Since the nearest canal was fifty miles from here, Dunstan figured Drogo was behind the side trip, but he wouldn’t argue the point. Ewen lived in a future world of his own imagining, when he wasn’t charming women into bed, but he had a level head when he applied it. “Can’t help you there. I can provide you with turnips and perfumes, but not gears.”
“Perfumes?” Ewen lifted a handsome black eyebrow, then a wicked grin spread across his face. “There’s a girl at home who would enjoy perfume.”
“Malcolm perfume,” Dunstan warned. “And Leila would have to meet your lady friend before she could create one for her. She’s experimenting and would consider it a favor if you asked for one for yourself.”
Ewen’s eyes immediately narrowed. “Malcolm? I thought you were planting turnips, not consorting with the lady.”
Pretending he was busy working on the clock and not listening, Griffith earnestly applied his knife to the screw. Dunstan wasn’t fooled. He tilted his head to indicate his son and didn’t take up the argument. “You’d probably be better at helping her than I am. She’s setting up a distillery to use once I have the gardens in place.”
“A distillery!” Ewen’s eyes lit with interest. “For perfumes?”
“For scents. I think the perfumes are mixed later.” So, he wasn’t being entirely truthful. He wasn’t lying either. He just wanted Leila to have an opportunity to experiment on Ewen. His brother always appeared cheerful and carefree, but there was far more to Ewen than met the eye. Would Leila be able to discern that?
Did he really want to know? The idea of a woman who could uncover one’s deepest, darkest secrets was altogether frightening.
“I could spare another day,” Ewen agreed. “Do you think the lady would let me take a look at her distillery? Perhaps I could make a few suggestions.”
Smack into the trap he fell. Trying not to show his satisfaction, Dunstan nodded. “I’ll send a note. We’ll see.”
To make Leila happy, he could wait one more day.
Leila smiled in pleasure as the three Ives males strode into her parlor. It was pure fate that had led Ewen here just in time for her dinner party. She desperately needed to speak with Dunstan, but she realized he might not have come without Ewen.
She’d hesitated about inviting Griffith, but this was a rural gathering. His social education shouldn’t be neglected as his father’s had been.
Heads swiveled as the men entered. Several of her male guests gravitated in her direction, some in her defense, others out of self-protection, she suspected. Looking over the company from his imposing height, Dunstan scowled at their antics, then offered a polite nod to Ninian. So, he wasn’t totally hopeless. He only despised idiots.
Smiling at that realization, Leila turned her attention to the other two late arrivals. Ewen surprised her by beaming with good cheer at her appraisal. She rather thought a charming Ives a contradiction in terms.
The boy stood near his father’s side, and Leila admired the way Dunstan squeezed his son’s shoulder reassuringly. The obstinate man was as terrified in this setting as Griffith, but he refused to show it.
If she actually carried a child, it was comforting to know its father was a good man.
Taking the responsibility of social arbiter firmly in hand, she advanced on her new guests as if they were royalty. “How marvelous that you could come,” she trilled. “I’ve heard so much about you.” She offered her hand to Ewen and batted her lashes at Dunstan. “You must introduce me, sir. I’ve been all that’s impatient to meet the brother who captures lightning.”
Dunstan scowled at her foolery, but he performed the introductions with the expertise he must have been taught at his mother’s knee. The man wasn’t untrained, just contrary, Leila reflected, offering him her best smile. She felt a heartbeat of triumph at his startled but softening demeanor.
“I must introduce this charming young man to a friend of mine.” With skill, she separated Griffith from his all-male family. Divide and conquer was a tried-and-true tactic.
She introduced him to one of her younger neighbors and left the two young people in easy conversation amid the adult whispers flying about their heads.
Turning back to the doorway, she noted Dunstan had already appropriated a glass of brandy from her butler, and Ewen had gravitated to the prettiest young woman in the room. Good, keep the one occupied while she took care of the other. Dunstan Ives was easily the most fascinating man here, and despite their wariness, not one of her female guests had failed to notice his impressive physique.
Although she preferred to pull him aside and keep him to herself, she had promised to train him in better social manners. All he really needed was to relax.
“He’s shy,” she whispered into the ear of a baronet’s sister, who was nearly gawking. “Talk to him about your horses.”
“I couldn’t,” the girl whispered back, horrified. “He’s terrifying.”
“He’s terrified,” Leila corrected. “If you know anything at all of turnips, he would be forever grateful.” Firmly, she steered the girl in Dunstan’s direction.
“Turnips?”
Leila didn’t give her a chance to question more. “Miss Trimble, the Honorable Mr. Dunstan Ives. Miss Trimble has one of the finest stables in the area, sir. She knows all about horse breeding.” All right, so mentioning anything so indecent as breeding was inappropriate, but she couldn’t help it. The man needed to be jolted out of his self-centeredness. The young lady’s gasp of horror ought to bring out the protective Dunstan.
It did. He immediately looked sympathetic. “My brother is interested in developing his stable,” he said smoothly, giving Leila one final glare before turning his attention to the crimson-faced girl. “Perhaps you could give me some pointers.”
She’d known she could rely on him. The man had “responsibility” engraved on his forehead. Now, to other matters.
“He’s a murderer,” Sir Bryan Trimble hissed as Leila drifted to his side. “You place us all in grave danger by dealing with the likes of him.”
On her scale of importance, the young baronet did not register higher than an ant, but he might make a good test subject. Fair hair thinning, jowls already forming, he had the air of a man who considered himself to be the height of rural society. He would be looking for a wife to add to his consequence. Leila smiled and patted his arm. “You are so kind to think of our welfare. With men like yourself about, I feel quite safe. I’ve been testing new scents from my flower garden. Would you care to try one?”
Eagerness replaced his disapproval. “Of course, my lady, anything to please you.”
The man she would really like to try her perfume on was Ewen Ives, but he was much more complex than the man on her arm. Start simply, she decided.
She escorted the baronet to her laboratory, and he watched in perplexity while she mixed scents and chatted. If he’d thought she’d brought him here for a bit of wooing, he was sadly disappointed, but he had the courtesy not to show it.
Perhaps she ought to teach Dunstan such manners.
Then again, she rather liked the surly Ives just the way he was. Smiling at that thought, Leila added a hint of rosemary to her concoction, then tested the fragrance. Raw, but she didn’t have time to let it age.
She offered her guest the bottle into which she’d poured the fragrance. “Would you care to test it?”
Before the baronet agreed or disagreed, a shadow dimmed the candlelight, and Dunstan loomed in the doorway. No scowl hinted at his thoughts as he propped his big shoulder against the wall, crossed his legs at the ankle, and lifted a brandy glass to his lips. “You should invite the rest of your guests for the evening’s entertainment,” he advised.
Everything that was feminine inside her went pitty-pat and melted at the smoldering look he turned in her direction.
“I cannot offer every guest a perfume of his or her own,” she said sweetly. “And Bryan is a special friend. Perhaps, if you’re very nice, I’ll prepare a scent for you,”
she teased.
Not liking the loss of her attention, the baronet grabbed the bottle and tilted a puddle of fragrance into his palm, then slapped it to his sagging jowls. Unwittingly, he riveted both Leila’s and Dunstan’s attention with that gesture.
“A stable!” he cried in fascination. “It smells like my favorite London stable.”
Leila sniffed the fragrant aroma. “Manure is an honest smell, sir,” she asserted cautiously. The scent seared her nostrils, and to her astonishment, she recognized the familiar sensation of the room spinning. Excitement and fear assailed her as she grasped the worktable to steady herself.
The laboratory faded into a stable, an expensive one. High ceilings, a carriage with prancing horses . . . A woman’s laugh. Familiar, hauntingly so. Fury welled, strangled by helplessness and humiliation—not the woman’s emotion, but that of the man she mocked . . .
“Leila, are you all right?” Strong hands gripped her arm, gently retrieving her from emotional torment.
She blinked and glanced around. No stable. No woman. She leaned into Dunstan, letting his heat and strength ease her confusion. The baronet merely looked puzzled.
“Did you know Celia Ives?” she demanded of the young man, having no idea why she asked.
Behind her, Dunstan stiffened, but the laughter still echoed inside her head—tauntingly familiar laughter. Celia had been a vain, shallow creature who enjoyed flaunting her beauty and humiliating those she thought unworthy of her. A rural baronet would be an object of ridicule to her, however suited to her country origins he might be.
“I may have met her in London,” the baronet answered warily.
“In a stable?” Leila replied, then mentally slapped herself. She was too new at this. Had she really felt this young man’s anger and humiliation? Or did her perfumes just give her headaches and strange notions?
The baronet’s obvious discomfort answered her question, even when he refused to do so. Bowing, he made ready to depart. “If you will excuse me, my lady, I’d rather not discuss the dead.”
Before Leila could throttle the fool, Dunstan intruded. “Poorly done, sir. The lady gave you a gift. The least you can do is offer honesty in return.”
The baronet looked startled, rubbed frantically at the smell on his face, and appeared ready to bolt.
“I’d offer you my soap,” Dunstan said in an effort to sound sympathetic, “but the lady believes I smell like dirt.”
Leila almost giggled at the baronet’s distress. He glanced at her, then at Dunstan, and without another word, raced from the room.
“That was unkind,” she chided. “I do not think you smell like dirt any more than I think Sir Bryan smells like a stable.”
Dunstan slanted a glance down at her. “What was that about Celia?”
“I don’t know.” Leila tried to recall the moment, but it was already fading now that the scent of straw and manure had departed. “I don’t understand what is happening to me. I thought I heard her laughing, and it felt as if Sir Bryan was the one she laughed at.”
Dunstan snorted. “Undoubtedly so. He’s just the sort she would humiliate. If you heard Celia, then you must be a witch.”
In wonder, Leila tried on the appellation like a much-desired cloak. A witch.
Maybe she was.
She didn’t understand the how or why of it, but joy infused her as an immense world of opportunity opened before her.
She could hear and see people who weren’t there.
Her mother would be so proud.
Twenty
Dunstan watched Leila’s progress through the parlor in the aftermath of her interminable dinner. He’d sat on the edge of his chair throughout the meal, fretting over her decision to include him among her party, while her damned guests ignored him and chattered about her perfume experiments as if they were some new parlor game.
He had to admire Leila’s determination in going after what she wanted, even as he worried every single minute she spent experimenting on other men. What if others reacted like Lord John? What if she stumbled onto some deep, dark secret in the same way she’d stumbled onto the baronet’s memory of a stable?
Dunstan had attempted to pin down Sir Bryan and question him about Celia, but the man had given his excuses and fled. Did he dare trust Leila’s strange perception and harass the man for more answers?
He couldn’t imagine Celia spending time with a mere baronet—a rural one at that, admittedly, though, she’d had a fancy for fine horseflesh.
The vicar gazed at him as if awaiting an answer to a question, and Dunstan stumbled back into the conversation, muttering something inane as Leila led Ewen away. His heart thudded off-kilter at the picture of Leila and Ewen together.
“I’m of the opinion that plants have male and female parts as animals do,” Dunstan said, intruding on the vicar’s monologue against the “unnatural” practices of scientific sheep breeding. “Plants breed just as indiscriminately as cats, if left untended. Excuse me, I must speak with my brother.”
Leaving the vicar speechless, Dunstan attempted to veer behind a gaggle of ladies and escape the room. With a rustle of silks and satins, the ladies swung en masse to surround him.
“Is it true, sir,” one of the bolder matrons demanded, “that bagwigs have gone out of fashion in London? I cannot persuade my Harvey to part with his.”
One of the younger women tittered and hid behind her fan. The older ones watched him expectantly.
Feeling like an insect pinned to cloth and framed behind glass, Dunstan grimaced, rolled his fingers into fists, and said the first thing that came to mind. “Wigs attract roaches, madam. If you’ll excuse me . . .”
He escaped amid gasps and flapping fans. No doubt he’d said the wrong thing again. Why did the fool women ask such questions if they didn’t want his opinion?
Stretching his shoulders against the constraint of his coat, Dunstan eluded the rest of Leila’s guests and escaped in the direction of her laboratory. He should ask her to create a magic potion to make him comatose if he was to parade around London seeking Celia’s killer. He wasn’t cut out to be courtly.
He burst through the dairy door in time to catch Ewen and Leila laughing intimately, and the ugly serpent of jealousy coiled and spat in his chest. He wanted to wrap a possessive arm around the lady’s slender waist, kiss her lovely nape, and defiantly mark his claim.
He had no right to do any such thing.
A subtle scent of fire and smoke and things he couldn’t name wrapped around him as both dark heads turned in his direction, still laughing. “I take it Ewen’s scent is that of a clown?” Dunstan asked.
“Your brother has a very charismatic soul,” Leila said playfully, appropriating Dunstan’s arm and leaning against him as if she belonged there. Her powdered hair brushed his jaw, and her swaying skirts wrapped around his leg, enfolding him in their exotic scent.
Dunstan watched Ewen’s reaction to their familiarity. His younger brother—charismatic soul that he was—had a way with women. He’d been born flirting with the midwife.
Ewen merely grinned and winked at Dunstan. “I think she means I’m damned to hell and is too polite to say it.”
The subject of hell was much too uncomfortable for a man accused of wife murder. Dunstan shrugged and tried to pretend he didn’t have a ravishing Malcolm’s breast pressing into his arm. “Have you examined the distillery?”
“He says he can improve upon the design,” Leila answered for Ewen. “By this time next year, I could have my own rose distillations,” she said with a sigh of ecstasy.
“I’ll sketch something for you,” Ewen promised. “May I have this fragrance? I rather like it.”
“It smells of wizardry,” Leila acknowledged. “Fitting for a mechanical genius.”
“Wizardry does not have a smell,” Dunstan reminded her.
“I think she means I smell like grease,” Ewen said cheerfully, taking the stoppered bottle she offered. “But I like the smell. I’ll test its appeal o
n the ladies.”
He slipped the vial into his coat pocket and strode off whistling before Dunstan had the presence of mind to object. He didn’t know if he wanted to object, not with Leila hanging on his arm.
“Will you stay tonight?” she whispered, studying him from beneath thick lashes. When he did not answer, she released his arm and gravitated toward the table.
Dunstan felt large and oafish in her slender presence, but he knew it was her elegant silk and powdered curls that distanced him. He told himself he needed that distance; otherwise he was a doomed man.
“I don’t think it’s wise of me to stay,” he said carefully.
Moving vials into order, not looking at him, Leila nodded. “Could we not . . . have a special place? Somewhere where we could just be us?”
Dunstan groaned at the temptation she dangled before him. Knowing she felt as he did would bring him to his knees faster than tears or promises. He could resist histrionics, but he had no experience with wistful desire. “It will only make matters worse,” he admitted, praying that she understood without an explanation.
“I thought men . . . I thought it was easier for you.” She lit a candlewick and an odor of vanilla wafted on a breeze. Tense, she studied him, her dark eyes wary. “Do men not take mistresses and discard them with abandon?”
“Not this man,” he snapped, his resistance fraying.
She looked unhappy, as if he’d confirmed what she already knew. “It doesn’t seem quite fair,” she murmured. “Half the population of London flits from bed to bed without a care. Lovemaking is a mere entertainment for them.”
“And London is where you think I belong?” he asked dryly.
She shook her head in a flurry of powder and curls. “No. I’m just confused. I know you desire me. And I desire you, as I have never desired another man. It’s a new and frightening experience for me. I cannot understand why it is wrong to act on our desires.”
Dunstan rubbed his hand over his face and wondered if he was an even bigger fool than he thought. He could have the lady in his bed. Why deny himself the pleasure?
Must Be Magic Page 19