Thank heavens Wickham had had the presence of mind to excuse himself and leave this morning before encountering Dunstan again. She didn’t need fisticuffs in her parlor.
“Let us pretend there is naught on our minds but each other,” she murmured to Dunstan. “It is time to go into dinner. Give me your arm, and we will lead.”
He stiffened. “As I told the young ladies, I have other obligations this evening. You must dine without me.”
“What obligation could possibly prevent your taking an hour to eat?” she demanded, refusing to be denied. It was time they learned to deal with each other on an equal basis. With Dunstan’s formidable aid, she could defeat her nephew’s annoying plots and rid herself of the hordes of suitors he imposed upon her. She would like to rip through Dunstan’s thorny emotional walls with a sharp sickle, but thought it best to try her feminine wiles first.
“I am your steward, not one of your suitors,” he demurred with just the right tone of false politeness to prevent her from smacking him. “My presence is not required.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You are the son of an earl, a noted agronomist, and this is a country gathering.” She instructed him as if he were a child. Irritated by his continued determination to ignore her, she retaliated. “You are aware that every man in society desires my company, and that you should be honored by my request?”
“You will notice that I do not frequent society,” he retorted.
Leila gritted her teeth. He did not desire her? Fustian. He’d certainly shown desire for her as Lily. He simply refused to admit she was one and the same.
Had she really expected him to? Had she thought she could throw out her snares and reel him in to do her bidding? How stupid of her. Ives were not men to be led about by their noses—or other body parts. And Dunstan Ives was a law unto himself.
Perhaps that was what society sensed and feared. Or—
Perhaps he feared society and all it represented—including her.
Perhaps they both preferred Lily, for different reasons.
Fascinated, Leila dug her fingers into Dunstan’s arm and all but dragged him into the dining room. Did she sense anxiety beneath the stubborn anger? How could she find out?
Somewhere inside him was a man who protected maidens in distress, saved baby rabbits, and developed turnips for needy farmers, a man who possessed the integrity to warn her when her nephew schemed against her. She needed to reach that man, to free him from his self-imposed prison. Perhaps then he might see that she wanted the same thing he did—respect for their abilities.
If she could not entice him with her usual snares, or reason with him as an equal, or call upon his chivalry, how could she persuade him that she might have a useful gift related to her talent for scents?
Observing how Dunstan stonily ignored her guests in the same manner as they ignored the possible murderer in their midst, Leila hid a smile of triumph as the answer to her dilemma materialized.
All she had to do was discover who had killed Dunstan’s wife.
With his name cleared, perhaps he would feel as free to speak with the Lady Leila as he did the village Lily. Of course, once he discovered how she had manipulated him, he would no doubt explode like some foreign volcano.
But even that thought excited her.
Stiffly, Dunstan seated Lady Leila at the head of the table. Her exotic scent filled his senses and made his head whirl. She might be too tall and grand to be Lily, but he desired her in the same way. It was insane, not to mention dangerous.
Her giggling young sisters followed them to the table, their gleaming golden locks reminding him with whom he was dealing. Malcolms! They would wrap him in invisible webs and squeeze what they wanted out of him.
What was it they wanted?
To his horror, he discovered that Lady Leila had seated him at her right, with one of her sisters on his far right and the other directly across the table. Desperately, he reached for his wineglass, then remembered that alcohol relaxed his control. He couldn’t afford to lose his head in this company.
“You have the aura of a thundercloud,” the older sister whispered. “Do you not like dinner parties?”
They were children. He couldn’t yell at children. Dunstan scowled at Lady Leila on his left, but she was giving instructions to a footman.
“I do not have polite conversation,” he replied. “Unless you wish to discuss the benefits of marl in poor soil, I cannot keep you entertained.”
The younger one, Felicity, leaned forward. “We could discuss your late wife. That’s what everyone else is doing. Did you really fight a duel with Mr. Wickham’s brother over her?”
He had no intention of telling her what had happened that day.
Why the devil did she wear her gloves at the dinner table? Grumpily assessing this Malcolm eccentricity, Dunstan responded more curtly than he intended. “I’m a farmer. I don’t fight duels.” He glanced again at his hostess, who was chatting with the vicar on her left. Why the deuce had she placed him here? He tugged at his constricting neckcloth.
“I heard your wife died in some outlandish out-of-the-way place,” Christina continued, “and that Mr. Wickham’s brother was the only possible witness, and you killed him. But you do not have the aura of a killer.”
Dunstan glared at Christina. She observed him in return with interest and not an iota of fear or ill will. He tried to look away and examine Lady Leila’s midnight-blue eyes instead, but she was sipping from her wineglass with her lashes lowered. She had no doubt inflicted these bothersome girls on him for some nefarious purpose.
“You have probably slain more beaus with your wiles than I have slain with my fists,” he told Christina through gritted teeth.
Across the table Felicity giggled. “I’ve never felt anyone vibrate a table before. You are a most intriguing man, Mr. Ives.”
Dunstan sought Lady Leila’s attention again, but she had now engaged the vicar in a debate over the merits of mulching roses. He longed to join the discussion, but the determined child on his right was analyzing his aura again. Dunstan slumped gloomily, in his seat.
Surveying the laughing company, he caught the disdainful glance of Lady Mary, a feebleminded goose who had been Celia’s best friend. Dunstan gulped his water as if it were ale, but that didn’t prevent him from noticing Lady Mary’s brother, Lord John, murmuring to the young viscount. When Staines glanced up at Dunstan with surprise, Dunstan figured his days on the estate were numbered, and discarding his water, he reached for the wine.
Focusing on the beautiful woman on his left, who was laughing merrily at something her sister had said, he fretted that the lady was the only obstacle between him and complete humiliation. How long before the forces of society battered her into submission?
As soon as the ladies departed from the table, he would escape this hell. If his employer wished to speak with him, she could do it on his terms, on his grounds.
“Those dark Ives looks give me shivers.” Wrapped in the linen folds of her nightdress, spectacles perched on the end of her nose, Felicity curled up in the middle of Leila’s bed. “I think they eat Malcolms for midnight snacks.”
Leila hid a smile at her sister’s innocence. The child would learn of male appetites soon enough. “We need not have anything to do with Ives men,” she reassured her.
Her sisters need not have anything to do with an Ives. She did. Drat the wretched man for escaping before they could talk after dinner.
“I’d much rather talk with Ives men,” Christina said excitedly, putting down her hairbrush. “Perhaps we could discover who really did kill Celia.”
“I scarcely think that’s a wise idea unless we can tell truth from rumors,” Leila replied, pacing her bedchamber. Her mother would berate her from now until doomsday if she involved her sisters in such an investigation. But how could she distract them when her own thoughts kept straying in that direction?
“They say Celia spent all Dunstan’s money and ran away with the jewels he’d boug
ht for her,” Felicity offered.
“Rumor has it that Dunstan found Celia and her lover together,” Christina added. “A passionate man might kill in the heat of the moment. But he seems far too cold for that.”
Leila stared out the dark window to the lights of Dunstan’s cottage. “I have watched him. He does not respond as other men when goaded. The more furious he becomes, the more discipline he displays.”
Of course, he had almost broken Wickham’s neck the other night when he heaved him across the field.
“Do we know where the murder took place?” Christina asked.
“At an inn in Baden-on-Lyme, not far from the Ives estate,” Leila replied. The location gave Dunstan opportunity, in addition to motive, and was another reason why society condemned him. Who else could have followed Celia so easily, or would have wished her dead?
Even Felicity looked interested now. “I don’t suppose Celia left a journal or anything I could touch?”
“Not that I know of,” Leila said sharply. “And you’re not to stop at the inn and ask.”
While her sisters fell eagerly into discussing the murder, Leila watched wistfully from her window. She wished she could be the one to solve the murder, but all she knew how to do was produce perfume. She would need to enlist the help of Ninian, or perhaps her powerful aunt Stella, if she was to help clear Dunstan’s name.
If her family saved his reputation, she could find a way to offer Dunstan a good life—one in which he didn’t have to hide behind his mask of indifference.
Unless she was deceiving herself, and he had killed Celia, of course. That could be a problem.
Nine
Standing in the courtyard where a carriage waited to return her sisters to London, Leila hugged each in turn. “I will miss you. I’m sorry I won’t be there for your come-outs. Have Maman or Aunt Stella send some of the younger ones to keep me entertained in your absence.”
“You would overshadow us if you returned to London,” Christina said, hugging her back. “Although that might not be a bad thing. Maybe Harry would fall in love with you, and I could be free to choose my own husband.”
“That won’t happen,” Felicity said gloomily, returning her spectacles to her pocket. “Not unless you lie and say he has a muddy aura or some such.”
“Then they might find me an old man, which would be worse.” Christina picked up her cloak and tied her bonnet strings. “It’s a pity the other Ives men have no titles or wealth. They’re far more interesting than anyone else I’ve met.”
“Dangerous, you mean. Only ninnyhammers prefer dangerous men,” Felicity said, tucking her book into her basket. “You haven’t been the same since you saw the lot of them at Ninian’s wedding, all dark and glowering and blowing up the place with a cannon.”
“It wasn’t a cannon,” Leila corrected. “It was an old musket. Now go on with the two of you. I’ve work to do, and you have a long way to travel.” Stifling pangs of envy and loneliness, she bustled them into their carriage.
She sighed as the horses pulled away in a splatter of mud. She’d had family and society around her for as long as she could remember. Perhaps her place was with family, as the ungifted one guiding her sisters through their Seasons. Was she being arrogant and self-absorbed to assume that her perfumes might have some value?
Glancing up at the windows of the separate apartment her young nephew kept, she set her chin determinedly. Staines might as well realize that she had no intention of backing down. Her land would go for flowers.
As much as she would like to strangle her husband’s nephew, she understood Staines’s need to belong somewhere. His own father had died and left him nothing. The old earl took an interest in him only when the boy did something of which he disapproved. Leila didn’t feel qualified to lecture him on the company he kept. He would have to learn for himself the difference between real friends and false.
Perhaps he simply needed a little more time to grow up—somewhere else, preferably—until he rid himself of sycophants like Lord John and Wickham.
She longed to oversee the progress of her garden and talk with Dunstan, but the sound of voices through the open windows of the breakfast room reminded her of her many obligations. What would it take to send the leeches away?
Could she persuade her suitors to pursue a more eligible marriage partner? Leila brightened as the advantages of this plan took root. Should Lord John find a wealthy wife, he needn’t pass his sister off on her nephew, as seemed to be his current intention.
She could outfox Lord John in the blink of an eye. Hurrying into the house, Leila caught up a letter from her solicitor on her desk and folded it so her houseguests could not see the writing. With an innocent demeanor, she drifted into the breakfast room where the lazy louts gorged on her cook’s hearty fare like the locusts they were. “Ah, there you are, Staines. I’ve just received a letter from my dear friend Lydia. She’s in Bath and complaining of the lack of elegant society. I think I shall gather a company and relieve her boredom. The country grows tedious.”
Her nephew shrugged and speared a bite of egg. Lord John looked up with interest. “Lydia Derwentwater?” he asked. “She just came into an inheritance, didn’t she? Why is she in Bath?”
“To spend it,” Leila replied. “You should enjoy meeting her. She owns some of the best hunting stock in the country.”
That caught Staines’s interest as well. Lady Mary’s bland features flickered with a scowl, and Leila wickedly decided that sending her nephew to another woman might be a fine idea. “Besides, Maman and Aunt Stella are talking of sending the young ones to stay here until the Season ends. The place will be inundated with nannies and governesses.”
The look of panic on all three faces was priceless. Content that she’d done her worst, Leila swept away in search of her gardening hat. She had an idea for a fountain and was eager to ask Dunstan about it.
If she could just reach some degree of understanding with her damned steward, they could discuss what to do with Staines over the longer term.
She found Dunstan riding through the garden, overlooking its progress. The clouds had departed, and he’d doffed both coat and vest in the warmth of the sun. He appeared as much a part of his animal as the horse’s mane.
Leila breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of oxen pulling the sled while Dunstan rode his horse along the perimeter, surveying work on the wall. He hadn’t turned against her after his conversation with Staines and last night’s uncomfortable dinner party. Thank heavens.
She loved the idea of having a man who would stand up for her, even if she had to pay him to do it. If she correctly understood the reason behind his surliness, Dunstan Ives had probably been loyal to his adulterous wife while she lived and continued to hold his opinion of her to himself after she was dead. She should never have worried that a man who was so loyal and trustworthy would bow to Staines’s wishes against her own.
Standing on the edge of the lawn, Leila surveyed the work done so far. A path that wound between lavender, roses, and delphiniums had begun to take shape, constructed with small pebbles taken from a nearby stream. As she studied the developing landscape, she watched Dunstan on horseback with fascination. It wasn’t just his imposing size that held her interest, but his air of authority and command. If she was right about his high integrity, he was the kind of man she’d once dreamed of having for herself.
As Dunstan’s gaze fell upon her, Leila’s heart beat faster. Rather than let him see what must be clearly written on her face, she lifted her unwieldy skirts and paced the rows in search of the ideal place for her fountain.
He instantly urged his steed across the field and dismounted next to her. “The field is no place for a lady. It distracts the men and slows the work. You do want the garden completed sometime this summer?” he asked mockingly.
She tried not to gape at the sweat-soaked linen plastered to his broad chest. He’d obviously been working as hard as any laborer. She let her gaze dip down to the flat muscles o
f his abdomen beneath tight breeches. Oh, my.
He stiffened and reached for the vest he’d discarded across his saddle, but his gaze never left hers as he tugged on the long garment.
Skirts blowing about her ankles, Leila searched his face. She enjoyed his odor of responsibility, but lust tended to override all else. He didn’t avoid her eyes this time. Did he see her? Really see her? She longed to talk with him as woman to man without any walls between them.
She had the power to make him see her for who she was, if she was brave enough.
Excitement beat in Leila’s chest. “I wish to help. Where should I start?” she asked with a deliberately Lily-like toss of her head, even though her curls were bound tight and hidden beneath her wide hat brim.
She watched his gaze linger a moment too long on the powdered strand curling above her neckerchief, and she smiled in satisfaction.
He nodded curtly toward the far end of the row. “They’ve dumped a pile of manure over there,” he taunted. “You could dig it into the bed.”
So much for pleasantries. As if he’d forgotten her existence, Dunstan turned away from her, ordered the men back to work, then crisscrossed the field, stopping to haul away stones when necessary and guiding the oxen over difficult ground.
She realized she was standing outside the familiar world into which she’d been born, and uncertainty hampered her. Perhaps her instincts were wrong. Perhaps Dunstan didn’t desire her. He certainly did an excellent job of ignoring her.
Leila strolled down the row of recovering roses, listening to the laborers curse the stones, the animals, and the heat. They never cursed Dunstan, but listened when he spoke, obviously fearing the man while respecting his knowledge.
As she studied her stubborn steward, the scent of him emerged inside her mind, a scent she yearned to replicate in her laboratory. Could one replicate power and authority? She would combine it with the earthy scents of grass and dirt, well doused in musk. The different aromas played notes in her head that aroused and excited her. She would make a fool of herself shortly if she did not concentrate on roses instead of Dunstan.
Must Be Magic Page 9