Three
At nine the next morning, Royce sat at the head of the table in the breakfast parlor, and, alone, broke his fast. He’d slept better than he’d expected-deeply, if not dreamlessly-and his dreams hadn’t been of his past, but rather fantasies that would never come to be.
All had featured his chatelaine.
If not always entirely naked, then at least less than clothed.
He’d woken to discover Trevor crossing the bedroom, ferrying hot water to the bathing chamber beyond. The keep had been built in an era when keeping doors to a minimum had been a wise defense; clearly knocking a door between the corridor and his dressing room and bathing chamber was an urgent necessity. He’d made a mental note to tell his chatelaine.
He’d wondered if she would ask why.
While he’d lain back and waited for the inevitable effect of his last dream to fade, he’d rehearsed various answers.
He’d walked into the breakfast parlor with a keen sense of anticipation, disappointingly doused when, despite the late hour, she hadn’t been there.
Perhaps she was one of those females who breakfasted on tea and toast in her room.
Curbing his misplaced curiosity about his chatelaine’s habits, he’d sat and allowed Retford to serve him, determinedly suppressing a query as to her whereabouts.
He was working his way through a plate of ham and sausages when the object of his obsession swept in-gowned in a gold velvet riding habit worn over a black silk blouse with a black ribbon tied above one elbow and a black riding hat perched atop her golden head.
Wisps of hair had escaped her chignon, creating a fine nimbus beneath the hat. Her cheeks glowed with sheer vitality.
She saw him and smiled, halting and briskly tugging off her gloves. A crop was tucked under one arm. “Two demon-bred black horses have arrived in the stables with Henry. I recognized him, amazingly enough. The entire stable staff are milling about, fighting to lend a hand to get your beasts settled.” She arched a brow at him. “How many more horses should we expect?”
He chewed slowly, then swallowed. She enjoyed riding, he recalled; there was a taut litheness to her form as she stood poised just inside the door, as if her body were still thrumming to the beat of hooves, as if the energy stirred by the ride still coursed her veins.
The sight of her stirred him to an uncomfortable degree.
What had she asked? He raised his eyes to hers. “None.”
“None?” She stared at him. “What did you ride in London? A hired hack?”
Her tone colored the last words as utterly unthinkable-which they were.
“The only activities one can indulge in on horseback in the capital don’t, in my book, qualify as riding.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s true.” She studied him for a moment.
He returned his attention to his plate. She was debating whether to tell him something; he’d already learned what that particular, assessing look meant.
“So you’ve no horse of your own. Well, except old Conqueror.”
He looked up. “He’s still alive?” Conqueror had been his horse at the time he’d been banished, a powerful gray stallion just two years old.
She nodded. “No one else could ride him, so he was put to stud. He’s more gray than ever now, but he still plods around with his mares.” Again she hesitated, then made up her mind. “There’s one of Conqueror’s offspring, another stallion. Sword’s three years old now, but while he’s broken to the bit, he refuses to be ridden-well, not for long.” She met his eyes. “You might like to try.”
With a brilliant smile-she knew she’d just delivered a challenge he wouldn’t be able to resist-she swung around and left the room.
Leaving him thinking-yet again-of another ride he wouldn’t mind attempting.
“So, Falwell, there’s nothing urgently requiring attention on the estate?” Royce addressed the question to his steward, who after wrinkling his brow and dourly pondering, eventually nodded.
“I would say, Your Grace, that while there might be the usual minor details to be attended to here and there, there is nothing outstanding that leaps to mind as necessary to be done in the next few months.” Falwell was sixty if he was a day; a quietly spoken, rather colorless individual, he bobbed his head all but constantly-making Royce wonder if he’d developed the habit in response to his sire’s blustering aggression.
Seeming to always agree, even if he didn’t.
Both steward and agent had responded to his summons, and were seated before the study desk while he attempted what was rapidly becoming a hostile interrogation. Not that they were hostile, but he was feeling increasingly so.
Suppressing his incipient frown, he attempted to tease some better understanding from them. “It’ll be winter in a few months, and then we won’t be able to attend to anything of a structural nature until March, or more likely April.” He found it difficult to believe that among all the buildings and outbuildings, nothing needed repairing. He turned his gaze on his agent. “And what of the holdings? Kelso?”
The agent was of similar vintage to Falwell, but a much harder, leaner, grizzled man. He was, however, equally dour.
“Nothing urgent that needs castle intervention, Y’r Grace.”
They’d used the phrase “castle intervention” several times, apparently meaning assistance from the ducal coffers. But they were talking of barns, fences, and cottages on his lands that belonged to the estate and were provided to tenant farmers in exchange for their labor and the major portion of the crops. Royce allowed his frown to show. “What about situations that don’t require ‘castle intervention’? Are there any repairs or work of any kind urgently needed there?” His tone had grown more precise, his diction more clipped.
They exchanged glances-almost as if the question had confused them. He was getting a very bad feeling here. His father had been old-fashioned in a blanket sense, the quintessential marcher lord of yore; he had a growing suspicion he was about to step into a briar patch of old ways he was going to find it difficult to live within.
Not without being constantly pricked.
“Well,” Kelso eventually said, “there’s the matter of the cottages up Usway Burn, but your father was clear that that was for the tenants to fix. And if they didn’t fix things by next spring, he was of a mind to demolish the cottages and plow the area under for more corn, corn prices being what they are.”
“Actually,” Falwell took up the tale, “your late father would have, indeed should have, reclaimed the land for corn this summer-both Kelso and I advised it. But I fear”-Falwell shook his head, primly condescending-“Miss Chesterton intervened. Her ideas are really not to be recommended-if the estate were to constantly step in in such matters we’d be forever fixing every little thing-but I believe your late father felt…constrained, given Miss Chesterton’s position, to at least give the appearance of considering her views.”
Kelso snorted. “Fond of her, he was. Only time in all the years I served him that he didn’t do what was best for the estate.”
“Your late father had a sound grasp of what was due the estate, and the tenants’ obligations in that regard.” Falwell smiled thinly. “I’m sure you won’t wish to deviate from that successful, and indeed traditional, path.”
Royce eyed the pair of them-and was perfectly sure he needed more information, and-damn it!-he’d need to consult his chatelaine to get it. “I can assure you that any decisions I make will be guided by what is best for the estate. As for these cottages”-he glanced from one man to the other-“I take it that’s the only outstanding situation of that ilk?”