“An excellent idea!” Seeing Royce’s nod, Minerva turned to Hamilton. “Once we’ve done the rooms, you and Retford could make up a list. I’ll check it, then Handley can make copies.” She glanced at Royce, brows rising.
He nodded. “Handley will be with me in the study for most of the day, but he’ll have time in the afternoon to do the lists.”
Minerva smiled. Letitia had been right; there was very little she couldn’t overcome—not with Royce, and the entire household, at her back. There was something intensely satisfying about being the general at the head of the troops; she’d always loved her chatelaine role, but she was going to enjoy being a duchess even more.
Royce’s eyes held hers, then his lips kicked up at the ends. With a last glance, and a salute, he left her. Reaching for her cup, she returned to her lists.
The next morning they tumbled out of his bed early, and together rode up Usway Burn. Against everyone’s but Royce’s expectations, the cottages were nearing completion; after glancing over the improvements, Minerva sat on a bench against the front wall of the largest cottage while Royce made a more detailed inspection, old Macgregor at his elbow.
Of the major projects Royce had approved since he’d taken up the ducal reins, the footbridge over the Coquet had had first call on Hancock’s time. The bridge was now a proper footbridge, raised higher to avoid bores, rebuilt, and properly braced. The cottages had come next, and they were nearly finished; another week would see them done. After that, Hancock and his team would start on the mill—not a moment too soon, but luckily the weather had held, and all the wood and even more importantly the glass had already been procured. The mill would be sealed before winter, which, aside from all the rest, was a great deal more than she’d thought to achieve before his father had died.
She looked up, watched as Royce and Macgregor, deep in discussion, paced slowly across to the cottage on the left. She smiled as they disappeared, then let her mind slide to its present preoccupation.
The first guests, all family, had arrived yesterday. Today, his friends and hers would drive up. He’d chosen Rupert, Miles, Gerald, and Christian as his groomsmen; against that, she’d chosen Letitia, Rose, an old friend Ellen, Lady Am-bervale, and Susannah as her matrons-of-honor. She’d felt obliged to have one of his sisters, and despite Susannah’s idiotic attempt at manipulation, she’d meant well, and Margaret or Aurelia would have been too grim.
All three of his sisters had arrived yesterday; all three were being very careful around her, aware that not only did she now have their all-powerful brother’s ear, she also knew virtually all their secrets. Not that she was likely to do anything with the knowledge, but they didn’t know that.
One part of the guest list that he’d supplied had pleased her enormously; he’d invited eight of his ex-colleagues. From Letitia, Penny, and Clarice she’d heard much about the group—the members of the Bastion Club plus Jack, Lord Hendon, and all their wives; she’d heard that Royce had declined to attend their weddings, and hadn’t been the least surprised to receive instant acceptances from the respective ladies. She suspected they intended to make a point by dancing joyously at his wedding.
Regardless, she was looking forward to meeting them all, those who had been closest to Royce professionally over the last years.
Over the few hours they’d managed to steal for their own—those not spent in his bed—she’d encouraged him to tell her more of the activities that had filled his lost years, those years of his life that had been lost to her, and his parents. After an initial hesitation, he’d gradually relaxed his guard, speaking increasingly freely of various missions, and the numerous threads he’d woven into a net for gathering intelligence, both military and civilian.
He’d described it all well enough for her, knowing him, to see it, feel it, understand how and in what way the activity of those years had impacted on him. He’d admitted he’d killed, in cold blood, not on foreign soil, but here in England. He’d expected her to be shocked, had tensed, but had relaxed, relieved, when, after he’d confirmed such deaths had been essential for national safety, she’d merely blinked, and nodded.
He’d told her of the Bastion Club members’ recent adventures. He’d also told her about the man they’d termed “the last traitor”—the fiend Clarice had mentioned—an Englishman, a gentleman of the ton, most likely someone with a connection to the War Office, who’d betrayed his country for French treasure, and had killed and killed again to escape Royce and his men.
After the war’s end, Royce had lingered in London, pursuing every last avenue in an attempt to learn the last traitor’s identity. He’d cited that as his only failure.
To her relief, he’d clearly put that unfulfilled chase behind him; he spoke of it as history, not a current activity. That he could accept such a failure was reassuring; she knew enough to appreciate that, in a man as powerful as he, knowing when to walk away was a strength, not a weakness.
That over the last weeks he’d talked to her so openly, and in return had elicited from her details of how she’d spent the same years, had left her feeling increasingly confident of the strength that would underpin their marriage—had left her ever more secure in the reality of his love.
A love he, still, could not see.
Emerging from the cottage, he exchanged farewells with Macgregor, shaking the old man’s hand. Turning to her, he met her eyes, arched a brow. “Are you ready?”
She smiled, rose, and gave him her hand. “Yes. Lead on.”
He was back at Wolverstone, under his nemesis’s roof once more. Even though he had to share a room with Rohan, he didn’t care. He was there, close, and invisible among the gathering throng. Everyone could see him, yet no one really could—not the real him. He was hidden, forever concealed.
No one would ever know.
His plans were well advanced, at least in theory. All he had to do now was find the right place to stage his ultimate victory.
It shouldn’t be too hard; the castle was huge, and there were various buildings people paid little attention to dotted through the gardens. He had two days to find the perfect place.
Two days before he would act.
And finally win free of the torment.
Of the black, corrosive fear.
By Wednesday afternoon, the castle was full, literally to the rafters. With so many members of the haut ton attending, the number of visiting servants had stretched the accommodations below stairs—or rather in the attics—to their limit.
“We’ve even put cots in the ironing room,” Trevor told Minerva when she met him in the gallery reverently ferrying a stack of perfectly ironed cravats. “We’ve moved the ironing boards into the laundry—unlikely we’ll be doing much washing over the next two days.”
She grimaced. “At least this time everyone is leaving the next day.”