Mastered By Love

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.

Lack of progress on this front positively hurt.

And today, the entire company had decided to go to church, presumably to atone for the many sins they’d committed. Despite none of those sins being his, he’d felt obliged to attend, too, especially as Minerva had been going, so what else was he to do?

Wallowing in bed when that bed was otherwise empty-devoid of soft, warm, willing female-had never appealed.

Seated in the front pew, Minerva beside him, with his sisters beyond her, he let the sermon roll over him, freeing his mind to range where it would-the latest prod to his escalating frustration was its first stop.

They’d chosen Midsummer Night’s Dream for their play last night-and Minerva had suggested he play Oberon, a chant promptly taken up by the rest of the company in full voice. The twist of fate that had seen her caught by the same company’s brilliant notion that she play Titania, queen to his king, had been, in his opinion, nothing more than her due.

Given their natures, given the situation, even though their exchanges on stage had been oblique, the palpable tension between them had puzzled a number of their audience.

That tension, and its inevitable effects, had resulted in another near-sleepless night.

He slanted a glance to his right, to where she, his fixation, sat, her gaze dutifully trained on Mr. Cribthorn, the vicar, rambling from his pulpit about long-dead Corinthians.

She knew who and what he was; no one knew him better. Yet she’d deliberately set out to cross swords with