“Hmm?” Hugh swallowed the mouthful of wine he’d taken from his own cup. “The reason for that being…?”
Roderick stared at the floor, his head on his left hand, swirling the contents of his cup with his right, concentrating on the mastery of his muscles commanding the cup. After a long moment, he explained, although it pained his pride. Who else could he confide in if not faithful Hugh?
“She is my last hope to gain Cherbon,” Roderick said quietly. “My thirtieth birthday is one hundred eighty-eight days from today. Should Michaela Fortune not stay—”
“So you were watching!” Hugh said with a grin as he caught that Roderick had remained long enough to find out the girl’s full name.
“Should she not stay, should something about me or Cherbon not suit her, Alan Tornfield will gain all.”
“Would that be so very bad?” Hugh asked quietly, all foolishness gone from his tone as he knelt by Roderick’s chair. “To let him bloody have it? I hate this place, Rick—you hate this place—”
“I don’t hate—”
“Yes, you do!” Hugh said. “I can see it in your eyes—to walk where your father walked, to live in the rooms where your mother died, where you saw serfs and servants beaten and killed, where you yourself were so mistreated—it’s eating you alive.”
“It spurs me on,” Roderick argued. “You can’t understand, Hugh. It is my life’s prize to call Cherbon my own. I must. I must right things—”
“Right things?” Hugh stood. “By engaging in the same tactics your father used?”
“I have not.”
“You have! There is no forgiveness in you, Rick, for the servants, for me, or for yourself.” Hugh spread his arms. “And Leo! God’s teeth, he loves you so, and you act as though he doesn’t exis—”
“Enough!” Roderick bellowed, and Hugh fell silent. “I will not warn you again, Hugh.”
Hugh stared at Roderick a long time, and Roderick tried to see anger there, but he only saw…pity.
“I do apologize,” Hugh said at last. “Forgive me, Rick. You may meet Miss Fortune when you feel it is the right time, of course. I am here to do your bidding.”
Pity, pity, and more pity. It disgusted Roderick. He disgusted himself.
Roderick dragged himself from the chair and Hugh was immediately at his side as Roderick grabbed for the tall poster at the end of the bed. He waved Hugh away. “I’ve got it, Hugh—leave me.” Roderick swung his body around with his arm and landed on the bed.
“Very well, Rick. Is there anything you’ve need of until you emerge this evening?” It was said in a light tone, but Roderick knew his friend was serious—and correct. He wouldn’t venture from his chamber until darkness had a firm grip on the land.
Roderick shook his head, but then as Hugh started through the doorway, he called out again. “She’s very comely, isn’t she, Hugh?”
Hugh froze in place, glanced back over his shoulder.
“Miss Fortune, as you call her,” Roderick clarified. “She’s—”
“She’s odd-looking,” Hugh said shortly. “If you wish my honest appraisal. Clumsy. Desperate. Likely vengeful.” He paused. “She should fit in well.”
And then Hugh was gone.
Roderick turned over on his right side, but his arm protested and so he flopped onto his back once more. He stared up at the shadowed canopy, and it was not dark enough to suit him, so he covered his eyes with his forearm.
And he waited for night.
Michaela turned right outside the chamber door and headed down the corridor in the opposite direction from which Sir Hugh had led her, supposedly toward the rooms where “you go to tinkle.” Michaela had taken advantage of the garderobe at Tornfield Manor, and she was pleased that Cherbon boasted not one, but two of the convenient rooms. Since becoming used to living at Tornfield, Michaela now considered the appointments absolutely necessary, and she took a moment to duck her head in the doorways of both, almost to see if there were actually two.
There were, and Sir Hugh was correct—the room on the left had a most unpleasant odor.
She continued down the corridor, although she’d seen no further sign of the dark-haired little boy. The passage was wide, low ceilinged, and wound like long, discarded wood shavings from a carver’s tool. And like the rest of Cherbon that she’d seen so far, the corridor was dark, dark, dark, even in what Michaela knew to be only late afternoon. There were sconces along the wall at convenient intervals, meant to be lit and dispel the gloom of the interior, but only every fifth or sixth staggered set was in use, the ones in between holding waxen stems that looked as if they had been deliberately broken off near the base. Twice, Michaela slipped when cylindrical pieces of wax rolled beneath her feet.
The absence of adequate light made for long stretches of corridor draped in complete darkness, the glimmer of a faraway candle Michaela’s only guide. The stones seemed to breathe cold, and whisper sinister, moss-wrapped secrets that Michaela did not want to hear. She hurried between the light, not knowing if the darker shadows she passed were doors to other chambers, or black ghosts, waiting only for her to pause long enough for them to reach out cold, black arms and pull her into the stones to be devoured.
The corridor shrank into a narrow, steep stairwell, and Michaela would have most certainly tumbled to her death had she not been for once paying such close attention to the stones beneath her feet. Around the bend of the stairs, she saw a throbbing glow of light, she could hear muffled conversation, and the clanging of metal, slams, bangs, crashes. She could smell the lingering odor of bread that had been baked hours ago, and her growling stomach—and the promise of absolute light—spurred her feet down the steps.
She came out of the stairwell rather abruptly, indeed in the kitchen, and ran straightaway into the biting corner of a wide, long planked table set just off center in the room, where two women—one short and round, the other tall, thin, and gray—worked at chopping what seemed to be a mountain of vegetables.
And on a tall, spindly stool at the fat cook’s side, the dark-haired little boy who had ran from Michaela’s chamber sat, munching on a carrot.
Three heads spun to look at Michaela as she all but fell onto the table, sending several turnips wobble-rolling onto the floor, and within a blink the little boy had hopped from his stool and streaked through the opposite end of the kitchen.
“Wait!” Michaela called again, rather pointlessly, as the boy had shown her the soles of his feet before she even spoke. She pressed a hand to her waist where surely the morrow would find a long bruise from the table edge, and turned to the two women, who stared at her as if she was nothing more than a chunk of firewood, stood on its end. “Whose child is that?” she demanded.
Neither of them so much as blinked, although the tall, thin woman’s lips grew even thinner.
“Hello?” Michaela waved her hands in front of her own face. “Have I gone invisible?”
“No, m’lady. You’re quite solid. Good evening,” the shorter woman said at last.
The gray woman dropped her eyes back to her task, abusing a turnip most viciously.
“That boy was lurking in my chamber, and would not heed me when I called to him,” Michaela explained. “I would speak to his mother.”
Now, the shorter woman began chopping as well, and Michaela felt as though she had just been left in the domed-ceiling room alone. The women’s attitudes were sorely grating on Michaela’s good graces, but she held her temper—they likely had no idea who Michaela was. But since Sir Hugh had given her leave to assume the duties of Lady of Cherbon, Michaela felt it best that she start with these women. It would not do for the hold’s mistress to allow this sort of disrespect.
Careful, a meek little voice warned inside her head, you thought to be Tornfield’s lady, as well. And that did not quite work out as you planned, did it?
“I am Lady Michaela Fortune,” she offered. “I’ve come to marry Lord Cherbon.”
Neither woman looked up from their work.
Michaela pressed her lips together for a moment. “’Tis possible I will become your mistress not long after the new year has come.”
The round woman looked up briefly at Michaela with almost tired pity in her eyes. “I wish you well, m’lady.”
The gray woman did not raise her face but snorted rather stingily.
Michaela’s patience was nearly gone—the snort had done it. She had been laughed at her entire life, and refused to begin her life thusly at Cherbon Castle. She was a new woman, after all.
“Now listen here,” she began. “I don’t know who has trained you on the proper manner in which you speak to the mistress of the household, but I assure you that I will not tolerate this kind of insubordinance. Sir Hugh has given me leave to assume the duties of lady in this keep and I—”
The gray woman slammed her knife down on the wooden tabletop, causing both Michaela and the round cook to jump. The narrowed eyes she pinned on Michaela looked cold and mean.
“My lady,” she said rather nastily, “should I take the time to bow and scrape to every classless, destitute chit what’s come through Cherbon’s great hall, I would complete not one of my duties.”
Michaela felt as though she’d been slapped, but the gray woman continued before she could think of anything smart to say.
“Do you know—my lady—that you are number…hmm, let me see…ninety-seven, I believe. Yes, ninety-seven. Ninety-six women have come before you with hopes of seizing Cherbon’s riches, and ninety-six have fled in terror after no more than two days. It is a disgrace to the Cherbon name, to parade strange women through here as if running a brothel, and I, for one, will not tolerate it!”
The round woman had stopped chopping, but she only stood at the table with her head down. Michaela thought she whispered something like, “Harliss, ’tis not your place.”
“It is my place,” the gray woman spat, directing her venomous words not to the cook, but to Michaela. “Regardless of Roderick’s argument to the contrary, and I will not shirk my duty. I never have and I will never! Now, to answer your question—my lady—the little boy you saw hiding in your chamber, the one who would not heed your commands, is none other than Leo Cherbon, Lord Cherbon’s son. I’m sure you understand his lack of attention to you, when he has had no fewer than ninety-seven women vying to be his new mum!”
Michaela stood there for a long silent moment, shaking inside at the dressing-down and shocking information she’d just received. And although she wanted desperately to retreat to her dark, depressing chamber, or perhaps simply walk from the castle completely, Michaela was still determined to stay at Cherbon no matter what. This was only a small bump in her road. No matter at all, really. So she straightened her spine and looked the gray woman—Harliss—directly in the eyes.
“Is that so? Well, then I thank you, Harliss, for relaying the information to me. It is most enlightening. However, until number ninety-eight takes my place, you would be well-advised to address me with the respect due to my station and the name of Cherbon. I do not expect you to cow before me, but I will not tolerate rudeness or disrespect of any kind.” And it was here that Michaela took a leap. “Should you spout such venom at me at any time in the future, I will see that you are dismissed.”
Harliss looked as if she were carved from stone, but her eyes shot flaming arrows at Michaela.
“Do you both understand?” Michaela asked loudly, trying to keep the quiver from her voice with volume.
“Of course. My lady.” Michaela was surprised the woman’s teeth didn’t fall from her lips, her jaw was set so firmly. The round cook at her side had not raised her eyes still, but nodded quickly at Michaela’s question.
“Very well,” Michaela said. “Now, where is Leo’s nurse?”
“He has no nurse, m’lady,” the cook offered quickly.
“No nurse? Who cares for him?”
“Sir Hugh, m’lady.”
Michaela frowned. “There is no children’s nurse at Cherbon?”
The cook looked vastly uncomfortable and gave no answer.
“There is a children’s nurse, only she has been relieved of her duties,” Harliss said.
“Well, that will not do at all,” Michaela said. “Tell this nurse to come to me after breaking the fast in the morn. I will see that she is reinstated to her proper duties at once. Lord Cherbon’s son can not be allowed to run about like a wild thing.”
Harliss looked rather surprised, and Michaela thought she might have seen the corners of her thin mouth rise the slightest bit.
“I could not agree with you more. My lady.”
Chapter Eight
Michaela was awoken from an uneasy sleep by a terrible crashing on her chamber door. Her bare feet were on the painfully cold floor and she was lurching toward the sound before her eyes were truly open.
She fumbled with the unfamiliar latch. “A moment, just a moment!” she shouted, trying to command her stupid fingers to work. At last the bolt slid free and the door was shoved open, knocking into Michaela and sending her to her backside on the floor. A very angry-looking Hugh Gilbert stood in the doorway.
“Who in the hell do you think you are?” he demanded straightaway, and Michaela noticed from her position on the floor the little boy snaked around Hugh’s legs, his eyes red and puffy, his cheeks streaked with tracks of wet. Leo Cherbon had his lower lip caught between his teeth and his chest was hitching back quiet, dwindling sobs.
“I—” Michaela stuttered, sleep slipping from her fuzzled brain too slowly to take in the events. “Sir Hugh, what—”
He took a menacing step toward her, and pointed his finger. “Gather your pitiful belongings and be gone from Cherbon within the hour, or I swear, as God as my witness, I will throttle you myself! Come along, Leo—we’ll go have a good snotrag and some biscuits.” He turned to go.
“Wait! Sir Hugh, please!” Michaela scrambled to her feet and flew to the doorway. Hugh stopped, but did not turn to look at her, although Leo Cherbon watched her with hurt, wary eyes.
“What is it?” he growled.
“Why are you dismissing me? What have I done? I’ve been in my chamber the whole of the night! I don’t see how—”
“What have you done?” Hugh asked incredulously, and then spun on his heel to rush at Michaela, Leo still attached to his leg like a barnacle. She had to steel herself not to stumble backward. Once upon her, Hugh jerked Leo forward by his arm and pulled the hem of his gown up from his legs. A half-dozen thin welts marred the smooth skin of the baby’s outer thigh, and Leo squirmed to the side, trying to escape Hugh’s display.
Michaela gasped and her throat clenched painfully at the sight of the tiny boy’s injuries. “Oh, my heavens—who—surely you don’t think I did that to him!”
“Not with your own hand, no, but you may as well have,” Hugh growled. He let Leo pull away and hide behind him once more. “It is quite obvious to me, Miss Fortune, that you have no desire to fulfill the requirements of the station of Lady of Cherbon by sentencing Roderick’s child to such a devil, and your discernment in the arena of delegating duties to the servants leaves much to be desired.”
“I don’t know what—” And then Michaela recalled the conversation she’d had last evening with that wretched Harliss and the quiet cook. “Was it his nurse? I told Harliss she was to have Cherbon’s nurse report to me this morn, not simply tell her to re-assume her duties!”
“Harliss was Cherbon’s nurse,” Hugh clarified. “And this”—he gestured toward Leo’s leg—“is her preferred method of reprimanding a three-year-old who will not wear his shoes.”
Michaela felt she might vomit, and her fingertips came up to press against her lips. “Oh my God,” she whispered, her eyes finding Leo’s face, which he promptly hid in Hugh’s fine tunic. “Leo, I’m so sorry—I didn’t know…Harliss didn’t tell me…” She broke off and dropped to her knees before Hugh’s legs, ignoring the knight now.
“Leo,” she called gently, and in a moment, the
little boy rolled his face slightly outward to appraise her with one eye. “Leo, I’m sorry.” She placed her palm on her chest and tried to hold back her tears at the sight of the small, hurt face before her. “Lady Michaela is very, very sorry that mean Harliss struck you. I will never let her do that again, I promise, promise, promise!”
The little boy’s shoulders hitched and he sniffed. “Harliss hurt Ee-oh. No soos.”
“I know, I know.” Michaela’s own chest hitched, and a fury rose up in her. If the gray woman had been standing in the corridor with them in that moment, Michaela truly believed she could have killed her. “But she will not do it again.” Michaela looked up at Hugh. “Leo was hiding in my chamber after you left last eve. I chased him to the kitchens and encountered Harliss. She led me to believe that Leo’s nurse was someone other than her. I was only trying to do what I thought was right, Sir Hugh—you must believe me! Never would I want harm to come to any child! Especially one so small.”
“When Lord Cherbon finds out about this, he will—”
“I will tell him myself,” Michaela volunteered immediately. “It was my mistake, my wrong. I will admit to it and accept my punishment.”
“He has no wish to entertain you at this point, Miss Fortune,” Hugh reiterated, and although he still stressed the hated nickname, Michaela thought most of his anger had dissipated. “Leo and I will inform him straightaway. If he wishes you dismissed—”
“Then I will go,” Michaela agreed quietly. Then she turned her attention back to Leo. “But I do hope I stay. I’d like for the two of us to become friends, Leo. Do you like to sing?”
Leo stared at her for a moment and then nodded ever so slightly.
Michaela smiled as if this bit of information surprised her greatly. “I do, as well! Perhaps we can play a bit later, if Sir Hugh agrees. We can go for a walk about the bailey and sing songs together. Would you like that?”
Leo nodded again, more enthusiastically this time. Then, to Michaela’s amazement, he reached out a chubby hand and touched her hair briefly, as if it might burn him.
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