Mastered By Love

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 protйgйe, 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 con tinued 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

A rmor 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 well.

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