Mastered By Love

Seven

T he next morning, garbed in her riding habit, Minerva sat in the private breakfast parlor and consumed her marmaladed toast as quickly as she daintily could; she was intent on getting out on Rangonel as soon as possible.

She hadn’t seen Royce since he’d sent her off with his response to the grandes dames’ demand. He hadn’t joined the guests still remaining for dinner; she hadn’t been surprised. But she wasn’t in any hurry to meet him, not until she felt more like herself, hence her wariness as, toast finished, tea drunk, she rose and headed for the stables.

Retford had confirmed that His Grace had breakfasted earlier and gone riding; he was most likely far away by now, but she didn’t want to run into him if he’d cut short his ride and was returning to the keep. Avoiding the west courtyard, his favored route, she exited via the castle’s east wing, and set off through the gardens.

She’d spent an unsettled evening, and an even more restless night, going over in her mind the ladies on the list, trying to predict whom he’d chosen. She’d met some of them during the seasons she and his mother had spent in the capital; while she couldn’t imagine any of them as his duchess, that lack of enthusiasm didn’t explain the hollow, deadening feeling that had, over the last days, been growing inside her.

That had intensified markedly after she’d delivered his declaration to the grandes dames and waved them on their way.

Certainly, being forced to state out aloud her unhappiness over leaving Wolverstone, giving voice to what she truly felt, hadn’t helped. By the time she’d retreated to her room last night, that unexpected, welling emotion was approaching desolation. As if something was going horribly wrong.

It was nonsensical. She’d done what she’d had to do-what her vows had committed her to do-and she’d succeeded. Yet her emotions had swung crazily in the opposite direction; she didn’t feel as if she’d won, but as if she’d lost.

Lost something vital.

Which was silly. She’d always known the time would come when she’d have to leave Wolverstone.

It had to be some irrational twisting of her emotions caused by the increasingly fraught battle she constantly had to wage to keep her frustrating and irritating, infatuation-obsession-driven physical reactions to Royce completely hidden-hidden so completely not even he would see.

The stables loomed ahead. She walked into the courtyard, smiling when she saw Rangonel waiting, saddled and patient by the mounting block, a groom at his head. She went forward-a flash of gray and the steel tattoo of dancing hooves had her glancing around.

Sword pranced on the other side of the yard, saddled and…waiting. She tried to tell herself Royce must have just ridden in…but the stallion looked fresh, impatient to be off.

Then she saw Royce-pushing away from the wall against which he’d been leaning chatting to Milbourne and Henry.

Henry went to calm Sword and untie his reins.

Milbourne rose from the bench on which he’d been sitting.

And Royce walked toward her.

Quickening her pace, she clambered onto the mounting block and scrambled, breathless, into her sidesaddle.

Royce halted a few paces away and looked up at her. “I need to talk to you.”

Doubtless about his bride. Her lungs constricted; she felt literally ill.

He didn’t wait for any agreement, but took the reins Henry offered, and swung up to Sword’s back.

“Ah…we should discuss the mill. There are decisions that need to be made-”

“We can talk when we stop to rest the horses.” His dark gaze raked her, then he turned Sword to the archway. “Come on.”

This time, he led.

She had no option but to follow. Given the pace he set, that took all her concentration; only when he slowed as they started up Lord’s Seat did she have wits to spare to start wondering what, exactly, he was going to say.

He led her up to a sheltered lookout. A grassy shelf on the side of the hill where a remnant of woodland enclosed a semicircular clearing, it had one of the best views in the area, looking south down the gorge through which the Coquet tumbled, to the castle, bathed in sunlight, set against the backdrop of the hills beyond.

Royce had chosen the spot deliberately; it gave the best, most complete view of the estate, the fields as well as the castle.

He rode Sword to the trees, swung down from the stallion’s back, and tied the reins to a branch. On her bay, Minerva followed more slowly. Allowing her time to slip down from her saddle and tie her horse, he crossed the lush grass to the rim of the clearing; looking out over his lands, he seized the moment to rehearse his arguments one more time.

She didn’t want to leave Wolverstone, and, as the pristine condition of his armillary spheres testified, she felt something for him. It might not be the counterpart of his desire for her, and she hadn’t seen enough of him to have developed an admiration and appreciation of his talents reciprocal to his for hers. But it was enough.

Enough for him to work with, enough for him to suggest as a basis for their marriage. It was a damned sight more than could possibly exist between him and any of the ladies on the grandes dames’ list.

He’d come prepared to persuade.

She was twenty-nine, and had admitted no man had offered her anything she valued.

She valued Wolverstone, and he would offer her that.

Indeed, he was willing to offer her anything it was in his power to give, just as long as she agreed to be his duchess.

She might not be as well-connected or well-dowered as the candidates on the list, but her birth and fortune were more than sufficient that she needn’t fear the ton would consider their union a mйsalliance.

More, in marrying him herself, she would be satisfying her vows to his parents in unarguably the most effective way-she was the only female who had ever stood up to him, ever faced him down.

As she’d proved yesterday, she would tell him whatever she deemed he needed to hear regardless of him wanting to hear it. And she would do so knowing that he could rip up at her, knowing how violent his temper could be. She already knew, was demonstrably confident, that he would never lose it with-loose it on-her.

That she knew him that well spoke volumes. That she had the courage to act on her knowledge said even more.

He needed a duchess who would be more than a cipher, a social ornament for his arm. He needed a helpmate, and she was uniquely qualified.

Her caring for the estate, her connection with it, was the complement of his; together, they would give Wolverstone-castle, estate, title, and family-the best governance it could have.

And when it came to the critical issue of his heirs, having her in his bed was something he craved; he desired her-more than he would any of the grandes dames’ ciphers, no matter how beautiful. Physical beauty was the most minor attractant to a man like him. There had to be more, and in that respect Minerva was supremely well-endowed.

Yesterday, while she’d been insisting he appease the grandes dames, he’d finally accepted that, if he wanted a marriage like his friends’, then, regardless of what he had to do to make it happen, it was Minerva he needed as his wife. That if he wanted something more than a loveless marriage, he would have to strike out, and, as he had with her help in other respects, try to find a new road.

With her.

The certainty that had gripped him, infused him, hadn’t waned; with the passing hours, it had grown more intense. He’d never felt more certain, more set on any course, more confident it was the right one for him.

No matter what he had to do-no matter the hurdles she might place in his path, no matter where the road led or how fraught the journey might be, no matter what she or the world might demand of him-it was she he had to have.

He couldn’t sit back and wait for it to happen; if he waited any longer, he’d be wed to someone else. So he would do whatever it took, swallow whatever elements of his pride he had to, learn to persuade, to seduce, to entice-do whatever he needed to to convince her to be his.

Mind and senses returning to the here and now, poised to speak, he mentally reached for her-and realized she hadn’t yet joined him.

Turning, he saw her still sitting her horse. She’d swung the big bay to face the view. Hands folded before her, she looked past him down the valley.

He shifted, caught her eye. Beckoned. “Come down. I want to talk to you.”

She looked at him for a moment, then nudged her horse forward. Halting the big bay alongside, she looked down at him. “I’m comfortable here. What did you want to talk about?”

He looked up at her. Proposing while she was perched above him was beyond preposterous. “Nothing I can discuss while you’re up there.”

She’d eased her boots from the stirrups. He reached up and plucked her from her saddle.

Minerva gasped. He’d moved so fast she’d had no time to block him-to prevent him from closing his hands around her waist and lifting her…

Increasingly slowly, he lowered her to the ground.

The look on his face-utter, stunned disbelief-would have been priceless if she hadn’t known what put it there.

She’d reacted to his touch. Decisively and definitely. She’d stiffened. Her lungs had seized; her breath had hitched in a wholly damning way. Focused on her, his hands tight about her waist, he hadn’t missed any of the telltale signs.

Long before her feet got within a foot of the lush grass, he’d guessed her secret.

Knew it beyond question.

She read as much in the subtle shift of his features, in the suddenly intent-ruthlessly intent-look that flared in his eyes.

She panicked. The instant her feet touched earth, she forced in a breath, opened her lips-

He bent his head and kissed her.

Not gently.

Hard. Ravenously. Her lips had been parted; his tongue filled her mouth with no by-your-leave.

He marched in and laid claim. His lips commanded, demanded-rapaciously seized her wits. Captured her senses.

Desire rolled over her in a hot wave.

His, she realized on a mental gasp, not just hers.

The realization utterly dumbfounded her; since when had he desired her?

Yet the ability to think, to reason, to do anything other than feel and respond had flown.

She didn’t at first realize she was kissing him back; once she did, she tried to stop-but couldn’t. Couldn’t drag her senses from their fascination, from their greedy excitement; this was better than she’d dreamed. Regardless of all wisdom, she wasn’t able to disengage, not from him, not from this.

He made it harder yet when he angled his head, slanted his lips over hers, and deepened the kiss-not by degrees, but in one bold, senses-shattering leap.

Her hands had fallen to his shoulders; they gripped, clung as their mouths melded-as he relentlessly pressed his advantage, rolled over her defenses and drew her with him into the scorching, shatteringly intimate exchange. She couldn’t comprehend how his rapacious kisses, his hard hungry lips, his bold thrusting tongue, caught her, trapped her, then delivered her up, captive to her own need to respond. It wasn’t his will making her kiss him so damningly eagerly, as if despite all good sense, she couldn’t get enough of his thinly veiled possession.

She’d always known he would be an aggressive lover; what she hadn’t known, would never have guessed, was that she would respond so flagrantly, so invitingly-that she would welcome that aggression, seize it as her due and demand more.

Yet that was precisely what she was doing-and she couldn’t stop.

Her experience with men was limited, but not nonexistent, yet this…was something entirely beyond her ken.

No other man had made her heart thud, made her blood sing, sent it racing through her body.

With his lips on hers, with just a kiss, he’d transformed her into a greedy wanton-and some part of her soul sang.

Royce knew. Sensed her response in every fiber of his being. He wanted more-of her, of her luscious mouth, of her blatantly inviting lips. Yet beyond his own hunger lay the wonder of hers, a temptation like no other, one every primitive instinct he possessed had fixed upon, unswervingly fastened on as the most direct and certain route to appeasing his own, already tumultuous needs.

Sunk in her mouth, he wasn’t thinking. Only feelings registered-the spike of disbelief when he’d realized what she’d been hiding-that she did indeed respond to him vibrantly, instinctively, most importantly helplessly-that despite his experience, his skills, she’d pulled the wool thickly and completely over his eyes…and a wave of hard anger that the agonies he’d suffered over the past weeks while subduing his lust for her hadn’t been necessary. That if he’d given in and kissed her, she’d have yielded.

As she was now.

She was helplessly in thrall to the desire, the passion, that had erupted between them, more powerful, more driven from having been denied.

Relief swam through him; he would no longer need to suppress his lust for her. Expectation flared at the prospect of giving it full rein. Of indulging it to the hilt. With her. In her.

In the instant before he’d kissed her, he’d looked into her face, into her gorgeous autumn-rich eyes-and had seen them widen. Not only with the realization that he’d learned what she’d been hiding, not just with apprehension over what he might do, but with sensual shock. That was what had sent her eyes flaring, all rich browns and welcoming golds; more than experienced enough to recognize it, he’d instantly taken advantage.

He’d seen her lips part, start to form some word; he hadn’t been interested in listening. And now-now that she was trapped in the web of their desires-he was intent on only one thing. On possessing what he’d wanted to seize for the last too many days.

On possessing her.

She was clinging to his shoulders, as deeply ensnared in their kiss as he. Her knees had weakened; his hands locked about her waist, he held her upright.

He didn’t even need to think to steer her back, shouldering her horse aside as he guided her back until her spine met the bole of the nearest useful tree.

She instinctively braced against it. He wedged his right knee between her thighs, the hard muscle of his thigh riding against hers, holding her in place as he released his grip about her waist, easing back from the kiss as, hard palms to the velvet of her habit, he skated his hands, slow and deliberate, up, over her ribs, and closed them possessively about her breasts.

He broke from the kiss, let their hungry lips part just enough to catch the shocked, delicious inward hiss of her breath as he eased his hands, then closed them again, then provocatively kneaded. Just enough to savor her half moan, half sob when he found her nipples and through the screening fabric circled the tight nubs with his thumbs.

Then he dove back into the kiss, reclaimed her mouth, sent her gathering wits spinning again while he set his hands to learn everything he needed to know to reduce her to the sensual wanton he had every intention of drawing forth.

She had it in her, he knew.

Even just from this kiss, he knew beyond question that she was not just more responsive than any woman he’d ever known, but specifically more responsive to him. If he managed her correctly, educated her properly, she would willingly cede him everything, anything and everything he wanted of her; he knew it to his bones.

There was nothing the marcher lord within him found more alluring than the prospect of absolute surrender.

He plundered her mouth, and reveled in the knowledge that, soon, she would be his. That, very soon, she would lie beneath him, heated and mindless as he sheathed himself in her.

As he took her, claimed her, and made her his.

He wouldn’t even need to go slowly; she wouldn’t be shocked by his demands. She knew him well, knew what to expect from him.

Closing his hands possessively about her breasts, squeezing her distended nipples between his fingers, he shifted his thigh so the long muscle rode more definitely against the soft flesh at the apex of hers, caught her muffled moan, and held her, with lips and tongue bound her ever more tightly to the increasingly explicit exchange.

Drew her ever more powerfully along the road to his goal.

Minerva knew his direction, felt it-ached for it-with every muscle, with every taut nerve, yet while most of her mind was deliriously following him, wantonly abandoned to his desire and hers, a small part remained lucid, detached, shrieking that this was more than dangerous, more than disastrous-that this was calamity about to strike.

It didn’t matter; she couldn’t break away. Her mind was overwhelmed, seduced in every way.

He, his kiss, was all power and passion, intertwined, entwined, inseparable.

The taste of him, of that senses-seducing combination, overrode all good sense, devastatingly easily. The edged desire in his kiss, dangerous and uncompromising, lured her on. He devoured, seized, claimed-and she kissed him back, wanting more, inviting more; his hands on her body, hard and possessive, set a fire burning within her she knew he could quench.

She needed to feel it, that fire, that life, needed to burn in its flames.

She knew that, craved it, even though she knew that with him, that fire would sear, scorch, and ultimately scar.

Yet the fact that he wanted her, and she knew enough to know that his want was as honest and real as hers, completely overset, overcame, overturned her carefully constructed defenses. His need, his raw hunger, was the most powerful weapon he could wield against her-as if he’d needed more.

She knew she was a fool for permitting the kiss to rage-although how she might have stopped him, stopped them, she had no clue. Yet even knowing how witless it was to so wantonly accept every potent caress, and mindless-abandoned to all good sense-yearn for more, she couldn’t stop herself from seizing this, this moment, with both hands, and wringing from it all she could. Clinging to him, savoring every nuance, every evocative, provocative sweep of his tongue, of his bold fingers, seizing as much as she dared, surrendering whatever he asked. Taking from him, from the moment, as much as she possibly could.

It wasn’t going to happen again.

It was he who broke the kiss, he who lifted his lips from hers. They were both breathing rapidly. After several breaths, her senses returned enough to inform her how heated, how pliant, how weak she’d become.

How helpless in his arms.

He glanced left, then right. Then he swore.

Grated, his voice a deep rumble, “Not here.”

Her wits returned in a rush, and she realized what he meant. Felt panic rise as she looked where he had, and realized she owed her escape to the heavy dew that had left the lush grass sodden.

If not for that…

She quashed a telltale shuddery shiver as he stepped back.

Royce felt it-sensed it in his marrow-but clamped down hard on his inevitable reaction. The grass was too damned wet, and the trees all had rough, deeply etched bark, but quite aside from such logistical difficulties, ones he could yet have overcome, that part of him ruled by his more primitive self was insisting, dictatorially, that the first time he sank into his chatelaine she should be sprawled naked beneath him in his ducal bed-the massive four-poster in his room.

His mind could, and did, supply any number of pertinent benefits, and after his proven-to-be-unnecessary abstinence of the past weeks, he wasn’t in any mood to stint himself.

Stepping back, he waited until she was steady on her feet, then towed her to her horse and lifted her to her saddle.

Blinking in surprise, Minerva desperately tried to reorder her senses and her wits. While he untied Sword’s reins and swung up to the gray’s back, she slid her boots into her stir rups, reclaimed her reins.

With just a look that said very clearly, “Follow me,” he turned Sword and led the way down. Luckily, they had to go slowly down the hill; once they reached the flat and the horses stretched into a gallop, she’d recovered enough to cope.

Nevertheless, she was amazed she made it back to the castle without a stumble. By the time the stables rose before them, her mind had cleared, and her wits had reassembled. Her lips were still swollen, and her body still warm, and if she thought too much, remembered too much, she would blush, but she knew what she had to do.

They clattered into the stable yard and he fluidly dismounted. By the time she’d halted Rangonel and freed her feet from her stirrups, he was by her side; she surrendered to the inevitable and let him lift her down.

And discovered that, if she wasn’t tensing, fighting to suppress her reaction, then the sensation of his hands gripping her waist, that instant of being completely in his power as he lifted her, held more delight than trauma.

She reminded herself that when it came to him, she no longer had anything to hide. Yet when he grasped her hand, engulfing it in his, she would have tugged it back-except he tightened his hold, threw her a look, and proceeded to hold her beside him as, with a curt nod to Milbourne, he stalked out of the yard.

Deciding that having a tug-of-war over her hand with His Grace of Wolverstone in his own stable yard, watched over by various of his and her staff, wasn’t an endeavor she was likely to gain anything from, she held her tongue, and strove to keep up with his strides.

She had to pick her time, her moment. Her battleground.

He led her to the house via the west courtyard, but instead of taking his usual route to the front hall and the main stairs, he turned the other way; she realized he was making for the west turret stairs, a rarely used lesser staircase from which he could reach the gallery, not far from his rooms.

Until he’d headed that way, she hadn’t been sure what he intended, but given his preference for the minor stairs…he was taking her to his rooms.

She chose the small hall at the foot of the turret stairs to make her stand. There were no servants about, no one else about to see, let alone interrupt. When he reached for the newel post, she halted. Held steady when he tried to draw her forward. He looked around, met her gaze-saw her determination. Arched one black brow.

“What you have in mind isn’t going to happen.” She made the statement clearly, evenly. Not a challenge, but a statement of fact. She wanted to draw her hand from his, to lose the sensation of his long, strong fingers locked about hers, but knew better than to trigger his reaction. Instead, she met his gaze with steadfast resolution. “You are not even going to kiss me again.”

His eyes narrowed; turning to face her, he opened his mouth-

“No. You will not. You might lust after me, but that, as we both know, is merely a reaction to being forced to name your bride. It will last for all of a day or two, and then what? It’s possible that the only reason your eye has fixed on me is that I’m one of the few ladies in the house not related to you. But I’m not going to tumble into your bed just because you’ve decided it suits you. I’m your chatelaine, not your lover, not your mistress.” She drew in a breath, held his dark gaze. “So we’re going to pretend, going to behave, as if what just happened on Lord’s Seat…didn’t.”

That was the only way she could think of to survive, heart intact, to get through this time as his chatelaine, fulfill her vows to his parents, and then leave Wolverstone and start a new life.

Somewhere.

Somewhere a very long way from him, so she’d never have to meet him again, not even set eyes on him. Because after what had just happened on Lord’s Seat, she was going to regret not letting matters take their course, to regret not letting him take her to his bed.

And that regret would last forever.

Royce watched her denial form on her lips-lips he’d just kissed, possessed, and now knew beyond question were his. He heard her words, could even make sense of them, but the reactions they called forth left him inwardly reeling. As if she’d picked up a broadsword and clouted him over the head.

She couldn’t be serious-yet he could see she was.

He’d stopped thinking rationally the instant he’d possessed her lips, the instant he’d swept into her mouth and tasted her. Claimed her. He’d spent the ride home anticipating claiming her in a more absolute, biblical way-and now she was refusing.

More, she was insisting that their incendiary kiss should be ignored, as if she hadn’t welcomed him, kissed him back, and clung.

Worse, she’d accused him of seducing her out of lust-that he would take her to his bed with no feeling whatever, that she was merely a convenient female body to him…inwardly he frowned. He felt offended, yet…

He was a Varisey, until now in this sphere archetypically so-she had every reason to believe any female would do.

Except no other would. He knew that to his bones.

He held her gaze. “You want me as much as I want you.”

She lifted her chin. “Perhaps. But remember the reason I haven’t accepted any offers-of any sort-from any gentlemen? Because they didn’t offer anything I wanted.” She looked directly into his eyes. “In this case, anything I want enough.”

Her last word echoed in the stairwell, filling the silence that fell between them.

A clear, unequivocal challenge.

One that called to him on a level he couldn’t deny, but he could see from her eyes, her calmly resolute mien, that she was unaware she’d issued it.

The marcher lord within him purred in anticipation. In wardly he smiled; outwardly he maintained his impassive expression.

Desire, lust, and need still ran rampant through his veins, but he reined the unruly, tempestuous emotions in. He wanted her, and was determined to have her. He’d gone to the lookout already committed to doing whatever it took to convince her to be his-in all the relevant spheres, of which this was one. His first test, apparently, was to convince her that she wanted him enough-to wit, a great deal more than she knew.

The prospect of exerting himself over a woman felt alien, but he shook aside the niggle.

He’d been intending to offer her the dukedom, his duchess’s coronet; he toyed with the idea of asking her if that would prove enough. But the challenge she’d issued had been based on the physical, not the material; he would answer her on the same plane. Time enough once she was gracing his bed to inform her of the permanent position he intended her to fill.

His gaze lowered to her hand, still resting in his. He needed to let her go-for now.

Forcing his fingers to ease, he let her hand, her fingers, slide from his grasp. Saw, because he was watching intently, her release the breath she’d been holding. She didn’t step away; she lowered her arm, but otherwise remained still. Watching him.

Wise; his more primitive side wasn’t happy about letting her go, and was just waiting for any excuse to override her wishes and the counsel of his wiser self.

Too conscious of that primitive self prowling just beneath his skin, he forced himself to turn away, to start up the stairs. He spoke without turning around. “I’ll see you in the study in half an hour to discuss the mill.”

That afternoon, Royce’s last traitor lay naked on his back in Royce’s younger sister’s bed.

Equally naked, Susannah lolled on her stomach beside him. “I sent off that note with the post last evening-it should reach town later today.”

“Good.” Lifting an arm, he trailed his fingers over the quite delectable curve of her derriere. “It’ll be amusing to see if dear Helen avails herself of your kind invitation.”

“Poor Royce, forced by the grandes dames to choose a bride-the least I can do is arrange a little diversion.”

“With luck, the beautiful countess will be here by Sunday.”

“Hmm.” Susannah looked pensive. “I really can’t see him rushing to announce his betrothal, not given it was forced on him. Once she arrives, he might put it off indefinitely.”

“Or even change his mind. Have you really no idea who he’s chosen?”

“No. No one does. Even Minerva has no clue, which, as you might expect, is bothering her greatly.”

“Can’t you wheedle it out of him? You’re his favorite sister, after all.”

Susannah snorted. “This is Royce Varisey we’re talking about. He might look on me more kindly than he does Margaret and Aurelia-and really, who wouldn’t?-but ‘wheedling’ anything out of him would literally be the equivalent of getting blood from a stone.”

“Ah, well-it seems we’ll have to wait with everyone else to hear. A week or so…not that long.”

Susannah sat up. “Wait a minute. He said the week’s delay was to get the lady’s agreement.” She turned to him. “If we knew which lady he contacted…”

It was his turn to snort derisively. “Not even I would suggest you might induce Retford to tell you who his new master is corresponding with.”

Susannah slapped his chest with the back of her hand. “Not me, silly-Minerva. I bet she’s already thought of it.” She grinned, then slid sinuously, sensuously, into his arms. “I’ll ask her…later.”

He pulled her over him, licked her lips, and slid his hand between her thighs. “Indeed. Later.”