Free Must Be Magic by Patricia Rice Page B

powdered curls, he surely ought to recognize her at this close range. He stank of ale and polluted lust, and she had to fight not to rub her twitching nose. Anger rising, she jerked her imprisoned arm. “Let me go, fool, or I’ll have the magistrate after you.”
    â€œHe’s not here, is he, then? Damn, but you’re a bawdy wench.” Obviously still blind to anything but her gender and her clothes, Henry twisted his fingers in her unruly hair and pulled her toward him.
    She’d been gently raised in the household of a marquess. No one had ever treated her in such a manner. Revulsion raised bile in her throat, but fury won out.
    â€œLet me go, you jackanapes!” she cried loudly, stomping his foot as hard as she could. But he wore boots and didn’t notice. She kicked his shin, and he wrenched her hair harder. Leila screamed in stunned outrage, too furious to feel fear.
    â€œVermin generally wait until full dark,” a deep voice intruded. “It’s much too easy to put musket balls through tiny heads in daylight.”
    Dunstan. Leila scarcely had time to register his scent before Wickham released her. She stumbled backward, tripped in the soft soil, and fell on her rear, knocking the breath from her lungs. The tumble didn’t disturb her enough to tear her gaze from the man who was strolling across the rough furrows, following her cat, Jehoshaphat.
    Dunstan sauntered as lazily as the animal, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. The tension in the powerful muscles of his shoulders gave the lie to his insouciance.
    He didn’t carry a weapon. Leila rather wished he did. Wickham’s usually affable expression had turned ugly. Apparently he was better at recognizing men than women—but then, Dunstan’s size and unfashionable black queue were unmistakable.
    â€œIves!” Wickham all but hissed in fury as the large man reached them. “They ought to have hanged you by now.”
    Dunstan rolled his big hands into fists that Leila admired longingly. If only she had fists like that…
    â€œI have rich relatives to protect me. Who do you have?” he asked in mockery.
    Recovering from the ignominy of her position, Leila brushed the dirt off her palms and remained seated. “No one,” she replied for Wickham. “He is a leech who gambles his allowance and runs up debts in anticipation of his uncle’s early demise.”
    Wickham gaped at her in disbelief. “Who do you think you are, a witch like yonder bitch on the hill?” He returned to Dunstan. “She is naught but a sharp-tongued vixen. It’s none of your affair, unless you have taken to wallowing with pigs.”
    Leila removed her pruning knife from its sheath and contemplated how much of his boot she could carve before he noticed.
    â€œPut the knife away.” Dunstan’s voice was cool and distant. “Wickham comes from a family of vultures and wouldn’t recognize the superiority of pigs if it was explained to him.”
    She almost smiled at that. Sheathing her knife, she stayed sprawled where she was, admiring the silhouette of Dunstan’s broad shoulders encased in white linen against the fading light of day. She remembered the rumors now—Dunstan was said to have killed Wickham’s older brother in a duel over the feckless Celia. She ought to be afraid, but she was too interested in how Dunstan would handle the situation. She sensed it had become more his battle than hers.
    She was beginning to understand why Dunstan hid behind a mask of brooding indifference. The likes of Wickham would crush a man who cared.
    â€œYou’ll hang for what you did to George,” Wickham snarled. “And then they’ll boil you in oil for murdering your tramp of a wife.”
    â€œRun, fetch the magistrate and the rope,” Dunstan offered, planting his fists on his hips and thrusting his square chin forward. “Or would you like to call me