Despair raged through him as he nearly dislocated his shoulder slamming into the oak-hard door yet again. “Acid, can you not use acid?” he yelled. “Boil some water, put your infernal steam machine to use. Gunpowder! There’s bound to be gunpowder.”
“I’ve found it,” Griffith shouted from the outside wall.
“Griffith? Ewen, why the devil isn’t he at the inn?”
“Because he listens as well as you do,” Ewen said in disgust. “Stand back. The brat has a solution.”
“What? Lightning? Pulleys?” Dunstan let his thoughts roll over the multitude of insane creations Ewen had perpetrated upon the world. Surely one of them had a use.
“An axe.”
The wall behind him splintered beneath the force of a blade.
Dunstan would have laughed at so mundane a solution had the situation not been so dire. If no one had killed his guards, then they would be on him within minutes. He wanted to swing the axe himself. He possessed more brute strength than Griffith or his dandified brother.
“My son is an Ives, through and through,” Dunstan said with pride as the hole opened. “Give it to me. Where are the guards?”
Griffith slid the axe handle through, as Ewen answered. “I just checked. Staines is entertaining them with cigars. You should hear them shortly.”
“The devil he is! What’s he doing here? Stand back.” Swinging the axe, Dunstan tore through the splintered planks, widening the opening in a single blow.
“Staines has decided his bread is best buttered on the side of the Malcolms, from what I can tell. He just arrived in a tearing hurry, and I set him to distracting the guards.”
After slashing through the remaining planks, Dunstan shoved loosened boards aside and stepped through the hole into freedom. He hugged his worried son, hoping to dispel some of the fear on his face, and demanded, “Where’s Leila?”
Ewen nodded in the direction of the inn.
Small explosions coming from the front of the stable warned them that Staines’s “cigars” had taken their toll. Dunstan shoved Griffith into Ewen’s arms and sprinted across the muck of the stable yard toward the inn.
He heard Leila’s scream before he reached the front door. Panic gave wings to his feet.
He burst into a tavern reeking of the perfume she’d concocted for Lord John. At the appalling sight inside, Dunstan slammed both his arms up to halt the man and boy who arrived fast on his heels.
Wickham held Leila’s neck in the crook of his arm in such a position that it would take only one sharp move to crack it. Dunstan froze, assessing the situation.
Leila didn’t seem to notice his arrival. Her captor glanced in bewilderment from her limp form to Dunstan and began to back away, dragging Leila with him. Wickham’s drinking companions stared in astonishment, their mugs frozen in midair.
Without a word said, Dunstan understood—this was how Wickham had killed Celia. This was how he would kill Leila if no one stopped him.
“Drop her, you bastard,” Dunstan ordered, cold calm replacing insane terror now that he had Leila in sight. He understood instantly that Leila’s safety demanded his restraint. He didn’t like the blank expression on her face. She wasn’t seeing this room. What, then, was she seeing in that strange mind of hers?
“She fainted,” Wickham said in puzzlement. “What lies have you told her?”
Dunstan was vaguely aware of his brothers and Leila’s sister gathering behind him, but he remained focused on the man holding his life in his hands. “Let her go.” He took a step forward.
Wickham stepped back. “Don’t come closer! I won’t let you kill me as you did George.”
Appearing confused, Leila awoke enough to wrap her hands around Wickham’s entrapping arm, preventing any imminent danger of snapping her neck.
Dunstan had to use every ounce of restraint he’d ever practiced to keep from dashing across the room to rip the bastard’s head off. “Leila? Can you hear me?” he asked softly, then winced as Wickham jerked her head back further.
Leila blinked, gasped, then instinctively stood on the tips of her toes. Apparently returning to consciousness, she gripped Wickham’s arm tighter so she could breathe and speak easier. “Dunstan.” She smiled faintly before her gaze swept the anxious faces filling the room and the seriousness of the situation showed on her face.
“Wickham, she is ill. Let her sit down,” Dunstan said calmly, although his heart beat hard enough to pound through his chest.
Sir Barton eased toward the pair, but Wickham jerked Leila’s chin up higher. “Stay away! All of you, get out. This is between me and Ives.”
Leila caught his eye, willing him to do something, but he wasn’t a Malcolm and couldn’t read her signal. He hesitated. What did she want of him? The room reeked of spilled perfume, and he swore he could almost smell fear.
“Christina, leave, please,” Leila whispered.
The girl looked rebellious and didn’t move. Dunstan grabbed Christina’s collar and Joseph’s coat and shoved them both toward Ewen in the doorway. “Out of here, all of you.” He nodded at Griffith to indicate he should leave as well.
As the younger ones reluctantly departed, Dunstan lifted an eyebrow in the direction of Sir Barton and Lord John. Leila nodded slightly. Immediately, he caught their arms and shoved them toward the exit. “Out, all of you.” He might lack understanding, but he still possessed brute strength.
And Leila’s trust.
The gentlemen resisted, glancing anxiously at their drinking companion, but Wickham’s furious gaze was focused solely on Dunstan. Silently, they followed the others.
With the room cleared of all but the three of them, Dunstan clenched his fists. “Now, let her go, you bastard.”
“I’ll break her neck if you take one more step,” Wickham warned. “You have a bad habit of picking sharp-tongued vixens, don’t you?”
Before Dunstan could adjust to this unexpected topic, Leila interrupted in a soothing voice. “Celia lied to you, didn’t she Wickham? You didn’t really mean to harm her.”
“She claimed she was with child,” Wickham spat with disgust. “She told George she would marry him if he could only dispose of her country farmer husband. She was inordinately fond of titles, and George was in line for my uncle’s.”
Dunstan didn’t wince at this portrayal of his treacherous, adulterous wife, or remark upon Wickham’s willingness to admit it. He didn’t fully understand the spell Leila was spinning, but steeled himself to wait for some opportunity to intervene.
The possibility of losing his stubborn witch in a heartbeat shrieked obscenities through Dunstan’s mind. Violent emotions boiled and threatened to explode, but he stood still, fists tight, waiting, trusting her.
“Then it was Celia’s fault that George died,” Leila said sympathetically. “She sent him to his death.” She darted Dunstan a glance, warning him not to move.
What did she see that he could not?
“George was a drunken idiot,” Wickham declared. “He would do anything Celia told him to do. He spent his inheritance on the brainless chit.” He appeared startled that he’d admitted such a thing and shot a warning glance at Dunstan.
“As Dunstan did,” Leila continued consolingly, heedless of her captor’s grip. “Those buttons she wore were quite costly. How did Dunstan come to have one in his hand?”
A malevolent gleam lit Wickham’s eye. “I put it there when I shoved him into the hall. Brilliant of me, wasn’t it? Kill Celia and let her husband take the blame.” Wickham laughed as if this was the funniest joke he’d heard, then looked startled again.
Dunstan swallowed a lump of fear. What would Wickham do if he realized Leila was somehow manipulating his revelations? She must have had another vision to know the right questions to ask.
He watched with his heart in his mouth as Leila reached behind her to pat Wickham’s face, sending Dunstan a look that had him rolling his weight to the balls of his feet in preparation.
“Celia had no care
for any man. It was your child she carried, wasn’t it?” she asked of her captor.
“How did you know that?” Wickham demanded in astonishment. “After she sent George to his death, I had no choice but to kill her. She wanted me to marry her.”
Dunstan could barely grasp the full extent of what Leila was doing, but he knew she used whatever provocative force existed inside her to pry this confession from Wickham. He had to admire the way she combined the knowledge gained from her vision with her instinct to reveal what others would conceal.
He—of all people—should have glimpsed the terrifying extent of her abilities.
Leila didn’t need roses. She didn’t need perfume to access her gift. She possessed a power far greater than the feeble ones of her aunt and mother.
And she would die because of him if he didn’t do something soon.
Catching sight of Ewen positioning himself outside the open window behind Leila, Dunstan steeled himself to act before Wickham grew tired of answering questions.
Taking a deep breath and saying a prayer, Dunstan stepped forward. Wickham stepped backward—toward the window.
Leila fixed her gaze on Dunstan, forcing him to wait. “Of course you had no choice,” she told her captor. “And George had already spent his inheritance on her, so there was nothing left except Celia’s jewels. I begin to understand your predicament.”
Wickham relaxed an infinitesimal amount. “I had to get George’s money back,” he agreed. “Her jewels were worth a fortune, and she refused to give them up.”
Dunstan took another step forward. Wickham glared at him, but retreated to within reach of the window.
“She owed you?” Leila asked, holding tight to Wickham’s arm and standing on her toes.
She prayed Dunstan would heed her look. Her heart pounded fiercely in anticipation. Did he understand? She could tell by the way his fists clenched that he wanted nothing more than to strangle Wickham, but he was restraining all that violent emotion—simply because she asked it of him.
He had the strength to heave Wickham through the window, had every incentive to do so, but Dunstan’s intelligent gaze watched her with determination, waiting for her signal, trusting in her ability.
Trusting her ability—completely and without question. That was the only gift she needed.
Exhilaration blossomed inside her the instant Wickham’s grip relaxed enough for her to make her move. She caught Dunstan’s gaze, nodded briefly, and he exploded into action.
Before Wickham could react, Dunstan crossed the distance in a single step. Leila gasped in relief as he caught her waist and lifted her from the floor with his left arm. With his right hand, he snatched the arm entrapping her from around her neck with such force that she could hear the bones of Wickham’s wrist snap.
As Wickham howled in pain, Dunstan lowered Leila’s feet to the floor and twisted her captor’s arm behind his back in a move that was so crippling Wickham doubled up in agony.
Finally registering the shouts coming from outside the window, Leila moved back against the wall. With the ease of a man pitching dung from a stable, Dunstan hurled Wickham toward the open window, into the waiting hands of his brother.
Free at last, Leila flung her arms around Dunstan, letting him cradle her against his chest.
With her face buried in a broad shoulder, Leila felt Dunstan’s grunt of satisfaction as Ewen climbed over the windowsill and throttled Wickham’s windpipe in the same painful manner as he’d held hers—effectively preventing his escape and cutting off his howls of rage.
She was safe. Her heart beat with Dunstan’s, her hair brushed his unshaven jaw, and his breath blew against her neck.
“Do you know what you just did?” Dunstan shouted in her ear.
“Made you angry?” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and twisting his hair between her fingers. “You don’t smell angry.”
“Damn it, Leila, you could have gotten yourself killed,” he roared in frustration. “Do I have to hang about all the time to keep you and your nose out of trouble?”
She peered at him from beneath fluttering lashes. “Would you?”
A familiar dry voice silenced all the shouting except Wickham’s choked curses. “Am I to see all of you locked in gaol or just the one being strangled?”
Dunstan’s brothers and son, and even Leila’s nephew, held their tongues and turned expectantly to Dunstan.
Slipping past the men gathering in the doorway, even Christina looked to Dunstan to reply to the toweringly furious Earl of Ives. Drogo had commanded his herd of unruly brothers for so long that he’d taken on the authority of both judge and jury.
Leila smiled as Dunstan studied her face for reassurance, and she swelled with pride at his confident manner when he faced his imperious brother.
“I have matters under control,” Dunstan replied. “You can go back and study the stars a while longer.”
“I don’t suppose anyone cares to explain what has happened here?” Drogo asked, his glance roaming from Ewen holding Wickham in front of the tavern window to Lord John and Sir Barton hurrying out the front door of the inn.
“Ask the witch in breeches,” Ewen answered. “Then send her home where she belongs.”
“Leave Christina out of this,” Joseph shouted in her defense. “I have to stop those scoundrels heading for the stable. They might have evidence they can give.” He shoved past Drogo to race after Wickham’s friends.
Whoops of delight erupted from Griffith and the young viscount, both of whom dashed out in Joseph’s wake.
Leila settled back into Dunstan’s arms and all but purred. “I’m beginning to recognize the sounds of an Ives harmony. Do you think they can carry on without us?”
Being a man of few words, Dunstan elbowed his way past his bemused brother. While members of their families cornered Barton and Lord John in the stable, Dunstan flung open the door of the carriage that was still standing in the yard.
“I have nowhere to take you,” he muttered in frustration as he deposited her inside.
Leila noticed in satisfaction that he didn’t allow that little problem to stop him from jumping in and ordering the driver away.
Twenty-nine
“You could have been killed!” Dunstan ranted as the carriage jerked forward. “What the devil did you think you were doing back there?”
“Trusting my instincts,” Leila murmured, snuggling close until he wrapped his arm around her, “just as you told me to do.”
“I’m telling you to forget instincts and stay in London and never smell another scent again,” he roared senselessly. “I’d sooner rip my own heart out than see you take such risks.”
Leila patted his rumpled cravat and pulled it loose. “Did anyone ever tell you how handsome you are when you’re angry?” She chuckled at his outraged expression.
Dunstan caught her hand to prevent her marauding fingers from wandering farther. “If I don’t have you soon, I’ll go mad, but the only bed I own is two days away,” he complained as the driver blew his horn and the carriage swung into the open road. He lifted Leila into his lap so the jolts of the swaying carriage wouldn’t jar her.
She snuggled deeper into his reassuring embrace, felt the press of his rising ardor, and smiled in contentment. Dunstan might gripe, but he held her as if she were a precious jewel—or turnip, she thought with a smile. She would listen to his complaints for a lifetime in exchange for the security of his brawny arms. She would create a new perfume for him. He smelled of confidence and uncertainty at the same time.
“What about the bog you own? Isn’t that near here?” She pressed her cheek into his rumpled coat, more interested in this discussion than what had happened back at the inn. “Does it have a roof and four walls?”
“A crumbling hunting box,” he grumbled. “That is no place to take you. You need silk sheets and a maid to wait upon you. I need to take you home, where you belong.”
“I need you,” she stated firmly, kissing the strong
column of his throat above his unfastened cravat. Men carried impossible ideals in their heads, she’d discovered. It was time she disabused him of a few of his. “I do not wish to hear your litany of denials until after you’ve held me long enough to blot out these last hours.”
“Hold you is all I can do in that bog.” His big hands slipped her hairpins loose, freeing her curls to fall about her shoulders. “I have things I need to say that require a romantic bower, but both our families would hunt us down should I take you back to the grotto now.”
Leila’s hopes took wing, although she had no reason to believe the obstinate man was ready to see things her way. He’d told her to rely on her instincts, and henceforth she would. “I want to see your bog,” she demanded. “I want to hold you like this, with no one making demands of us for a while.”
Raising an eyebrow at her insistence, Dunstan leaned over and hit the driver’s door, gave him instructions, then settled her more comfortably in his lap.
He sat back and tilted her chin so their eyes met. “Now tell me what you saw back there.”
She smiled in quiet pride. “I saw Celia.”
She gave him a moment to bluster and complain. Instead, he blanched slightly beneath his weather-beaten complexion, but nodded in acceptance and waited for her to continue.
Carefully, she explained what she’d seen and how she’d interpreted it.
“Henry looks enough like his brother George that no one thought to notice him when he left later,” she added at the end of her story. “At the time, the innkeeper didn’t know George was dead, so I imagine he wouldn’t have thought twice if he saw Henry leave.”
Leila smoothed Dunstan’s stubbled cheek with her hand as he closed his eyes against the pain of Celia’s abrupt end. “You sacrificed everything for her—your son, your earnings, your future. You could not have done more.”
He nodded wordlessly, and they rode in silence while he buried his grief for the wife he’d never truly known.
Must Be Magic Page 28