Mastered by Love

by Stephanie Laurens

  The footman he’d seen earlier appeared in the doorway from the sitting room carrying a huge china urn. “Hot water, Your Grace.”

  He nodded, then watched as the man crossed the room and went through the doorway into the dressing room and bathing chamber.

  He’d turned back to the window when the footman reappeared. “Your pardon, Your Grace, but would you like me to unpack your things?”

  “No.” Royce looked at the man. He was average in everything—height, build, age, coloring. “There’s not enough to bother with…Jeffers, is that right?”

  “Indeed, Your Grace. I was the late duke’s footman.”

  Royce wasn’t sure he’d need a personal footman, but nodded. “My man, Trevor, will be arriving shortly—most likely tomorrow. He’s a Londoner, but he’s been with me for a long time. Although he has been here before, he’ll need help to remember his way.”

  “I’ll be happy to keep an eye out for him and assist in whatever way I can, Your Grace.”

  “Good.” Royce turned back to the window. “You may go.”

  When he heard the outer door click shut, he quit the window and headed for the dressing room. He stripped, then washed; drying himself with the linen towel left ready on the washstand, he tried to think. He should be making mental lists of all he had to do, juggling the order in which to do them…but all he seemed able to do was feel.

  His brain seemed obsessed with the inconsequential, with matters that were not of immediate importance. Such as why his father had moved out of the duke’s apartments immediately after their confrontation.

  The act smacked of abdication, yet…he couldn’t see how such a proposition could mesh with reality; it didn’t match his mental picture of his father.

  His bag contained a complete set of fresh clothes—shirt, cravat, waistcoat, coat, trousers, stockings, shoes. He donned them, and immediately felt better able to deal with the challenges that waited beyond the door.

  Before returning through the bedroom to the sitting room, he glanced around, assessing the amenities.

  Minerva—his chatelaine—had been right. Not only were these rooms appropriate given he was now the duke, the atmosphere felt right—and he had a sneaking suspicion his old room wouldn’t have suited him, fitted him, anymore. He certainly appreciated the greater space, and the views.

  Walking into the bedroom, his gaze fell on the bed. He felt certain he would appreciate that, too. The massive oak four-poster supporting a decadently thick mattress and silk covers, piled high with thick pillows, dominated the large room. It faced the window; the view would always be restful, yet interesting.

  At present, however, restful yet interesting couldn’t sate his need; as his gaze returned to the crimson-and-gold silk-brocade bedspread, took in the crimson silk sheets, his mind supplied a vision of his chatelaine reclining there.

  Naked.

  He considered the vision, deliberately indulged; his imagination was more than up to the task.

  As unlooked-for developments went, his chatelaine took the prize. Little Minerva was no longer so little, yet…

  Being his mother’s protégée, and thus under his father’s protection, too, would normally have placed her off-limits to him, except that both his father and mother were now dead, and she was still there, in his household, an established spinster of his class, and she was…what? Twenty-nine?

  Within their circles, by anyone’s assessment she was now fair game, except…while he’d developed an immediate and intense lust for her, she’d shown no sign whatever that she returned his interest; she’d appeared coolly, calmly unaffected throughout.

  If she’d reacted to him as he had to her, she would have been in there now—more or less as he was imagining her, boneless and drowsy, a smile of satiation curving her lush lips as she lay sprawled, naked and utterly ravished, on his bed.

  And he would be feeling a great deal better than he was. Sexual indulgence was the only distraction capable of taking the violent edge from his temper, capable of dulling it, dampening it, draining it.

  Given his temper was so restlessly aroused, and desperately seeking an outlet, he wasn’t surprised it had immediately fixed on the first attractive woman to cross his path, transmuting in a heartbeat to a driving lustful passion. What he was surprised by was the intensity, the incredible clarity with which his every sense, every fiber of his being, had locked on her.

  Possessively and absolutely.

  His arrogance knew few bounds, yet all the ladies who’d ever caught his eye…he’d always caught theirs first. That he wanted Minerva while she didn’t want him had thrown him off-balance.

  Unfortunately, her disinterest and his consequent unsettled state hadn’t dampened his desire for her in the least.

  He’d simply have to grin and bear it—continue to rein his temper in, denying it the release it sought, while putting as great a distance between him and her as possible. She might be his chatelaine, but once he learned who his steward, his agent, and the various others who were responsible for overseeing his interests were, he would be able to curtail his contact with her.

  He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Forty minutes had passed. Time to go to the study and settle in before she arrived to speak with him. He would need a few minutes to grow accustomed to occupying the chair behind his father’s desk.

  Walking into the sitting room, he looked up—and saw his armillary spheres lined up along the mantelpiece opposite, the mirror behind creating the perfect showcase. The sight drew him across the room. Scanning the collection, fingers idly stroking long-forgotten friends, he halted before one, his fingers stilling on a gold-plated curve as memories of his father presenting it to him on his eighteenth birthday slid through his mind.

  After a moment, he shook free of the recollection and continued on, studying each sphere with its interlocking, polished metal curves…

  The maids and even the footmen refuse to touch them for fear they’ll fall apart in their hands.

  Halting, he looked closer, but he’d been right. Each sphere hadn’t just been dusted; every single one had been lovingly polished.

  He glanced back along the line of spheres, then he turned and walked to the door.

  Two

  Armor of the sort she needed wasn’t easy to find. Glancing at the clock in the duchess’s morning room, Minerva told herself she’d simply have to manage. It was just over an hour since she’d left Royce; she couldn’t hide forever.

  Sighing, she stood, smoothing down her dull black skirts. She’d be wearing her mourning gowns for the next three months; luckily the color suited her well enough.

  A small piece of reassurance to cling to.

  Picking up the documents she’d prepared, she headed for the door. Royce should be in the study and settled by now; she stepped into the corridor, hoping she’d given him enough time. Courtesy of her infatuation and consequent close observation of him whenever they’d been in the same place—which covered all the time he’d spent at Wolverstone or in the London house from the age of fourteen, when she’d joined the household as a six-year-old and on setting eyes on him had been instantly smitten, to when he’d reached twenty-two—she knew him much better than he could possibly guess. And she’d known his father even better; the matters they had to discuss, the decisions Royce had to make that day and over those following, would not be easy, not without emotional cost.

  She’d been in London with his mother at the time of the confrontation in White’s; they’d heard enough reports to have a fairly clear idea of what had, beneath the words, really happened. Given Royce’s puzzlement on hearing when his father had moved out of the ducal apartments, she wasn’t at all sure he—Royce—had as clear a vision of that long-ago debacle as she. Aside from all else, he would have been in a shocking temper—nay, fury—at the time. While his intellect was formidable and his powers of observation normally disconcertingly acute, when in the grip of a Varisey rage she suspected his higher faculties didn’t work all that wel
l.

  His father’s certainly hadn’t, as that long-ago day had proved.

  Regardless, it was time to beard the lion in his den. Or in this case, prod the new wolf in his study.

  The corridors of the huge house were often quiet, but today the staff crept even more silently; not even distant sounds disturbed the pall.

  She walked calmly on through the unnatural stillness.

  She’d spent the last hour assuring herself that her eruption of unwelcome awareness had been due to shock—because he’d come upon her unawares and nearly mown her down. That her reaction was due solely to the unexpectedness of feeling his hard hands curl over her shoulders—and then he’d lifted her, literally off her feet, and set her aside.

  And then he’d walked on.

  That was the key point she had to remember—that all she’d felt was in her head. As long as it stayed there, and he remained unaware of it, all would be well. Just because her long-ago—as she’d thought long-dead—infatuation had chosen this thoroughly inconvenient moment to surge back to life, didn’t mean she had to indulge it. Twenty-nine was too old for infatuations. She was, absolutely and undeniably, too wise to obsess over a gentleman, let alone a nobleman—and she well knew the distinction—like him.

  If he ever guessed her susceptibility, he would use it ruthlessly for his own ends, and then she and her mission would be in very deep trouble.

  The study door appeared ahead, Jeffers standing dutifully alongside; eyeing the closed panel, she wasn’t overly surprised to feel a certain wariness building. The truth was…if she’d considered herself free to do as she pleased, instead of acting as Royce’s dutiful chatelaine and easing him into his new role, she would be spending the afternoon penning letters to her friends around the country inquiring if it would be convenient for her to visit. But she couldn’t leave yet—wasn’t free to flee yet.

  She’d made a vow—two vows actually, but they were the same vow so it was really only one. First to his mother when she’d died three years ago, and she’d made the same vow last Sunday to his father. She found it interesting—indeed, revealing—that two people who hadn’t shared much over the last twenty years should have had the same dying wish. Both had asked her to see Royce settled and properly established as the next Duke of Wolverstone. What they’d meant by “properly established” was, given the subject, plain enough; they’d wanted her to ensure that he was fully informed of all aspects of the dukedom, and that he understood and put in place all that was required to secure his position.

  So on top of all else, she would need to see him wed.

  That event would mark the end of her debt to the Variseys. She knew how much she owed them, how beholden to them she was. She’d been a six-year-old stray—no pauper, and as wellborn as they, but with no relatives to watch over her, and no claim on them—yet with negligent grace they’d taken her in, made her one of the family in all but name, included her in a way she’d had no right to expect. They hadn’t done it expecting anything from her in return—which was one reason she was determined to carry out the late duke’s and duchess’s last wishes to the letter.

  But once Royce’s bride was established as his duchess and was able to take over the reins she currently managed, her role here would end.

  What she did next, what she would make of her life, was a prospect that, until last Sunday night, she’d spent no time dwelling on. She still had no idea what she would do when her time at Wolverstone came to a close, but she had more than sufficient funds to keep herself in the luxury to which, thanks to the Variseys, she was now accustomed, and there was a whole world beyond Coquetdale and London to explore. There were all sorts of exciting prospects to consider, but that was for later.

  Right now she had a wolf—quite possibly bruised and inclined to be savage—to deal with.

  Halting before the study door, she inclined her head to Jeffers, tapped once, and went in.

  Royce was sitting behind the huge oak desk. The desktop was unnaturally neat and clear, devoid of the usual papers and documents commensurate with it being the administrative heart of a massive estate. Long-fingered hands, palms flat, on the desk, he glanced up as she entered; for a fleeting instant she thought he looked…lost.

  Shutting the door, she glanced at the document uppermost in her hand as she walked across the rug—and spoke before he could. “You need to approve this.” Halting before the desk, she held out the sheet. “It’s a notice for the Gazette. We also have to inform the palace and the Lords.”

  Expression impassive, he looked at her, then lifted one hand and took the notice. While he read it, she sat in one of the chairs before the desk, settled her skirts, then arranged her prepared sheets in her lap.

  He shifted and she looked up—watched as he reached for a pen, glanced at the nib, flipped open the ink pot, dipped, then applied the pen to her notice, slowly and deliberately crossing out one word.

  After blotting it, he inspected the result, then reached across the desk and handed it back to her. “With that correction, that will do for the news sheets.”

  He’d crossed out the word “beloved” in the phrase “beloved father of.” She suppressed the impulse to raise her brows; she should have anticipated that. Variseys, as she’d been told often enough and had seen demonstrated for decades, did not love. They might be seething cauldrons of emotion in all other respects, but not one of them had ever laid claim to love. She nodded. “Very well.”

  Putting that sheet at the bottom of her pile, she lifted the next, looked up—and saw him regarding her enigmatically. “What?”

  “You’re not ‘Your Grace’-ing me.”

  “I didn’t ‘Your Grace’ your father, either.” She hesitated, then added, “And you wouldn’t like it if I did.”

  The result was an almost inhuman purr, a sound that slid across her senses. “Do you know me that well, then?”

  “That well, yes.” Even though her heart was now in her throat, she kept firm control over her voice, her tone. She held out the next sheet. “Now, for the Lords.” She had to keep him focused and not let him stray into disconcerting diversions; it was a tactic Variseys used to distract, and then filch the reins.

  After a pregnant moment, he reached out and took the sheet. They thrashed out a notification for the Lords, and an acceptably worded communication for the palace.

  While they worked, she was aware of him watching her, his dark gaze sharp, as if he were studying her—minutely.

  She steadfastly ignored the effect on her senses—prayed it would wane soon. It had to, or she’d go mad.

  Or she’d slip and he’d notice, and then she’d die of embarrassment.

  “Now, assuming your sisters arrive tomorrow, and the people from Collier, etcetera, as well, given we expect your aunts and uncles to arrive on Friday morning, then if you’re agreeable, we could have the will read on Friday, and that would be one thing out of the way.” Looking up from tidying her documents, she arched a brow at him.

  He’d slumped back, outwardly relaxed in the large admiral’s chair; he regarded her impassively for several long moments, then said, “We could—if I was agreeable—have the funeral on Friday.”

  “No, we couldn’t.”

  Both his brows slowly rose. “No?” There was a wealth, a positive surfeit of intimidation packed into the single, softly uttered word. In this case, on multiple counts, it was misplaced.

  “No.” She met his gaze, held it. “Think back to your mother’s funeral—how many attended?”

  His stillness was absolute; his gaze didn’t shift from hers. After another long silence, he said, “I can’t remember.” His tone was even, but she detected a roughness, a slight weakness; he honestly couldn’t recall, quite possibly didn’t like thinking of that difficult day.

  With him banished from his father’s lands, but the church and graveyard at Alwinton enclosed within Wolverstone’s boundaries, he’d literally driven around his father’s edict; his groom had driven his curricle to the church�
��s lych-gate, and he’d stepped directly onto hallowed ground.

  Neither he nor his father had spoken to anyone—let alone exchanged so much as a glance—through the long service and the subsequent burial. That he couldn’t remember how many had been in the church testified that he hadn’t been looking around, unaffected; his normally extremely observant faculties hadn’t been functioning.

  Calmly, she recited, “There were over two hundred counting only family and members of the ton. For your father, that number will be more like three hundred. There’ll be representatives of the king, and Parliament, quite aside from family and friends—let alone all those who will make a point of coming all the way up here simply to register their connection, however tenuous, with the dukedom.”

  He pulled a face, then in an explosion of movement sat up. “How soon can it be arranged?”

  Relief slid through her veins. “The notice of death will run in the Gazette on Friday. Tomorrow, once your sisters are here to consult, we should send off a notice about the funeral—that will then run in the Saturday editions. Realistically, given so many will be coming from the south, the earliest we could hold the funeral would be the following Friday.”

  He nodded, reluctant but accepting. “Friday, then.” He hesitated, then asked, “Where’s the body being kept?”

  “In the icehouse, as usual.” She knew better than to suggest he should view his father’s body; he either would of his own accord, or wouldn’t. It would be better if he did, but there were some areas into which, with him, she wasn’t prepared to stray; it was simply too dangerous.

  Royce watched as she shuffled through the papers in her lap—eyed her hair, lustrous and gleaming. Wondered how it would look draped over her very white skin when said skin was bare and flushed with passion.

  He shifted in the chair. He desperately needed distraction. He was about to ask for a list of staff—she was so damned efficient he would wager his sanity she would have one in her pile—when heavy footsteps approached the door. An instant later, it opened, admitting a majestic butler.