Margaret drew in a long, tight breath. “Papa would never-”
“Indeed.” This time his voice cut. “But I am not Papa.”
For a moment, he held Margaret silent with his gaze, then, unhurriedly and deliberately, turned toward the castle. “Come, Minerva.”
She quickly caught up to him, walking alongside.
He lengthened his stride; the other ladies were now far ahead. “I need to get out of these wet clothes.” He spoke conversationally, signaling he intended to leave Margaret’s little scene behind, metaphorically as well as physically.
Minerva nodded, tight-lipped. “Precisely.” A heartbeat passed, then she went on, “I really don’t know why Margaret couldn’t have waited until later to rail at me-it’s not as if I won’t be around. If she was really worried about your health, she’d have done better not to delay us.” She glanced sharply his way. “Can you go faster? Perhaps you ought to run?”
“Why?”
“So you’ll warm up.” They were nearing the mill. Raising a hand, she pushed his shoulder. “Go that way-through the mill and over the race. It’s faster than going down to the bridge and across.”
She usually avoided touching him, yet now she kept pushing, so he diverted onto the paved path leading into the mill. “Minerva-”
“We need to get you to the castle, out of those wet clothes and into a hot bath as soon as possible.” She prodded him toward the gangplank. “So move!”
He almost saluted, but did as she ordered. From Margaret, who thought of no one but herself, to Minerva, who was totally focused…on him.
On his well-being.
It took an instant for that to fully sink in.
He glanced at her as, her hands now locked about one of his elbows, she hurried him out of the mill. Her focus was on the castle, on getting him-all but propelling him-as fast as possible inside. Her intensity wasn’t just that of a chatelaine doing her duty; it was a great deal more.
“I’m not likely to take a fatal chill from a dip in the river.” He tried to slow to a fast walk.
She set her jaw and all but hauled him on. “You’re not a doctor-you can’t know that. The prescribed treatment for immersion in an icy river is a hot bath, and that’s what you have to have. Your mother would never forgive me if I let you expire because you wouldn’t treat the risk with due seriousness.”
His mother, who had never wasted a moment worrying about his health. Male Variseys were supposed to be tough, and, indeed, were. But he bowed to Minerva’s tugging and resumed his faster pace. “I am taking this seriously.”
Just not as seriously as she was.
Or, as it transpired, any of his staff were.
The instant Minerva pushed him through the door into the north wing, Trevor pounced.
“No!” His valet was literally aghast. “That’s another pair of Hobys ruined-two pairs in three days. And, oh, my heavens! You’re drenched!”
He refrained from saying he knew. “Is my bath ready?”
“It better be.” Trevor exchanged a look with Minerva, still by Royce’s side, still hurrying him along. “I’ll go up and make sure.” Trevor turned and all but fled before them, his footsteps clattering up the turret stairs.
Royce and Minerva followed, taking the shortcut to his rooms.
Minerva halted outside his sitting room door; he kept walking, to the useful new door into his dressing room and the bathing chamber beyond that Hancock, the castle carpenter, was just testing.
Hancock nodded. “Your new door as ordered, Your Grace. Just in time, it seems.” Hancock swung the panel wide. “Your bath awaits.”
Royce nodded. “Thank you.” He looked over the door and its frame as he went through into the dressing room, then nodded again to Hancock. “That’s exactly what I wanted.”
Hancock saluted, picked up his toolbox, and walked off. Minerva appeared in the doorway-mouth a-cock, staring at the door, then at its frame. Then she looked at Royce.
“So Trevor and the footmen don’t need to come through the bedroom to reach these rooms.”
“Oh.” She stood there, digesting that, while he started the difficult task of unwinding his sodden cravat.
Trevor appeared in the open doorway opposite, from which steam eddied as a footman poured what had to be a last pail of steaming water into the large bath; if any more was put in, it would slosh out when Royce got in. He signaled to the footman to stop.
His valet, meanwhile, was frowning at two glass-stoppered bottles he was holding. “Which would be better? Mint or peppermint?”
“Menthol.” Snapping out of her trance, Minerva bustled in to join Trevor. “Pennyroyal is what you want-it’s the best for warding off chills.” She stepped around Trevor, let the footman squeeze past, then pointed to a rack of similar bottles set on a wooden table. “There should be some there.”
“Pennyroyal. Right.” Trevor went to the rack. “Here it is. How many drops?” He squinted at the tiny label.
“About a teaspoon, even two. Enough so you can smell it strongly.”
Trevor took out the stopper, tipped a bit of the oil into the water. Minerva and he sniffed the steam. Both frowned.
Walking into the bathing chamber, Royce dropped his sodden cravat, which he’d finally managed to untangle, onto the floor; it landed with a splat, but neither his valet nor his chatelaine reacted.
He looked longingly at the hot water, felt ice seeping into his marrow-heard the other two arguing the merits of adding peppermint as well.
Lips setting, he yanked his shirttails free of his waistband, loosened the cords at his wrists and neck, then looked at his chatelaine. “Minerva.”
She looked up, met his eyes.
“Leave. Now.” He reached for the bottom of his shirt.
“Oh, yes-of course.”
He pulled the shirt up, heard the flurry of her footsteps, then the door to the bathing chamber click shut. Grimly smiled. But wrestling free of the drenched folds was an exercise and a half; Trevor had to help-with that, his boots, and his breeches, designed to cling to him even when dry.
Finally naked, he stepped into the tub, sat, and leaned back, then sank right down. Felt the heat from the water slowly melt the ice in his flesh. Felt the warmth sink in.
Felt warmth of a different kind slowly expand from his center out.
His gaze on the door through which his chatelaine had fled, he slowly thawed.
Late that night, lounging shoulder to the wall in the darkness of an embrasure in the keep’s gallery, Royce broodingly stared at Minerva’s bedroom door.
The only thought in his mind was whether her caring about him as she clearly did was sufficient excuse for what he was about to do.
He understood perfectly well why the need to bed her had suddenly escalated to a level significantly beyond his control. Dicing with death had that effect, made one only too aware of one’s mortality, and commensurately fired the need to live, to prove one was vitally alive in the most fundamental way.
What he was feeling, how he was reacting, was all perfectly natural, normal, logical. To be expected.
He wasn’t at all sure she’d see it that way.
But he needed her tonight.
And not solely for his selfish self.
While in the matter of the rescue, he and she had been in the right, so, too, had Margaret. He’d accepted the need to secure the succession; he couldn’t continue to put off speaking and gaining Minerva’s agreement to be his bride.
To be the mother of his son-the eleventh Duke of Wolverstone.
At this moment in time, all roads in his life led to this place, and compelled him to act, to take the next step.