Taming The Beast

by Heather Grothaus

  It would devastate Roderick if Hugh left.

  She wondered for a moment if perhaps Hugh’s feelings for Roderick might one day fade, change, as her own feelings for Alan had. But then she shook her head with a sad smile. Michaela knew her feelings had changed because of Roderick and distance, time to see who Alan really was, and that he was not the man she’d daydreamed into being. Hugh held no such illusions about Roderick—he knew his warts, and loved him in spite of them. Mayhap because of them. And Leo…heavens, how Leo loved his Hoo.

  But now was not the time to think of such depressing possibilities. Michaela wanted a wash and a bite to eat and the rest of the evening to herself. She walked past her own door to head toward the hall and give instructions for water and a tray to be brought up. Perhaps she would have the same sent to Roderick’s chamber, as well. A small gift for him.

  She was nearly to the top of the stairs when she heard the commotion: a man shouting, a woman—the voice sounded like one of the maidservants—arguing fiercely with him.

  “You can’t go up there, my lord!”

  “Get out of my way, woman, or I shall dash you down the stairs! I’ll search this entire keep alone if I must! I know she is here!”

  Michaela froze, a hand to her throat.

  The man’s voice belonged to Alan Tornfield.

  He came upon the upper floor just then, and Michaela saw his wild, rain-soaked hair and clothes, the stricken look in his eyes as his gaze fell upon her. The maidservant was hanging on to the back of his cloak as if pulling vainly on a stubborn mule.

  “Michaela, thank God! They’re with you, aren’t they? Say they are!”

  “Alan, what in heaven’s—it’s all right,” she said to the maid and waved her away. “Who are with me? My God, you’re soaked through!”

  “Elizabeth!” Alan gasped, trying to gulp down great breaths of air. “And Harliss, as well. They’re here, aren’t they?”

  “Of course not. Why would they be? Harliss is banned from Cherbon.” The tiniest drip of fear fell onto Michaela’s neck, as if snuck through the stones by the powerful storm still raging beyond Cherbon’s walls, or flung from Alan’s drenched form. She stepped toward him, reached out a hand to take his arm. “Come downstairs with me and you can explain. I’m sure—”

  “There’s no time!” Alan shouted, flinging her hand away. “If they’re not here, they must be in the storm somewhere, lost!”

  “What are you talking about?” Michaela’s dread increased. “Weren’t they with you on the way back to Tornfield?”

  Alan fell back onto the corridor wall, his eyes squeezed shut. “Elizabeth ran off again, presumably to you. Harliss seemed to be close on her heels when they disappeared into the storm.”

  “Juliette?” Michaela asked, the reality of what Alan was telling her not quite sinking in.

  Alan opened his eyes and his head came away from the wall, his face sickly pale in the flickering gloom of the corridor. “We were closer to Tornfield so I sent her on. In the black, the rain, I couldn’t track Elizabeth and Harliss while keeping Juliette safe. She…she feels Elizabeth is gone because of her and now…I’ve lost them all!” His chest hitched under his soaked clothes.

  “My God,” Michaela breathed, hearing each rumble and flash beyond the keep as if amplified now. “All right. It will be all right. I’ll go and alert Lord R—”

  But her decisive speech was cut off by another voice in the blackness. “There you are, Miss Fortune.” It was Hugh, and in a moment he materialized in the circle of candlelight. “Leo with you, then?”

  “What?” Michaela said, her heart freezing to a halt.

  Hugh frowned at Alan Tornfield, still leaning against the wall as if unable to stand by his own power. “It was you! I’ll have you whipped, dog, for invading the lord’s son’s chamber!”

  Alan gasped a strangled breath and slid down the wall to a slumping seat.

  “Alan hasn’t been to Leo’s room, Hugh,” Michaela choked, and she prayed her horrific suspicions were wrong, wrong, wrong.

  “Well, someone was there who’s only just come in from the rain—the floor is a deluge.” Hugh’s frown deepened as he looked between Michaela and Alan. “Where is Leo?”

  Alan cried out and shook his fist. “Elizabeth, why? How could you?”

  “The Tornfield girl’s abducted Leo?” Hugh shouted, but before Alan could admit to the possibility, Michaela stepped to Hugh, her hands out.

  “No, Hugh, I think it is much worse than that, I’m afraid—Elizabeth’s run off, but Harliss was with her.”

  A squealing breath came from Hugh.

  “Nurse will protect them,” Alan argued. “She loves them both and—”

  “I tried to tell you in the wood, Alan!” Michaela shouted. “Harliss is mad! She is mad for revenge on us all, and the surest way to get that revenge is through our children! She is evil, deranged!”

  Alan was sobbing quietly in his heap on the floor and Michaela turned from him in disgust. She expected to see Hugh crazed with worry, but the man’s beautiful eyes were hard, determined. His jaw was set and he seemed poised to action.

  It was little wonder Hugh had saved Roderick’s life in the Holy Land. How had she ever thought this man insincere?

  “Take this blubbering mess and go search,” Hugh commanded. “Call to any servants you see en route, but do not tarry to rally more. I will warn Roderick and we shall join you.”

  “Yes. All right, Hugh,” Michaela readily agreed, so thankful that Hugh Gilbert was who he was.

  He looked to Alan. “I vow to you, Tornfield, I vow to you by all that I hold holy in heaven and on earth, if Leo bears one bruise, one scratch—if he has so much as caught the sniffles from your asinine judgment, I will see your blood spilled over my boots by my own hand!” He looked back to Michaela, and she knew in that moment that Hugh meant every word to the center of his soul. “Go!” Hugh shouted as he turned on his own heel and raced into the black.

  Michaela ran to Alan’s side and yanked on his elbow. “Get up, Alan. If you value those children’s lives and your own, come on!”

  Roderick had forgotten how to walk with his cane and in his heavy prosthesis in two short days, as if he had only just lost his leg for the first time.

  He lurched and crashed his way through the maze of dark passages of Cherbon, dizzy from the bash on his skull he’d suffered, and also the shock of the night.

  Michaela had made love to him. She loved him. And she wanted him in spite of his hideousness, but now he could no longer pretend. What had happened to the power of the old boot he still wore? Why had it failed him, now of all times, when he had started to believe that he could pretend he was whole, could love Michaela as she deserved to be loved, as he wanted to love her? For those short, sweet days, Roderick had been a man once more, and now…now—

  He was nothing but a beast again. A pathetic, growling, thrashing animal, unfit to love. Unfit for a family. Unfit to live.

  He stopped, braced his forearm on a wall and waited with his eyes closed for the paralyzing trembling to ease. He could never face her like this again. Not when he had shown her he could walk, mount a horse, swing Leo about and toss him in the air with ease. Hell, the way he’d improved the last two days, Roderick was beginning to fancy a battle again, and thought of challenging Hugh to a mock contest. Roderick pulled away from the wall and lurched on down the corridor aimlessly.

  But not now. No, now he could do none of those things, and it made him useless. Impotent. Pathetic. She had said she loved him, but that would change. In time, she would grow tired of his indigent state, his tottering, and she would seek her comfort elsewhere.

  And now that Roderick loved her, had tasted her as the wife she would certainly be—warm and loyal and passionate—he felt his guts were being pulled slowly from his abdomen.

  Perhaps this was how his mother had felt, before she walked into the sea and left him forever. She too had been ill, tired. She too had left someone she loved behind, t
hinking perhaps he was better off without her.

  Had he been better off? Had Dorian Cherbon done the right thing in taking her own life?

  A cold chill swept up Roderick’s spine and Michaela’s metal link, forgotten beneath his hastily donned shirt until now, began to itch against his skin. He stopped to scratch at it mindlessly, and then looked at where his crippled leg had dragged him to. The candles eternally guttering to either side of the ornately carved doors, the Latin words accusing from the lintel:

  From the gate of hell deliver their souls, O Lord.

  A rage built in Roderick, unlike any he had ever known, at his father, at his infirmities, at Aurelia for being ill, at Leo for being so innocent, at his mother for leaving him, at Miss Fortune for having the stupidity to come to Cherbon in the first place, to love him.

  Roderick flung open the double doors with a roar and threw himself into the dark chapel, as if charging down the throat of a dragon.

  Michaela knew she was a fool for dashing into the storm in nothing more than her gown and slippers, but she could not bring herself to pause even long enough to find some sort of cloak to throw about her.

  Leo was out there. Leo and Elizabeth, both in Harliss’s clutches.

  Thankfully, Alan had recovered from his self-pitying puddle in the corridor and now ran at Michaela’s side, the two of them clutching hands to maintain some sort of reference in the crashing, black world of water that was the storm around them. The terrain was treacherous in the freezing downpour, turning ditches of dying winter grass into deadly sluices, where rabbit holes and animal paths gaped suddenly underfoot, as if to take the desperate pair by surprise and swallow them whole.

  As the lightning flashed, they could see the sea beyond, tempest and foaming, the waves lashing up the height of the cliffs themselves, it seemed. The sight of the black water, slashed with foamy gray arms grasping blindly for prey, any prey, caused Michaela’s blood to run colder than the rain.

  Alan jerked her to a stop. “Michaela!” he shouted, and crouched down. He picked up some small object and rose, holding it toward her. It was a tiny leather slipper.

  Leo’s shoe.

  No soos!

  Alan must have known by her face that the shoe belonged to Leo for he did not hesitate a moment more, tugging Michaela’s shocked body into motion again.

  “They must have gone toward the cliff,” he shouted as they both ran and slid through the narrow valley. “Is there aught about for shelter there? A fishing hut perhaps?”

  Michaela shook her head, but then realized he could not see her in the darkness. “No! There’s a path that leads down to the water, but…nothing else!” Behind her, Michaela could feel the graves on the knoll watching them. Perhaps Dorian Cherbon particularly, as one who had taken this path long ago, to her own death. “There is little beach, Alan, and if the tide—”

  Alan pulled her forward once more. “There is no other place they could have gone. They may be trapped on the cliff face!” They stumbled toward the rocky V, where the path disappeared over the cliff and down its jagged skirt to the thrashing hem of the sea.

  Once at the head of the steep, zigzagging path, they stopped to look down. The tide was indeed on its way in, and the slender strip of rocky beach that was often visible was now covered over by a depth of foamy water. Michaela knew it would rise to the middle of the cliff at its highest point.

  The children would not have gone this way on their own.

  When the lightning flashed again, Alan gave a hoarse cry. He tore his hand free from Michaela’s and dropped over the edge of the cliff onto the path, scrambling over the sharp, loose stone.

  “Alan!” Michaela cried into the screaming wind, but he did not stop, did not slow. Why hadn’t Roderick come yet? Michaela was terrified, and in need of his solid presence.

  She swiped at the streams of icy water dripping into her eyes and followed Alan, keeping close watch on the boundary of water and rock that rose steadily with each crashing wave, rolling ever upward to meet them. The wind howled around the cliff like ghostly, hunting hounds.

  Once he had come to a swaying halt before the altar, Roderick did not know what else to do. He’d not had any plans for coming to the chapel, and did not know why he had.

  Small oil lamps to either side of the tabernacle gave a glow to the gilded surfaces and threw in shadowed relief the enormous crucifix suspended above. The very stones of the ornate room breathed old incense, and for a moment, Roderick was lost to two years ago, to the long hospital room in Constantinople, where another enormous crucifix had lorded and the smoky cologne had choked his raw throat.

  Roderick gagged at the memory of incense-tinged blood in his mouth, of the ringing in his ears and the throbbing of his face, the way his leg had felt as though it was continuously on fire without being consumed. And then there was Hugh’s gaunt, pale, worried face, seeking to champion Roderick’s cause when all Roderick wanted was to slip away into death, away from the incense and the pain and the mocking crucifix. To a place where he might at last see his mother, and where he was sure to never see Magnus Cherbon again. How he had prayed before Heraclea! How he had begged God to spare his men and lead them to a righteous victory; and yes, to finally make his father proud of him, to praise him and say, “Well done, my son! Well done!”

  But God had answered none of his prayers. His men had been starved, ill, and then slaughtered. When Roderick had sought to save some of them—any of them—he had nearly paid with his own life. And all the sacrifice had earned him was the loss of his leg, his manhood.

  Would that he had just damned died!

  At least Magnus had not been alive to receive him at Cherbon once more, the ultimate failure, now.

  Roderick threw his walking stick at the high tabernacle with a roar. “Why could you not just kill me outright? Why give me this suffering first? Why saddle me with a boy not of my flesh, who does not know it and who looks to me as his father? Why place before me the one woman I could love for the rest of my life and then leave me unable to be the man she deserves? Why? Why, damn you!”

  Then Roderick dropped to his right knee, his left leg held out straight to his side, and he toppled sideways, catching himself with his right arm. His sobs shook him and he let his ragged breaths echo in the tall, quiet chapel, his pathetic keening. “Have I not suffered enough? Have I…have I not loved and then lost enough for your greedy wishes? Must you punish me yet? Punish the only souls on this earth I could bring my dead heart to open for? Aag-ghhh! I hate you, you bastard! Come on—come on then, and finish me off!” he gasped, feeling his tears and snot running down his face. “You can do no more to me now—send me on to hell, if you would! Only set the rest of them free of me!” His last words came out a choking, trailing sob, and he let his head fall to the cold stones before the altar, his shoulders shaking violently as he wept, purging himself of the poison in his wretched soul.

  And then it was if the candle flames in the chapel were guttering to their ends at last, the golden glow fading, fading to soft, cool black. Roderick’s sobs were dying with the light, and in the buzzing chaos of his brain, gentler memories called out to him.

  My most cherished possession, his mother whispered. I love you so very, very much, Roderick…as God loves you. Wholly. And perfectly. You are strong of heart…that sort of strength can change the whole, whole world.

  And Hugh: I owe you my life, Rick, and I will spend the rest of my days trying to repay you for it. You will never have a more steadfast friend, this I vow.

  And Leo: You love Papa? Me too!

  And finally, Michaela: You promised to protect me. And I believe you will. I love you, Roderick. You are the man I want as my husband, in every way.

  All those he loved, and who in return loved him. Their unique memories grasped hands and danced circles teasingly around Roderick’s brain, confusing him.

  Why, why could he have not returned from Constantinople whole? Why, if their pilgrimage had been such a holy one, had his c
ompany perished, sending him back to his home, defeated, a half man?

  Had you not been so injured, would you have ever seen Aurelia again? Taken Leo away from his inevitable poverty and death?

  Would you have returned to Cherbon with Hugh at your side?

  Would you have been forced to hold contest for a bride, finding no woman in all the land brave enough to pursue you save Michaela Fortune?

  Roderick knew the answer to each question was no. Had his and Hugh’s company been successful at Heraclea, they would have gleaned their spoils and returned home, Hugh able to pay his debts and regain his lands, Roderick eager to show Magnus his reward. Hugh and Roderick would have parted ways in Constantinople and likely never seen each other again.

  No midnight drinking binges, or sarcastic comments about the poor state of Roderick’s life—mocking him, then defending him, encouraging him. No crimson calfskin boots, clicking into his line of vision, demanding he get up and about. No one to share the worst of the memories with.

  No dark-eyed scamp, dashing about Cherbon, his laugh ringing carelessly as he threw himself upon Roderick as if seeing him each time for the first time.

  No Miss Fortune, her angel’s voice bringing a soft femininity to Cherbon’s black walls, her clumsiness so endearing, so entertaining. Her shapely body boldly pressed to his, making a virgin’s love to him to bravely prove her true heart. How she loved Leo, and sparred with Hugh, and stood by Roderick’s side against Tornfield, against Heartless, against the storm of memories that haunted him here at Cherbon. She had brought magic to him, in more than just the old worn boot still strapped to his right leg.