As the carriage carried them in the direction he’d chosen, Dunstan tightened his arms around her. “You’re too dangerous to be allowed in public.”
“I won’t be your possession to hide away,” she reminded him. Keep him off balance, she decided, and she might survive the sweet torture of his experienced fingers sliding across her bare skin as he sought the fastening of her gown. “I understand how you felt about Celia, but you know full well I’m not Celia. You’ll have to trust me, because I’ll not deny who I am for anyone ever again.”
Dunstan nibbled her ear, and releasing the hooks at her back, slid his hand around to caress her breasts above her corset. “Not wanting to share you doesn’t mean I expect you to fit some imaginary mold as society does. I want you to be all that you can be. I would have particularly admired your performance earlier, if it had not nearly given me failure of the heart.”
“You understood as no other man would have,” she murmured in satisfaction. “You did not act the part of raging bull, but waited and trusted my instincts. That’s why I love you.”
At her declaration of love, Dunstan stilled, studying her through discerning dark eyes while his fingers rubbed across the aching tip of her breast.
He said nothing, and Leila would have beat him with her fist if she had not understood his dilemma. In some ways, they were in perfect agreement. In others, they were miles apart.
She stroked his scratchy jaw and smiled. “You told me to follow my instincts. Well, instinct says I should no longer hide what I feel.”
Dunstan tugged at her corset strings so he might explore her unfettered breasts. He’d much rather act on his instincts than talk about hers, but they’d done that before and ended up with nothing settled. “You probably know how I feel better than I do,” he admitted. “That doesn’t change our positions.”
She grabbed fistfuls of his hair and drew his head up so he must meet her eyes. He kissed her lips before she could unleash her tongue.
Gratified by the small moans he elicited, he caressed her breasts and debated the wisdom of taking her in the rattling carriage. Remembering the child she carried, he resisted. But if he meant to continue resisting, he’d have to quit kissing. With a sigh of regret, he released her mouth, stole one more look at the fair swells he wished to claim, and pulled her bodice closed. “You want the words?” he demanded. “You want proof of what kind of besotted idiot I am?”
“Yes, please,” she answered, with a coy flutter of lashes. “How will I know if my instincts are correct unless someone verifies them?”
Gads, she tugged at his heartstrings. Dunstan caressed her cheek and steeled himself. “I love you,” he declared stoutly.
The words weren’t as difficult to say as he’d imagined, and he repeated them with a sense of wonder. “I love you. I don’t wish to share you with any other man.” He blinked in amazement that he did not incinerate into a heap of ashes at the admission.
“I want to be able to talk with you anytime I wish.” The words kept tumbling out, unrestrained. “I want the freedom of your bed every night of the week, and in between, if I can. I want to be with you when you discover more about your abilities, and I want to be with you when your experiments go wrong. Is that enough, or shall I rip my heart out and hand it to you?”
Perhaps he sounded a little too gruff. He’d scared Celia often enough with his crude outbursts. Leila, though, as she’d reminded him, was not Celia. She smiled in such genuine delight at his rough declaration that his heart ached even more at what could never be. His name might be cleared, but he couldn’t take away her land and gardens and all her glorious hopes for the future by marrying her.
“Your heart is already in the right place,” she replied, snuggling against his chest and burning a kiss where she’d opened his shirt. “It’s your head that needs examining. I want all that you want, and more. You are far more important to me than land or roses or perfume. You are not a man who is happy with an empty bed, and I am not a woman who would enjoy seeing you share it with another. And our families have made it obvious they will not be happy if we have this child without the conventions being met.”
Dunstan sank his hand into her hair and held her against his chest where he could not fall into her bewitching eyes and believe what he wanted to hear. “They want marriage,” he said hoarsely. “But you will lose everything if we marry.”
“I will lose everything if we do not.”
To her, “everything” must mean him, though he could scarce credit it.
The carriage lurched, tilted, and righted itself, in accompaniment with his nervous insides. Its progress was growing noticeably slower. Dunstan glanced out the far window, and prayed as he’d never prayed before that Leila could see beyond the immediate. “In a moment, you will see what madness you speak.”
He held her tightly, knowing he would have to release her once her madness ran its course and her formidable intelligence returned. He ought to run to Scotland with her right now, while opportunity beckoned, but he could not lock her into a marriage she would regret. They’d both done that before.
Gently, he began refastening the hooks he’d undone. The carriage came to an abrupt halt. Leila looked at him questioningly but began righting her hair.
“We did not go far,” she said.
Dunstan jerked his cravat in place to cover his opened shirt. “My maternal grandfather was squire here. I grew up in the countryside around Baden and Ives. Most of my grandfather’s land passed to my mother’s brother, but he knew my heart was with the soil, and he left me what he could.” He set her on the seat as the driver climbed down to unlatch the carriage door. “I’d hoped one day to have sufficient money to drain this acreage and make it arable, but it’s impossible to do that and support a family as well.”
Dunstan stepped out of the carriage and looked around while Leila finished tying her ribbons. He breathed deeply of the moist air, smelled the dirt of home, and drew it into his starving soul before forcing himself to look at the hovel that would no doubt send Leila screaming back to London.
It hadn’t improved with age. Made of stone, covered in ivy, thatched roof rotting and falling in, it looked as abandoned as it was. Sheep had harvested the worst of the weeds, and wildflowers bloomed heedlessly in protected corners, but it was still a hovel. He might long to restore this land, but even he wouldn’t live here.
He turned and reluctantly held out his arms to swing Leila down. He might as well dash all their happy dreams now.
“Be careful of your shoes,” he murmured, holding her in his arms for one brief moment before lowering her to the grass. He hadn’t realized how much he’d longed for the right to hold her like this, to bring her to his home, to believe she would stand by his side through thick and thin.
No matter what the future held, Leila would reside inside him forever. She might as well know that.
Dunstan turned her to face the ramshackle dwelling, and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. He might have to show her, but he didn’t have to watch her expression of horror as he did.
She stayed silent for so long that despair took root in his heart. “Once my name is officially clear, I am free to earn a living anywhere,” he reminded her. “If you would not mind living with Ninian, I could return to Ives. We have choices,” he tried to tell her, although he couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“Those are roses blooming in that weed patch,” she said with what sounded like fascination. “Can we look?”
Shaking his head at the vagaries of the female mind, Dunstan held out his arm and helped her climb over the weeds and briars and brambles. “Half of England is covered in roses,” he reminded her. “If I drained the bog, you might have enough acreage to develop the garden you planned, but we would have to eat rose petals or starve. I have two children to consider first.” That thought caused him both pride and pain. He wanted Griffith and his unborn daughter to grow up in a happy home with roses in their garden and a loving mother who would bal
ance out his faults.
Leila crouched down to examine a burst of pink blooms buried in long grass.
“They smell of love,” she exclaimed. “I’ve not seen this variety anywhere.”
To Dunstan’s utter shock, she leapt up and flung her arms around him. “I want a garden!” she cried. “I thought I could give it up, but I can’t. I want a garden. I want this garden.” She lifted magnificent blue eyes up to his and pleaded. “I can smell it here. It’s perfect. I know it will take work, but it’s here. I know it is. I can see it!”
Totally flummoxed and bewildered, Dunstan held her at the waist, and trapped by her bewitching eyes, he attempted to find logic in the insanity of her declaration. “What is perfect? The rotting thatch? The verdant weeds?”
“The land.” She sighed in delight, snuggling into him. “It’s not rocky like mine. It has lots of the moisture flowers need. It will grow wonderful roses, ones that smell of love. Can you imagine what I can do with a perfume that smells like love?”
“Other people don’t smell love,” he reminded her, although he could scarcely think clearly with her breasts pressed into him and her arms around his neck. “And you can’t live here. It’s not fit for a sty.”
She waved a careless hand, released him, and darted off to examine another flower. “Lavender,” she called in satisfaction. “It’s an old garden. There could be treasures all over, old ones that are hard to find. I can grow the flowers that I need here. Here, I’ll learn how to control my visions.”
He followed cautiously in her path while seeking a way to make her idea work. He hated to remind her of the expense involved in draining this land when she seemed so delighted with it. She’d lifted his spirits, for no logical reason whatsoever, considering he was in imminent danger of losing his turnips, if they married and Staines claimed her estate.
“I suppose I could work for Drogo and live in his steward’s house again,” he mused aloud. “None of my brothers seems eager to take up the position.”
Crushing lavender to her bosom, Leila bussed his cheek. “That would be wonderful, thank you. You can help me develop new plants, and Ninian, who can grow things with her eyes shut, can help with the garden. And I’m sure Drogo will be relieved to have your wisdom again.”
She watched him expectantly. Still confused and stunned that she might even consider living in a house other than her own, Dunstan said the only words that entered his paralyzed mind. “Will you marry me, then?”
He wanted to grab the words back as soon as he said them, but as always, she caught him by surprise.
“I thought you’d never ask.” Holding the lavender, Leila flung her arms around his neck and kissed him with fervor.
Dunstan shook his head in awe of how easily she plucked his feelings from him. He didn’t care if none of this made sense, if the earth trembled and the walls shook. He’d placed his future in her hands, and joy raced through him. Now was a time for acting and not thinking.
Lifting Leila by the waist, Dunstan carried her around the side of the house, out of sight of the carriage and driver. Setting her down in a patch of daisies, he reached for the nearest evergreen branch and snapped it off. While she rhapsodized over the colors and fragrances of the weeds, Dunstan snapped off every branch in sight, then spread her cloak over the lot of them.
Catching her by the waist again, he gently lowered her to the springy bed he’d made and fell down beside her. Warm air caressed his cheek as softly as Leila’s fingers did when he bent over her.
“My wife should have silks and diamonds,” he murmured, plundering her mouth before she could laugh.
Leila’s tongue wrapped her sweetness around his, drawing him nearer to heaven. When neither of them could breathe, he spread his kisses across her cheek.
“Your wife would prefer roses and lavender.” She breathed a sigh of delight as he found a particularly sensitive place. “And this is the loveliest bed she has ever known.”
Something primitive and joyous stirred in him when she called herself his wife. In gratitude at her acceptance, Dunstan unfastened her bodice again, and spread open the front of her unhooked corset. Seeking the tender morsels buried beneath the frippery, he suckled deep and long until she could no longer speak but merely cried out in need.
“I will give you roses in winter,” he vowed. “You will never lack for precious scents if you will have me.”
“Give me your scent,” she demanded, dragging his shirttail from his breeches and rubbing her hands over his chest beneath it.
That was one request he could grant without difficulty. Sprawling his great bulk between her legs, Dunstan propped his weight on his elbows, and bent to press his kiss upon her eager lips. He wanted her promises in simple terms that even he could understand. “This seals our vows before God, Leila,” he warned. “Be certain this is what you wish, because no matter what the future brings, you will not be rid of me once you’re mine.”
She yanked the loose ribbon from his queue and spread his hair over his bare shoulders. Dunstan felt himself falling into the depths of her eyes, but he hung on, willing himself not to move until he saw her answer in the loving smile on her lips.
“I vow to love, honor, and take thee in equality for so long as both of us shall live,” she whispered solemnly.
In equality. Dunstan remembered Drogo’s panic at that Malcolm vow, but he’d had time to understand it better than his noble brother. He’d never known such joy. He might be a man who couldn’t live without a woman, but only this woman would do. “I vow to take thee as my wife, to love, honor, and respect thee in equality, for so long as both of us shall live, and beyond,” he promised without hesitation.
Her eyes widened in delight at that, but he had exhausted his supply of patience. Feeling like a pirate claiming a precious treasure, he joined his flesh with hers, celebrating the promises of their hearts with the pleasures of physical possession.
He’d conquered the lady’s heart only after he had submitted his own heart to the power of her love, the only witchcraft needed for building a future.
Thirty
“I’d rather chew off my own arm than wear—” Dunstan snapped his mouth shut as his bride-to-be lifted amused eyes to his. Standing across the room, Leila wore a shimmery powdery-blue confection that matched the sparkles in her eyes, and every time he looked at her, he couldn’t remember what he was complaining about.
Wearing a simple silver-blue gown adorned with blue ribbons, Ninian fastened a bunch of leaves and flowers to his lapel and patted it with satisfaction. “This is bay for love and honor and success, and a spray of jasmine for prosperity.”
“A spray of bank drafts would work better,” Dunstan grumbled, but he tugged to be certain the flowers were secure. He needed all the prosperity he could accumulate to support a wife as well as a son and daughter.
“I told you to keep Celia’s jewels,” Drogo said absently from where he leaned against the mantel, head bent over a book. “It was considerate of Wickham to save us the trouble of retrieving them from that pawnshop. The green one adequately repaid Handel, with some left over, and I never considered the money I gave you as a loan needing repayment.”
“It was far and above our agreed-upon percentage for my work.” Holding his chin high so Ninian could straighten his cravat, Dunstan stared over her head to the foyer of the Ives London town house. Beyond the foyer waited the formal salon, where Leila’s female relations flitted about, decorating for the upcoming nuptials. He refused to be nervous about the eccentric rituals that lay ahead, but his gaze kept drifting to Leila for reassurance. The love he found in her eyes soothed his ruffled hackles every time.
“You don’t like being paid to play in the dirt,” his soon-to-be wife scoffed. “I see I shall have to negotiate your wages for you.”
Dunstan grinned and dodged Ninian’s interfering hands to cross the room. “Do you intend to douse Drogo in perfume and discover my true worth in his eyes?” He grabbed the lacy veil and circle of twigs
with which her sister had just covered Leila’s curls and tossed them in the direction of the fireplace.
While Christina rescued them from the flames, Leila boldly met his gaze. “Your lofty brother has no clue what you’re worth.”
“And you do?”
Before Leila could reply, her mother and aunt hurried across the foyer with a rustle of skirts and squawks of outrage to join them in the family parlor. “That impossible man is here,” the duchess cried, at the same time that Hermione wailed, “Someone hung”—she spluttered and turned pink—“those things on the rowan tree!”
So that was where his extra supply of protectives had disappeared to, Dunstan realized. His brothers no doubt thought he wouldn’t need them anymore. Why they had chosen to tie them to a rowan tree wasn’t a question Dunstan cared to pursue. He chose to answer the duchess’s complaint instead. “I invited the impossible man,” he warned, stopping the duchess in her tracks. “Griffith requested it.”
“Adonis?” Leila whispered beside him, having been told of the invitation.
Dunstan nodded while continuing to stare down the huffy duchess.
“Well!” Stella turned her attention to Leila’s bare head. “Where’s your circlet of rowan?” she demanded, sweeping across the room to snatch it from Christina. “And his?” She shot Dunstan a demanding look.
“Wear it,” Leila ordered in an undertone as Dunstan started to protest. “For me,” she finished with a smile that smote his heart.
Dunstan bit back his grumble and let Christina stand on a chair to lower a circle of dried twigs and purple and white flowers onto his head. “I feel like one of your damned rosebushes,” he complained when Christina jumped down and eased out of his way. “Next you’ll be sticking my feet in mud and telling me to grow.”
Leila’s muffled chuckle was music to his ears, so he didn’t protest too loudly when Hermione fluttered about him with the silly cape they’d forced Drogo to wear at his wedding.
“It’s Leila who will grow, dear,” his mother-in-law-to-be corrected. She turned to Leila to adjust the cape Christina had placed over her shoulders. “You will need to leave for our home in Northumberland by fall so you do not risk having the child while traveling in winter.”
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