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.

The castle had grown quiet; all the guests were abed, whoever’s bed they were gracing that night. Within the keep, only he and Minerva remained; all the staff had long retired.

There was no sense dallying any longer.

He was about to push away from the wall, had tensed to take the first fateful step toward her door, when it opened.

He froze, watched through the darkness as Minerva came out. She was still fully dressed; clutching a shawl about her shoulders, she glanced right, then left. She didn’t notice him, standing perfectly still in the enveloping shadows.

Quietly closing her door, she set off down the corridor.

Silent as a wraith, he followed.

Twelve

A full moon rode the sky; Minerva didn’t need a candle to slip down the main stairs and follow the west wing corridor to the music room. Once on the ground floor, she walked quickly, openly; all the guests were on the floor above.

She’d loaned Cicely, a distant Varisey cousin, her mother’s pearl brooch to anchor the spangled shawl Cicely had worn as the Princess of France in that evening’s performance of Love’s Labour’s Lost-and had forgotten to take it back. The brooch was valuable, but much more than that, it was one of the few mementos she had of her mother; she wasn’t of a mind to risk leaving it jumbled with the other pieces of finery in the costume box, not even just until tomorrow.

Not that she imagined anyone would steal it, but…she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she had the brooch back.

Reaching the music room, she opened the door and went in. Moonlight streamed through the wide window, flooding the stage, providing more than enough light. As she walked up the aisle between the rows of chairs, her mind drifted to Royce-and the sharp clutch of fear, almost paralyzing in strength, that had gripped her when she’d seen him in the river, with his burden sweeping wide around the spit where his would-be rescuers had waited…

For one crystal-clear instant in time, she’d thought she-they-would lose him. Even now…She slowed, closed her eyes, drew in a slow, steadying breath. All had turned out well-he was safe upstairs, and the girl was at her home, no doubt cosseted and warm in her bed.

Exhaling and opening her eyes, she continued on more briskly, stepping up onto the low stage. The trunk of costumes stood in the lee of the paneled left wing. Beside it sat a box full of shawls, scarves, kerchiefs, mixed with fake daggers, berets, a paste tiara and crown, all the smaller items that went with the costumes.

Crouching by the box, she started sorting through the materials, looking for the spangled shawl.

With hands and eyes engaged, her thoughts, prodded by Margaret’s outburst, and by comments she’d subsequently heard, not just from the ladies but from some of the men as well, roamed, circling the question of whether she’d done the right thing in warning Royce of the girl’s danger.

Not all who’d commented had assumed she’d expected him to rescue the girl, but she had. She’d expected him to act precisely as he had-not in the specifics, but in the sense that he would do all he could to save the child.

She hadn’t expected him to risk his life, not to the point where his death had become a real possibility. She didn’t think he’d foreseen that, either, but in such situations there never was time for cold-blooded calculations, weighing every chance.

When faced with life-and-death situations, one had to act-and trust that one’s skills would see one through. As Royce’s had. He’d given orders to his cousins and they’d instinctively obeyed; now they might question the wisdom of his act, but at the time they’d done as he’d asked.

Which was all that mattered. To her mind, the end result had been entirely satisfactory, yet of all those above stairs, only she, Royce, and a handful of others saw the matter in that light. The rest thought he, and she, had been wrong.

Of course, they wouldn’t think so if the girl had been wellborn.

Noblesse oblige; those dissenting others clearly interpreted the phrase in a different way from her and Royce.

The spangled shawl wasn’t in the box. Frowning, she piled the other things back in, then lifted the lid of the trunk. “Aha.”

She drew the soft folds out. As she’d suspected, Cicely had left the brooch pinned to the shawl; freeing it, she closed the clip, and slipped the brooch into her pocket. Dropping the shawl back into the trunk, she lowered the lid, and stood.

Just as footsteps sounded in the corridor beyond the open door.

Slow, steady, deliberate footsteps…Royce’s.

They halted in the doorway.

Royce normally moved impossibly silently. Was he allowing his footsteps to be heard because he knew she was there? Or because he thought there was no one around to hear?

She edged deeper into the lee of the panel; the thick velvet curtain, currently drawn back, gave her extra cover, ensuring her outline wasn’t etched in moonlight on the floor before the stage. Sliding her fingers between the curtain and the panel, she peeked out.

Royce stood in the doorway. He glanced around the room, then walked slowly in, leaving the door wide.

A great deal tenser than she had been, she watched as he paced down the center aisle. Halting halfway to the stage, he sat in a chair at the end of one row; the wooden legs scraped as he shifted, the small sound loud in the night. Thighs spread, he leaned his forearms along them, linked his hands between. Head angled down, he appeared to be studying his loosely interlocked fingers.

Royce thought-again-of what he intended to do, but need was a clamor filling his mind, drowning out, sweeping aside, all reservations.

Despite his nonchalance, he knew perfectly well he’d come within a whisker of dying that day. He’d waltzed close to Death before; he knew what the touch of her icy fingers felt like. What was different about this time was that-for the first time-he’d had regrets. Specific regrets that had leapt, sharp and clear, to the forefront of his mind in the moment when Phillip’s hand had seemed just too far away.

His principal regret had been over her. That if he died, he’d miss knowing her. Not just biblically, but in a deeper, broader sense, something he could put his hand on his heart and swear he’d never wanted with any other woman.

Yet another reason it was just as well he was set on having her as his wife. He’d have years to learn of, to explore, all her different facets, her character, her body, her mind.

That afternoon, while warming up in his bath, he’d considered the odd impulse her hurrying him back to the castle had evoked. He’d wanted to put his arm around her and openly accept her help, to lean on her-not physically-but for some other reason, some other solace. Not just for him, but for her, too. Accepting her help, acknowledging it-showing he welcomed it, that he was pleased, felt honored, that she cared.

He hadn’t done it-because men like him never showed such weakness. Throughout his childhood, his schooling, through social pressure, such views had shaped him; he knew it, but that didn’t mean he could escape the effects, no matter how powerful a duke he might be.

Indeed, because he’d been destined to be just such a powerful duke, the conditioning had reached even deeper.

Which, in many ways, explained tonight.

Beneath the flow of his thoughts, he’d been evaluating, assessing, deciding. Drawing in a long breath, he lifted his head and looked to the left of the stage. “Come out. I know you’re there.”

Minerva frowned, and stepped out from her hiding place. Tried to feel irritated; instead…she discovered it was possible to feel exceedingly vulnerable and irresistibly fascinated simultaneously.

Stepping off the stage, she told herself, her unruly senses, to concentrate on the former and forget the latter. To focus on all the reasons she had to feel vulnerable about him. About getting too close to him in any way.

Predictably, as she walked with feigned calmness down the aisle, her senses, skittering in breathless expectation, gained the ascendancy. Being within four feet of him was not a wise idea. Yet…

The light from the window behind her fell on him, illuminated his face as, remaining seated, he looked up at her.

There was something in his expression, usually so utterly uninformative. Not tiredness, more like resignation-along with a sense of…emotional tension.

The observation puzzled, just as another puzzling fact occurred. She fixed her gaze on his dark eyes. “How did you know I was here?”

“I was in the corridor outside your room. I saw you come out, and followed.”

She halted in the aisle beside him. “Why?”

The moonlight didn’t reach his eyes; they searched her face, but she couldn’t read them, any more than she could tell what he was thinking from the chiseled perfection of his features, yet they still held that certain tension, a need, perhaps, or a hunger; as the silence stretched she sensed it more clearly-honest, sincere, direct.

Real.

A lock of sable hair had fallen across his brow; entirely without thinking, she reached out and smoothed it back. Fingertips seduced by the rich softness, by the sensual tingle, she hesitated, then started to withdraw her hand.

He caught it, trapped it in one of his.

Eyes widening, she met his gaze. Fell into it.

He held her ensorcelled for a long moment, then, uncurling her fingers with his, he turned his head and, slowly, deliberately, pressed his lips to her palm.

The shocking heat leapt like a spark into her; the blatantly intimate touch made her shiver.

He shifted his head; his lips drifted to her wrist, there to bestow an equally intimate lover’s caress.