Taming the Beast by Heather Grothaus

bent, but unbroken. Michaela had oft wondered, if it was a link of mail, how it had been connected to its mates, being whole and unbroken with no visible seam of weld. But she had never asked.
    â€œThis was the only thing my mother carried with her upon her return from her three-day absence. She kept it with her always and then, when I was born, placed it around my neck. When I was old enough to understand, she made me swear to never take it off, lest the Hunt return for me.”
    Elizabeth pointed at Michaela, and then hooked her index fingers on either side of her head.
    Michaela rolled her eyes. “Yes, this is what the villagers say makes me the devil. Are you content now?”
    Elizabeth nodded with an impish smile.
    â€œGood.” Michaela took Elizabeth’s small, pale hand and kissed it. “Do you think I’m the devil?”
    She shook her head and pulled her hand free. Elizabeth circled her crown with one finger and then flapped her hands near her shoulders.
    â€œAn angel, am I? Oh, I daresay that is the right answer.”
    Elizabeth made the sign for angel again and then spun her arms in wide, crazy circles before falling out of her chair with a look of feigned surprise.
    â€œOh, you little—!” Michaela screeched in a mockery of outrage, and fell upon the girl in an attack of tickling.
    A masculine clearing of throat interrupted their play, and both girls looked up to see a smiling Alan Tornfield standing over them.
    Michaela was completely humiliated to see Lady Juliette smirking at his side.
    â€œWell, I must say that you were right, Lord Tornfield,” Juliette said sweetly. “Miss Fortune does make a jolly nurse for your Elizabeth.”
    Elizabeth got up from the floor and fled the hall, leaving Michaela to struggle to her feet alone, her hand slipping off the arm of the chair but once.
    â€œOh, she’s not Elizabeth’s nurse, Lady Juliette,” Alan said, and Michaela wanted to think there was a bit of chastisement in his tone. “They’re…friends.”
    â€œFriends. Of course,” Juliette accepted. “How fortunate for Elizabeth that her father has found such a generous…friend.”
    Michaela bit her tongue until she tasted blood. She would have chewed it off at the root with her own teeth rather than say something mean and petty in front of Lord Tornfield. Any matter, Lady Juliette continued.
    â€œI hate to leave such entertaining company,” she simpered, “but I have a long journey to my own hearth. Good night, my lord. I hope my visit has been informative.”
    â€œEnlightening, certainly. I will be in touch with you very soon. Good night, Lady Juliette.”
    â€œMiss Fortune.”
    Michaela kept her tongue firmly between her teeth as Juliette swept from the hall.
    And then it was only Michaela and Lord Tornfield in the large, quiet room, lit by the hearth at her back. The flames bathed him in a golden glow and his hair, his mustache, his skin, looked like they were cast from that precious metal, even if his expression appeared unusually tense and preoccupied.
    Lord Tornfield held his hand out toward her, and Michaela’s favorite part of each day began as she wrapped her fingers around his forearm.
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    â€œAmen,” Alan said in a quiet smiling voice, and then kissed the top of Elizabeth’s head before rising from the edge of the bed. Michaela stepped to the pair and added her own kiss to the little girl’s face.
    â€œHappy dreams, my love,” she said, and went round to the opposite side of Elizabeth’s bed to help pull the embroidered coverlet over the girl.
    Elizabeth blew kisses to them both as Alan carried the candlestick from the room, allowing Michaela to precede him through the doorway and then closing the door softly.
    Michaela was filled with warm contentment as she and Alan walked side by side down the corridor to her own chamber—easily twice the size of her room at