“Her story about the Hunt,” Roderick clarified. “What convinces you about the tale as truth?”

“You would have to know my mother,” Michaela said, picking at stingy bits of dying grass in front of her hip. “She is…the most godly woman I have ever known. Anyone who knows her would say the same, although many do take her tale as a bit of an exaggeration. She devotes herself to God, to the welfare of others. She is a fine lady of our hold. It matters not to her that the folk whisper cruel things behind her back. ‘They don't know the truth, as we do, Michaela,' is her excuse for them. Always.”

“They think her quite mad, do they not?”

Michaela stopped the harsh denial before it could leave her mouth, calling to mind once again the terrible things Sir Hugh had said about Dorian Cherbon.

“Yes,” Michaela said at last, quietly. “Yes, some do.”

“But you don't.” Roderick let the statement stand between them like a challenge.

“She has never, ever lied to me. And she believes it so thoroughly.” Michaela hesitated only a moment before reaching into her bodice and withdrawing the chain. “She placed this about my neck only moments after I was born.”

Roderick stared down at her and the warm metal between her thumb and forefinger for several moments before cocking his right leg, steadying himself with his walking stick, and slowly coming to rest upon the ground at her side. Without asking permission, he took the link in his own giant fingers, and his eyes found hers, reflecting the murkiness of the sea.

“'Tis a piece of mail.”

Michaela nodded. “She told me it was a gift from the Hunt leader, and that I should never take it off.”

He studied the metal again, and Michaela studied Roderick.

“It's old,” he said. “Not English. Quite finely made.”

“Is it?” Michaela shrugged. “I don't know. I don't care, really. I hate it.”

Roderick nodded as if he understood, and let the link fall back on its chain. “Why are you to never take it off?”

“Oh, some such thing about two possessions…I've forgotten most of it, really.”

“You just obey her. Even though that is the very object which the folk say curses you.”

Michaela nodded. “I love her.”

Roderick seemed to think for a very long time, watching Leo playing on the rocks. Once the little boy looked back at them and waved, his fist clenched.

“Ee-oh find a snail!”

Michaela smiled and waved back.

“What is the other object?” Roderick asked suddenly.

“Sorry?” Michaela had forgotten what they were talking about, sitting so close to Roderick, feeling his warmth as the cold breeze rushed over the water, hearing Leo's playful chatter.

“You said there were two possessions.”

“It doesn't matter,” Michaela said. “It's never been found. Lost to time, I suspect.”

“What
was
it, then?” Roderick pressed, and he reached over to lift the link from the bodice of her gown once more, his fingertips sweeping aside her hair to grasp the metal.

Michaela found that her breathing had ceased. His presence, his very person, was fascinating. His head was leaned toward her, so closely that she could see the threads of auburn and chestnut in his hair, the flecks of ice in his glacier-green eyes. How she wanted to thaw those eyes!

“A shoe.” The answer came out as a whisper, and Roderick's hand stilled against her chest, over her heart.

“What?”

Michaela cleared her throat, and wondered if he was going to kiss her again. She greatly hoped that he would.

“A shoe. My mother's shoe. She lost it that night and it was never found.”

Roderick's eyes were pinned to the metal link against his palm. “And you have no idea what will happen if this link and that lost shoe are brought together again?”

Michaela tried to laugh, even though a chill overtook her and a flash of the nightmare she'd endured last night raced over the shushing gray waves to comb through her hair like claws.

“The Hunt will come and carry me away, I suppose.” She leaned closer to him, knowing it was bold, but not caring. She needed his strength, his vast, dark strength to keep the illogical fear away. “Will you protect me, Roderick?”

He looked into her eyes, and something there frightened Michaela more than the remnants of an old superstition. A hardness, a burden, a dangerous promise. He dropped the link back against her gown, and brought his palm alongside her jaw—it was rough and warm and large.

“Of course,” he said, his lips dipping into a frown. “Of course I will, Michaela.” His eyes went to her mouth and he leaned in slowly, placed his lips upon hers with infinite gentleness.

Michaela eased into his chest, bringing her hand to the front fold of his cloak, and let his kiss melt her. It was unlike either of their other two kisses, not hesitant, not demanding—
real
.

And it was growing deeper. Michaela could smell Roderick Cherbon's skin, wanted to touch his beautiful face, run her hands through his hair. Her hunger for him was sudden and growling and enormous. But his arm had come around her shoulders, locking her to him helplessly and she could not reach him. She felt, rather than heard, the low hum deep in his throat, of desire and arousal, and it nudged Michaela's heart over the edge.

He wanted her.

And was she lost to him already? This wonderful, amazing, damaged man with a past darker than Cherbon itself? The Cherbon Devil, who kept no close allies save a man whom Michaela suspected had ulterior, selfish motives? Roderick, who held himself away from his only son—was it because of the way his own father had treated him? The lack of a mother to love either of them?

Heat crept over her skin beneath her gown, gooseflesh prickled deliciously; she heard her own purr….

And then they were both knocked flat as Leo fell upon them, giggling, “Kissy! Ee-oh kissy, too!”

Roderick grunted and gave a soft curse as he fell upon his right arm, and Michaela was quick to pull the little boy onto herself fully.

“Leo, stop kicking! You'll bloody my nose!”

The boy laughed gaily in response and then reached up with both play-dampened, gritty palms to frame Michaela's face before planting a wet, slippy kiss somewhere in the vicinity of her eye.

“Ee-oh kissy Aid-ee Mike-lah!”

She couldn't help but laugh, and bestow her own kiss upon the boy's mouth. “You are beautiful, Leo,” she sighed. “I love you.”

The boy looked at her with wide, wide brown eyes. “Do?”

“Yes, I do.”

“That's right,” Leo said adamantly, nodding as if she had given him the correct answer to a riddle. “You love Papa, too?”

Michaela looked to Roderick, who was still propped on his side, looking rather uncomfortable. Her heart broke a little that the man neither rushed to put the boy's innocent question off, nor would he look directly at her.

Michaela smiled at Leo and spoke low, as if imparting a great secret. “Yes. I love your papa.”

“Me too!” Leo whispered.

And then Roderick was jerking himself to his feet with amazing speed. He took up his walking stick without a glance at the woman or the child on the ground. “I must return to the keep. A number of things I—” He broke off, still not meeting Michaela's eyes. “Good day to you both.”

Michaela sat up with Leo on her lap, a heavy sigh on her lips. Once again he'd fled her. Fled his son. This was no way to begin a family.

Her eyes followed Roderick Cherbon for the several moments it took him to stomp away and disappear through the curtain wall.

“No,” she said softly to herself. “No, I will not allow it.”

“What you say, Aid-ee Mike-lah?”

Michaela stood, shook out her skirts, and took the boy's hand. “Come along, Leo—we're going after your papa.”

“My lord!”

Roderick heard Michaela calling to him as he dragged himself across the hall, and he was more than a little perturbed that she had followed him. Did the woman never know when to stop? He didn't want to see her, or Leo. Didn't want to speak to either of them. He wanted to be alone in his chamber.

He was nearly to the stairs now, and did not slow his pace.

“My lord!
Roderick!
”

At this he did stop, turned to her, and growled, “Yes, Lady Michaela? Is there some matter of great import just come up?”

She was walking quickly toward him, Leo's wrist in her grip, his little hand flapping as he tried to wave it at Roderick. The boy was grinning. Michaela was not.

“Yes. Yes, there is.” She came to a halt before him, her breasts rising and falling rapidly with her breath. In the hollow light of the hall, she seemed to glow: her skin, her hair, her eyes. As if she was a figure from one of the stained-glass windows of the useless chapel.

Yes. I love your papa.

Roderick sent her what he hoped was his most threatening frown. “Well?” he bellowed.

“You promised us one hour,” Michaela said. “It was quite rude of you to abandon us as you did.”

“Abandon you?” Roderick scoffed. “Surely you are no infant, Michaela, that I can not leave you and be about the business of this keep. You have Leo, and he has you.”

“We wanted
you
, my lord,” Michaela insisted, and at her words, Roderick didn't know whether to laugh or curse at her for the fool she was.

Leo pulled free of the woman and stepped to Roderick, holding forth a chubby fist. “Ee-oh bring him snail to him papa. Here, Papa.”

Roderick looked down at the boy, so eager, so hopeful.

“I don't want it. I've no time to play about with filthy creatures like a child, Leo.” And Roderick heard Magnus Cherbon's tone in his own voice.

The boy's features instantly crumpled, like the undermined wall of a tower, and his brown eyes welled with shimmery tears.

“Papa don't want Ee-oh's snail?”

Roderick could almost feel the ripple of fury coming off of the woman before him.

“Oh, that is quite enough,” she said between her teeth. “Come along, Leo—we shall go to the kitchens and see if Cook has some tidbit for you before the noon meal.”

Roderick's relief was nearly crushing. “Good day,” he said stiffly as the woman turned with the boy once more in her grip.

Michaela had spun back to face him in a flash. “
Not
good day,” she hissed at him, and her eyes were murderous. “I am not done with
you
, my lord. Once I see Leo tended to, I shall join you in your chamber.”

“I think not,” Roderick said mildly. “I have—”

“I care not for what imagined tasks you've set yourself to in your hiding place. You
will
speak with me.”

“You don't command me, Lady Michaela,” Roderick warned.

She arched one eyebrow at him and then took Leo toward the kitchens, her skirts swishing, her voice carrying over—gaily back to Roderick as she replied to the boy.

“Oh, no, Leo—of course your papa loves you. It's just that he's deathly frightened of snails.”

Roderick turned toward the stairs once more and hurried up them as quickly as he could drag his damned crippled leg. Perhaps he could reach his chamber and lock the door before the lady arrived.

And then he could cower inside like the wretched, spineless, miserable thing he was.

 

Michaela's heart pounded in her ears like angry waves on the hull of a ship, but she ignored it, drowning it out with her fist falls on Roderick Cherbon's chamber door.

“It is I, my lord. Open, please.”

No response.

She was shaking, both with fear and outrage. It was quite possible that challenging this volatile man would lead to her own destruction, but for Leo's sake—and for the sake of all their futures at Cherbon—Michaela would be brave. She raised her fist again and beat on the door, her other hand turning the long, thin piece of metal. Would she be brave enough to use it?

“My lord! I'll not go away until you speak with me, so you may as well let me in.”

Still no response save her trilling pulse.

She looked down at the shank in her hand. Sir Hugh had given it to her before departing for Tornfield—in case Leo was being impish and bolted himself in his chamber. Michaela was quite certain the man had never dreamed she would use it on the lord's own door.

Roderick would be most put out with Sir Hugh upon his return.

“I'm coming in!” she warned, giving him—and perhaps herself—a final chance.

With an exasperated huff, Michaela scraped the piece of metal into the seam of door and wall and wrenched it about as if she was stirring a bowl of porridge. She pushed.

Nothing.

She manipulated the thin metal bar again, heard a clink that sounded likely, but before she could try the door once more, it swung inward suddenly, ripping the shank from her hand and dragging Michaela over the threshold to land in a pile at Roderick Cherbon's feet.

“Who gave you that?” he demanded, spying the long bar lying on the floor and swiping it up with a growl. He looked at it disgustedly then threw it to the ground once more, muttering, “Hugh.”

Michaela scrambled to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster, then quickly darted around the large, cloaked man before he could herd her back into the corridor. But Roderick seemed to have no intention of evicting her from his room, as he slammed the door closed with an ear-ringing crash.

Michaela had to fight down her whoosh of breath as he advanced on her. She squared her shoulders and raised her chin.

But he only limped past her to one of the oversized armchairs. It was as if, for all his show of keeping her away, he wanted her here.

“What do you want, Miss Fortune?” he asked gruffly, falling into his chair with a grunt. “A feast? All of us to play draughts or pony? I fear I'd be rather outmatched, even against a small boy and a woman.”

“I want to know why you treat Leo so poorly.”

Roderick's head turned to her as if she'd asked him why water was wet.

“Why I—” Roderick began.

“
And
”—Michaela interrupted—“and why you seem to…to like me one moment, and then push me away the next.”

Roderick glared at her for an instant, and then looked away, muttering, “You're daft. I don't know what you expect from me.”

“You are breaking Leo's heart—he loves you so! All
he
wants from you is your time, your attention. To know that you love him!”

“Do I not provide him with a home? With people to care for him? Is he not safe, well-fed, happy? He's not beaten, is he?”

“He's not a dog, my lord! He's a little boy, whose heart is broken because his father pretends he doesn't exist!”

“There are worse things,” Roderick growled.

“Are there? Do you treat him that way because that is how Magnus treated you?”

Roderick bolted from his chair and grabbed up his walking stick but, instead of using it to bolster himself, he brandished it like a club, limping toward Michaela.

“No! Would that my father had only ignored my existence! Instead, he hounded me endlessly, reciting my failures, my weaknesses, until he had forced me on that damned pilgrimage that
nearly took my life!
”

Michaela forced herself to stand steady despite her watery knees.

“What you are doing is just as bad, my lord,” she said, and she could hear the tremble of her own voice.

“I can assure you it's not.” Roderick towered over her now, his hood thrown back against his shoulders, his hair tangled over his cloak, his eyes glowing green fire. “Any matter, I am no one for Leo to idolize. I can not teach him to ride, to fight, to be a man. Is that what you wanted to hear, Miss Fortune? Are you, too, like Magnus, in insisting that I acknowledge my shortcomings?”

“I am not your father. And you have no shortcomings in my eyes,” Michaela said on a quick breath. He had no idea of his own worth. Looking up at him this way, his large, powerful body poised as if to devour her, Michaela wanted nothing more than for Roderick to kiss her again, as he had by the sea.

To kiss her, and more.

His beautiful mouth drew into a sneer. “You're either a fool or a liar.”

“A fool perhaps, but no liar. Why is it so difficult for you to accept that I find you a fine man? Why do you see yourself as unlovable?”

“You're trying too hard, Miss Fortune.” Roderick gave a poor imitation of a chuckle. “Once we are married, you will have your coin. There is no need to court me like some maiden.”

“I'm not courting you, you stubborn bastard!” Michaela shouted and stamped her foot. “But it would certainly not kill you to do so for me!”

“You are wasting your time, waiting on that.”

“What about Leo?” Michaela pressed, reaching out for his cloak when he would have turned away.

Roderick shook her off, flinging his fist still gripping his walking stick in a backhand manner. “What of him?”

“Can you not show him the least bit of kindness? Can you not love
him?
If I am but a means to an end for you, if you could never love me, I beg you: break this legacy of hate passed down from your father, Roderick! Leo is
your son!
”

Roderick hurled his walking stick at the hearth, where it shattered in an explosion of a thousand splinters.
“He is not my son!”

The silence that fell in the room after Roderick's proclamation was perfect. Roderick's back was to her now, and Michaela's head was spinning. What did he mean? That he did not claim Leo?

“I don't understand,” she began. “Are you saying that—”

“I am saying”—Roderick's voice sounded in a way Michaela had never heard the lord before: tired, beaten, sad. “That Leo is not my issue. Not of my blood. Not my son.”

“But”—Michaela felt a great longing to sit down, but the closest chair still seemed too far for her legs to carry her. “Everyone says…Sir Hugh—”

“Everyone thinks he is my son, and that is the way it must be. For Leo's sake,” Roderick said. “I knew Leo's mother when I first arrived in Constantinople. Aurelia. She was a prostitute. And I did indeed lay with her.”

Michaela's heart tripped at that confession, although she didn't know why—all along she had assumed Roderick had made love to Leo's mother. She wondered at the jealousy she felt now.

“But it was before I even arrived in that city that Leo's true father had come to her. I met him, you know—he fought in my company, although I did not know his name at the time.”

“He abandoned them? Au…Aurelia and the baby?”

“No. He never returned to Aurelia to know about Leo. He was killed at Heraclea, along with most of the other men. Only Hugh, myself, and a handful of others who were swift of foot survived. Aurelia liked to think that—had he known, had she sent word to him earlier—he would have cared for them. But…the man was a titled lord, with a family of his own.”

“But how then did Leo come to be with you and Hugh? And why would you claim another man's son as your own?”

“When I was injured…the surgeon did not think me to live. He would do nothing more than give Hugh a draught to ease my suffering. Hugh took me to Aurelia, and she saved my life.”

“And then she simply gave her son away?” Michaela heard the disbelief in her own tone.

“Aurelia loved that boy with her whole heart. Never would she seek to be parted from him. But she had no other choice.”

“Why?”

“She was dying.” Roderick at last turned from the hearth and fell into his chair again, as if all the energy had been drained from him. “When Hugh brought me to her, she was already failing. She'd contracted some sort of a fever, and it had spread…spread to”—Roderick broke off for a moment. “She opened her robe for me once—when she saw that I would live and she would not. Her…breasts were purple and black, and swollen. The whites of her eyes, yellowed. She knew she would do well to see us depart Constantinople.

“And who then would care for a dead prostitute's bastard? No one. Aurelia knew that. Leo would have been left an orphan on the streets of that city, prey to the slavers and pedophiles. She begged me to take him with me when I left. To care for him as if he was my own. It was to be the payment for my life, and I gladly accepted the debt. The circumstances of Leo's birth were no fault of his. He was a babe—innocent. And yes, the son of one of the most beautiful and kind women I have ever known.”