Drawing level, his gaze pinned Minerva. “I’ll see you in the study when you’re free.”
She was free now. As Royce strode from the room, she patted her lips, edged back her chair, waited for the footman to draw it out for her. She smiled at Hubert as she stood. “I know I’ll regret not hearing the rest of your news—it’s like a fairy tale.”
He grinned. “Never mind. There’s not much more to tell.”
She swallowed a laugh, fought to look suitably disappointed as she hurried from the room in Royce’s wake.
He’d already disappeared up the stairs; she climbed them, then walked quickly to the study, wondering which part of the estate he’d choose to interrogate her on today.
Since their visit to Usway Burn on Friday, he’d had her sitting before his desk for a few hours each day, telling him about the estate’s tenant farms and the families who held them. He didn’t ask about profits, crops, or yields, none of the things Kelso or Falwell were responsible for, but about the farms themselves, the land, the farmers and their wives, their children. Who interacted with whom, the human dynamics of the estate; that was what he questioned her on.
When she’d passed on his father’s dying message, she hadn’t known whether he’d actually had it in him to be different; Variseys tended to breed true, and along with their other principal traits, their stubbornness was legendary.
That was why she hadn’t delivered the message immediately. She’d wanted Royce to see and know what his father had meant, rather than just hear the words. Words out of context were too easy to dismiss, to forget, to ignore.
But now he’d heard them, absorbed them, and made the effort, responded to the need, and scripted a new way forward with the Macgregors. She was too wise to comment, not even to encourage; he’d waited for her to say something, but she’d stepped back and left him to define his own way.
With skill and luck, one could steer Variseys; one couldn’t lead them.
Jeffers was on duty outside the study. He opened the door and she walked in.
Royce was pacing back and forth before the window behind the desk, looking out at his lands, his every stride invested with the lethal grace of a caged jungle cat, muscles sleekly taut, shifting beneath the fine weave of his coat and his thigh-hugging buckskin breeches.
She simply stood, unable to look away; instinct wouldn’t allow her to take her eyes from such a predatory sight.
And looking was no hardship.
She could sense his whipping temper, knew he could lash out, yet was utterly sure he would never hurt her. Or any woman. Yet the turbulent emotions seething within him, swirling in powerful currents all around him, would have most women, most men, edging away.
Not her. She was attracted to the energy, to the wild and compelling power that was so intrinsic a part of him.
H
er dangerous secret.
She waited. The door had closed; he knew she was there. When he gave no sign, she advanced and sat in the chair.
Abruptly, he halted. He hauled in a huge breath, then swung around, and dropped into his chair. “The farm at Lin-shields. Who holds it these days—is it still the Carews?”
“Yes, but I think you probably remember Carew senior. It’s his son who runs the farm now.”
He kept her talking for the next hour, pressing her, questions flying at a cracking pace.
Royce tried to keep his mind wholly focused on business—on the information he drew from her—yet her answers flowed so freely he had time to truly listen, not just to what she was saying but to her voice, the timbre, the faint huskiness, the rise and fall of emotions as she let them color her words.
She had no reticence, no shields, not on this subject, not any longer. He didn’t need to watch for hints of prevarication, or of reserve.
So his wider senses had time to dwell on the rise and fall of her breasts, the way one errant curl fell across her forehead, time to note the gold flecks that came alive in her eyes when she smiled over some recounted incident.
Eventually, his questions ended, died. His temper dissipated, he sat back in his chair. Physically relaxed, inwardly brooding. His gaze on her.
“I didn’t thank you for saving me at luncheon.”
Minerva smiled. “Hubert was a surprise. And it was your relatives we saved, not you.”
He grimaced, reached out to reposition a pencil that had rolled across the blotter. “They’re right in that I will need to marry, but I can’t see why they’re so intent on pushing the subject at this time.” He glanced at her, a question in his eyes.
“I’ve no idea why, either. I’d expected them to leave that topic for at least a few months, mourning and all. Although I suppose no eyebrows would be raised if you became betrothed within the year.”