Taming the Beast by Heather Grothaus

reply to either of her parents who checked on her frequently.
    The fact that she lay in the bed she thought never to cradle her again was enough to sink her into the very dregs of a deep depression. Each time her eyes opened from exhausted sleep, she saw and heard the events of the feast on her last evening at Tornfield Manor like some sort of sick, contrary dream that only occurred while she was awake.
    She’d left that very night, returning to the Fortune household with her parents, not even taking time to pack her few belongings or seek out Elizabeth for a good-bye. She felt cowardly and traitorous for that. She had been too hurt, too mortified, too…destroyed.
    She never wanted to leave this room again.
    A soft rap upon her door caused Michaela to burrow deeper into her pillow and pull the covers up over her head. Perhaps if she feigned sleep, whoever knocked would simply go away.
    â€œMichaela?” It was her father this time, and she heard the creak of the floorboards as he stepped into the room, and then the door scraping to. “Are you awake?”
    Michaela did not reply, squeezing her eyes shut beneath the canopy of blanket, praying he would leave her.
    But she felt the mattress dip as Walter sat on the side of her bed.
    â€œYour mother is very worried for you, child,” he said quietly. “Would that you at least come take a meal so she does not think you to waste away to nothing.”
    â€œI hope that I do,” Michaela said bitterly, thinking that she had not wanted to speak, but the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She knew her tone was childish.
    Her father’s hand was warm on her calf through the thin blanket. “Oh, Michaela,” he sighed. “I know that you are hurt, and for that I am sorry. But hiding away in your chamber for years and years will not undo what has happened.”
    â€œI know that, Papa,” she said. “But if I stay here, I don’t have to face anyone.”
    â€œWhat have you to be shamed of?” Walter demanded. “You did naught wrong.”
    â€œWhat have I to be—?” Michaela snapped the covers off her head to look at her father, graying, portly, kind-faced. “I told Elizabeth that her father was going to marry me . I told her that we were going to be a family. And she believed me, trusted me. I made a fool out of myself before all the land. ‘Poor Miss Fortune, that she would think a handsome man like Lord Alan would marry her! ’ ’Tis bad enough that everyone talks about us like they do. I’ll never be able to show my face after this!”
    â€œNonsense,” Walter scoffed. “You told no one save Elizabeth your suspicions, and what she said at the feast, everyone likely took as the innocent assumptions of a young, troubled girl.”
    â€œOh, Papa,” Michaela sighed. “You don’t understand.”
    Walter gave her a smile. “I understand more than you think I do. I, too, know what it’s like, having people say mean-spirited things about you and your family. Things that are untrue. Think you I am deaf, or slow-witted?”
    â€œOf course not,” Michaela said. “But it never seems to bother you, Papa. Me, it—”
    â€œIt crushes, I know. But Michaela,” he implored, “the folk did not always hold the opinion of me and your mother that they do now. Granted, I was always looked upon with scorn, but for different reasons. Your mother, now, she was once highly revered and respected in the shire.”
    Michaela was intrigued. Her father had never spoken about the past, before Michaela was born. She held no hope that it would help her in her current situation, but she wanted him to keep talking. She sat up. “Tell me.”
    Walter nodded once. “I do not relish it, but all right. Perhaps it will allow you to understand a little better our station, and how we came to be here. Perhaps it will help you to bear your