Taming the Beast (8 page)

If there was one positive thing that had come from Alan Tornfield marrying, it was that his wedding feast had prompted three more ladies to come to Cherbon in hopes of becoming Roderick's very wealthy wife. Roderick suspected the women had been dazzled by Hugh's handsomeness and charm and had hoped that Roderick would be equally as engaging. But of the three newest ingénues, one had not had the courage to come over Cherbon's drawbridge after glimpsing the dark castle, and one had made it only to the bailey and the entrance of the hall before losing her nerve, leaving only one to successfully hear Hugh's interrogation and have her trunks installed in a chamber.

She had been here a pair of days, this new woman—whatever she was called—and Roderick had kept his distance, hoping that the girl would have space to accustom herself to the dank and morbid air of Cherbon before he thrust his own beastly presence upon her.

But time was running out for Roderick, and so two days was all he could allow her. They would meet today, and perhaps the face Roderick looked upon would be the face of his bride. Obviously she possessed more fortitude than the others—only one had been in residence more than two days, and that woman had been nearly three score—her hearing and eyesight failing.

Remembering that desperate spinster caused Roderick to chuckle darkly.

He found his chair at the lord's table in the great hall, pleased that his orders to have a roaring blaze in the square, open hearth had been obeyed precisely. He knew he was strict and unyielding with the servants, but Magnus Cherbon had obviously been correct in his method of handling the manor staff. The instant he'd died and left Cherbon unattended, the folk had turned savage, vandalizing and stealing from the very castle that had been their home.

A firm hand was called for, and Roderick was in prime mental condition to rule over his past—everyone and everything in it.

He stretched out his left leg to take the pressure off his knee in the quiet of the hall—he'd commanded that he was to be left completely and utterly alone when he was about during the day, unless he specifically called for attendance.

“Bellowed, rather,” Hugh liked to say exasperatingly.

As if thinking of his best friend had produced him, Hugh came through the arched doorway that led from the east wing, Leo spinning his plump legs over the smooth stones before him in his typical dash-about fashion.

He would be three very soon, Roderick marveled to himself. Three years—nearly one year since he'd left his mother behind in Constantinople, so young that Leo had stopped crying for her long ago, likely remembered naught of her. But Roderick had not forgotten Aurelia—how could he? The little boy's joyful eyes over his wide smile reminded Roderick of Aurelia in that instant, and his heart did a traitorous skip.

“Wod-wick,” Leo called, flying to the table's edge and catching himself just short of Roderick, his little fist gripping a table leg to swing to a stop. He always looked so eager. “Gooday, Wod-wick.”

“Good day, Leo,” Roderick said.

The boy edged closer, stretched out a hand tentatively, and patted Roderick's left leg gently. His face was hopeful. “Ee-oh sit now?”

“No,” Roderick said, his discomfiture causing him to frown. “Not today. I…I am quite harried today with keep business. I'm sure you understand,” he said gruffly, his words echoing in the empty room, across the empty table and empty floor.

“Run along to the kitchens, Maggot,” Hugh said, taking the boy's hand and turning his face toward him. “See if you can't wheedle a biscuit from Cook to go along with your meal.”

“All wite, Hoo,” Leo said cheerfully, but looked back to Roderick before he left, his face growing solemn once more. “Gooday, Wod-wick.”

“Good day, Leo,” Roderick replied, and watched the boy dash to the opposite end of the hall.

“She's on her way,” was Hugh's morning greeting as Leo left them. “Leo and I passed her in the corridor. Are you unnerved?”

“No, I'm not unnerved,” Roderick scoffed. “Why would I be unnerved?”

Hugh shrugged.

“Is she comely?” Roderick asked suddenly.

“I daresay no,” Hugh said, an eyebrow raising. “But she seems to have most of her teeth, so that's something.”

Roderick huffed a mirthless laugh. Oh, what he had been reduced to! More money than the church and yet he was naught but a beggar in this arena.

Then Hugh set to his usual round of criticism. “God's teeth, Rick, must you wear that blasted cloak, always? And I thought you were to have Harliss trim your hair last night.”

“That was your idea, not mine. I'd no sooner let Harliss near me with a blade as I would dash through Henry's court in my skin.”

“Now, that I would like to see.” Hugh chuckled.

“I wear the cloak because it's mine and I wish it.”

“You wear it because you are ashamed. At least lower the hood when you're alone or with me. Christly goodness.”

“I warn you, Hugh, you go too far.” But Roderick shoved the hood back onto his shoulders, feeling uncomfortably exposed. In truth, he'd become so accustomed to his costume that he donned the covering out of habit and never noticed it.

“Someone must,” was all Hugh said, quickly. Then his eyes darted toward the kitchen and Roderick turned to see a tall woman in a drab dress the color of old bones. Even from this distance, the figure was skeletal.

Already Roderick imagined that sharing a bed with the woman would be like being tossed onto in a pile of sharpened sticks. He sighed. In his condition, he'd never bed her any matter.

“Please, Rick—I beg of you—do not trouble yourself to frighten her. For all our sakes.”

 

The journey to Cherbon was a long one—the miles and the hours tangling together and rolling along the rutted dirt road under Michaela's feet. But the time between when the sun had risen two hours into their journey until now when it was high in the sky had given Michaela time at last to think upon her impetuous—and perhaps childish—decision.

She was offering herself in marriage to the Cherbon Devil. Well, the son of the Cherbon Devil, at any rate. A scarred beast of a man now, according to Alan and the rumors slipping from everyone's tongues. It was to be a repayment, on many, many levels, in Michaela's mind, for not only would it crush Alan Tornfield should he not inherit Cherbon, but it would take from the coffers the coin Michaela felt was long- owed to her family.

Blood money. And no matter how grotesque, how foul, how brutish Roderick Cherbon turned out to be, Michaela had vowed that she would marry him. She had to. There were debts that demanded repayment.

Michaela was bone-weary of letting her own life run her over. She had tried to be a good person, a good daughter—obedient, meek, kind. And all it had gotten her was kicked and stepped on. Well, no more. She was a different woman now, with a different life just waiting for her at Cherbon.

Even so, wild imaginings of what awaited her at the demesne seat ran through her mind as if she were a young girl once more, scared of a summer storm, or the shadows across her bedchamber floor. And this new, mature woman was heartened that both her parents accompanied her in the family's small wagon on the long journey, Walter remembering the way still, although he'd not laid eyes upon Cherbon in years.

They topped a small rise and, ahead, looming like a foggy, black specter even in the brightness of midday, the jagged battlements and craggy inner keep of Cherbon rose out of the surrounding gentle countryside like its own malevolent mountain range.

The wagon rolled to a stop and all three Fortunes stared at the castle in silence, Walter being first to speak after a long, tense moment.

“Are you certain, Michaela?” was all he asked.

Michaela swallowed down the lump in her throat. “Yes, Papa. I'm certain.”
But, please, let's go before I lose my resolve.

In just shy of an hour, they clattered across Cherbon's lowered drawbridge, passing through vine-covered walls of the barbican that were easily twenty feet thick, damp with fog and moss and foliage as if enchanted. Here, at ground level, mist seemed to hang as if they had passed from the real world of the surrounding English countryside into a dark realm of fairy lore.

Though no one had called out to them as they approached the castle or passed under the raised gate, prompting Michaela to wonder that the whole place wasn't abandoned, they saw serfs aplenty about the bailey, busy with a myriad of tasks. But the wide inner grounds were eerily somber; no one spoke or shouted or called to a friend, no workday songs were sung. Even the clangs from what sounded like a smithy's shop were oddly muffled.

And everyone completely ignored the three people rolling through the bailey in the cart.

Walter was maneuvering their conveyance around the south side of the inner compound when the stilted silence of the bailey was breached by a muffled shriek.

The door to the keep flew open and a tall, malnourished- looking woman burst through the doorway in a billow of drab skirt, frantically snatching up the thin material while dashing away from the keep. She ran toward the cart seemingly as fast as she could command her legs, her eyes full of terror and her mouth pulled wide. She fairly flew past the Fortunes with nary a glance, and Michaela turned to watch the woman disappear into the dark throat of the barbican.

She jumped back to attention when the keep door slammed shut, echoing in the bailey.

None of the serfs had made a move to assist the woman, only stared in mild curiosity until she was gone. And then they had taken up their work once more.

“Michaela…” Agatha began in a warbling, worried voice.

But Michaela knew that if she allowed her mother to speak aloud the fears racing through her own mind, she would never descend from the cart and do what had to be done. She gathered up her skirts, the now-wrinkled decree from the Lord of Cherbon still gripped tightly in her fist, and hopped to the ground.

“Wait here,” she tossed over her shoulder to her parents, and was proud of the calm, assured tone that came out of her mouth. She straightened her spine and marched toward the keep, ready to do battle with the devil.

And suddenly, the door was before her, tall and wide and thick and solid. And suddenly again, it was more than a door. It was her unsure future.

She knocked.

Michaela's hand had barely ceased rapping when the door began to inch open and a man's voice called out.

“Oh, changed your mind, have you? Well, that's simply too bad. You'll—” A sliver of a face appeared in the opening, half hidden in shadow. Their eyes seemed to travel past Michaela and scan the bailey behind her, as if looking for the fled woman. Then she was pinned by their gaze, sparkling in the darkness. “What do
you
want?”

Oh, he
was
going to be a nasty one.

Michaela gathered her courage and offered the missive to the crack in the door. “Lord Cherbon, I presume?”

The parchment was snatched from her hand and in a moment the man gave a shout of laughter. He seemed to address the hall behind him.

“We've another contestant yet, Rick! Poor little poppet—she thinks
I'm you!
” The door swung open wide. “Welcome to Cherbon, Miss Fortune.”

 

Roderick still stood in the shadows, where he had been en route to his chambers when Hugh's greeting of their unexpected visitor reached his ears.

Was it some specter come to call? Hugh's odd sense of humor often prompted outrageous bits of nonsense from his mouth, but surely he would not jest so about welcoming misfortune to Cherbon.

They'd had enough of that bastard already.

But then the door swung wide, emitting the weak foggy sunlight from the bailey, and Roderick saw the woman silhouetted in the doorway. He stepped back onto the lowest riser of the stair, disappearing completely into the darkness of the tall corridor.

“Well, come in, come in!” Hugh commanded exasperatedly, sweeping his arm wide.

The woman hesitated and glanced behind her. “My trunk—my parents…”

“Are you of age?” When the woman nodded hesitantly, Hugh gave a put-out sigh and leaned past her to shout through the doorway, “I've no time at all to deal with you. Yes, yes, she'll be fine. Just toss the trunk over the side, then, thanks. Good day.” Then he pulled the woman in by her arm and closed the door firmly.

Hugh all but dragged the woman to the lord's table, peering toward the corridor where Roderick was hidden away. “Oh, you've just missed him,” Hugh lamented to the woman—little more than a girl, Roderick now saw. Hugh spun a low stool about, released the woman's arm and patted the seat. “Here you are,” he said as he turned and flopped into Roderick's own chair, already reaching for a stack of parchment and quill.

The woman stood there for a moment, as if unsure she would stay, and Roderick took those spare seconds to look at her.

She was…enchanting. Her hair was blond, no…a reddish—no,
blond,
tied back at either temple and then together into one long plait. She was not slender, but not plump, her back smooth and trim in her gown. Perhaps a bit shorter than average.