Taming The Beast

by Heather Grothaus

  In a moment, he was standing before the stone statue of the winged rider, and save for the fact that Roderick was not astride, Roderick knew his and the inanimate man’s poses were similar—warlike, vengeful, each brandishing a stave meant for destruction.

  “You are mighty now, eh?” he growled at the cold, smooth stone eyes. “Only wait until someone rams a poison-tipped lance through your leg. See if your God rescues you then, or the men you fought so hard to save!”

  With his last words still ringing in the stillness, Roderick threw his walking stick to the ground and stabbed the broken snuffer precisely into the packed joint around the only perfectly square stone beneath the horse’s front hooves.

  Roderick scraped and jabbed at the hard dirt, eventually dropping to his right knee, his crippled leg stretched awkwardly before him, almost straddling the stone beneath the rearing stallion. In a moment, he fitted the mangled tip of metal beneath the lip of the thin square and pried. It raised easily and slid away into the darkness under the rider.

  Roderick threw the snuffer aside with a clang, his breaths bursting from him like angry shouts. He leaned forward, ignoring the screaming pulling in his thigh and knee, to brush away old dirt, as dry as sand, and his palm skittered across smooth wood. His fingertips sought the corners of the box buried in the floor and he worked it loose from its grave, setting it high up on his good thigh.

  The box was not nailed shut, nor was the lid fastened with anything at all, so that it lifted away easily when Roderick tested it.

  Lying on the bottom of the box with no adornment, no letter of explanation or indication of ownership, was one old, limp, brown leather shoe.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Michaela was hunted by horrendous nightmares once she finally surrendered to sleep. Terrifying dreams of flying through gray-black smoke and clouds shading gloomy battlefields, catching glimpses of death and blood and mangled bodies piled on sand, on heath, on mud, in forests, and in dark, deep valleys. Wars and revolts, screaming battle horses and cries for retreat; whistling arrows and flaming projectiles smashing into fiery hell spread out like a disease over the earth. Hoofbeats, baying hounds, hoofbeats, flapping of wings, hoofbeats, hoofbeats, carrying her away forever…

  She had never dreamt anything so grisly, and the visions stayed with her upon waking, so that she was only partly present while bidding her beloved father farewell the next morn.

  Walter Fortune, too, seemed preoccupied, and pressed repeatedly upon Michaela to take care, and to come home if she felt the slightest urge at all.

  “You need not stay here,” Walter insisted in a low voice, his usually merry eyes solemn and intense. “The three of us, we shall manage.”

  But Michaela didn’t know how to tell her father that she feared her heart was already ensnared by the two Cherbon males who resided in the gloomy castle, and so she only agreed with the best smile she could muster, and waved him through the barbican.

  She had just entered the hall when Hugh Gilbert hailed her, coming from the doorway that led from the kitchens, a biscuit-wielding Leo happily in tow.

  “Miss Fortune!” he called with a grin. Joy seemed to pour from the very fibers of his fine saffron tunic and Michaela could not help but wonder suspiciously at the cause of his jubilant mood. “Just the woman I was searching for.”

  “Sir Hugh. Good morn,” she said coolly, and then crouched down with a ready smile before the boy. “Hello, Leo. Have you a bite for me? I’ve not had my breakfast yet and I am near to famished.”

  Leo giggled and held forth his soggy biscuit. Michaela leaned forward with her mouth opened wide, and then at the last minute, fastened her teeth around Leo’s slight forearm.

  “Mmm! Delicious!”

  The boy giggled. “No bite Ee-oh, Aid-ee Mike-lah!”

  “Oh, dear—I am sorry. But you are so sweet, I couldn’t help myself.” She tweaked his nose and then stood.

  Hugh still wore his smirk, and he bowed low to Michaela. “I commend you, my lady.”

  Now Michaela was truly worried. “Why? What have you done?”

  Hugh laughed. “Ah, it’s not what I’ve done, but what you’ve done. I don’t know what it is, but Rick came to his chamber in the most dreadful mood last night!”

  Michaela felt her frown deepen. “Well, I don’t see what’s so jolly about that. Obviously my advisor leaves much to be desired in his tutoring.”

  “No, no! To the contrary,” Hugh insisted. He tugged on a lock of Leo’s hair. “Go and play by the hearth, Stench. I must talk to Lady Michaela for a moment.”

  “All wite, Hoo.”

  “You must continue exactly what you’re doing,” Hugh said as soon as Leo was out of earshot. “You’ve got him on the run, I’d wager, and that’s precisely what Roderick needs.”

  Michaela looked at Hugh for several moments, wondering what this man was about. For some reason she didn’t want to let him know that it was Roderick who had been the aggressor last night in her chamber. Certainly, it had been Michaela’s plan to move a bit closer to Roderick, but he had beaten her to the punch, kissing her like that. In a way Michaela had never hoped to be kissed.

  “Is that so?” she said evasively.

  “It most certainly is,” Hugh agreed with a sage nod. “He barely said two words to me last eve, and when he did speak, it was akin to a bark. You must tell me, what happened?”

  Michaela thought for a quick moment. “Oh, little more than what you advised. I—I took off my shoes. Asked him about his mother and…and his dead sisters.”

  Hugh’s eyes widened to the point that Michaela feared they might pop free of the man’s handsome face. “Verily?” he all but crowed. “Oh my, yes—that’s perfect! No wonder he—” Hugh broke off, seemed to do a bit of his own thinking and then drew Michaela close by her elbow, as if they were great confidants. “Dorian Cherbon was a loony and—”

  “A loony? Why would you say that? Did you know her?”

  Hugh looked a bit confused for a moment. “Well, what would you call a woman who tied a yoke of stone around her neck and walked into the sea? Hmm? Sane?”

  Michaela felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, but Hugh continued as if he’d told her only what they would be having for supper.

  “He’s most nobly pissed this morn, of course,” Hugh said rapturously. “So much so that I am being sent to Tornfield to collect its dues!”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. And while I’m gone, you should finish him off. I must admit that Rick often depends on me overmuch. To shield him from things he finds…unpleasant.”

  Michaela’s frown threatened to collapse her face, and she wanted to tell Sir Hugh that Roderick hadn’t seemed to find her unpleasant in the least while he had been kissing her. But she held her silence.

  “I’ll likely be gone a pair of days—my appearance will catch your old lover off guard and he’ll need scramble to produce such a large amount of coin. Meanwhile, you must hound Rick, press him to tell you more. Perhaps…perhaps—yes!” He leaned forward with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Go on and invite him to your bed!”

  Michaela drew back. “What?”

  “What does it matter? You’re to marry him any matter, and it’s not as if you’re a virgin, eh?”

  Michaela had slapped his face before it occurred to her to do so.

  Hugh looked shocked for a bit of time, and then his damnable grin returned. “Well, that was unexpected.”

  “Don’t assume things about my person, Sir Hugh. It’s rather unhealthy for you.”

  “So I see,” the man replied mildly. “Any matter, I do apologize, but you see what I’m saying, do you not?”

  Michaela had the distinct feeling that were she to follow Sir Hugh’s advice, Roderick Cherbon would close himself off to her permanently. In the time she had come to know the man, it was quite obvious that intimacy was aught he was uncomfortable with, especially when it was pressed upon him. But then why would Hugh suggest she do such a thing? What was this
game he played?

  “I think I do,” Michaela said carefully.

  “Grand,” Hugh said, looking relieved. “And when he refuses you, as I must warn you, he undoubtedly will, that’s when you should inquire about Aurelia.”

  “Aurelia?” Although she was offended that Sir Hugh would think Roderick to find her so distasteful, Michaela couldn’t help but be intrigued at the mention of a woman’s name. “Who is she?”

  Hugh’s smile was so cool, snow would not have melted on his tongue. “Why, Leo’s mother, of course.”

  Roderick sat alone in his chamber, brooding at the dire state of his life.

  He was obsessed with the woman he was to marry in only a few short weeks.

  Under ordinary circumstances, that would have been rather fortunate. However, he was no ordinary man, and Michaela Fortune was no ordinary woman. Roderick knew he could never bring himself to take his own wife to bed. Could not bear to see the pity in her eyes when she would look upon his misshapen form, and the thought of his own awkward attempts to make love to her left him in a cold sweat.

  Clothed, and at a distance, he could still remain a man in her eyes. But in the closeness of a marriage bed…

  And then there was the woman herself, and the strange story of her family. The shoe Roderick had unearthed in the chapel sat in its box in his wardrobe, and seemed to call to his imagination and curiosity.

  Why would Walter Fortune be so desperate to regain a worn, leather shoe? Roderick couldn’t help but guess that it had something to do with his wife’s outrageous claims of the Wild Hunt, but in what way? And how could a shoe—not even a pair of shoes, as it was—be dangerous?

  It disturbed Roderick that he was dwelling on matters of no direct concern to him. He’d given up empathy in Constantinople, after his last conversation with Aurelia, and vowed that once he stepped upon English soil once more, his only thoughts were to be of his own preservation. His and Hugh’s and Leo’s. To hell with everyone else.

  Which is why Roderick knew now that he most definitely should not marry Michaela Fortune. Hugh had been right. Roderick should have sent her on her way immediately after their first encounter and married the next woman to appear at Cherbon, on the spot. Any woman besides her. Any other woman.

  Because Roderick wanted Michaela. And he knew that she was not the type of woman to give and never ask for anything in return. Her needs were many and hungry. She’d already said she wanted to understand him, to know him. Noble enough sentiments in words, but if Roderick let her in, there was no way she could ever truly love him as he was. He would see the revulsion in her eyes, the shock and the pity, and it would kill him.

  God, how he hated his weak self! He was unfit to marry Michaela, unfit to be Leo’s father, unfit to rule Cherbon. His own father had been right all along, damn his evil soul to hell. Dorian Cherbon had saved herself a lifetime of this pain and grief by taking her own life, but Roderick also hated her for leaving him alone.

  No one wanted him as he was. No one except his friend Hugh, and Leo. They were the only ones he could trust.

  And so he would take out his anger and frustration on Alan Tornfield, the man who had held the one who was just out of Roderick’s reach, and then thrown her away. The blackest part of Roderick’s heart hoped dearly that Tornfield had no coin to give Hugh—Roderick would have his head mounted in Cherbon’s bailey. And that thought, at last, made Roderick smile.

  He turned his head as a rapping sounded on his door. Likely Hugh, forgetting a bit of this or that, or asking one final time if he could run Tornfield through just for sport.

  “Come.”

  The door opened and to Roderick’s dismay, Michaela Fortune stepped into his room, Leo dashing around her and running to Roderick’s side.

  Thank God he’d had Hugh help him with his boots before leaving.

  Michaela seemed hesitantly curious about the room as she entered and closed the door almost to behind her, but she kept her gaze focused on Roderick. He recalled clearly his rash behavior with her the previous evening, kissing her surprise away in her bare feet, and Roderick felt his face warm.

  “What do you want?” he asked, hearing his own abruptness. “I thought you knew my chamber was private.”

  “It—” Michaela seemed to swallow. “It’s a beautiful day, my lord. Leo and I would like it very much if you would join us for a turn about the grounds.”

  The woman was daft! Asking him once again to walk about as if he were an able-bodied, whole man. Walk! Next she’d want a footrace with him.

  “No, thank you,” Roderick said. “Leo, lean not on my—”

  “Please?” Michaela stepped closer to his chair, and Roderick thought he could see a look of desperation that had never before darkened the depths of those blue eyes.

  “Pees, Papa?” Leo mimicked.

  The less he was in Michaela Fortune’s presence until they were wed, the better. He already knew he could not control himself around her. Hell, he didn’t even seem to know who he was when he was around her. And Leo forever clung, clung to him like—

  “Very well.” Roderick heard a voice that sounded remarkably like his own saying, “But only for an hour. I’m quite harried today.”

  It was a beautiful day. The morning’s chilly dampness faded under a benign winter sun and the stones in the walls around the bailey radiated the bright, meager warmth back at the trio in a protective bowl. Serfs hurried in crisscrossing paths of chores, and several times, a servant nearly fell over their own feet at the sight of the large, cloaked man walking in their midst.

  When they were halfway around the keep, Michaela had thought to shorten and slow her strides to maintain pace with him, but was rather surprised that his gait was nearly as quick as hers, thanks to his long legs. Leo was keeping a loose orbit around them both, dashing away to collect bits of nothing from the grounds—a rock, a stick, a long length of purple vine hiding in vain beneath the south wall—and then presenting his treasures to each of them in turn.

  Michaela glanced out the corner of her eye at Lord Cherbon’s face. He had his hood raised still, but in the brightness of the bailey, she could see the paleness of his skin, the tight line of his mouth, his concentrated frown. His green eyes seemed faded in the daylight, with fatigue, or…something she could not give name to.

  “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.