Taming The Beast. Heather Grothaus

let her eyes roam over the fine green velvet draping her rival—“I will have the one you are wearing.”

      Juliette laughed. “You’re daft! This gown cost more than what your piddling hold brings to the demesne in a year!”

      Michaela shrugged. “Mayhap you should have considered the value of your own possessions before you set about ruining another’s.”

      “I’ll not do it!” Juliette shrieked, looking to Lord Tornfield. “This is absurd!”

      “It seems reasonable enough to me,” the lord said. “And it was your challenge, Lady Juliette. I’m certain Lady Michaela will accept you sending the gown to her home by messenger. Surely she does not expect you to turn it over this night?” Lord Tornfield raised a questioning eyebrow to Michaela, and her heart pounded.

      “Of course,” Michaela acquiesced. “I shall look for it within the fortnight.”

      Juliette stammered. “I—I—” She stamped her foot and set her mouth in a pinched frown. “Very well, then. You shall have it.” She made no attempt to mask her glare for Michaela. “Now, I’m certain you will understand if I bid you good night.” She spun on her heel and swept from the hall, a few quiet snickers from the other guests escorting her out with her personal servants.

      Lord Tornfield’s commanding voice rang out again. “Have my fair musicians quit me as well? The night is far from over, my good men—let us continue the festivities in earnest! I have much to celebrate!”

      The music immediately bloomed forth once more, and the crowd drifted away to refreshments or more private conversation, while Lord Tornfield beckoned to Michaela to join him and his daughter before the dais.

      Michaela curtsied. “My lord, I am honored by your decision.”

      “Nonsense!” The blond man smiled, still keeping an affectionate hold on his daughter. “You fairly bested any and all—”

      Elizabeth suddenly broke free from her father and threw her slender arms around Michaela’s waist, nearly toppling them both.

      “Oh, my!” Michaela laughed and squeezed the pretty girl, partly out of affection, and partly to keep the pair of them upright. Elizabeth continued to cling and so Michaela let her be. It was nice to be embraced.

      “She seems to have taken to you rather quickly,” Lord Tornfield observed. “How long were the two of you hidden away?”

      “Not long,” Michaela rushed to assure him, and wondered if the little girl was not clinging to her in order to avoid punishment. “I do hope you’ll forgive Lady Elizabeth for disobeying you, my lord.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      Beneath Michaela’s forearms, Elizabeth’s shoulders shook.

      “I shall…I shall forfeit my boon if it will prevent her from being reprimanded.”

      “Why on earth would I reprimand Elizabeth?”

      Michaela felt her face heat. Must she always feel the fool?

      “For…ah, attending the feast without your permission?”

      Elizabeth drew away slightly and Michaela saw that the girl was laughing.

      Alan Tornfield frowned at Michaela for a moment and then burst out in his own merry chuckle. “Lady Michaela, it has been my fondest wish for some time now that Elizabeth join the festivities of Tornfield. I assure you, she was hiding away of her own accord. Verily, this is the first time she has shown herself to anyone other than myself or the household staff since her mother passed.”

      Michaela knew she must look like a stunned ninny, but there was nothing for it. “Oh,” was all she could think to say for a moment. “Oh. Well, then, I am pleased that she decided to appear, as well.”

      Elizabeth returned to her father’s side and Alan Tornfield smiled as he drew his arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Now, as for your boon—”

      “My lord, if you please,” Michaela interrupted. “I would request that my father’s hold be granted some sort of small reprieve. Our harvest was scant last year—our village seems to be shrinking. I’d not ask the whole of our debt be forgiven, of course, but perhaps a small portion? Or an extension for payment in full?”

      Lord Tornfield looked at her thoughtfully. “I am well aware of the state of your parents’ distress, Lady Michaela. Indeed, all the land felt the pinch of Magnus Cherbon’s rule, myself included. We were granted an unexpected reprieve by his passing, but now that Lord Roderick has returned, I do wonder for how long.”

      “I see,” Michaela said, hearing the man’s answer in his tone, if not his words.

      “But perhaps we can reach some sort of arrangement,” Lord Tornfield said suddenly, his thoughtful gaze flicking to his daughter. He looked back to Michaela’s face and his eyes sparkled. “I am not an unreasonable man, after all.”

      Michaela didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. After a moment, Lord Tornfield spoke again.

      “Perhaps you would consider taking a position in my household, in lieu of your parents’ debt,” he suggested slowly, and Michaela thought she might have seen Alan Tornfield’s eyes take a quick appraisal of her body. Her stomach fluttered. “As Elizabeth’s companion, of course,” he added quickly. “I would not wish your reputation harmed.”

      Michaela wanted to laugh. Her reputation could be no further tarnished were she to walk through the streets of London stark naked. But then the essence of Lord Tornfield’s suggestion struck home.

      “My lord, are you proposing that the whole of my parents’ debt would be forgiven, only for my companionship for Elizabeth?”

      “I think…I think, yes. Yes.” His words grew surer. “Lady Michaela, my daughter’s happiness is most important to me. If she has some sort of quick affection for you, if you can draw her out of her shell—perhaps even coax her to speak once more—it is worth all the tithes in my holding.” With these last words, Michaela saw the lord’s throat constrict. “For each quarter that you reside at Tornfield Manor as Elizabeth’s companion, the Fortune tithe will be dismissed. I know it is terribly boorish of me to reap favor from a boon that is yours, but will you accept?”

      Michaela wanted to weep. Instead, she let a shaky smile curl over her face as she suddenly realized how terribly handsome Lord Alan Tornfield was. At his side, Elizabeth’s face turned toward Michaela, hopefully expectant.

      “I will,” Michaela breathed.

      Chapter Two

      He was home.

      Roderick’s heart thudded in his chest like a war drum as Cherbon came into his view by way of the gatehouse. He reined his mount to a halt to collect himself, and leaned onto his right thigh to give his screaming left knee and hip a moment of rest from gripping the horse’s side. Hugh Gilbert drew his horse even with Roderick’s and stopped, the misshapen bundle bound to Hugh’s back by lengths of wide, fine linen crisscrossed over his chest giving him a hunched appearance.

      “This is it, is it?” Hugh said, and looked to Roderick with his usual sardonic grin. “Likely enough, I suppose.”

      During the long, long months of Roderick’s recovery, the Hugh Gilbert Roderick had first met before Heraclea had slowly changed into a different man. Although to be fair, Roderick guessed that Hugh likely hadn’t changed at all. The man he knew after the battle had been a desperate man, a guilty man—qualities taken on in a time of trial. The Hugh Gilbert who sat the horse next to Roderick’s side was the true man. The man he had been before his pilgrimage and the man he was now. And although in those early days of sickness, Roderick would have never guessed that their lives would become so closely entwined, he liked the man Hugh Gilbert was, owed him a great deal, despite Hugh’s protests.

      And Roderick was glad that Hugh accompanied him now to