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  His father’s neglect had taught Dunstan to live without society. He’d grown up in the village vicarage of his mother’s brother, had learned from his maternal grandfather to respect the land and nature. London’s decadence had never called to him.

  Of course, if he’d made even the slightest effort to enter society, Celia might be alive today.

  Guilt joined the cold damp of the London fog permeating Dunstan’s bones. Behind him, through the brilliantly lit glass, he could hear the poignant notes of violin and flute. Couples executed elegant dance steps and whirled about in colorful silks, laughing, flirting, arranging trysts. Celia had become a part of that world without him.

  His innards writhed in an agony of discomfort. He had no place here. His abilities related to the land, not people. Experience had taught him he could only hurt people.

  The land his grandfather had left him was little more than a useless bog he couldn’t afford to drain, but Drogo had offered a few acres of solid ground for Dunstan’s experimental crop—a fodder that would revolutionize farming by growing large enough to feed a flock of sheep all winter. This was the hope his future turned on, not this glittering artificial world.

  He didn’t have time to plant the seeds before returning to his tedious duties as estate agent for the Marquess of Hampton. The marquess’s heir demanded his presence in Gloucestershire two days hence. Even dealing with the marquess’s foolish son, Rolly, was far better than enduring an entire city of brainless fribbles.

  Leaning against the cold balcony rail, Dunstan fretted over the lack of time to plant his valuable crop, concerned about leaving it in the dubious care of Drogo’s steward.

  Now that his brother had married and produced a son, Dunstan was no longer heir to an earldom or the entailed estate he’d thought would someday be his. He must find his own land and his own place in the world. He couldn’t expect Drogo to support him for a lifetime.

  His brother had paid Dunstan’s way through school, provided for his illegitimate son, and loaned him enough to keep Celia in style. After Celia’s death, Drogo had paid the debts she’d left behind. He’d even offered to take on the expense of investigating Celia’s murder, but Dunstan had insisted that responsibility must be his. Until his name was cleared, there was little sense in wasting money on improving his boggy land.

  Voices at the door intruded on his musings, prompting him to retreat into the shadows.

  “The man should be hanged,” a deep voice uttered in vicious tones. “We hang paupers for stealing bread. It’s no wonder the lower classes don’t trust their betters if they perceive us as getting away with murder.”

  “There’s no evidence on which to try him,” a calmer voice said. “There’s no call for Ives to shove him in our faces, though. The man hasn’t the political sense of a squirrel.”

  A flame flickered, and the aroma of a rich cigar drifted through the air. Dunstan cursed beneath his breath and considered his choices. Leaping off a balcony onto a flagstone terrace would either crack every bone in his body or split every stone in the terrace.

  The first voice grunted. “Ives doesn’t give a fig for politics. Shoving his criminal of a brother down our throats will ruin him.”

  “Polite society has standards,” the second voice agreed. “Ives have always been a ramshackle lot, at any account. Shut them all out, keep them away from our daughters, and the world will be a better place.”

  The smug satisfaction in the lout’s voice decided the matter. Dunstan had no doubt that Drogo could fight his own battles, and that his witch of a wife could hex the entire city if she were so inclined, but Dunstan wouldn’t allow the taint of his reputation to harm his younger brothers, either the legitimate or the illegitimate ones. With no titles or wealth, they would have to fight the painful battle for survival with several handicaps. Dunstan refused to add one more.

  With what he considered to be remarkable aplomb, he stepped into the light pouring through the glass doors. Towering over the elegantly bewigged and silk-coated gentlemen who stood frozen at the balustrade, Dunstan plucked the cigar from the speaker’s mouth, dropped the lighted tobacco on the man’s silver-buckled shoe, and mashed it with his massive foot.

  “Polite society might consider adopting Ives standards,” Dunstan said in his most courteous tone. “We crush stupidity and ignorance when they stand in the way.” With one last grind of his heel on lordly toes, Dunstan stalked off.

  “Leila, Leila—hurry! I think your Ives has murdered someone!”

  Leila stiffened as Christina pushed through the crowd of suitors surrounding her. Trusting her sister’s ability to detect strong auras, she didn’t doubt there was a problem. She was merely annoyed that she didn’t possess the ability to see it herself.

  Hearing the commotion near the balcony doors, she directed her steps toward the gathering crowd.

  “I say, let us hang Ives from the ramparts!” the younger son of an aging roué announced gaily, following in Leila’s wake, as did his fellows. “It’s not done, murdering a guest of Lady Leila’s.”

  “Lord John, you . . .” Have the wits of a gander, she refrained from saying. She hadn’t climbed this far in society by insulting those who had helped put her there. “Go find Drogo, will you? He’ll listen to you.” Appeal to the young man’s pride. He had too much of it, but she could put it to good use. That was how she’d gained her position, by knowing the weaknesses of others.

  “Of course, my lady.” Full of self-importance, Lord John sauntered off, his closest gambling companion, Sir Barton Townsend, trailing along for security.

  “Grown men, yet they’re still children,” Leila muttered to herself. What she would give for a man. She’d thought she’d married one when she’d wed Theodore. He’d been forty at the time, and it had seemed a reasonable assumption. But he’d been more child than his school-age nephew.

  Henry Wickham stayed at her side, reeking of determination. A man of shallow character, he had his own grievances against Dunstan. She did not mistake his company as tenacity in her defense.

  “This is a family matter, sir,” she informed him haughtily, keeping an eye on the scene outside the balcony door. Drogo had arrived. And Ninian. Where was Dunstan? “Find Viscount Staines and apprise him of events.”

  That offered Wickham a dilemma—to cultivate her interest or that of her nephew, the much more impressionable young recipient of her husband’s title. Wickham surprised her by actually choosing the wiser course. Leila smiled when he disappeared in search of the new viscount.

  Her late husband hadn’t been particularly disappointed that she hadn’t produced a child to whom he could pass on the title. He and his nephew were two of a kind, and he’d known the odds against a Malcolm bearing a boy when he married her.

  Leila had been disappointed, though. Not bearing a child had been one more proof of her failure as a Malcolm.

  Despite her lack of Malcolm abilities, she knew she possessed an astute understanding of human nature. If Dunstan wasn’t in the midst of the shouting on the balcony, she knew precisely where to find him—providing he had not already escaped.

  Damn the man. She couldn’t afford to let him get away.

  Veering from her original path, Leila swept past velvet draperies into the conservatory, a room providing a second exit from the balcony.

  Humid warmth enveloped her as she opened the latticework doors. The servants had lit a few wall sconces, but the towering plants threw the jungle into heavy shadow.

  “I am not a patient woman,” she announced to the greenery. “You can’t turn my party into the talk of the Season, then lurk in the shadows until we all go away.”

  “I’m not lurking.”

  Indeed, he could not. Dunstan Ives was much too broad in the shoulders to disguise himself as a palm or a lemon tree. She’d misjudged the density of the shadows.

  She shivered in apprehension at the sepulchral sound of his voice. She should have recognized the scent of bone-deep isolation permeating the chamber
, but she’d become too accustomed to her own. She entered, letting the door close behind her.

  “I am debating wasting another cigar by shoving it up their arses.” Blowing a curl of smoke, he leaned against a sturdy table, arms crossed, staring upward toward the glass ceiling. “Is that jasmine?” he asked, gesturing toward a towering vine with his obnoxious tobacco.

  “Yes, it makes a delightful perfume.” Gathering her panniered skirt to navigate the narrow path between them, Leila sucked in a gasp at the impact of raw male fury and an underlying current of—lust?—that he exuded. How could a man who looked so cold stir her with such heat?

  “What cigar and whose arse?” she demanded, ignoring her passing fancy.

  “No idea. Obnoxious old fart. Why aren’t you out there with the rest of them, pouring witchy unguent on his wounds?”

  “If I had any idea what the devil you were talking about, I might be. It seemed prudent to locate you first and be certain you didn’t pull the house down around my ears.”

  “Or that they didn’t form a lynch mob and hang me from the chandelier?” he asked shrewdly, turning in her direction.

  “That caused me no concern whatsoever.”

  It did now. She had wanted to use this man’s knowledge, but his isolation reverberated upon the untried chords of her own heart. Leila grappled with the odd inclination to comfort his wounded soul—then decided Dunstan Ives had no soul and was quite capable of handling anything that came his way.

  He shrugged and ground his cigar against the dirt in a pot. “Where’s your bevy of cicisbeos? Aren’t they afraid I’ll snap your neck?”

  Amazingly perceptive of him, but she would not admit it. “I threatened them with hysterics if they did not leave me alone. Most gentlemen are instantly cowed by females who disturb their equanimity.”

  “Not cowed. Impatient. Blathering and dramatics are irrational and ineffective. If you will give my regards to my brother and his wife, I believe I shall depart for the country, where I belong.” He pushed away from the table and loomed over her, waiting for her to step aside.

  “Not yet,” she commanded.

  Leila shivered at the masculine aromas flooding her senses as he crossed his arms over his massive chest and glared at her. Someone—most likely Ninian—had tucked a carnation into his lapel. The combination of his male musk and the sweet perfume unleashed an unexpected hunger in her. In imitation of him, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and shut out the sensation.

  “I want you to work for me,” she said, going straight to the point.

  He remained impassive.

  For the first time in memory, anxiety enveloped her. Wearing the guise of society coquette, she had persuaded dukes and princes to do as she wished—or rather, to do as her husband wished. She had never attempted to act on something she alone wanted, because she’d never thought that what she wanted was attainable.

  Now, with the opportunity of a lifetime at her fingertips, she was terrified of losing her one and only chance.

  “I need a garden.” How could she explain that she didn’t want just any garden? And that she didn’t want it for the usual reasons? “I need flowers that no one else possesses. I want to propagate varieties that exist only in my head.”

  He snorted. “Female heads might be fertile ground for cotton, but flowers do better in soil.”

  She tightened her lips against a spurt of anger at his insult. She might have laughed at his riposte had he been another man or had this been another occasion, but it was her future he scorned. “You will discover my head contains far more than cotton. I wish to grow flowers that produce special scents. I will start with varieties I’ve already located, but I need someone who knows how to propagate them. My father says you are an expert.”

  “With vegetables. Flowers have no purpose.”

  Mule-headed wretched stone wall of a . . . wall. For whatever reason, Dunstan Ives had erected a barrier between himself and the world. She hadn’t attained her position as society’s leading matron by ignoring the nuances of male behavior. A man who resisted had something to hide. In Dunstan’s case, she would prefer not to know what, but she needed the blasted man too much to allow his boneheaded stubbornness to stand in her way.

  “You may grow all the vegetables you desire,” she offered generously.

  Had he just drawn in his breath, as if she had touched a raw nerve? She would have explored the possibility, but he stepped back, his emotions impenetrable once again. She flirted with danger by stepping closer, running her fingers up and down his chest. “Or are you holding out for a more . . . personal offer?”

  She had no idea what possessed her to say such a thing, but his heat nearly set her gloves on fire.

  Though she could barely see his face in the darkness, Leila felt him stiffen, and seeking the crack in his armor, she pressed her case. “You may name your terms,” she said in a seductive tone that had brought generals to their knees, “as long as they can be measured in coin.” She paused for effect, then took a gamble. “Unless you prefer something less tangible than coin.”

  He removed her hand from his chest with a strength that could have broken bones and with a gentleness that didn’t.

  “That’s about the most inane thing anyone has said to me all evening. Go away before I chew you into little bits and spit you out.” Dunstan flung her hand away and retreated from her reach. He’d been without a woman for so long, he’d forgotten their alluring scents and softness, the sway and rustle of tempting curves, the hot bloodlust that throbbed through him when the need was on him.

  He couldn’t afford passion any more than he could afford women. Whatever she offered, she would take too much in return.

  “I am not an empty-headed twit,” the lady replied with scorn. “You can’t frighten me with exaggerated threats and intimidating stances. If you are the best agronomist in all England, then I need your services.”

  Intimidating stances. Dunstan almost chuckled at the way the irritating scrap of fluff stood there with her hands on her hips in her own version of intimidation.

  “I am the best agronomist in England, but I am already employed,” he avowed. “The last person in the world I’d work for is a Malcolm witch.”

  Even though he could barely see the lady in the darkness, she was still working her witchy Malcolm wiles on him. A part of him wanted to show her he was far more than the best agronomist in all England. He wanted to prove he was first and foremost a man—but that pathway led to hell, and he refused to take it, no matter what enticements she offered. Name his own terms! Gad, the woman had parsnips for brains if she didn’t know the power of her own seductiveness.

  Lady Leila had the most luscious curves created in the eyes of God and mankind. He was far better off out of her presence, and she was far better off understanding with whom she toyed.

  Dunstan wrapped his hands around her corseted waist and lifted her to the potting bench, knocking plants out of his way with her wide panniers.

  She gasped and got in a well-placed kick with her heeled shoes, but Dunstan merely grunted and staggered away.

  Name his own terms, indeed. She would scream and have his head cut off if he told her exactly what terms he’d choose.

  Three

  Wiltshire, April 1752

  The last person in the world I’d work for is a Malcolm witch. Famous last words. Taunting a Malcolm was as witless as teasing dragons.

  Cursing and wiping the filth of the road from his brow, Dunstan halted at a crossroad near Swindon and let his aging mount nibble grass while he debated his route.

  Dismissed. The best damned agronomist in the land, and he’d been dismissed. For insubordination. Imagine that. And not another fat-headed lordling on the horizon seemed interested in hiring him.

  Dunstan returned to pondering the crossroad. He could take the route east and crawl back to Drogo, but he’d rather eat his own foot than ask for help. The fiasco in London had proven he was a detriment to his noble brother as well a
s to his own son, whom he was determined to take under his wing one day.

  Years ago, Celia had been horrified when he’d suggested bringing his by-blow, Griffith, into their household. Celia’s death and the subsequent rumors had effectively destroyed his hopes of developing any filial relationship with the boy. Until Dunstan’s innocence was established, Griffith was better off with his mother.

  Dunstan might be a failure at his social obligations, but he knew he possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of experimental agricultural techniques. He wasn’t too proud to work, provided someone would let him.

  The cursed Malcolm witch had seen to it that no one would let him.

  You may name your terms. Had she really said that? Was it a trap?

  He glared up the road leading west, toward Bath and the Staines estate. He had no proof that Lady Leila was responsible for his current situation. After Celia and London, his reputation could be the reason that no man would hire him. But it had been the lady’s half brother who had sacked him, even though Dunstan had tripled the estate’s profits over the past year. It certainly looked like the lady’s doing to him.

  Of course, to be fair, Rolly was a prig of the worst sort, and Dunstan might have let the lordling know that a time or two. He didn’t tolerate fools gladly.

  Dunstan leaned against his horse’s neck and considered his alternatives. His saddlebag still contained the experimental turnip seeds. He could crawl back to his brother—and the few acres Drogo had promised him—and never earn enough to pay his recently hired investigator to seek the truth of Celia’s death, much less make a life for his son.

  Or he could turn toward Bath and accept the lady’s offer.

  His terms. The possibilities intrigued him.

  He had catered to Celia’s whims for years. Like a blithering fool, he’d showered her with fripperies and jewels he could ill afford, placating her with the dream of someday becoming a countess since Drogo had no heir. He hoped she would be patient and learn to love him.