To woman's intuition and to everyone who feels a littledifferent . . .
Author's Note
The second half of the eighteenth century was a time of burgeoning interest in all things scientific, although the word "science" was not defined as it is today. Reading bumps on heads was considered as scientific as staring at the skies through telescopes. Although this was also a time in Great Britain of great experimentation in agriculture, the word "agronomist" had not yet come into use.
For the sake of the modern reader, I have ignored eighteenth-century definitions and confusing phrases and used words like "scientist" and "agronomist," as we do today.
For the disbelievers among us who may be tempted to scoff at my heroine's gifts, let me remind you that it has been scientifically proven that smell can evoke memories and influence mood, emotions, and choice of mates. It can predict death and detect illness. In a primitive manner, man can communicate by smell. Just don't expect characters from the eighteenth century to recognize this as a science!
Prologue
London, 1735
"Pick little Christina if you must, but don't pick Leila for our team," a fair-haired adolescent warned her equally fair younger sister. "She has no powers. She'suseless. "
"But Uncle Rowland favors her," the younger girl replied. "He says Leila's just like him."
"That's because she's not like the rest of us," Diana, the elder, said with an arrogant toss of her blond curls.
"Leila's hair isblack , and she has no gifts. She's not a Malcolm. Even her baby sisters have more abilities than she does. Let her play on the babies' side. They won't know the difference."
On the staircase above, ten-year-old Leila cringed and backed up the way she'd come, her heart breaking with every step. She'd anticipated the joyous romp of the scavenger hunt her aunt had arranged. She'd been thrilled to have the company of her beautiful older cousins with their fascinating abilities to find lost objects and to paint pictures of what wasn't there.
She hadn't anticipated scorn at her own lack of such gifts.
She'd known her sister could see odd colors around people that she couldn't, but Christina was ababy . No one cared what babies saw, and what good were colors anyway? Leila was the eldest, and her mama said she was the best little helper she could have. Her papa called her beautiful. The little ones clamored for her company.
But her cousins thought heruseless. Wide-eyed with shock, Leila quivered at the top of the stairs, not fully comprehending her cousin's antipathy.
Her cousins thought she wasn't aMalcolm. She might beadopted . She didn't want to be thrown out in the snow and left to die because she didn't belong here.
Panicking, Leila grabbed her black curls and threw a glance over her shoulder to see if the portly butler might already be bearing down on her, prepared to heave her out the door. Relieved to see no immediate danger in sight, Leila raced for the only comfort she knew-her very blond, very Malcolm mother.
Tears forming at her cousin's cruel dismissal, Leila rushed into the workshop and dived into Hermione's welcoming arms.
"Iam a Malcolm, aren't I?" she wailed against her mother's plump bosom. "My hair will lighten to be just like yours someday, won't it?"
Sitting down on a low bench beside a cluster of candle molds and jars of herbs and fragrances, Hermione wrapped her beautiful firstborn in a hug. "Of course you're a Malcolm, dear. You're justdifferent . You should be proud of your lovely black hair. Someday men will swoon over you."
