Mastered by Love (Bastion Club 8)

“Moll and I will come to the church.” Hamish exchanged a glance with Molly, who nodded, then he looked at Royce and grinned. “But you’ll have to manage on your own at the wake.”

Royce sighed. “I had hoped presenting them with a Scottish giant might distract them. Now I’ll have to think of something else.”

“Nah—I should think you yourself, the prodigal son returned, will be distraction enough.”

“That,” Royce said, “was my point.”

Hamish chortled and they let the matter slide; Royce steered the conversation to local farming conditions and the upcoming harvest. Hamish had his pride, something Royce respected; his half brother had never set foot inside the castle.

As he’d expected, on the subject of farming he got more pertinent information from Hamish than from his own steward and agent; the farms in the area were scraping by, but were not exactly thriving.

Hamish himself was faring rather better. He held his lands freehold; his mother had been the only daughter of a freeholder. She’d married later in life, and Hamish had been her only child. He’d inherited the farm from her, and with the stipend his father had settled on him, had had the capital to expand and improve his stock; he was now a well-established sheep farmer.

At the end of the meal, Royce thanked Molly, bussed her cheek, then, following Hamish, snagged an apple from the bowl on the dresser, and they took their talk outside.

They sat on the stone wall, feet dangling, and looked across the hills. “Your stipend continues to your death, but you knew that.” Royce took a bite of his apple; it crunched sharply.

“Aye.” Hamish settled beside him. “So how did he die?”

“Minerva Chesterton was with him.” Royce related what she’d told him.

“Have you managed to contact all the others?”

“Minerva’s written to the girls—they’re all on one or other of the estates. That’s eleven of the fifteen.” His father had sired fifteen illegitimate children on maids, tavern wenches, farm and village lasses; for some reason he’d always drawn his lovers from the local lower orders. “The other three men are in the navy—I’ll write to them. Not that his death materially changes anything.”

“Aye, still, they’ll need to know.” Hamish eyed him for a moment, then asked, “So, are you going to be like him?”

Tossing away his apple core, Royce slanted him a narrow-eyed glance. “In what way?”

Unabashed, Hamish grinned. “In exactly the way you thought I meant. Are you going to have every farmer in the region locking up his daughters?”

Royce snorted. “Definitely not my style.”

“Aye, well.” Hamish tugged at one earlobe. “Never was mine, either.” For a moment they dwelled on their sire’s sexual proclivities, then Hamish went on, “It was almost as if he saw himself as one of the old marcher lords, royal perquisites and all. Within his domains, he saw, he wanted, he took—not, as I heard it, that any of the lasses resisted all that much. M’ mother certainly didn’t. Told me she never regretted it—her time with him.”

Royce smiled. “She was talking about you, you daft beggar. If she hadn’t spent that time with him, she wouldn’t have had you.”

“P’rhaps. But even in her last years, she used to get a wistful look in her eye whenever she spoke of him.”

Another moment passed, then Royce said, “At least he looked after them.”

Hamish nodded.

They sat for a time, drinking in the ever-changing views, the play of light over the hills and valleys, the shifting hues as the sun edged to the west, then Hamish stirred and looked at Royce. “So, will you be mostly at the castle, then, or will London and the sassenach ladies lure you south?”

“No. In that respect I’ll be following in his footsteps. I’ll live at the castle except when duty to the estate, family or the Lords calls me south.” He frowned. “Speaking of living here, what have you heard of the castle’s agent, Kelso, or the steward, Falwell?”

Hamish shrugged. “They’ve been your father’s eyes and ears for decades. Both are…well, not quite local anymore. They live in Harbottle, not on the estate, which causes some difficulty. Both were born on the estate, but moved to the town years ago, and for some reason your father didn’t object—suspect he thought they’d still know the land. Not something you forget all that easily, after all.”

“No, but things, conditions, change. Attitudes change, too.”

“Och, well, you’ll not get those two changing anything in a hurry. Right set in their ways—which I always supposed was why they suited the old bastard so well. Right set in his ways, he was.”

“Indeed.” After a moment of reflecting on his sire’s resistance to change, and how deep that had gone, Royce admitted, “I might have to replace them—retire them—both, but I won’t know until I’ve had a chance to get out and about and assess matters for myself.”

“If it’s information on the estate you need, your chatelaine can fill you in. Minerva’s the one everyone goes to if there’s a problem. Most have grown weary—in fact, wary—of going to Falwell or Kelso. Like as not, if they make a complaint, either nothing gets done, or the wrong thing—something worse that wasn’t intended—happens.”

Royce leveled a direct look at Hamish. “That doesn’t sound good.”