“You shouldn’t be out here at this hour,” he said. “Am I to expect trouble every time we cross paths?”
He didn’t sound angry. His hand stroking her waist didn’t feel angry. “Are we to cross paths often?” She dearly hoped so, if he would keep touching her like this. Why had Maman never told her a man’s hand could feel so magical?
“Not if I can avoid it,” he said dryly, stepping away. “Just so I might know who to avoid, do you have a name?”
The sudden coldness of his departure caused a rush of disappointment. She crossed her arms over her breasts and glared at the moonlit hill rather than look at him. He still didn’t recognize her. Were all men blind?
A complex man was Dunstan Ives. In the interest of testing her theory that he was a different man outside of the society to which he belonged, she answered, “Lily. And yours?”
“Is of no moment. Stay away from Wickham and his kind, Lily. They are not for the likes of us.”
She heard him moving away, and she whirled around. “What kind is he, sir? The offspring of a younger son? A person of charm? And just what exactly are we? The morally upright of the world?”
He halted and turned to look at her over his shoulder. “Stay away from those who think they can take what they want. The likes of us cannot afford to lose what little we possess.”
Could Wickham take her garden away? Could he take from her the best agronomist in the kingdom? Surely not. Nor could he rob Dunstan of his knowledge. With renewed confidence, she taunted, “I think we possess far more than you realize, and what we possess is far too difficult for worms like Wickham to take.”
She couldn’t read his expression in the dying light, but when he made no reply, she hastened to add what she had not said earlier. “I thank you for coming to my rescue.”
“I did nothing but save the man a nasty knife wound. Be more careful in the future.” He spun on his heel and strode across the newly plowed furrows.
“Wait a minute!” she cried.
He halted but didn’t turn to face her.
“Why did you come here at this hour?”
This time he tilted his head and nodded at Jehoshaphat playing among the bushes. “I followed the cat.”
He walked off, leaving Leila to stare after him. He followed her cat? Why? To see if it chased her rabbits? Because his was a protective nature that he concealed behind rudeness?
Twirling a curl thoughtfully, she wondered how long it would take to twist his head around and make him recognize Lily in Lady Leila. Would she have to strip off his surly mask before he could see behind hers? How best could she go about it?
And how furious would he be when he learned how she’d tricked him?
Seven
Saddling his horse, Dunstan plotted the route he would take that morning. He wanted to meet with one of the local farmers who had bought a new breed of sheep with wool much finer than that of the old-fashioned herd the estate kept. He and Drogo had had some success with sheep breeding at Ives.
Having no society but his own, he missed not having his brothers to consult. He told himself he would learn to live with it.
But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t drive Lily’s taunting words out of his mind. His whole body ached from last night’s encounter. First Lady Leila, then her diametric opposite. He needed a woman. Soon.
Logic prevailed. He couldn’t afford to support any progeny that might result from mindless rutting. He’d learned that lesson early in life. The parlor maid had seduced him the year that Drogo had inherited Ives. Bessie had been heavy with his child before he’d returned to school that year, and he and Drogo had been supporting her and his son ever since. Abstinence hadn’t suited him, so he’d taken Drogo’s advice and married soon after finishing school, but that hadn’t worked any better. At least Bessie had enjoyed bed play. Celia had cost him far more and satisfied him far less.
Riding out of the stable, he reined in the old gelding to open the gate, then halted his mount at the sight of a shiny new carriage swaying down the lane. The roads here were too rough for city carriages. Leaning against his horse’s neck, he amused himself watching the carriage wheels rub against brambles and lurch into ditches. A good highwayman ought to steal those pretty bays and make better use of them.
He raised his eyebrows as the contraption rolled to a halt in front of his gate.
A slight gentleman in a tricorne hat and silk frock coat stepped down. Even in London, his beribboned bagwig would look ridiculous on so small a man. In the country it was ludicrous. Dunstan bit back the urge to grin as high red heels stumbled in a rut, and the mud of the road splattered white stockings.
Dunstan’s gelding nickered, and the fancy gentleman finally looked up—Leila’s nephew, Viscount Staines.
With a sigh of aggravation, Dunstan swung down from the saddle. “May I help you?” He couldn’t bring himself to say “my lord” or even “sir” to this fresh-faced boy.
“Ives,” the young viscount said in what sounded like relief. “I must speak with you.”
Well, he hadn’t figured the boy meant to do anything else. Steeling himself against bad news, Dunstan tied his horse to the fence and led the viscount into the cottage. “You could have posted a letter.”
“I hate writing.” He sounded like a spoiled schoolboy refusing to do his lessons. “And my grandfather insisted I keep an eye on Leila. He doesn’t trust her.”
Probably with good reason, Dunstan thought, but held his tongue. Lady Leila was paying his salary. He owed her his loyalty, much as it irritated him to admit it. “The lady accepts my recommendations,” he answered mildly, showing his guest into his chilly parlor. “Martha isn’t here yet, so I can’t offer you coffee.”
The boy grimaced. “I hate coffee. Don’t know how anyone drinks it. I don’t suppose you can make hot chocolate?”
“I don’t suppose I can.” Impatiently, Dunstan gestured toward an ancient leather chair. “What can I do for you?”
Leila’s nephew paced instead of sitting. “You’ve let my aunt start building her gardens.” He pulled two cigars out of his pocket and offered them both to Dunstan.
Dunstan accepted the gift. “She is my employer.” Not commenting on the oddity of a boy handing him a cigar, he sniffed one.
Watching him from the corner of his eye, Staines waved fretfully. “My uncle wouldn’t let her build gardens for good reason. This is prime hunting country, and my grandfather loves to hunt.”
“Then your uncle shouldn’t have settled the estate on her.” Dunstan strolled to the window, idly poking the cigar with a lighting straw. When the straw encountered an obstacle, he turned his back on his guest, removed the childish device from the cigar, tossed it out the window, then lit the tobacco and drew deeply.
“My uncle was a besotted idiot, and Leila’s father is a marquess with the greed of a loan shark. She was supposed to build a dower house on the hill and leave the fields open for a park.” Outrage tinged the young viscount’s voice. “If Uncle Theodore hadn’t stuck his spoon in the wall before Grandfather, it would have been no problem, but now he’s left me to deal with his wretched widow.”
Dunstan stifled a snort of contempt at the whining boy. He had younger brothers who were more sensible than Staines. He took a long puff on the cigar until it smoked properly. Behind him, the viscount watched with barely concealed interest.
“If your father hadn’t fallen from a parapet and got himself killed before your uncle died,” Dunstan said carelessly, “the problem of Lady Leila would have been his instead of yours. I don’t see that your grandfather can expect you to deal with a situation you inherited and over which you have no control. The estate is hers for as long as she remains unmarried. I should think you’d both best walk softly around her.”
“My grandfather won’t,” the boy answered glumly. “He’s old and set in his ways and expects everyone to jump when he bellows. He’ll cut me out of his will if I don’t do what he says. Lady Mary won’t look twice at me
then.”
Dunstan figured he could go into his usual diatribe about the pestilence of inheritance laws and shallow youths who expected wealth to be given instead of earned, but it wasn’t his place. He wouldn’t inquire about the greedy Lady Mary, either. If Staines was referring to Lord John’s sister, she was cut from the same cloth as Celia and had been her closest friend. The boy was too young to be involved with avaricious females, but that was none of his concern.
Deliberately, Dunstan lit the second cigar with the fire from the first, turned, and held it out to the viscount. “Lady Leila will cut off your current income if you interfere,” he warned. “This may not be a fashionable estate, but it will produce good income sufficient to keep you for a lifetime. Why gamble what you have in hand for what the future might bring? The earl will have you dancing on his strings until he dies if you give in now.”
Staines gazed in trepidation from Dunstan’s smoking cigar to the newly lit one held out to him. “Leila is likely to live as long as I do.” Hesitantly, he accepted the roll of tobacco, inhaled, and coughed. “I’ll never be in control of my own life. She has refused three offers of marriage that I know of. She’s doing it to thwart me, I vow.”
“That’s possible, I suppose.” Remembering the lady’s repeated remonstrances, Dunstan added, “She may just want to make scents, though. Have you talked with her?”
The viscount’s cigar crackled, then sputtered. He jerked it from his mouth and held it at arm’s length with an expression of panic.
With deadpan interest, Dunstan leaned against the window frame, crossed his ankles, and, with one hand, casually opened the window wider.
Staines dashed past him and heaved the cigar onto the lawn. It shot a hunk of grass into the air with a satisfactory bang and a shower of sparks.
“How did you do that?” he shrieked, trembling a little as he turned back to eye Dunstan’s peacefully smoldering tobacco. The boy shoved his hands under his armpits and visibly attempted to compose himself.
Dunstan shrugged, closed the casement, and leaning back, blew a smoke ring. “I believe you were in the same class as Paul, one of my younger brothers. One of my more inventive brothers thought it vastly amus-ing to show Paul how to make cigars that exploded in the faces of bullies. I learned to dismantle them early on. You were saying?”
Irritated at the failure of his practical joke, the viscount answered petulantly. “Leila laughs at me and tells me the foxes may hide in her roses as much as they like. She hates hunting.” He stiffened his shoulders and glared. “The gardens have to go. Grandfather will be here in September, ready to hunt grouse. If the gardens aren’t gone by then, he will arrange for you to be.”
Dunstan grunted. He’d expected that. He lived on the edge of desperation, and never had to look far to see the drop-off. “I’ll see what I can do, but the lady is in the right of it. Marry her off, and she’ll no doubt forget about her little diversion.”
Marry her off, and he would no doubt lose his position. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
“I’m not wasting my time out here all summer,” Staines said. “I’ve better things to do. You tell her to marry. Pick someone out for her. Marry her yourself. I don’t give a fart. Just get her out of my hair, and you’ll have a position for life,” Staines concluded, apparently pleased with his generosity.
“Not very tempting,” Dunstan pointed out, deflating the boy once again. “I want land and freedom, not a landless ball and chain. Why should I be interested?”
He wished he had a choice, but his crop was planted. He couldn’t leave, not until harvest. His gut twisted, but he refused to give the boy the power of that knowledge.
The viscount frowned as if he hadn’t considered paying for what he wanted. Then a smile lit his beardless face. “If you marry her off, I’ll give you this tenant farm.”
“You’ll deed it to me if she marries?” Dunstan could scarcely believe his ears. The boy had a few loose screws in his brain works, but Dunstan wasn’t one to argue the proposition. With a farm of his own as the prize, he would contemplate seeking a suitable mate for her—not that he had a chance of swaying a Malcolm one way or another.
He supposed he could speak with her cousin, Ninian, on the off chance that there was someone Lady Leila might consider marrying.
Staines nodded eagerly. “The tenant farm isn’t entailed. Get rid of her, and this house is yours. The acreage is small, but fertile.”
Get rid of her, Dunstan thought dourly, lifting a skeptical eyebrow. The implication behind the command, given his reputation, did not sit well on his already grinding temper. “I’ll see if I can persuade her to move the gardens, but I make no guarantee on the rest.”
“I want her and the gardens gone.” The boy all but stomped his foot. “She is living on my land, in my house. It isn’t fair.”
Life wasn’t, but the boy must learn that lesson on his own. “I am not a magician. You might as well pray that your grandfather dies before September as to hope Lady Leila will be gone by then.”
“I’d rather pay than pray. It’s more effective. I learned one or two things in school.” With the arrogance of youth, the viscount sauntered toward the door. “I leave her in your hands, Ives. We’ll both be better off without her.”
On that much he could agree. Dunstan remained propped against the window frame, smoking his cigar and contemplating a bloody hunting picture on the wall while the carriage rattled away outside.
Get rid of the flower gardens by September, or lose his experimental turnips.
Marry her off, and gain the land it would take him years to earn.
Impossible, yet tempting.
The brat was the devil’s own. If the viscount had been one of his younger brothers, he’d have turned the boy over his knee and walloped some integrity into him.
In an ill temper, Dunstan stalked out, slapping his boots with his riding crop. He wished there were someone with a little more maturity and experience to help him argue this one out, but he knew Drogo would side with the damned Malcolms. That’s what marriage did to a man, softened his brain. He was on his own now.
He avoided the flower garden for the rest of the day. He discussed sheep herds, field drainage, enclosures, and weather with men who respected land as something more than just another possession. He understood this life. He’d grown up with it.
He didn’t understand the labyrinth of aristocratic society.
He didn’t understand women either, but as the sun descended behind the hills, Dunstan’s path wandered down the lane toward the mansion. He might slam women behind the barred door of his mind, but this particular woman was his employer, damn her. He needed to tell her what her conniving nephew was up to.
That excuse lasted only as long as it took to see the lady pacing the terrace that overlooked the unfinished gardens. Her silk skirts swept the cold stones while her guests laughed and chattered in the elegant parlor behind her. Swinging from the saddle, he wondered why she was out here alone.
Hair tightly curled, powdered, and ornamented with a lacy cap, wearing her closely corseted blacks, Lady Leila in no way resembled the free-spirited Lily, Dunstan noted with relief as he tethered his horse and strode toward her. He could resist a haughty aristocrat.
Still, the way she moved and the scent she exuded aroused him as swiftly as Lily did. The leather of his breeches threatened to cut off the flow of blood to a swelling part of his anatomy. Temptation dogged his every footstep these days.
The lady looked up at his approach, and a cautious smile warmed her features. She was his employer, and he wouldn’t allow himself to be seduced by a bewitching female, he told himself. He didn’t return her greeting.
Briefly, vulnerability was reflected in her features as her smile slipped away. He refused to let that affect him either.
She had a bevy of eager suitors in the house behind her. Could he encourage one of them? Hardly. If they were all the likes of Wickham, he couldn’t blame her for refusing the twits.
He didn’t know Wickham well, but if the man couldn’t be trusted with a village wench like Lily, could he be trusted in the company of a lady? Her young nephew didn’t seem concerned about the lady’s best interests.
The thought stirred Dunstan’s protective instincts, and he had to fight against them. Let her powerful family look after her.
Surrounded by society and meddling Malcolms, could Lady Leila really be as alone as she seemed? Impossible. Her femininity must be weakening his brain.
She turned her haughty gaze on the rosebushes sprouting new greenery. Her pride at the sight struck a responsive chord in him, and the possibility that they might share a common passion for living things unnerved him.
“They’re still alive, I see,” he murmured.
“I can’t tell about the weak ones.” She returned to pacing. “I suppose it’s too soon. Do you think we might add a pergola on the far end for climbing roses and wisteria? It would make a nice transition to the next level, and I could add benches for resting out of the sun.”
He’d had all day to think of Staines’s threats and promises. He was an inventive man, and various arguments to dissuade the lady from her gardens had occurred to him. He simply didn’t know how best to present them.
Perhaps if he pretended the regal Leila was as common as Lily, he could speak openly with her. If he ignored the height that brought the lady past his chin, he could almost imagine honest Lily beneath her powder and pride.
“This might not be the best place for a garden,” he suggested cautiously.
She whipped around as if he’d slapped her. It was too dark to read her expression, but he could hear fear and wariness in her voice. “Why?”
“Apparently the earl runs his fox hunts through here. A pack of galloping hunters would destroy the roses.”
She eyed him consideringly. “Or the thorns would destroy a few horses. The old man can find a new place to play. This is my land, to do with as I wish.”
Must Be Magic Page 7