The Devil’s Due Read online

Kate took the bottle, raising it to him in gesture of salute before draining it to the dregs in a single swallow. “That was unconscionably selfish of me,” she said, her voice hoarse with tears and liquor, “to polish off a man’s last lick of whiskey is an unpardonable crime, milord.”

  Her gallantry touched him, her ability to make light where any other woman in his experience would have dissolved into the morass of weeping and emotion. He could do no less. “A terrible trespass,” Duncan agreed, “as your father no doubt taught you, to exhaust your host’s spirits. Far worse than daring Almack’s without proper breeches, more lacking in manners than asking Lady Hertford after dear Mrs. Fitzherbert’s health. As a penalty for your misdeed, I demand that you will address me as Duncan.”

  Kate gave a reluctant smile and Duncan’s heart soared. “Luckily, there are over a dozen more bottles of this down in the cellar, pipes of excellent claret and veritable oceans of sherry and French brandy that was laid when Louis was still King of France. We could drink ourselves into oblivion and still have plenty to spare. No one thought to try the dungeon when they were stripping this place of valuables. There is a drunkard’s dearest dream down there in the bowels of the castle.”

  “You could sell it, Duncan,” Kate said, in growing excitement, scarcely noticing how easily his given name tripped off her tongue. “Surely such a collection of fine spirits could easily find a buyer. You could start with a flock of sheep, perhaps, and make some repairs to the crofts. Within a few seasons-”

  “Hold, Kate,” Duncan held up his hand. “You would have me part with the only solace that I have? Nepenthe of this quality is not easily found.”

  “And what of your obligations to your people, milord?” Kate asked, slipping back into cool formality. “Or is it your intent to share that bottled surcease with the men and women who depend on you for their livelihoods? Do you intend to let them drink themselves into indifference as well?”

  Duncan stiffened. There was no need to sell the dungeon’s contents, not with the Treasury soon to be in mourning due to his untimely resurrection. Even though she did not know about his fortune, it was not her right to interfere. “That is none of your affair.”

  “I see,” Kate said. “How hypocritical, milord and so typical of a man. They tell you that they value your thoughts, yet when you are so foolish as to give your opinions expression, they demand that you mind your business. But then that should not surprise me. You have ever been an expert at cozening women with what they want to hear.”

  “And who are you to judge me, milady?” Duncan asked, anger broaching the last barriers of control. “You occupy my home under false pretenses, then have the audacity to tell me what I owe people who hate me sight unseen! You claim to know me, profess to understand my motivations. Yet, to my knowledge we have never before met. What do you know of who I am?”

  “You are Duncan MacLean,” she said, the whiskey freeing words that were perhaps better left unspoken. “You are a player at cards, a warrior and a slayer of hearts.”

  “No longer, especially the latter,” Duncan said, stepping out of the shadows. “You mock me. Light your candle and look at this face. I am my own haunt, a macabre joke of fate. Look at me and honestly tell me that I am still that man.”

  “No, not quite the same,” Kate said, gazing past the traces of his scars, looking beyond all the scandalous stories. “He was a paltry sort of fellow, Mad MacLean, a soldier’s soldier, ’tis true, but proud, arrogant and vain.”

  “And now, I have precious little reason for vanity,” Duncan said, “and I fight no more.”

  “Untrue, Duncan, untrue,” Kate said, all caution vanishing at the sight of his stricken face. He honestly believed that all his worth lay at the surface. “You fight still, a battle with the past, a war within.”

  Her words struck him sober. “You heard, didn’t you?” Duncan said, his gut tightening in mortification. How could he have hoped that she had slept through his banshee cries? Somehow he had convinced himself that her walk in the night was a mere coincidence and now, he was grateful for the darkness, thankful that he could not see the pity that was surely in her eyes. “Did you come to comfort me, Kate?” he asked, keeping his tone steady. “Is that why you are here?”

  “Is that so shameful?” she asked. “To want to give comfort?”

  “I do not need your sympathy!” Duncan exploded. “If you wish to play Lady Bountiful, then go down to the village and do your good works. Go down to the dungeon and give them all a bottle, then leave me here with mine.” He pulled the cork with his teeth and drank till he was breathless, letting oblivion pour down his throat. But the roar of his own voice was still echoing in his ears when her reply came, so quiet that Duncan barely heard.

  “We all need sympathy and understanding, upon occasion. You gave me yours; I was only hoping to return the favor. May your bottles bring you sweet dreams, Duncan MacLean.” She slipped silently into the night.

  Chapter 7

  Kate paused in the kitchen doorway, looking back toward the lone shadow. Glass glinted briefly against the night sky, like a comet sailing in a moonlit arc to shatter loudly somewhere in the darkness. Empty or full? She wondered; then questioned why it mattered so much to her. If Duncan MacLean chose to drink himself into a stupor, it was not her right to interfere. He had told her in no uncertain terms that he did not desire her presence. Yet she hesitated to leave him to himself, not when despair floated around him like a miasma, not when he had been so kind to her.

  Kind? A strange attribute for a rakehell, but Duncan MacLean’s innate decency could not be denied. Kate was beginning to realize that it was as much a part of him as the sardonic arch of his brows. His concern for Anne; his willingness to refrain from prying into the question of her past; tolerating a stranger whose identity was a known charade; the indulgence in allowing her to ride his horse. These were but a few of his acts that bespoke a character wholly at odds with his reprobate reputation.

  Kate began to count the many small, unasked favors, the way that he had quietly shifted minor burdens from her shoulders, dressing the game, chopping the wood, making their part of the castle more proof against bad weather It was all very well for Daisy to claim that he worked as much for himself as for others, but if he were indeed so selfishly motivated, he would be driving everyone harder, not easing their way.

  Kate sighed. It was almost something of a shame that the “Mad MacLean” had not lived up to his sordid stature. Kate had dealt with her share of rogues; any number of them had worn England’s red coat. If Duncan MacLean had proven to be one of the usual run of scoundrels, she would have used him without qualm or conscience and dismissed him entirely from her thoughts. Unfortunately, Kate was forced to acknowledge that those quiet acts of kindness were proving far more seductive than any of the rogue’s standard list of lures.

  As she watched the shadow of that powerful figure stalking to and fro in the night she knew that she was losing her struggle. She did not want to like him, but she did. He made no claim on her emotions. Even so she could not help but give him her sympathy.

  “Don’t you be frettin’ yourself, milady.”

  Fred’s whisper startled her. The man had blended so completely with the darkness that she had not noticed his presence.

  “Please, Fred, do not keep addressing me, as milady. I feel too much a fraud as is. I would be pleased if you call me Kate.”

  “Kate it is then. Never you mind, Kate, what the Major might ‘ave said. Ain’t no reasonin’ with ‘im when ‘ee’s like this.”

  “Do these dreams occur frequently?” Kate asked, recalling the early days of their flight. Anne had wrestled with her terror almost nightly, her cries waking the other occupants of the various inns they had frequented. More than once, they had been shown the door and had been forced to take a tortuous route for fear that someone would speak of two women with a little girl who screamed the night away.

  “Been awhile since the last one,” Fred scratched his head though
tfully. “The nightmares ‘ave come less and less since we got ‘ere, seems to me. Tonight ‘ad the making of one of the worst though, till you came along. Don’t know what sets them off. Might be the weather. It were powerful ‘ot today and ‘ee was workin’ out in the field in the worst of it. Couldn’t get ‘im to stop.”

  “He’s a stubborn man,” Kate said. “Anyone with any sense could see that it was not a day for hard labor in the sun.”

  “Didn’t see you stintin’ on the work either,” Fred remarked, “Daisy were sayin’ ‘ow she were thinkin’ you’d bake your brains into a puddin’ out in the garden. Seems to me you’re two of a kind. I figure twixt the sun on is ‘ead all day and the fact the room were so stiflin’ ‘ot it put ‘im in mind of La Purgatoor.”

  Kate decided to let the first part of his comment slip, although she intended to let Daisy know what she thought of being gossiped about. “You were prisoners at La Purgatoire?”

  “Aye,” Fred acknowledged. “Twelve men in a cell what would barely fit ‘alf the number. Took turns sleepin’, we did. It were the Major what worked it out, took care of us all, be it enlisted or officer, made sure we got the same share. There were a lot of grumblin’ about that, let me tell you, but the Major kept it fair. It were ‘im what figured out ‘ow we could get loose. Took us all, even those we would of been better off leavin’ for the Monsewers.”

  The man clearly had more to say, so Kate asked the question that he was obviously waiting for. “Why would you wish to leave anyone behind?”

  “They nearly got us all killed. Soon as we was beyond the walls, them other ‘igh-rankers bethought themselves of their own plans. When there’s too many officers, Lord ‘elp the private is what I say. Wouldn’t take no orders from Major MacLean. Them sons of Mayfair swells knew better, they thought, then some Scots savage. My Major was all for ‘eadin’ inland, layin’ low in the countryside.”

  “What the Frenchies would least expect?” Kate conjectured.

  “Aye,” Fred agreed, looking at Kate with newfound respect. “But them nobs wouldn’t ‘ear of nothin’ but ‘eadin’ straight fer the coast. Told the Major to let them fools walk into Jacque’s waitin’ arms, but ‘ee wouldn’t leave them. Major ‘oped to make them see reason. Saw them as ‘is men, ‘ee did, for all that they were followin’ the Cavalry Charlies’ orders.”

  “Anyone knows that twixt a Hussar and his horse, it is the horse what has the greater wits,” Kate said, wondering how Duncan had managed to bear it, to stay even in the knowledge that he was likely being led to his death. “I suppose the French were waiting for you?”

  “Two dozen or more by the look of it,” Fred said bitterly. “If the Major ‘adn’t fallen and twisted ‘is foot on the cliffs, we would ‘ave been cut down on the beach same as the others. But ‘ee told them to go on without ‘im. And devil take them all, they left ‘im behind with no more than a fare thee well. Took the one rifle we ‘ad and one of them even ‘ad the cheek to order me to come with them, crack marksman what I am. Told ‘im where to put that rifle, I did.”

  “With or without the bayonet?” Kate asked and was rewarded with an appreciative smile. “A hanging offense, to threaten an officer.”

  “Good fortune then, that ‘is bloody lordship never got to report me. Eight men, ma’am, slaughtered before our eyes, and not a blasted thing could we do to ‘elp ‘em,” Fred muttered. “I keep on sayin’ to the Major, they would have picked us off like lice on a shaved-” Fred cut himself off. “Beggin’ your pardon. Forgot I was speakin’ to a lady.”

  Even in the pale moonlight, Kate could see the change of expression as Fred told his tale, the anger, the bitterness, the profound sadness. She could only imagine what he and Duncan had felt as they had watched that carnage. Once again, her eyes sought for Duncan. He stood silhouetted against the silver glow, another bottle in his hand. “Does he always drink away these dreams, Fred?”

  Fred shook his head. “Can’t, I fear. Sometimes, I be thinkin’ if all the sea was blue ruin and the Major could swallow it all, ee’d still be ‘alf sober. Why ‘ee could even drink Lord Steele ‘isself under the table and Steele was a toper few could match.”

  Kate blessed the lack of light that concealed her reaction. “Lord Steele?” She made the name into a question, keeping her tone under careful control.

  “You ain’t ‘eard of ‘im, and you followed the drum?” Fred’s bewilderment was obvious. “A regular Lord Thirstington ‘ee was, but rarely did the man ever seem the worse for it. Never touched the bottle before a battle though. Steele weren’t one of those officers that went on to the field pot-valiant.”

  It was hard for her to imagine Marcus even mildly muddled. He had always been so totally in control of himself.

  “Aye, a man’s man was Lord Steele, the very devil with the ladies too,” Fred reminisced. “Why I recollect . . .” but he trailed off. “There I go again, runnin’ my jaw.”

  Kate was torn, but decided she wanted to hear more. “Why, I do seem to recall something now, but are you speaking of Marcus Denton? He was a married man, was he not?” she asked, praying that her voice would stay steady.

  “Aye,” Fred conceded, “Always used to say ‘ee married below ‘is station. Wed Colonel Braxton’s brat, if you would credit it. Sure you ‘eard of that one, a real spitfire the Colonel’s girl. Wed ‘er on a wager, some say. Bet two ‘undred guineas that ‘ee could make ‘er into a perfect lady. They say, Steele won the wager, ‘ad ‘er dancin’ at Almack’s.”

  “Like a performing dog,” Kate murmured, wondering how many had known. How many people had been tittering behind their hands as she had danced that first waltz so proudly in Marcus’s arms. All this time she had wondered why the great Lord Steele’s eye had fallen upon her, why so lofty a being who could choose any well-bred female for a bride had taken a hellion as a wife.

  Braxton’s brat.

  She had known of the name, of course, taken a perverse pride in it, convinced herself that it did not matter, though it had. Until Marcus began to woo her.

  She had honestly believed that this man had seen the woman beyond the breeches, discerned qualities past the foolish badges that were reserved for those with an odd kick to their gallop. That supposed esteem had been the hope that had sustained her, through the long absences, through the numerous small cruelties that only Polite Society could contrive. And she had endured, for Marcus’s sake, striven to make him proud because, after all, he had chosen to elevate her. Kate stared up at the wavering stars as the underpinnings of her past crumbled.

  “Milady!”

  The cry that rose to punctuate the urgent tone of Daisy’s summons made the reason unmistakable. Kate’s ruminations would have to wait, and Duncan would have to wrestle with his demons alone. Anne’s nightmares had returned. “Keep an eye on him, Fred,” Kate said. “I must see to my daughter.”

  “Aye, I will. . .” Fred promised, adding softly when she was beyond hearing, “milady.”

  . . .

  At first, Duncan thought that he had become disconnected from his body, that the small inner voice that he sometimes heard within had finally freed itself. The thin high wail pierced the heart of him, found an echo inside the recesses of his soul that keened like the winter wind through the barren wastes. All of his horror, the sum of all his deepest fear was contained in that reverberating shriek. He put his hand over his ears, knowing in the whiskey sodden recesses of his mind, that it would do no good; it never had before. But to his amazement the sound was muffled, and he slowly came to the realization that the scream that he heard came from without, not within. Once that had been determined, Duncan tried to discern the source of that agonized cry comparing it with jug-bitten judgement to every similar noise that he had ever heard.

  An animal in a trap? A damned soul in torture? His own screams? Aye, a combination of all of those and yet unlike any of them. Like the cry of a bean sith, those ghostly heralds of death, this was, high, thin, and reedy . . . like a child. No, not a
banshee, a little girl.

  He turned toward the castle, toward the direction of the din, his eyes rising to the lit window above the courtyard and somehow, comprehension dawned. Pain instinctively recognized pain, torment understood torment. Duncan knew that the silent child was silent no more. He ran toward the castle.

  “Maybe ‘tis best that you don’t go up,” Fred told him, standing before the door. “‘tis but the little one ‘avin’ a bit of a bad dream, ‘tis all, Major”

  Duncan gave no answer, but the expression on his face made his intent clear. Fred stepped aside, then followed his master’s charge up the stairs.

  It seemed almost like a Rembrandt painting that Duncan had once seen. Light spilled from the wide-open door framing the women and the child upon the bed in a softly illuminated tableau, momentarily tranquil, until an ear-piercing shriek tore the temporary fabric of peace.

  “Hold her, Daisy,” Kate said, grabbing Anne’s flailing arm.

  “Hard to credit the little one’s so strong,” Daisy grunted as she held the other hand fast. “Get the leg if you can, else she might twist her shoulder right out of its socket.”

  “Anne, Anne, listen,” Kate said, desperation in her raised voice. “Mamma is here! Daisy is right beside you. We will let nothing harm you, love. We will protect you. ‘Tis but a dream you fear, only a dream.”

  But the squirming did not diminish as the child struggled against the arms that held her.

  “Got to pare her nails again,” Daisy observed, looking ruefully a red slash along her wrist, “gotten lax, I fear, since we ain’t had none of these nights for a while.”

  “Oh, Daisy,” Kate said, struggling to keep Anne’s fingers from scratching her own face. “I am sorry.”

  “I know she don’t mean it,” Daisy said gruffly. “Just fear that she might succeed in gougin’ herself, like she done before, poor little mite.”

  At that moment, Duncan wanted nothing more than to go back to his cache of bottles and find solace in whiskey, but then Kate chanced to look up at him. The weary sorrow in her eyes made him ache with compassion.