She’d thought that giving her nephew the freedom of the estate would ease some of his resentment of her and teach him responsibility, but she could see the boy was not so easily appeased.
He might grow into his position in a few years, but she didn’t have the patience to endure even a few days of these surprise parties. He had no right bringing a horde of men here without her permission.
Loneliness and frustration assailed her, and she retreated to the converted dairy for solace. Perhaps she ought to give up and return to London, where she knew and understood the rules and could break them with impunity. She knew nothing of growing things, after all. It had been boredom and arrogance to think she could develop new strains of flowers.
If she couldn’t create fragrances, she had no reason for existing.
Leila slammed a beaker down on her laboratory table and reached for a vial, doing her best to divert her morose thoughts. She wanted a distillery of her own. Her talents were limited by using the distillations of others. Men who knew nothing of the correct phases of the moon for picking petals diluted the strength and power of the blossoms.
She wrinkled her nose at the scent rising from the open vial. The grower who had produced this oil had mixed his roses. It wasn’t pure. It reminded her of that pest Lord John, whom she’d seen arriving with the rest of Staines’s friends.
A tight smile formed as she grabbed an infusion of lilac to blend with the rose oil. Scanning the shelves, she found a tincture of myrrh, and with even more wicked humor, a decoction of camphor. They all reminded her of Lord John, and each scent had a purpose. Lilac for memory, myrrh for purification, camphor for psychic strength. Lord John was about to have his very own perfume.
If he and her nephew hoped to steal her land and her future, they sorely underestimated the will of a Malcolm.
“Leila, I have brought you company!”
Staines’s shouts echoed the length of the tiled corridor from house to dairy, but Leila didn’t bother removing her apron or checking her cap for escaped curls. For the sake of respectability, while in the house, she wore her wild nest of hair pinned close to her head, but she had no wish to encourage her nephew’s illusions by pretending she cared about suitors.
Outside, a cloud obliterated the sunshine, perfectly reflecting her mood.
When her nephew entered the dairy with Lord John, Leila was doubly glad she hadn’t bothered with her appearance. Narrowing her eyes, she glared at the pair of them. “You could have given me some warning that you were bringing guests, Staines. It’s extremely rude to burden the servants without preparation.”
“Build a dower house if you don’t like it,” he answered with the petulance of a schoolboy. “I thought you’d be glad to have company. How you can endure no society but that of sheepherders is beyond me.”
“Sheepherders are polite,” she answered shortly, adding the contents of her mortar to the beaker of scent.
“Don’t blame Staines for my eagerness,” Lord John intervened. “I could not wait longer to see you again.”
Leila clenched her teeth. They both must be drunk to irritate her this way. “Staines, you might at least consider my wishes in your choice of company.”
“You might at least consider that this is my house and I don’t wish to be told what to do!” he shouted. “Come along, John, we needn’t stay here to be insulted.”
The boy slammed out through the low dairy door, into the rising wind. His lordship didn’t follow.
“Your servant’s garments become you,” he murmured from much too close.
“And I thought you were interested only in my wealth,” she answered coldly.
“Who told you that?”
“What does it matter who told me, if it’s true?”
Rubbing her nose in irritation, Leila decided he smelled of rotting wood and fungus. Perhaps she ought to add dried toadstools to the perfume she was creating for him, to complement his natural scent. Her skin crawled as he hovered closer. She’d never been quite so aware of his shallow character before.
As she opened a box of the toadstools, a wave of dizziness caught her by surprise. Swaying, she closed her eyes to halt the gyrating of her surroundings and grabbed her workbench for support.
Before the swaying steadied, a wavy vision formed behind her eyelids. She sensed a dank woodland, still dripping with rain and smelling of rotting timber and toadstools, but the image forming against that background held her spellbound with dread. A heavily pregnant young woman garbed in the rags of an ill-used serving maid knelt on the forest floor, weeping.
Over her stood a cold young man—Lord John. As the maid wept her heart out, holding her burdensome belly, the young man tossed her a few coins and walked away.
“I’m not some gazetted fortune hunter,” Lord John shouted in the real world.
In the world behind her eyelids, the maid’s anguished cries rose above the shout.
Nauseous, Leila swallowed hard and willed the painful scene away, but the image in the vision and the man in the room with her blended into one. Clinging to her workbench, she still heard the woman crying even as the scene faded and Lord John’s voice intruded.
“Rich or poor, I treat all women with the respect they deserve.”
Thunder rolled outside as Leila opened her eyes to see her suitor’s open, handsome face. Lord John’s blond good looks might normally have diverted this conversation, but the odd vision caused her nerves to crawl. What was wrong with her? Had she just seen this young fool with another woman? That wasn’t possible. Perhaps the toadstools were infected with some noxious element. She’d heard of such. But what had she seen?
Shaken by what she’d experienced, Leila felt a scrap of the impending storm take root within her. Inexperienced at handling tempests in any form, she let the storm’s tension speak for her. “And what respect is that? The same respect with which you treat maids foolish enough to get caught with your child?”
Shocked, Lord John grabbed her wrist. “Who told you that?” His abrupt jerk on her arm shook the beaker she held, splashing several drops of liquid across his silk coat.
Lightning struck in the distance, thunder crackled, and the musty aroma of a forest after a storm permeated the air. His lordship shrieked, pulling his arm back as if he’d been burned.
“You witch! You’ve ruined my coat. Have you no idea what it costs to keep up appearances?”
Stunned by his sudden transformation from charming gentleman to ranting madman, Leila could only stare. The appalling fragrance so matched the scent she associated with Lord John that he did not seem as aware of it as he was of the spots on his silk coat.
“Appearances require a great deal of acting, do they not?” she taunted. Speaking her thoughts was so freeing, she gleefully sought another insult. “Does Staines know you and your sister would most likely starve if you couldn’t live off his largesse?”
“What do you know about surviving on a meager allowance?” he shouted, then looked startled to realize he’d said such a thing.
“I’d know better than to gamble away my only income,” she retorted. “And counting on appearances to win you wealth is as much a form of gambling as playing cards.”
Lord John paled as her suspicion apparently hit a nerve. “You bitch! Had you accepted me as your husband, I would have taught you better manners.”
Without further warning, Lord John swung his aromatic arm across her worktable, smashing the contents to the tiled floor. Glass shattered and vials spilled until the air reeked of conflicting odors. With a triumphant smirk, he met her gaze. “Do not underestimate my influence on your nephew, my dear. One way or another, I will be master here. You’d best learn proper deference.”
Outside, the wind howled, shivering the roof timbers.
Inside, the tempest railing at Leila’s restraint finally exploded. Grabbing a broom, she swung with all her might at Lord John’s frock-coated shoulders, connecting soundly. “Out, you wicked toad of a man!” she screamed. “Out, and
don’t come back! I curse the day you were born and every day that you live hereafter. Out, heathen, before you defile this place once more.”
Dodging the painful whacks of her broom, Lord John ran before her tirade, covering his head with his hands to protect it from her blows. “You’ll regret this,” he called, but the rest of his incoherent curses were drowned as he dashed outside, into the sudden downpour.
Standing in the doorway, watching the villain escape into the fog of the storm, Leila took a deep breath of fresh air to clear her head.
Had she just had a fit of madness? Shouldn’t a sane person be terrified of what had just happened?
Leila turned her perceptions inward but experienced only a dawning sense of wonder and curiosity.
She’d had a vision. She’d seen Lord John as he truly was. Or at least that’s what she thought she’d seen, before she’d gone mad and lashed out without regard to caution or propriety.
It had felt wonderful.
Leila sniffed the vial of toadstools in her hand and tried to summon the vision again, but it was gone. If only she could duplicate the circumstances . . .
The perfume had so wonderfully mimicked Lord John’s character. Perhaps she should attempt to reproduce another perfume for someone else . . .
Perhaps she ought to find a less explosive personality on which to experiment.
Riding out after the storm passed over, Dunstan realized he’d turned his horse in the direction of Leila’s mansion when he met up with a local squire going the other way. The man’s horse limped, and the squire threw Dunstan a rueful look as he halted in the lane. “Damned mare pulled a shoe. You’re late; you’ll miss the fun.”
“What fun?” It was afternoon, too early for evening festivities and too wet for outdoor ones.
The squire grinned. “Didn’t get an invite? The new viscount is a chip off the old earl’s block. Hunting mad, he is.”
“Hunting?” An ominous premonition formed in Dunstan’s midsection.
“Rabbit hunting,” the squire exclaimed in jolly tones. “Great fun, if you don’t mind the trampling of fields this time of year.”
“The viscount is hunting rabbits?” One man alone might avoid turning a newly tilled field into a quagmire, Dunstan couldn’t imagine the citified young viscount hunting alone.
“He brought a party of young bucks down with him from Bath, all eager for sport. Better hurry if you want to catch up with them.”
Fear and fury welled equally as Dunstan touched his hat in farewell and kicked his horse into a gallop. The damned fool Staines could turn a month’s hard work into a wasteland of trampled plants and mud.
Dunstan heard the horn and shouts of the hunt as he raced around the bend. Kneeing his mount, he sailed over the hedgerow into the oxen field, hoping to cut them off. If they stayed to the pastures, all might be well.
His heart sank at the sight of drunken riders galloping around the hill, yelling and whooping, in pursuit of a pack of hounds. He would need a squadron of cavalry to stop that lot. No sane man raced his horse through wet grass in such a manner. They’d all break their necks before they trampled any fields.
They were headed straight for the new flower gardens.
If they destroyed the budding roses or the first shoots of lavender, it would break Leila’s heart. The heedlessness of the brats shot fury straight to his brain, and Dunstan kneed his horse into a gallop that would cross the hunt’s path at the diagonal. His clod-footed farm animal didn’t have the speed of their fine Arabians, but it had the sureness of foot to navigate the slippery ground.
The dogs howled past his horses’ hooves, chasing a hare straight through the arched garden gate into the thorny thicket of roses. The recently turned earth glistened with moisture from the storm. The light hare led the dogs away from her young and deeper into the garden. The hounds slopped mud as they ran, trampling the primrose border. Dunstan gritted his teeth at this desecration of weeks of hard work and turned to concentrate on the larger danger.
Intercepting the path of the riders before they could leap the hedges into the rose beds, Dunstan raised his crop to the hindquarters of the lead horse. At his whack, the animal whinnied and reared in panic. The horses racing up from behind split and poured around the first one while its rider cursed and tried to rein in his angry mount. Dunstan didn’t linger to help but raced alongside the pack heading for the hedge, herding them as he would sheep, with blows and shouts.
He couldn’t steer thousands of pounds of horseflesh all by himself.
He forgot the drunken riders the instant he realized Leila was standing in the center of the muddy rose bed, musket in hand, black curls streaming behind her in the wind.
Alarm struck his gut with the force of an iron fist.
At the first howl of the hounds, Leila had known what Staines and Lord John were up to. Without thought, she’d grabbed the hard pellets of bath scent she’d just finished making and picked up the old musket the gardeners used to scare crows away from her seedlings.
She raced to the garden, adding the flower-scented beads to the gunpowder as she ran. Furious, she raised the weapon toward the oncoming marauders.
She’d found the first red rosebuds opening just this morning. In a few short days, they would fill the air with rich perfume. Her heart’s desire was so close . . .
Musket lifted, she sighted along the barrel and aimed. This time, she would allow no man to stop her.
Dunstan’s furious flight across the pasture stilled Leila’s hand. Mad though she might be, she couldn’t harm the one man in the whole countryside who had the courage to waylay the drunken lordlings. Even in his unfashionable brown wool, Dunstan was a formidable sight, whipping his brawny arm right and left, lashing the young fools into order. The ribbon of his queue had come undone and his raven hair streamed behind him.
The hounds rushed howling through the arched gateway, sweeping past Leila’s bedraggled skirts. Her hair had fallen down her back in her haste to reach the roses. Could the vandals read her expression, they’d run for their damned lives. She waved her arms and shouted curses, wishing she could turn them all into toads. She imagined magic leaping from her fingertips.
Except she had no magic.
It was Dunstan who deflected first one rider, then another. Had the danger to her garden not paralyzed her thoughts, she would have admired his skill and bravery.
Taking courage from him, she raised the musket over the party’s heads, and pulled the trigger. The unorthodox ammunition hailed in stinging bites over hounds, horses, and hunters, fouling the air with a stench of burned bath powder.
If the pellets hit Dunstan, she would apologize later.
Horses screamed in fright. Hounds scampered for the hills. Perfumed smoke curled and choked the air as Dunstan used his crop on another rider who couldn’t control his mount, setting the animal off in a different direction. Several of the more drunken hunters fell, landing on the muddy ground with grunts and curses. Leila noted with satisfaction that her nephew was among them.
Her satisfaction lasted only long enough to see a black stallion bearing down on her in complete disregard of the mud or the tender rose canes he trampled. Unlike the other members of the hunting party, this rider appeared to be in complete control of his mount.
Lord John.
Leila’s concern had been entirely for her infant plants rather than herself until she registered the young lordling’s icy eyes. Trapped in a thicket of thorns, she could not run. Her musket, now empty of ammunition, was useless as anything but a cudgel. Heart pounding in sudden fear, she raised the barrel and prayed she could beat off a ton of galloping horseflesh.
She didn’t have to.
Dunstan streaked across the trampled bed to intercept horse and rider. Leila shut her eyes tight in anticipation of the imminent collision. A horse shrieked, a man shouted, and she was abruptly airborne.
Clutching the solid arm wrapped about her waist, she opened her eyes to see the grass flying by beneath h
er. She was out of the briars. At Dunstan’s grim expression as he reined in his mount, she thought perhaps she was in the soup instead.
Leila clung to his coat sleeve, refusing to be let down until Dunstan slid off the horse with her. She didn’t want to release him. She’d not thought herself frail until he held her so effortlessly, and now she didn’t want to be parted from his strength. She would have been crushed by all that horseflesh if Lord John had had his way.
She glanced at the garden and trembled in rage and grief.
Her rosebuds! Falling to her knees on the edge of a bed of new reddish-green leaves, she hastily checked the canes. With a cry of hope, she located first one unfurling flower, then another. She scanned the beds that Dunstan had planted in meticulous circles, the arching rose stems that would cover the garden in heavy fragrance and glorious color in less than a month. They were still almost entirely intact.
She gulped back sobs, yet tears of relief rolled down her cheeks.
“You saved my roses!” Weak with gratitude, Leila flung her arm around the powerful leg of the man standing protectively over her.
He reached down to help her up. Fighting tears and steadying her shaking knees, she fell into Dunstan’s comforting embrace. Absorbing his surprising tenderness, Leila was slow to realize his attention had strayed to the shouting, cursing men who were picking themselves up out of the mud.
She dug her fingers into his solid arm and dared a glance back at her once beautiful garden. The vandals had uprooted tender seedlings, trampled neatly tilled furrows, and wrecked the pergola and paths. But Dunstan’s reckless action had saved the roses.
When she looked across the field, her heart froze as she realized that the cost of her stupidity was far higher than a few flowers.
Staines, Wickham, Lord John, and several stragglers were coming toward them, their furious gazes fixed on Dunstan. She knew she didn’t possess the physical strength or the authority to save Dunstan as he’d saved her.
He knew it too. He stiffened, but no expression reached his eyes.
Must Be Magic Page 15