Their bright, eager gazes flicked from the horses to him, but the instant they saw him watching, they looked back at the horses. He revised his earlier conclusion; they were interested in him, but the horses were easier to approach.
He was their duke; they were his future workers.
Mentally girding his loins, moving slowly and deliberately, he tied off the reins, then stepped down and strolled to the horses’ heads. Some of the children were quite small, and the blacks, although temporarily quiet, were completely untrustworthy.
The crowd drew back a step or two, the older boys and girls bobbing bows and curtsies. The younger ones weren’t sure what to do or why. One girl hissed to her recalcitrant little brother, “He’s the new dook, stoopid.”
Royce pretended he hadn’t heard. He nodded amiably—a general nod that included them all—then, catching his leader’s bridle, reached up and smoothed a hand down the long arched neck.
An instant passed, then—
“Do you ride ’em, Y’r Grace? Or are they just for hauling th’ carriage?”
“Have you won any races with ’em, Y’r Grace?”
“Is this here a curricle, or one of them phaetons, Y’r Grace?”
“How fast can they go, Y’r Grace?”
He very nearly told them to stop “Y’r Grace”-ing him, but realized it might sound like a reprimand. Instead, he set himself to answering their questions in a calm, unruffled manner.
Somewhat to his surprise, the approach he used with horses worked with children, too. They relaxed, and he had the chance to turn the tables enough to learn a little about the small settlement. Minerva had told him five families lived in the three cottages. The children confirmed that only the older women were at home; all the other adults and youths were in the fields, or working in the forge a little way farther along the track. They themselves weren’t at school because there was no school nearby; they learned their letters and numbers from the older women.
After a few such exchanges, the children clearly felt the ice had been broken and their bona fides sufficiently established to ask about him.
“We did hear tell,” the lad he thought was the oldest said, “that you was working in London for the government—that you were a spy!”
That surprised him; he’d thought his father would have ensured his occupation had remained a dim, dark secret.
“No, silly!” The oldest girl blushed when Royce and the others looked her way, but gamely went on, “Ma said as you were the chief spy—the one in charge—and that you were responsible for bringing down Boney.”
“Well…not by myself. The men I organized did very dangerous things, and yes, they contributed to Napoleon’s downfall, but it took Wellington and the whole army, and Blucher and the others, too, to finally get the deed done.”
Naturally, they took that as an invitation to pepper him with questions about his men’s missions; borrowing freely from otherwise classified exploits, it was easy enough to keep the expectant horde satisfied, although they were rather put out to learn he hadn’t actually seen Napoleon dragged away in chains.
After delivering the preserves she’d brought, and being introduced to the latest addition to the combined households by its grandmother, juggling the swaddled infant in her arms, cooing while it batted at her hair, Minerva went to the window the better to see the child’s eyes, glanced out—and tensed to hand the babe back so she could rush out and rescue its siblings.
Or Royce, whichever applied…but after an instant of looking, taking in the tableau centered on the black horses, the curricle—and the most powerful duke in England, who appeared to be telling some tale—she relaxed and, smiling, turned back to the baby and cooed some more.
The baby’s grandmother came to the window; she, too, took in the scene outside. Her brows rose. After a moment, she said, “Looking at that, if I couldn’t see with my own eyes that he’s the last lord’s get, I’d be thinking some cuckoo had got into the ducal nest.”
Minerva’s smile deepened; the idea of Royce as a cuckoo…“He’s definitely a Varisey, born and bred.”
The old woman humphed. “Aye, we’ll all be locking up our daughters, no doubt. Still…” She turned from the window and headed back to her work. “If that had been his father out there, he would have snarled at the brats and sent them scurrying—just because he could.”
Minerva couldn’t disagree, yet old Henry would never have even considered coming out with her on her rounds.
Nevertheless, she didn’t tempt fate; handing the baby back to its grandmother, she collected her basket, and was saying her farewells when a large presence darkened the doorway. Royce had to duck low to enter.
The three women immediately bobbed curtsies; Minerva introduced them before he could make any abrupt demand that they leave.
He acknowledged the women smoothly, then his gaze flicked over her, taking in the empty basket in her hand. But again, before he could say anything, the matriarch, who’d seized the moment to size him up, came forward to show him her grandchild.
Minerva held her breath, sensed him tense to step back— retreating from the baby—but then he stiffened and held his ground. He nodded formally at the matriarch’s words, then, about to turn and leave, hesitated.
He reached out and touched the back of one long finger to the baby’s downy cheek. The baby gurgled and batted with tiny fists. The grandmother’s face was wreathed in smiles.
She saw Royce notice, saw him take in the way the other women softened, too. Then he glanced at her.