“We’ve planted the wheat,” he announced, as if he reported to the brat every day.
Staines grimaced. “I’ll take your word that improvements have been made.”
“Wheat’s the first course of my system. Next year, we’ll plant turnips. Instead of selling off the lambs, we’ll be able to keep them through the winter and feed them with the roots.”
“What’s the point of keeping the smelly creatures?” The viscount slumped in his seat. “I’d rather sell them and spend the money.”
Patience was not one of Dunstan’s virtues, but he held his tongue and tried to remember he had a son to support and an investigator to pay. And he needed verification from the stripling before he made an utter ass of himself. “You will earn more money by producing wool every year,” he explained to the boy. “The object is to make every investment return more than you put in.”
The viscount finally looked intrigued. “Turnips don’t cost much, lambs are free, and wool produces more income than mutton?”
“That’s the substance of it.” No point in going into the details of labor and expenses now. He needed to hook the lad’s interest first. He needed the boy’s support should the lady marry.
The idea of the lady marrying chilled him to the marrow—surely out of fear of losing the turnips, he told himself.
“Each year, I’ll cultivate more fields,” Dunstan continued. “The system feeds itself. Barring a natural disaster, it will provide a foolproof return on your investment.”
“Barring a natural disaster or Leila’s roses,” the boy complained. “I wish you would rid me of them. My only income comes from the estate.”
That was the opening he wanted. Relaxing in the sumptuous leather chair, Dunstan fingered the stem of the brandy glass and worded his question carefully. “Do you want me to rid you of Lily or the roses?”
“Lily?” Staines stared at him in disbelief. “She allows you to call her Lily? Only her sisters do that.”
Dunstan drained his brandy glass, hoping for numbness as the alcohol burned through to his empty stomach. A red-hot haze of anger cloaked his brain in confusion. He’d been duped. He need only check the color of the hair of the woman in the room above to prove his own stupidity.
Standing in the open, arched balcony window of her room, Leila watched the last lamp light flicker out on the floor below. Even the servants were retiring for the night. She’d heard Dunstan ride away an hour ago.
How enormous was the risk she had just taken? Did Dunstan finally see her as she really was? Or did he simply think her an easy wench, free for the asking?
If a man with the intelligence of Dunstan Ives couldn’t see her as she was, who could? She longed for the acceptance and understanding even her family couldn’t offer. She wasn’t just “the black-haired Malcolm” or “ungifted Lily” or the “eligible Lady Leila.” She was a woman with needs and desires—a woman who yearned to be held in a man’s arms, to be listened to and respected. Was that so very impossible?
Or had she only made the man she wanted monstrously angry? Dunstan wouldn’t walk out on her and abandon his turnips, would he? Would he continue pretending she was two people?
Would he come to her bed?
She was wide awake and hungering for what she couldn’t have.
She spun on her slippered heel and paced the spacious room her husband had had decorated for her. She had just experienced more life in a mossy cave than she’d ever known between these gilded walls.
She longed to experience more—craved it.
Perhaps she could don her peasant clothes and entice Dunstan back to the cave again.
Perhaps she could slip into his house, tempt him with wine and perfume, and they wouldn’t go any farther than his bed. She would set candles burning all around so she could see all of him.
She almost set out in search of a box of candles before she stopped herself. She wasn’t thinking. She was behaving like a bitch in heat.
Dunstan Ives would not lightly take a Malcolm for a mistress. Yet why, by all that was holy, couldn’t he be like every other man in society and just accept what she offered without considering the consequences?
How could she survive without taking his body into hers again? Cupping her breasts through the silk of her nightdress, she tried to arouse the sensations he had taught her, but she needed the fiery heat of his breath, the musky smell of his skin, the brush of his thick hair. She needed him.
“Once wasn’t enough, my lady?” a masculine voice inquired from the window.
Gasping, Leila swung around.
Dunstan sat on her windowsill, arms crossed, booted legs sprawled in front of him. Bareheaded, with his silky hair drawn back in a dark ribbon, he could have been a highwayman off the road. But he carried an air of authority and power that no common thief could ever match.
She wouldn’t waste her breath asking how he got there. He was an Ives. They were all in league with the devil. He probably snapped his fingers and flew.
She refused to fear him, but she hoped to placate him. She needed him too desperately, in too many ways, not to try.
“Odd, how prejudice can blind us to the obvious,” she answered, then inwardly winced. Well, that certainly wouldn’t smooth his ruffled feathers. Where were all her social skills when she needed them? Turning away, she picked up a brush and bent to pull it through her hair.
In the resulting silence, the tension between them rose to an unbearable degree.
When she looked up again, Dunstan’s broad form filled her full-length mirror. She admired the quality of the lace on his jabot rather than wonder what he might do with his hands.
“Your hair is supposed to be blond like your sisters’ and your cousins’.” Without permission, he took the brush from her and began plying it to her tangled curls.
“I am the only black-haired Malcolm. Anyone in London could have told you that.”
“You deceived me. Why?” His hands in her hair were gentle. His voice was not.
“It was not intentional, I assure you. I simply let you think as you pleased.” Leila closed her eyes and luxuriated in the sensual pull of the brush in her hair. She could smell him so vividly that she could see him in the cave again, in all his glory.
“I suppose I deserved that. I’ll try not to be so blind next time,” he said.
“It’s about time you opened your eyes to many truths. I’m not any of the things you think me. Most of all, I’m not Celia. It’s bigotry and prejudice to lump all women into the same shallow mold.”
“You deny you manipulated me? Isn’t that what women do best?” Dunstan threw the brush on her dresser, pulled her hair behind her, and ran his hand beneath the loose fabric of her neckline. Heat enveloped Leila’s bare breast, desire pooled deep beneath her belly, and she almost moaned as he caressed her nipple into an aching peak.
He bent his head down to her, and she arched her neck to accept his kiss. His mouth seared hers, spreading liquid heat through her limbs, while her hand instinctively reached to comb through his hair. The demanding invasion of his tongue weakened her knees, and hope pounded in her heart. Perhaps he had forgiven—
He stepped back, leaving her cold.
She stood still, praying for his touch, yet fearing his words.
“You’re an incredibly responsive woman,” he said thoughtfully, watching her in the mirror. “Any man would pay well for what you offer so freely.”
She wanted to slap him, but he let a handful of her hair slip through his fingers, and she stood frozen, fascinated, waiting to see what he would do next. “I’ve known only one man before you,” she finally said. “Don’t you think I deserve an opportunity to learn more?”
“Not at my expense and without my consent. You have no understanding of what you have done by involving me. I doubt that either of us can afford to act on our desires.”
He stood behind her so she couldn’t tell the extent of his arousal, though the passion between them was too potent to ignore. The scent o
f him filled her head, and she could feel him inside her in some primitive manner she couldn’t define. Not physically, but the person he was: the lonely man, the arrogant intellect, the commanding presence.
She stepped backward, but he merely caught her arms in a powerful grip and forced her to look in the mirror. At them. They were both tall, black-haired creatures, she thought wildly. She had cultivated the expressionless features of vapid beauty. His chiseled face was an impenetrable mask by nature.
“I didn’t hear you saying no earlier.” Her voice shook, and she closed her eyes again so she didn’t have to see what he was doing to her.
“You hear me saying no now,” he replied softly. “I cannot afford to dally with Lady Leila any more than I can afford Lily. What we did tonight was a mistake. You ask too much of me.”
“You are being unreason—”
Relentlessly, his deep voice continued, murmuring against her ear. “I suggest that you decide which you most want planted, your roses or yourself. Leave me be, Leila.”
He abruptly stepped away. Stumbling, she struggled to recover her equilibrium, but Dunstan had already crossed the room to the window.
If she had a temper, she’d fling everything within reach at the wretched man who was now lifting his booted foot over the sill.
Instead, she collapsed onto the carpet, wrapping her arms around her knees and rocking back and forth in an agony of unrequited desire while the wicked wretch disappeared into the night.
Twelve
Attempting to wash before dawn the next morning, Dunstan inhaled the scent of sweet grass, felt his body tighten with longing, and flung the cake of soap across the room with a force that dented the wainscoting. The witch. Even the soap raised visions of last night’s ecstasy—an ecstasy he dared not repeat. Denial was much harder now that he knew what he denied.
He breathed deeply, attempting to control his towering temper, but the lady had dug her claws into his soul, and he couldn’t pry her loose.
Damnation, but she’d tasted of lavender and honey and fitted his rough hands as if she belonged there. Creamier and more tender than silk, her flesh had branded his palms so he could feel naught else. A lady. Not a common wench. A Malcolm. Not a laughing maidservant.
Why him? She may as well have made a pact with the devil.
He gripped the rough windowsill and watched a distant curl of smoke rise against the dawn sky. He hadn’t slept a wink all night. He never should have kissed her. He was a condemned man.
Well, that wasn’t anything new.
With that wry realization, he straightened. The witch might as well have his soul since he was damned to hell already.
She would turn him to putty if he let her. He’d already compromised his turnips by helping her with the gardens when he should have been persuading her to give them up—or to marry.
Yet he couldn’t ask her to do either.
His brothers might jeer at his superstition, but Dunstan fully accepted that Malcolms were witches. He had his hands in the earth every day and knew that the powers of nature were far beyond his comprehension. Call the Malcolms forces of nature instead of witches, perhaps, but he couldn’t command a Malcolm female any more than he could direct the sun or the rain.
He would rather trust the devious lady than her addlepated young nephew. At least he and Leila had similar goals in mind, odd as that might be.
Stomping down the stairs to the kitchen, Dunstan vowed to avoid women from this day forth.
Grimacing, he stirred the banked fire in the stove and pumped water to fill a pot.
“I have a proposition for you.”
The female voice emerged from the shadows.
Startled, Dunstan nearly dropped the kettle. He glanced around for the source of the voice and discovered Leila’s black-and-white cat curled on the pillow of his cook’s chair. Even witches couldn’t make cats talk.
A waft of heavenly roses surrounded him. Leila.
She was inside his head.
No, he couldn’t believe that. He was bigger and stronger and in control here. She was simply a calculating wisp of female.
Cautiously, he searched the dim corners of the lofty room.
A teacup rose to the pale ghost of her face against the backdrop of a still-dark windowpane. Clenching his teeth, Dunstan stepped deeper into the kitchen. He really needed to start carrying candles with him.
Sitting on the windowsill, she wore black gloves against the morning chill and a black velvet cloak that enveloped her in night. Her inky curls spilled down her back, unbound and unveiled. No longer denying what his senses told him, he fully recognized the lady as the wench.
“How long have you been here?” he demanded, finding the teapot still warm. He poured a splash of tea into a cup and gulped the soothing liquid.
“Long enough to let the fire dwindle. I don’t sleep much.”
He heard the shrug in her voice, wanted to believe the lonely vulnerability behind it, but couldn’t. “I assumed witches slept in the daylight.”
“I’m not a witch.”
This time, her sadness penetrated his defenses as surely as her perfume permeated the air. He tamped down his sympathy, reluctant to let her beneath his skin again. “Fine, you’re not a witch. You’re a woman. That’s bad enough.”
A wry laugh escaped her as she extended her cup for a refill. “Being a woman is terrible, I agree. How would you like being no more than a pet to be cuddled or cast aside on a whim? Treated as if you hadn’t a thought in your head? It’s a credit to our gender that we do not all rise up some frosty morn and slit the throats of the men around us.”
Devil take it, she was doing it again, crawling inside his mind and making him like her. The woman was as dangerous as he’d feared. “What do you want?” he asked curtly, deciding it would be safer to remove her from his kitchen as swiftly as possible.
“As I said, I’ve come to offer you a proposition. I do not own my land outright, so I cannot deed you the acreage you need for your experiments. But if you will work with me, I can offer you something better.”
Dunstan froze. He didn’t think he wanted to hear her offer, but he didn’t have much choice unless he bodily heaved her out. And if he touched her he doubted he’d have the strength to let her go.
Taking his silence for permission to continue, Leila did so. “I can offer to clear your name.”
He waited. What she offered was so far beyond the realm of possibility that he figured there must be more to it. Even he didn’t know if he was innocent. His investigator had sent notes reporting little progress. He saw no point in telling her he was already doing all that could be done.
Impatient with his silence, she set down the cup. “If we clear your name, you can take a position anywhere. You can work with some of the best agricultural experts in the country, earn a respectable reputation, buy your own land. Isn’t that what you want?”
More than life itself, but he wouldn’t admit it. He had pride and an aristocratic name, and he was supposed to be above caring what the world thought. He refused to reveal the weakness in him that craved respect and recognition, and the driving need to make a difference in the world. He knew he could improve living conditions for farmers, but he wouldn’t beg for the opportunity to do so.
“And what would I have to do so you would consent to wave your magic wand and create miracles?” he asked.
“You needn’t be sarcastic.” She hopped down from the window ledge and paced the tiled floor, her petticoats rustling. “I need your cooperation with the gardens and with handling my nephew. I cannot do it alone, and I don’t want you siding with Staines and his cohorts simply because they’re men and I’m not. I need your knowledge and experience and the chance to develop new flower strains. All my life I’ve been denied the opportunity to develop my talents, and I won’t wait any longer.”
Dunstan closed his eyes and heard her words echoing his own. He felt her hunger for knowledge as surely as he felt his. Worse, he understood her u
nspoken need for recognition of those talents. The lady wanted what he wanted.
“I can’t help you,” he said flatly, grinding out any foolish desire to dream. Until he was sure he hadn’t killed Celia, he had to carry on alone. He had the blood of one man on his hands. The thought of having Celia’s—it was beyond bearing. Nor would he risk endangering others.
Developing new flower varieties would take time he might not have, should proof be found that he’d caused his wife’s death. In pursuing his investigation, Dunstan was acutely aware that he might bring about his own doom.
Leila swung around, and even through the shadows he could see the flare of ire in her eyes. “Can’t accept my help, or won’t?” she demanded.
“Both.” He rose and removed the boiling water from the stove, pouring it over the coffee he’d ground. “You’d fare far better if you went back to London where you belong.”
“I could easily hate you,” she whispered. “I despise ignorance and prejudice, and you are guilty of both if you think me powerless. I can clear your name.”
“Even if I am guilty?” He didn’t turn to see how she took that idea.
“You’re not,” she replied. “I’d know if you were.”
If she only knew how much he needed to believe that . . . He shook his head in refusal.
“I know we think differently,” she said with an edge of desperation. “But can we not respect those differences and join our talents to make us stronger?”
Differences? They were too blamed alike in some ways, or he’d not hear her loneliness echoing inside his head. He refused to harm her any more than he already had by his presence. What were the chances of making an interfering Malcolm understand that? “Try respecting my wishes and leave me be,” he replied.
Pouring his coffee, Dunstan felt a fresh rush of air caused by the lady’s angry departure. He raised his eyebrow at the purring cat she’d left behind. The feline merely licked its paws.
“I don’t suppose you were a man before she cast a spell on you?” he inquired aloud, needing to hear the sound of a voice in the silence she left behind.
Must Be Magic Page 12
