Mastered By Love (34 page)

 

After listening to her footsteps fade, he returned to the bedroom, and his bed. Settling beneath the covers, sensing her warmth lingering beside him, conscious of her subtle perfume wreathing all about him, he folded his arms behind his head and fixed his gaze on the window across the room.

 

So what now? He’d made progress, real and definite progress, but then she’d stymied him in a way he hadn’t been quick enough to foresee. While henceforth he could, and would, have her in his bed, he could no longer simply
ask
her to be his bride. There was no argument that stood any chance of convincing her he’d wanted to marry her
before
he’d taken her virginity. That he hadn’t known she was a virgin meant nothing, and no matter how long he waited, she would still view his proposal as the insult she’d warned him not to offer her.

 

And she’d refuse. Adamantly. And she’d only grow more stubborn the harder he pressed.

 

Admittedly he had, for one foolish moment, considered using the age-old argument based on virginity and honor as a possible supporting reason for their wedding. He should have guessed how she would react.

 

He lay staring into space as his household slowly awakened, juggling possibilities, assessing tacks. If he’d asked her to marry him when he’d first set out to, rather than letting her distract him with her challenge into seducing her first, he wouldn’t now be facing this complication, yet there was no point dwelling on what couldn’t be changed.

 

He could see only one way forward. He would have to keep silent over his intention to marry her, and instead do everything in his considerable power to lead her to conclude of her own accord that marrying him was her true and natural destiny. More, her greatly desired destiny.

 

Once she’d realized that, he could offer for her hand, and she would accept.

 

If he applied himself to the task, how long could it take? A week?

 

The grandes dames had accepted the week he’d originally stipulated readily enough. That week had now passed, but he doubted any of them would hie north to castigate him—not yet. If he dallied too long, someone would turn up to lecture him again and exhort him to action, but he probably had another week up his sleeve.

 

A week he would devote to convincing Minerva that she should be his duchess.

 

A week to make it clear she already was, but just hadn’t realized.

 

His lips curved, just as Trevor looked in from the dressing room.

 

His valet saw his smile, saw the bed. Raised his brows inquiringly.

 

Royce saw no reason to keep him in the dark. “My chatelaine—who will shortly be your mistress.” He fixed his gaze on Trevor’s face. “A fact she doesn’t yet know, so no one will tell her.”

 

Trevor smiled. “Naturally not, Your Grace.” His expression one of the utmost equanimity, he started to pick up Royce’s clothes.

 

Royce studied him. “You don’t seem all that surprised.”

 

Straightening, Trevor shook out his coat. “You have to choose a lady, and all things considered I find it hard to imagine you could do better than Miss Chesterton.” He shrugged. “Nothing to be surprised about.”

 

Royce humphed, and got out of the bed. “I will, of course, wish to know anything and everything you learn that might be pertinent. I take it you know her maid?”

 

Folding Royce’s waistcoat, Trevor smiled. “A young person by the name of Lucy, Your Grace.”

 

Belting his robe, Royce narrowed his eyes on that smile. “A word to the wise. I might bed the mistress, but you’d be ill-advised to try the same with the maid. She’ll have your balls on a stick—the mistress, not the maid. And in the circumstances, I’d have to let her.”

 

Trevor’s eyes opened wide. “I’ll bear that in mind, Your Grace. Now, do you wish to shave?”

 

 

Minerva awoke when Lucy, her maid, came bustling into the room.

 

After leaving Royce, she’d slipped back to her room without seeing anyone; she’d undressed, put on her nightgown, brushed out her tangled hair, got into bed—and to her surprise had fallen deeply asleep.

 

She yawned, stretched—and felt twinges where she never had before. She watched Lucy open the curtains, then shake out her gown; when Lucy turned to the armoire, she surreptitiously peeked down the front of her nightgown.

 

She blinked, then looked across the room. “The black with the buttons up the front, Lucy. Just leave it over the chair. I’ll get up shortly, but you don’t need to wait. I can manage that gown by myself.”

 

And innocent Lucy didn’t need to see the telltale marks on her breasts. She didn’t want to think what she might discover farther down.

 

“I’ve brought up your washing water. Do you need me for anything else, ma’am?”

 

“No, thank you, Lucy. You can go and have your breakfast.”

 

“Thank you, miss.” With a cheery smile and a bobbed curtsy, Lucy took herself off. The door closed behind her.

 

Minerva exhaled, sank deeper into the mattress, and let her thoughts range over the previous night, and its entirely unexpected events. That Royce would act so directly—and that she would respond so definitely—had never entered her head. But he had, and she had, so where were they now?

 

She’d always assumed he’d be a vigorous lover. In that, he’d exceeded her expectations; her untutored self had never even imagined much of what, at his hands, she had now experienced. Yet despite her inexperience, she knew him—she hadn’t missed the hunger, the real need that had had him carting her off to his bed, that had driven him as he’d ravished her.

 

Possessed her.

 

Repeatedly.

 

When she’d woken before dawn, just as, from behind, he’d filled her, and proceeded to demonstrate yet another way he could possess her—her body, her senses, and her mind—utterly and completely, with his lips in the hollow below her ear rather than on hers, she, her senses, had been freer to absorb the nuances of his loving.

 

That he wanted her, desired her, she accepted without question.

 

That that want ran deep, she now understood.

 

She’d never imagined being the focus of that degree of
desire, having so much male passion concentrated on her; the recollection sent a delicious shiver through her. She couldn’t deny she’d found it deeply satisfying; she’d be lying if she pretended she wouldn’t be happy to lie with him again.

 

If he asked, which he would. He wasn’t, she knew, finished with her; that had been explicit in their final moments that morning.

 

Thank God she’d had sufficient wit to seize the chance and make it plain that she neither expected nor wanted to receive an offer from him.

 

She hadn’t forgotten that other offer he was due to make—to the lady he’d chosen as his duchess. Not knowing if he’d made a formal offer yet, she’d needed to ensure he wouldn’t, in some Machiavellian moment, decide to use her virginity—the taking of it—as cause to marry her instead.

 

While he’d toed the grandes dames’ line, he wasn’t happy about it; he might well seize an opportunity to take a different tack. And to him, marrying her might be preferable to having to deal with some unknown young lady who would know very little about him.

 

She—Minerva—would be a more comfortable choice.

 

She didn’t need to think to know her response to that. He would be a sound husband to any lady who accepted the loveless partnership he would offer; just as long as said lady didn’t expect love or fidelity, all would be well.

 

For herself, love, real and abiding, was the only coin for which she would exchange her heart. Extensive experience of Varisey unions had bolstered her stance; their type of marriage was not for her. Avoiding, if necessary actively resisting, any suggestion of marrying Royce remained an unaltered, unalterable goal; nothing on that front had changed.

 

And, to her immense relief, spending the night in his bed hadn’t seduced her heart into loving him; her feelings toward him hadn’t changed all that much—or only on the lust side, not in terms of love.

 

Thinking of how she now felt about him…she frowned. Despite her resistance, she did feel something
more
for
him—unexpected feelings that had developed since his return. Feelings that had driven her panic of yesterday, when she’d thought he would die.

 

Those new feelings had grown through seeing him with his people, from his attitudes and actions toward those he deemed in his care. From all the decisions and acts that distinguished him so definitively from his father. The physical pleasure he’d introduced her to hadn’t influenced her as much as all those things.

 

Yet while he might differ from his father in many ways, when it came to his wife and his marriage, he would revert to type. He’d demonstrated as much in his approach to his prospective bride.

 

If she let herself be bullied into marrying him, she would risk falling in love with him—irrevocably, irretrievably—and then like Caro Lamb she would pine, wither, and eventually go mad when he, not at all in love with her, left her for another. As he inevitably would.

 

She wasn’t so foolish as to believe that she might, through loving him, change him. No; if she married him, he, indeed everyone, would expect her to stand meekly by while he indulged as he wished with an endless succession of other ladies.

 

She snorted, threw back the covers, and swung her legs out of bed. “That’s not going to happen.”

 

No matter what she felt for him, regardless of what evolved from her infatuation-obsession, no matter
what
new aspects of attraction developed over the however many nights she might spend in his bed, she would not fall in love with him, ergo she wouldn’t marry him.

 

At least they were both now very clear on that last point.

 

Standing, she crossed to the basin and pitcher on her dresser; pouring water into the basin, she let her thoughts range ahead. As matters now stood…

 

Setting down the pitcher, she stared at the settling water as the immediate future cleared in her mind.

 

Of necessity her liaison with Royce would be short-lived—
he would marry soon, and soon after, she would leave. A few days, a week. Two weeks at most.

 

Too short a time to fall in love.

 

Slipping her hands into the bowl, she splashed water on her face, feeling increasingly bright. More alert and expectant, almost intrigued over what the day might bring—reassured and confident that there was no reason she couldn’t indulge with him again.

 

The risk wasn’t significant. Her heart would be safe.

 

Safe enough so she could enjoy without a care.

 

 

By evening, expectation had turned to impatience. Minerva sat in the music room, ostensibly watching yet another of Shakespeare’s plays while she brooded on the shortcomings of her day.

 

A perfectly ordinary day, filled with nothing more than the customary events—which was the problem. She’d thought…but she’d been wrong.

 

Royce had summoned her to his study for their usual morning meeting with Handley; other than a fleeting moment when she’d walked into the room and their eyes had met—and he and she had both paused, both, she suspected, suddenly reminded of how the other’s skin had felt against theirs…but then he’d blinked, looked down, and she’d walked forward and sat, and he’d subsequently treated her exactly as he had the previous day.

 

She’d followed his lead, then and later, as they’d parted, then met again, throughout the day, confident that at some point they would meet privately…but she was no longer so sure that would happen. She’d never engaged in a liaison before; she didn’t know the script.

 

He did, but he was seated two rows in front of her, chatting to Caroline Courtney, who had claimed the chair beside him.

 

Under cover of the dinner conversations, he’d asked her if Cranny still kept stocks of the chicken essence she’d used to administer to them when they’d suffered childhood chills. She hadn’t been sure, but when he’d suggested they send a
bottle to the Honeymans for their daughter, she’d detoured to see the housekeeper before joining the company in the music room, thus missing her chance to sit next to him.

 

Narrowing her eyes on the back of his head, she wished she could see inside. What was he thinking? Specifically, what was he thinking about her?
Was
he thinking about her?

 

Or had one night been enough?

 

The more confident part of her brazenly scoffed, but a more vulnerable part wondered.

 

At the end of the play, she clapped politely, caught Royce’s eye for an instant, then excused herself and retired, leaving Margaret to manage the tea tray. She could do without spending the next half hour surrounded by the lascivious throng with him in the same room, aware of his gaze occasionally resting on her, fighting to keep hers from him—while every inch of her skin prickled with anticipation.

 

Reaching her room, willing her mind from the question of “Would he?” she stripped off her clothes, donned her nightgown, shrugged on her robe, then rang for Lucy.

 

She had a set of faint marks at the top of one thigh that was beyond her ability to explain.

 

Seated at her dressing table, she was brushing out her hair when Lucy breezed in.

 

“You’re early tonight, ma’am.” Lucy bent to pick up her gown. “Didn’t you enjoy the play?”

 

She pulled a face. “They’re becoming rather boring—just as well the fair’s next week or I’d have to devise some other entertainment.” She glanced at Lucy as the maid bustled to the armoire. “Did you learn anything?”

 

Opening the armoire, Lucy shook her dark head. “Mr. Handley’s a quiet one—he’s kind and smiles, but he’s not one to talk. And of course he sits at the top end of the table. Trevor’s closer to me, and he’s a right chatterer, but although he natters on, he never really says anything, if you know what I mean.”

 

“I can imagine.” She hadn’t really thought Royce would employ staff who didn’t keep his secrets.