He could not lose his leg again. Not when he was just beginning to feel like a whole man once more. He didn’t know how he was going to explain it to Hugh, who would surely interrogate him. Hugh was the only soul at Cherbon who knew the terrible secret of Roderick’s left boot, and Roderick could not put his friend off for long.
What of Michaela Fortune? When and how would he ever tell her? Would he even be forced to? It was madness, he knew, to consider that his leg was…regenerating. Madness! But Roderick could feel it—the flesh, the bone—and it gave him the insane idea that one day, one day, he could mayhap be the husband to Miss Fortune that he wanted to be. A father to Leo. Cherbon’s lord.
Roderick threw his forearm over his eyes with a cry as another blinding flash of lightning stuttered across his bed. He wanted his mother. A woman he had not seen in a score of years, whose memory was soft about the edges, whose features were blurred by time and pain. He could see her lying in her bed—she was forever in her bed—her long hair caught under her shoulders, her face pale, her eyes dim. She had been Roderick’s only source of comfort in all the early years of his young life, even as constantly ill as she was. But his mother had been wrong in her convictions all along…and Magnus had been right, once again. Roderick was weak. He felt the madness turning in his brain, catching in his chest like a heavy sob, and the itch, the constant itch…
“You’re a big boy now, Roderick, I know,” she said to him. “But not so grown that you mayn’t come and sit with me, hmm?”
He climbed readily upon her bed, a large lad for nine years, and lay down carefully next to her. She was so slight, smaller even than Roderick himself, and he was mindful of her frailty.
But she raised her pale white hand and laid it along his face, gave him a rare smile—her strength was so little now.
“You are my most cherished possession,” she whispered. “My greatest accomplishment. I love you so very, very much.”
The lightning flashed and thunder growled menacingly, as if something black—or mayhap only gray—was biding its time beyond the curtained bed.
“If I must go away, will you be all right?”
“Where are you going, Mother?”
She stroked her thumb lightly along his cheek—and to Roderick it felt like a soft, budding leaf, cool and fragile.
“Your father is a hard man, Roderick, this you know. And though he thinks you weak, like me, I know differently. You are strong. A strong boy, who will be a strong man. Stronger than Magnus.”
“Stronger than Father?” Roderick didn’t think that was possible. Magnus was a mountain, a world unto himself.
Dorian nodded, her hair making a shushing sound against the pillow. “He senses that your strength is different from his and it frightens him. Magnus is strong in his body, in his will. You, my love, my beloved, are strong of heart.” She touched her forefinger to his bony chest. “And that sort of strength can change not only Cherbon, it can change the whole, whole world.”
His mother drew a shallow breath. “If I must go away, do not think unkindly of me. I am as your father accuses—weak. And I am so very tired, my love. I cannot bear another…I cannot bear it, you see.”
Roderick did not see. “Where would you go, Mother?” he asked again. “May I come, too?” He did not like this conversation—it frightened him. He wanted to lie here, in the soft quiet of his mother’s presence forever. It was the only place in his world he felt safe. If she were to go away, he would be left only with his father, and Harliss the Heartless….
“One thing you are to remember always: I love you. I love you, Roderick, as God loves you. Wholly. And perfectly. And should you one day wonder that I did not love you enough, would that you think of God to remind you. And if ever you think God has forsaken you, would that you call me to mind. One day, you will understand this.”
Roderick didn’t understand it at all, but he nodded anyway, so as not to upset his mother. She needed her rest.
She smiled at him again. “Now”—she reached her arm farther across his body and Roderick felt her weak tug. He aided her by moving closer, so that their bodies touched and they lay eye to eye on her pillow. She stroked his hair away from his forehead, over and over. “Let me look at you for a while. You may sleep if you like.”
Roderick nodded, snuggled down into the pillow that smelled of the soap the maid used on her hair, and also her tangy, sour illness. His mother slid her head forward and pressed her lips to his.
Roderick smiled at the happy feeling in his belly, and although he tried very hard to keep his eyes open, to look into his mother’s eyes and hold on to that happy feeling, she was stroking his hair again, and he could feel himself sinking down into sleep….
The crashing thunder shook him awake with a child’s cry of “Mother!” and he looked around the dark bed.
Dorian was gone, the blanket that had covered her now tossed over Roderick’s legs, the mattress, the pillow still carrying the slight impression of her body, her head.
His mother had gone away.
And Roderick would never see her again.
The lightning flashed over his mumbled cry, his tormented writhing. Why would he call to mind such a terrible memory, tonight of all nights? He had not thought of Dorian Cherbon’s last hours on earth for many years, and tonight his mother’s words haunted him in time with the throbbing itch of his left foot.
She had been the only person in the whole of his life to say she loved him.
Until Leo. And Michaela Fortune.
He had failed them all.
Roderick threw his fists into the mattress at his side and gave a ragged howl of pain, his eyes squeezed shut against the horror that swooped around him like the storm flying beyond the keep.
“Roderick,” a woman’s voice whispered, and he thought for a moment that madness had at last fully claimed him.
But when he opened his eyes, the lightning stuttered across one half of Michaela Fortune’s face as she leaned over him.
“It’s all right,” she said, climbing onto the mattress, across his body. She kissed his cheeks. “I’m here now. I’m here.”
Michaela didn’t know if Roderick had been dreaming, but as she lowered her head to next kiss his mouth, the lightning showed her his face and his eyes were wild. She touched her lips to his gently. He didn’t fight her, but neither did he respond.
She was straddling him awkwardly, her skirt pulled tight over his abdomen and around her thighs, but she didn’t want to move just yet—he needed to get used to her touch, the weight of her body atop his.
“I’m here for you,” she whispered in his ear. “For all of you.”
“You’re making a mistake,” he growled back, an animal so weary from his ensnarement that the worst he could do was a frightening sound.
She shook her head. “No. I have made many mistakes before—some I admit were with you. But not this night.”
“I can’t love you. Not like you want me to. I don’t even think I can love Leo.” His voice caught, as if he would weep.
“I want you to love me—and Leo—however you can. That is enough.” Then she kissed him again, more deeply. He still did not respond. She raised her head only slightly, whispering the words into his mouth as the thunder crashed around them. “And until you can, I will love you both enough for all of us.”
This time when she kissed him, he kissed her back.
Michaela let her hands come up from the mattress to frame his face, allowing the weight of her upper body to sink onto Roderick’s chest. He felt thick and hard and strong beneath her, and it filled her with an odd sense of power, to have this giant of a man beneath her, almost at her mercy.
Almost.
Roderick’s hands came gently, hesitantly, to Michaela’s rib cage and she wondered if he could feel her heart thrashing against his palms. His fingertips began a gentle exploration of her sides, to the sensitive areas under her arms and at the curve of her breasts.
She was nervous to her very core.
In all her wild imaginings of what her first time with a man would be like, she never thought it would be she playing the aggressor. It was as if she was taking her own virginity, and again she felt the headiness of power.
She raised up, sitting fully on his hips now, and after giving him a moment to protest—which he did not—she eased one side of her wide, scooped bodice down over her shoulder. She slid her arm from the gown and then pushed the other side down. In a moment, the upper part of her gown was gathered around her waist, and her nipples puckered in the chill of the dark room.
The lightning flashed again, revealing her nakedness, and beneath her, Roderick gasped.
“You are beautiful,” he said, his voice full of wonder and despair, too. “Too beautiful for me.”
Michaela shook her head, and then reached down for his hands. She placed them on both her breasts, closing her eyes at the contact. His skin was so hot on her chilled flesh that she expected to hear a sizzle. After a moment, she commanded him, “Raise up, my lord. Take off your shirt.”
He froze for a beat of time, but then used his elbows and then his hands to bring his face to hers. He jerked his shirt over his head and had seized Michaela’s arms and pulled her back down to the mattress with him before his shirt had time to hit the floor.
If she had thought his hands on her bare breasts was delicious, the sensation of his naked torso pressed against her transported Michaela into another world. The hair of his chest and trailing down his stomach felt like soft grass on warm, solid earth. And when he kissed her again, she could feel each twitch of his powerful muscles, each thrum of blood in his veins. His arms around her felt as immense and solid as the very sky, the storm raging around them, certain and relentless and, yes, frightening.
She broke away from his mouth with no little effort and struggled to the side of him, placing a hand on his chest when he would have risen. In a moment, she had shimmied out of the rest of her gown and kicked it from the bed into the dark. Her hands went boldly to the ties at his waist.
“What are you doing?” Roderick asked gruffly, a hint of amazement in his voice.
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“Making a mess of my laces likely,” he said.
Michaela chuckled and flung the long ties up onto his stomach. “You do it, then.”
In the murky darkness, she could see him shake his head. “This is a mistake, Michaela.”
“No, it isn’t.” She was tired of waiting for him. Reaching behind her toward his right boot, she felt for the cold hilt of his hidden dagger.
Roderick became instantly alarmed as she moved to his feet. “No—stop—”
But she had the blade in hand before he could rise, and with one swift flick of her wrist, she drew the dagger’s sharp edge up the center of the ladder his laces created. Aided by his erection, his breeches pulled apart soundlessly, save for the whoosh of breath that came from the Lord of Cherbon, himself.
Michaela tossed the blade over the edge of the bed and it disappeared into the darkness with a clang.
The lightning flashed again, two, three times, rattling the blackness of the bed. Michaela glimpsed Roderick’s face, pale and creased and worried, yet drawn with intense passion and need.
“I can never be the man you want me to be,” Roderick warned her, each word wracked with pain and shame.
“You already are.” Pulling apart his breeches fully, his manhood sprung free, Michaela threw her leg over Roderick’s hips. She took him in her hand, despite his strangled, “Michaela, wait,” and without giving herself time to be afraid, Michaela sank onto him.
Her cry mingled with Roderick’s—pain and wonder and fear. She settled onto his length with difficulty, but did not relent until she had taken him all. She paused for a moment as the throbbing pain receded and then slowly, she began to ride him, the link around her neck swinging in time to her movements, out over Roderick’s face, making a warped ring of shadow when the lightning flashed.
He caught it in his hand, pulled her forward onto his chest once more.
Michaela writhed atop Roderick, keeping him enslaved by her body. Bringing her hands to her neck, she lifted the chain over her head and placed it over Roderick’s in one fluid motion. She kissed him deeply before pushing herself aright and sinking onto him fully once more.
Roderick brought his hands up, his arms crooked at the elbows, as if in surrender to her, and Michaela laced her fingers in his. The metal link rested in the center of his breastbone, and seemed to glow brighter with each flash of lightning, bright white rays bursting from it like a small, fantastic sun. With each ebb and flow of movement, Roderick kept time with his sighs, his groans, and the vulnerability of him sped Michaela’s passion, prompted her to rock her hips faster. Making love to Roderick tonight was not for Michaela’s pleasure, but she could feel a tightness winding in her, an urgent need for something, something…and she raced toward it.
She felt him grow inside her, heard his groans drawing out, longer and longer, his panting taking his words and tying them into unintelligible knots, and she knew that his time was very near. She was close, too, so close, and so she rode faster, deeper, letting loose her own throaty cries as she felt him in her very core, it seemed.
And then it started for her, an expanding around his length, slowly, infinitely, as if time had stopped, and then in a wink, her whole body, her whole world collapsed in with a crash and she cried out, froze.
Roderick gave a guttural yell and strained his hips upward, driving into her one time on his own, deeply, and his passion, too, erupted.
The link fell dim once more.
Michaela slumped to Roderick’s side, feeling him slip erotically from her body. They lay in the dark together, without words, chasing their own breaths, for a long time.
Finally, Roderick spoke.
“Why did you give me the link? Your mother told you—”
“To never take it off, I know,” Michaela finished quietly. “But that was before I had you to protect me. Remember, on the cliff, you promised to protect me. And I believe you will.”
“I remember. But, Michaela, I cannot protect you as a proper husband should. I…it is the same reason why I would not make love to you. Why I abhor the thought of being naked in your—”
“Roderick, I know,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t. You can’t possibly—”
“I know.” Michaela pulled his head to look at her. “I know about your leg.” He simply stared at her, and she saw his throat working as he swallowed. “Hugh told me.”
“You knew…you knew before—” He let the question trail away, but Michaela knew what he was asking.
“Yes, I knew before we made love.”
Roderick made a growling sound, and looked away from her. “Why?” he rasped. “Why have you done this?”
Michaela sat up, propped on one arm. “Because I love you, Roderick. And I wanted to show you are a man, the man, to me and for me. The man I want as my husband, in every way. Your scars, your injuries, they make you perfect to me.”
“Stop!”
“No, I won’t stop,” she said gently. “You must know this before either of us can continue. I made love to you tonight so that you could see that you are not just a weighty purse to me, or a more noble title, or a grand keep. I want you for who you are, right now. And if you want me, then you will take me for who I am, right now. You will love me as a wife, true. If you can not do that, after all that we have shared, then I can not and will not marry you.”
He was quiet for a long time. “You leave me with a very difficult decision.”
“Oh, I hope it is not so very difficult.” She tried to smile in the darkness. “My parents should arrive on the morrow—mayhap the day after. Either we wed, or I return home with them. It is your choice.” She kissed his cheek, the closest part of his face to her, and then rolled over and rose from the bed.
“Where are you going?” he demanded, and Michaela wanted to think she detected
a note of longing in his voice.
She pulled her gown over her head. “To my chamber, to wash and to sleep. You need your time to think, as do I. I will see you in the morn.”
He humphed, and this time Michaela’s smile was genuine. She came around the side of the bed and kissed his mouth properly.
“Good night, Roderick. Sleep well. I love you.”
He didn’t answer her, but she hadn’t expected him to, and so she turned and quietly left his room.
Roderick lay for a long time in cold, sweaty fear after Michaela had left. Perhaps what she said was true. Perhaps she could accept him for what he was, and perhaps he was even some sort of a man still, in her eyes, at least.
Fear made him sick at his stomach. Fear of losing all that was wonderfully appearing just within his reach.
He tugged the sides of his ruined breeches together as best he could and rose to a sit. Michaela had missed cutting the bottom two rungs of lace and so he restrung the leather together sufficient to retain his modesty, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. He pushed with his arms and stood.
His left boot crunched sideways under his weight and Roderick spun his arms madly in the air, black dread rushing up his throat and blinding him as he began to topple to the floor. The feeling in his leg was gone, gone! He turned and grabbed at the bed with a cry, but clutched only at gossamer throws that slid with him to the ground.
Roderick’s head struck the frame of the bed painfully, dazzling him for a moment, his right ankle twisted under him and as he at last crashed fully to the floor, Roderick realized that he had lost his leg once more.
The metal link around his neck was the last thing to hit, and it did so with a tiny, echoing clink before his wide-staring, disbelieving eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Michaela was sore and aching and more hopeful than she had ever been in her life as she made her way down the black corridor to her chamber.
She had made love to Roderick, and he had let her. Things were going to be all right, after all. She realized then that it was Yule’s Eve. They would be wed in a matter of days—perhaps she could even count the time in hours—and then she and he and Leo would become a family. It gave her an instant’s frown about what was to come of the situation with Hugh—Michaela had spoken true when she’d told him she didn’t wish for him to go, but she also knew what it was like to care for someone who did not return the emotion. Michaela could not have stayed at Tornfield Manor after Alan and Juliette wed, so it was very unlikely that Hugh could withstand seeing Michaela and Roderick together, as man and wife, for the rest of his days.
Taming The Beast Page 24
