Mastered by Love (Bastion Club 8)

It was a question, one Hamish understood. “Aye, well, you’d written that you’d be giving up that commission of yours, and I knew you’d come home—didn’t think there was any need to write and tell you how things were not going quite so well. I knew you’d see it once you got back, and Minerva Chesterton was doing we

ll enough holding the fort.” He shrugged his massive shoulders; they both looked south, over the peaks toward Wolverstone. “It might be not the done thing for me to say this, but perhaps it’s as well that he’s gone. Now you’ve got the reins, and it’s more than time for a new broom.”

Royce would have smiled at the mixed metaphor, but what they were discussing was too serious. He stared in the direction in which his responsibilities, growing weightier by the hour, lay, then he slid from the wall. “I should go.”

Hamish paced alongside as he went to the barn and saddled Sword, then swung up to the saddle and walked the big gray into the yard.

Halting, he held out his hand.

Hamish clasped it. “We’ll see you Friday at the church. If you get caught having to make a decision about something on the estate, you can rely on Minerva Chesterton’s opinion. People trust her, and respect her judgment—whatever she advises will be accepted by your tenants and workers.”

Royce nodded; inwardly he grimaced. “That’s what I thought.”

What he’d feared.

He saluted, then flicked the reins, and set Sword for Clennell Street and Wolverstone.

Home.

He’d torn himself away from the peace of the hills…only to discover when he rode into the castle stables that his sisters—all three of them, together with their husbands—had arrived.

Jaw set, he stalked toward the house; his sisters could wait—he needed to see Minerva.

Hamish’s confirmation that she was, indeed, the current champion of the estate’s well-being left him with little choice. He was going to have to rely on her, spend hours gleaning everything he could about the estate from her, ride out with her so she could show him what was going on—in short, spend far more time with her than he wished.

Than was wise.

Entering the house by the side door, he heard a commotion ahead, filling the cavernous front hall, and steeled himself. Felt his temper ratchet up another notch.

His elder sisters, Margaret, Countess of Orkney, and Aurelia, Countess of Morpeth, had agreed, implicitly if not explicitly, with his father over his erstwhile occupation; they’d supported his banishment. But he’d never got on well with either of them; at best he tolerated them, and they ignored him.

He was, always had been, much closer to his younger sister, Susannah, Viscountess Darby. She hadn’t agreed or disagreed with his banishment; no one had asked her, no one would have listened to her, so she’d wisely kept her mouth shut. He hadn’t been surprised about that. What had surprised, even hurt a trifle, was that she’d never sought to contact him over the past sixteen years.

Then again, Susannah was fickle; he’d known that even when they’d been much younger.

Nearing the hall, he changed his stride, letting his boot heels strike the floor. The instant he stepped onto the marble tiles of the hall, his footsteps rang out, effectively silencing the clamor.

Silks swooshed as his sisters whirled to face him. They looked like birds of prey in their weeds, their veils thrown back over their dark hair.

He paused, studying them with an impersonal curiosity. They’d aged; Margaret was forty-two, a tall, commanding dark-haired despot with lines starting to score her cheeks and brow. Aurelia, forty-one, was shorter, fairer, brown-haired, and from the set of her lips looked to have grown even more severely disapproving with the years. Susannah…had made a better fist of growing older; she was thirty-three, four years younger than Royce, but her dark hair was up in a confection of curls, and her gown, although regulation black, was stylishly fashionable. From a distance, she might pass for an adult daughter of either of her elder sisters.

Imagining how well that thought would go down, he looked back at the older two, and realized they were struggling with the fraught question of how to address him now he was the duke, and no longer simply their younger brother.

Margaret drew in a huge breath, breasts rising portentously, then swept forward. “There you are, Royce!” Her chiding tone made it clear he should have been dutifully awaiting their arrival. She raised a hand as she neared—intending to grip his arm and shake it, as had been her habit when trying to make him do something. “I—”

She broke off—because he’d caught her eye. Breath strangling in her throat, she halted, hand in the air, faintly shocked.

Aurelia bobbed a curtsy—a perfunctory one not nearly deep enough—and came forward more cautiously. “A dreadful business. It’s been a very great shock.”

No “How are you?” No “How have you been these last sixteen years?”

“Of course, it’s been a shock.” Susannah strolled up. She met his eyes. ”And I daresay it was an even bigger shock for you, all things considered.” Reaching him, she smiled, stretched up, and kissed his cheek. “Welcome home.”

That, at least, had been genuine. He nodded to her. “Thank you.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw the other two exchange an irritated glance. He scanned the sea of footmen sorting through the piles of boxes and trunks, preparing to cart them upstairs, saw Retford look his way, but he was searching for Minerva.

He found her in the center of the melee, talking to his brothers-in-law. She met his eyes; the men turned, saw him looking their way, and came to greet him.