Stephanie Laurens - Mastered By Love

Stephanie Laurens

Mastered By Love

A Bastion Club Novel

Contents It wasnt supposed to have been like this.Armor of the sort she needed wasnt easy to find.At nine the next morning, Royce sat at the headRoyce strode into the breakfast parlor early the next morning,That evening, Royce walked into the great drawing room inRoyce walked into the drawing room that evening more uncertainThe next morning, garbed in her riding habit, Minerva satRoyce walked into the drawing room that evening, and calmlyDespite the physical frustrations of the night, Royce was inThe next morning, she commenced her campaign to protect herBy lunchtime the next day, Royce was hot, flushed, sweatyandA full moon rode the sky; Minerva didnt need aHe woke her sometime before dawn, time enough to indulgeRoyce woke her before dawn in predictable fashion; Minerva reachedTwo nights later, Minerva slipped into Royces rooms, and gaveMinervatake off the gown.Hamish OLoughlin, you mangy Scot, how dare you tell RoyceMinerva paused just inside Royces sitting room to drag inAt a smidgen before dawn, Minerva floated back to herThe next morning, Minerva stood beside Royce as, with theThe clamor was deafening.Minerva had weathered the prick of the cravat pinmore through

a last bastion against the matchmakers of the ton

MEMBERS

Lady Letitia Randall#7 Christian Allardyee,
Marquess of DearneAlicia Carrington Pevensey#2 Anthony Blake,
Viscount TorringtonPhoebe Malleson#5 Jocelyn Deverell,
Viscount Paignton #1 THE LADY CHOSEN#2 A GENTLEMANS HONOR#3 A LADY OF HIS OWN#4 A FINE PASSIONLady Penelope Selborne#3 Charles St. Austell,
Earl of LostwithielMadeline Gascoigne#6 Gervase Tregarth,
Earl of CrowhurstLady Clarice Attwood#4 Jack Warnefleet,
Baron Warnefleet of MinchinburyLeonora Carling#1 Tristan Wemyss,
Earl of TrenthamAnd so it ends. DL#5 TO DISTRACTION#6 BEYOND SEDUCTION#7 THE EDGE OF DESIRE

September 1816Coquetdale, NorthumbriaIt wasnt supposed to have been like this.Wrapped in his greatcoat, alone on the box seat of his excellently sprung curricle, Royce Henry Varisey, tenth Duke of Wolverstone, turned the latest in the succession of post-horses hed raced up the highway from London onto the minor road leading to Sharperton and Harbottle. The gently rounded foothills of the Cheviot Hills gathered him in like a mothers arms; Wolverstone Castle, his childhood home and newly inherited principal estate, lay close by the village of Alwinton, beyond Harbottle.One of the horses broke stride; Royce checked it, held the pair back until they were in step, then urged them on. They were flagging. His own high-bred blacks had carried him as far as St. Neots on Monday; thereafter hed had a fresh pair put to every fifty or so miles.It was now Wednesday morning, and he was a long way from London, once againafter sixteen long yearsentering home territory. Ancestral territory. Rothbury and the dark glades of its forest lay behind him; ahead the rolling, largely treeless skirts of the Cheviots, dotted here and there with the inevitable sheep, spread around the even more barren hills themselves, their backbone the border with Scotland beyond.The hills, and that border, had played a vital role in the evolution of the dukedom. Wolverstone had been created after the Conquest as a marcher lordship to protect England from the depredations of marauding Scots. Successive dukes, popularly known as the Wolves of the North, had for centuries enjoyed the privileges of royalty within their domains.Many would argue they still did.Certainly theyd remained a supremely powerful clan, their wealth augmented by their battlefield prowess, and protected by their success in convincing successive sovereigns that such wily, politically powerful ex-kingmakers were best left alone, left to hold the Middle March as they had since first setting their elegantly shod Norman feet on English soil.Royce studied the terrain with an eye honed by absence. Reminded of his ancestry, he wondered anew if their traditional marcher independenceoriginally fought for and won, recognized by custom and granted by royal charter, then legally rescinded but never truly taken away, and even less truly given uphadnt underpinned the rift between his father and him.His father had belonged to the old school of lordship, one that had included the majority of his peers. According to their creed, loyalty to either country or sovereign was a commodity to be traded and bought, something both Crown and country had to place a suitable price upon before it was granted. More, to dukes and earls of his fathers ilk, country had an ambiguous meaning; as kings in their own domains, those domains were their primary concern while the realm possessed a more nebulous and distant existence, certainly a lesser claim on their honor.While Royce would allow that swearing fealty to the pres ent monarchymad King George and his dissolute son, the Prince Regentwasnt an attractive proposition, he held no equivocation over swearing allegiance, and service, to his countryto England.As the only son of a powerful ducal family and thus barred by long custom from serving in the field, when, at the tender age of twenty-two, hed been approached to create a network of English spies on foreign soil, hed leapt at the chance. Not only had it offered the prospect of contributing to Napoleons defeat, but with his extensive personal and family contacts combined with his inherent ability to inspire and command, the position was tailor-made; from the first it had fitted him like a glove.But to his father the position had been a disgrace to the name and title, a blot on the family escutcheon; his old-fashioned views had labeled spying as without question dishonorable, even if one were spying on active military enemies. It was a view shared by many senior peers at the time.Bad enough, but when Royce had refused to decline the commission, his father had organized an ambush. A public one, in Whites, at a time of the evening when the club was always crowded. With his cronies at his back, his father had passed public judgment on Royce in strident and excoriating terms.As his peroration, his father had triumphantly declared that if Royce refused to bow to his edict and instead served in the capacity for which hed been recruited, then it would be as if he, the ninth duke, had no son.Even in the white rage his fathers attack had provoked, Royce had noted that as if. He was his fathers only legitimate son; no matter how furious, his father would not formally disinherit him. The interdict would, however, banish him from all family lands.Facing his apoplectic sire over the crimson carpet of the exclusive club, surrounded by an army of fascinated aristocracy, hed waited, unresponsive, until his father had finished his well-rehearsed speech. Hed waited until the expectant silence surrounding them had grown thick, then hed uttered three words: As you wish.Then hed turned and walked from the club, and from that day forth had ceased to be his fathers son. From that day hed been known as Dalziel, a name taken from an obscure branch of his mothers family tree, fitting enough given it was his maternal grandfatherby then deadwho had taught him the creed by which hed chosen to live. While the Variseys were marcher lords, the Debraighs were no less powerful, but their lands lay in the heart of England and theyd served king and countryprincipally countryselflessly for centuries. Debraighs had stood as both warriors and statesmen at the right hand of countless monarchs; duty to their people was bred deeply in them.While deploring the rift with his father, the Debraighs had approved Royces stance, yet, sensitive even then to the dynamics of power, hed discouraged their active support. His uncle, the Earl of Catersham, had written, asking if there was anything he could do. Royce had replied in the negative, as he had to his mothers similar query; his fight was with his father and should involve no one else.That had been his decision, one hed adhered to throughout the subsequent sixteen years; none of them had expected vanquishing Napoleon to take so long.But it had.Through those years hed recruited the best of his generation of Guards, organized them into a network of secret operatives, and successfully placed them throughout Napoleons territories. Their success had become the stuff of legend; those who knew correctly credited his network with saving countless British lives, and contributing directly to Napoleons downfall.His success on that stage had been sweet. However, with Napoleon on his way to St. Helena, hed disbanded his crew, releasing them to their civilian lives. And, as of Monday, he, too, had left his former lifeDalziels lifebehind.He hadnt, however, expected to assume any title beyond the courtesy one of Marquess of Winchelsea. Hadnt expected to immediately assume control of the dukedom and all it comprised.His ongoing banishmenthed never expected his father to back down any more than he himself hadhad effectively estranged him from the dukedoms houses, lands, and people, and most especially from the one place that meant most to himWolverstone itself. The castle was far more than just a home; the stone walls and battlements held somethingsome magicthat resonated in his blood, in his heart, in his soul. His father had known that; it had been the same for him.Despite the passage of sixteen years, as the horses raced on Royce still felt the pull, the visceral tug that only grew stronger as he rattled through Sharperton, drawing ever closer to Wolverstone. He felt faintly surprised that it should be so, that despite the years, the rift, his own less than susceptible temperament, he could still sensehome.That home still meant what it always had.That it still moved him to his soul.He hadnt expected that, any more than hed expected to be returning like thisalone, in a tearing rush, without even his longtime groom, Henry, another Wolverstone outcast, for company through the empty miles.On Monday, while tidying the last of Dalziels files from his desk, hed been planning his return to Wolverstone. Hed imagined driving up from London by easy stages, arriving at the castle fresh and restedin suitable state to walk into his fathers presenceand see what came next.Hed imagined an apology from his father might, just might, have featured in that scene; hed been curious to see, yet hadnt been holding his breath.But now hed never know.His father had died on Sunday.Leaving the rift between themvicious and deep, naturally enough given they were both Variseysunhealed. Unaddressed. Unlaid to rest. He hadnt known whether to curse his father or fate for leaving him to cauterize the wound.Regardless, dealing with his past was no longer the most urgent matter on his plate. Picking up the reins of a far-flung and extensive dukedom after a sixteen-year absence was going to demand all his attention, command all of his abilities to the exclusion of all else. He would succeedthere was neither question nor option in that regardbut how long it would take, and what it would cost himhow the devil he was to do it, he didnt know.Next page