Mastered By Love (27 page)

 

The play began. In such situations, it was accepted practice for the audience to call comments, suggestions, and directions to the players—who might or might not respond. Whatever the true tone of the play, the result was always a comedy, something the abbreviated scripts were designed to enhance; the players were expected to overplay the parts to the top of their bent.

 

While most in the audience called their comments loud enough for all to hear, Royce made his to her alone. His observations, especially on Mercutio, played to the hilt and beyond by his cousin Rohan, were so dry, so acerbic and cuttingly witty, that he reduced her to helpless giggles in short order—something he observed with transparently genuine approval, and what looked very like self-congratulation.

 

When Susannah appeared as Juliet, waltzing through her family’s ball, she returned the favor, making him smile, eventually surprising a laugh from him; she discovered she felt chuffed about that, too.

 

The balcony scene had them trying to outdo each other, just as Susannah and Phillip vied for the histrionic honors on stage.

 

When the curtain finally swished closed and the audience thundered their applause for a job well done, Royce discovered he had, entirely unexpectedly, enjoyed himself.

 

Unfortunately, as he looked around as footmen hurried in to light more candles, he realized the whole company had enjoyed themselves hugely—which augured very badly for him. They’d want to do a play every night until the fair; it took him only an instant to realize he’d have no hope of altering that.

 

He would have to find some way around his chatelaine’s latest hurdle.

 

Both he and Minerva rose with the others, chatting and exchanging comments. Along with the other players, Susannah reappeared, stepping down from the stage to rejoin the company. Slowly, he made his way to her side.

 

She turned as he approached, arched one dark brow. “Did you enjoy my performance?”

 

He arched a brow back. “Was it all performance?”

 

Susannah opened her eyes wide.

 

Minerva had drifted from Royce’s side. She’d been complimenting Rohan on his execution of Mercutio; she was standing only feet away from Susannah when Royce approached.

 

Close enough to see and hear as he complimented his sister, then more quietly said, “I take it Phillip is the latest to catch your eye. I wouldn’t have thought him your type.”

 

Susannah smiled archly and tapped his cheek. “Clearly, brother mine, you either don’t know my type, or you don’t know Phillip.” She looked across to where Phillip was laughing with various others. “Indeed,” Susannah continued, “we suit each other admirably well.” She glanced up at Royce, smiled. “Well, at least for the moment.”

 

Minerva inwardly frowned; she hadn’t picked up any
connection between Phillip and Susannah—indeed, she’d thought Susannah’s interest lay elsewhere.

 

With a widening smile, Susannah waggled her fingers at Royce, then left him.

 

Royce watched her go, and inwardly shrugged; after his years in social exile, she was right—he couldn’t know her adult tastes that well.

 

He was about to look around for his chatelaine when Margaret raised her voice, directing everyone back to the drawing room. He would have preferred to adjourn elsewhere, but seeing Minerva go ahead on Rohan’s arm, fell in at the rear of the crowd.

 

The gathering in the drawing room was as uneventful as usual; rather than remind his chatelaine of his intentions, he bided his time, chatted with his cousins, and kept an eye on her from across the room.

 

Unfortunately, she wasn’t lulled. She clung to the group of females, Susannah included, who had rooms in the east wing; she left with them, deftly steering them up the wide main stairs—he didn’t bother following. He would have no chance of laying hands on her and diverting her to his room before she reached hers.

 

He retired soon after, considering his choices as he climbed the main stairs. He could join Minerva in her bed. She’d fuss, and try to order him out, shoo him away, but once he had her in his arms, all denial would be over.

 

There was a certain attraction in such a direct approach. However…he walked straight to his apartments, opened the door, went in, and closed it firmly behind him.

 

He walked into his bedroom, and looked at his bed.

 

And accepted that this time, she’d triumphed.

 

She’d won the battle, but it was hardly the war.

 

Walking into his dressing room, he shrugged out of his coat, and set it aside. Slowly undressing, he turned the reason he hadn’t gone to her room over in his mind.

 

In London, he’d always gone to his lovers’ beds. He’d
never brought any lady home to his. Minerva, however, he wanted in his bed and no other.

 

Naked, he walked back into the bedroom, looked again at the bed. Yes, that bed. Lifting the luxurious covers, he slid between the silken sheets, lay back on the plump pillows, and stared up at the canopied ceiling.

 

This was where he wanted her, lying beside him, sunk in the down mattress within easy reach.

 

That was his vision, his goal, his dream.

 

Despite lust, desire, and all such weaknesses of the flesh, he wasn’t going to settle for anything less.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eleven

 

 

 

 

B
y lunchtime the next day, Royce was hot, flushed
, sweaty—and leaning against a railing with a group of men, all estate workers, in a field on one of his tenant farms, sharing ale, bread, and bits of crumbly local cheese.

 

The men around him had almost forgotten he was their duke; he’d almost forgotten, too. With his hacking jacket and neckerchief off, and his sleeves rolled up, his dark hair and all else covered in the inevitable detritus of cutting and baling hay, except for the quality of his clothes and his features, he could have been a farmer who’d stopped by to help.

 

Instead, he was the ducal landowner lured there by his chatelaine.

 

He’d wondered what she’d planned for the day—what her chosen path to avoid him would be. He’d missed her at breakfast, but while pacing before the study window dictating to Handley, he’d seen her riding off across his fields.

 

After finishing with Handley, he’d followed.

 

Of course, she hadn’t expected him to turn up at the haymaking, let alone that their day would evolve as it had, due to the impulse that had prompted him to offer to help.

 

He’d cut hay before, long ago, sneaking out of the castle
and, against his father’s wishes, rubbing shoulders with the estate workers. His father had been a stickler for protocol and propriety, but he had never felt the need to adhere to and insist on every single privilege at every turn.

 

Some of the men remembered him from long ago, and hadn’t been backward over accepting his help—tendered, he had to admit, more to see how Minerva would react than anything else.

 

She’d met his gaze, then turned and offered to help the women. They’d worked alongside those they normally directed for the past several hours, he swinging a scythe in line with the men, she following with the women, gathering the hay and deftly binding it into sheaves.

 

What had started out as an unvoiced contest had evolved into a day of exhausting but satisfying labor. He’d never worked so physically hard in his life, but he, and his body, felt unexpectedly relaxed.

 

From where the women had gathered, Minerva watched Royce leaning against the fence enclosing the field they’d almost finished cutting, watched his throat—the long column bare—work as he swallowed ale from a mug topped up from a jug the men were passing around—and quietly marveled.

 

He was so unlike his father on so many different counts.

 

He stood among the men, sharing the camaraderie induced by joint labor, not the least concerned that his shirt, damp with honest sweat, clung to his chest, outlining the powerful muscles of his torso, flexing and shifting with every movement. His dark hair was not just rumpled, but dusty, his skin faintly flushed from the sun. His long, lean legs, encased in boots his precious Trevor would no doubt screech over later, were stretched out before him; as she watched he shifted, cocking one hard thigh against the fence behind.

 

With no coat and his shirt sticking, she could see his body clearly—could better appreciate the broad shoulders, the wide, sleekly muscled chest tapering to narrow hips and those long, strong, rider’s legs.

 

To any female this side of the grave, the view was mouthwatering; she wasn’t the only one drinking it in. With all ducal trappings stripped away, leaving only the man beneath, he looked more overtly earthily sexual than she’d ever seen him.

 

She forced herself to look away, to give her attention to the women and keep it there, pretending to be absorbed in their conversation. The quick glances the younger women cast toward the fence broke her resolve—and she found herself looking his way again. Wondering when he’d learned to use a scythe; his effortless swing wasn’t something anyone just picked up.

 

Their lunch consumed, the men were talking to him avidly; from their gestures and his, he was engaging in one of his disguised interrogations.

 

If anything, she’d increased her assessment of his intelligence, and his ability to garner and catalog facts—and that assessment had already been high. While both were attributes he’d always had, they’d developed significantly over the years.

 

In contrast, his ability with children was a skill she never would have guessed he possessed. He certainly hadn’t inherited it; his parents had adhered to the maxim that children should be seen and not heard. Yet when they’d broken for refreshment earlier, Royce had noticed the workers’ children eyeing Sword, not so patiently waiting tied to a nearby post; waving aside their mothers’ recommendations not to let them pester him, he’d walked over and let the children do precisely that.

 

He’d answered their questions with a patience she found remarkable in him, then, to everyone’s surprise, he’d mounted and, one by one, taken each child up before him for a short walk.

 

The children now thought him a god. Their parents’ estimation wasn’t far behind.

 

She knew he’d had little to nothing to do with children;
even those of his friends were yet babes in arms. Where he’d learned how to deal with youngsters, let alone acquired the requisite patience, a trait he in the main possessed very little of, she couldn’t imagine.

 

Realizing she was still staring, broodingly, at him, she forced her gaze back to the women surrounding her. But their talk couldn’t hold her interest, couldn’t draw her senses, or even her mind, from him.

 

All of which ran directly counter to her intentions; out of the castle and surrounded by his workers, she’d thought she’d be safe from his seduction.

 

Physically, she’d been correct, but in other ways her attraction to him was deepening and broadening in ways she hadn’t—couldn’t have—foreseen. Worse, the unexpected allure was unintentional, uncalculated. It wasn’t in his nature to radically alter his behavior to impress.

 

“Ah, well.” The oldest woman stood. “Time to get back to it if we’re to get all those sheaves stacked before dusk.”

 

The other women rose and brushed off their aprons; the men saw, and stowed their mugs and jug, hitched up their trousers, and headed back into the field. Royce went with a group to one of the large drays; seizing the moment, Minerva went to check on Rangonel.

 

Satisfied he was comfortable, she headed to where the others were readying an area for the first haystack. Rounding a dray piled with sheaves, she halted—faced with a fascinating sight.

 

Royce stood five paces ahead of her, his back to her, looking down at a small girl, no more than five years old, planted directly in his path, nearly tipping backward as she looked all the way up into his face.

 

Minerva watched as he smoothly crouched before the girl, and waited.

 

Entirely at ease, the girl studied his face with open inquisitiveness. “What’s your name?” she eventually lisped.

 

Royce hesitated; Minerva could imagine him sorting through the various answers he could give. But eventually
he said, “Royce.”

 

The girl tilted her head, frowned as she studied him. “Ma said you were a wolf.”

 

Minerva couldn’t resist shifting sideways, trying to see his face. His profile confirmed he was fighting not to smile—wolfishly.

 

“My teeth aren’t big enough.”

 

The poppet eyed him measuringly, then nodded sagely. “Your snout isn’t long enough, either, and you’re not hairy.”

 

Her own lips compressed, Minerva saw his jaw clench, holding back a laugh. After an instant, he nodded. “Very true.”

 

The girl reached out, with one small hand clasped two of his fingers. “We should go and help now. You can walk with me. I know how the haystack’s made—I’ll show you.”

 

She tugged, and Royce obediently rose.

 

Minerva watched as the most powerful duke in all of England allowed a five-year-old poppet to lead him to where his workers had gathered, and blithely instruct him in how to stack sheaves.

 

 

Days passed, and Royce advanced his cause not one whit. No matter what he did, Minerva evaded him at every turn, surrounding herself with either the estate people or the castle’s guests.

 

The plays had proved a major success; they now filled the evenings, allowing her to use the company of the other ladies to elude him every night. He’d reached the point of questioning his not exactly rational but unquestionably honorable disinclination to follow her into her room, trampling on her privacy to press his seduction, his suit.

 

While playing a long game was his forte, inaction was another matter; lack of progress on any front had always irked.