The Devil’s Due Read online

  “Do you dare to pity me, Duncan MacLean?” Kate challenged, when the cries had stilled to a guttural whimper. “Or my child?”

  There was a second of stillness as her expression dared him to deny it. “Both,” Duncan answered, “I pity you both. Is there aught that I can do to help?”

  “There is hope for you yet, Duncan,” Kate said, warmth lighting her eyes. “I thank you for your honest concern, but there is nothing you can do. When Anne gets like this we cannot waken her.”

  “Why? What is wrong with her?” Duncan asked, stepping into the room.

  Anne began bucking about violently.

  “If it’s helpin’ you want to do, get yourself out!” Daisy yelled, bracing herself against the child’s shoulder. “It was you who started it, with her seein’ you yellin’ and tossin’. ‘Tis no wonder that the sound of your voice is settin’ her off. Get out!”

  Duncan backed away in confusion, pulling Fred with him to the end of the corridor. “The child heard me, Fred?” he asked, grasping the Cockney by the shoulder. Fred’s sudden concentration on his feet was all the answer Duncan needed. “How much did she hear? Didn’t you close the damned door?” Duncan demanded, bunching the fabric of his servant’s shirt in his fist.

  “Shh!” Fred put a finger to his lips and nodding his head toward the open door. The cries had died momentarily. As they went down the stairs, Kate’s voice rose in song. “Sleep my baby-”

  Duncan halted as the memory of that voice in the night flooded back. He was in La Purgatoire, Colin at his side and then a voice had called him from the depths. It wasn’t his mother’s voice, although it was a tune that she had sung long ago, but the words were in English.”

  “How long?” Duncan asked, clasping Fred by the arm. “How long was Kate with me?”

  The man shrugged his skinny shoulders. “Can’t rightly say ‘ow soon they came.”

  “They?”

  “The babe, ‘er ma and the dog.”

  “A regular Bartholomew Fair crowd,” Duncan said from between clenched teeth.

  “Came to ‘elp you, they did, not to gawp,” Fred said, his voice rising in annoyance. “She’s a right one, the lady. And them Frenchies must of blinded you in more than one eye if you can’t see it.”

  “I do not need anyone’s pity.”

  “Nay, don’t need nobody’s pity do you?” Fred shook his head. “Not mine, not ‘ers, not nobody’s, not when you got so damn much for your own self. Pity to spare.”

  It was as if the Cockney had upped and slapped him in the face. Duncan looked at him, startled. “Sergeant Best,” he began.

  “Ain’t no sergeant no more, and you ain’t no major. You’re a man, same as I, alive an’ breathin’ if you don’t go to pullin’ no more stupid larks. You’re alive, Duncan MacLean, alive and you got a hell of a lot of cheek cryin’ over it! So they saw you! What does it matter except that what they saw might of been cause for little Annie’s nightmare? As to pity, Major, there ain’t no shame in feeling pain for another’s hurt.”

  That rasping childish wail rose once more to break the peace of night and Fred felt his master’s silent shudder.

  Duncan looked at the Fred uncertainly. “Do you think that I . . .?”

  “No sayin’, lad,” Fred’s tone was kinder, as he answered the unfinished question. “If I knew what brings bad dreams and what makes for good, I wouldn’t of ‘ad to put on the King’s red coat, would I? Open me a shop on Bond Street and I’d make me a fortune, I would. But I’d give ‘er good dreams on the ‘ouse, poor lass.”

  “And me, Fred?” Duncan asked, his mind growing clouded, the effects of restlessness and alcohol draining him.

  “Aye, lad,” Fred said, picking up the blankets that he had left by the door and spreading them on a pile of straw. “I’d save the best dreams for you. Now lay yourself down.”

  Obediently, Duncan lay down and closed his eyes. He did not even feel the rough blanket as Fred tucked it carefully beneath his chin.

  . . .

  They were pounding the nails in his coffin. The steady clink of metal upon metal felt as if it was directly atop Duncan’s head. Cautiously, he opened his eye, then rapidly squeezed it shut again as the sunlight pierced through with knife-like pain. It wasn’t just the whiskey. Unfortunately, he had not imbibed nearly enough the previous night. Indeed, a hangover and its accompanying fuzziness would be infinitely preferable to this awful clarity of memory and thought. Every single blasted word that he had uttered; each foolish move that he had made the previous night was recalled with unshakeable distinction. Duncan forced himself to float, to breathe steadily in rhythm with that hammering tattoo until he felt the throbbing recede into the back of his head. When the sound ceased for a moment, he rose and pulled off his shirt, then made his faltering way to the pump. He worked the handle with self-punishing vigor, putting his head directly under the icy, spring-fed flow until he wanted to scream at the cold.

  Duncan came up sputtering, shaking his head to and fro like a sopping dog, sending rivulets of water coursing down his back and chest. Dripping, he swiped the hair from his eye and faced the light, letting the sun’s warmth take away the water’s chill. As he looked up he saw the source of the noise. In horrified wonder, he watched as Kate trod delicately along the ridgepole, her steps sure and dainty as a dancer’s.

  Transfixed, he gazed, torn between amazement and fear as she stood momentarily glowing in the corona of sunlight before she bent to hammer a shingle into place. The beams that broke through the clouded sky transformed her into a glorious pixie creature, feminine and delicate for all that she was dressed in her breeches. As she rose again and moved further along the roof, he wanted to call out, to demand that she get down, but he dared not break her concentration.

  It was neither sound nor movement that alerted Kate to Duncan’s presence, just a strange feeling that ran up her spine. Somehow she knew that he was there, watching her. Despite all her assertions that a man’s attire was the most sensible garb for roof work, Daisy’s oft-repeated admonitions about propriety came flooding into Kate’s mind. What would he think of her? She wondered, even as she told herself that she did not care in the least. He had seen her in men’s clothes before. It did not signify. After last night’s revelations, she would not allow any man’s opinion ever to matter again.

  Nonetheless, as she knelt and hammered in a shingle, Kate stole a look through the veil of her hair which had loosened itself from its usual scraped-back severity. Sure enough, he was there down below, his shirt flung carelessly over his shoulder, his hair shining a polished ebony with moisture, freed from its customary queue. Beads of water trailed down his neck and chest. It appeared that Daisy’s meals had worked wonders; the gaunt hollows and spare angles were no more.

  As he lifted a hand to shade his eyes against the sun, Kate abruptly realized just how many muscles were involved in that simple action. Hard sinew rippled across his chest in a fascinating display. She knew that she ought to turn her attention elsewhere, but she could not. Perhaps it was the dark tangle of his beard that made him appear so utterly barbaric; or it might have been the uncivilized bronze of his skin, but all at once he became the embodiment of secret dreams. Warrior, pirate, conqueror, every fantasy that Kate had ever imagined suddenly became Duncan MacLean.

  Her throat suddenly felt parched and Kate half-choked as she attempted to swallow. Deliberately, she turned her attention back to the roof and began to hammer relentlessly. It was the heat, she told herself. The heat, lack of rest, lack of water, lack of common sense.

  She had known that it was within him all along, the power that had beguiled so many women into his arms, but never before had she felt that sheer magnetism so strongly. Please, she begged wordlessly, put on your shirt before I tumble off the ridgepole. But another furtive glance confirmed that he was still standing there like a pagan statue. “Damn!” She put her throbbing thumb in her mouth.

  “What are you doing up there?” Duncan asked. “Other tha
n cussing and pounding your fingers?”

  “I am practicing pianoforte!” Her angry glare could have fried an egg. It was, after all, his fault that she had missed the nail. Kate pulled another from her pouch and sighting it carefully began to drive it into the shingle. Inconsiderate lout. Thwack! Going about half-naked. Thunk! As if there were no ladies present. Whump! Had no one ever taught him manners? Bang! Common decency? Kerthwack! Going about in a rag-tag fashion. Why his trousers were torn half-way up to his- As her mind supplied a picture to complete the thought, her face turned to fire.

  “You must be near to baked up there,” Duncan observed. “Your cheeks have ripened to cherry.”

  “If you will let me get about my business, I will soon be down,” Kate retorted. “These shingles are in need of replacement. It is clouding up again and I thought to take advantage of the good weather. A few more and there will be two bedchambers snug against the rain.”

  “I have told you before that I am content with the present arrangement,” Duncan said. She was avoiding his eye; no wonder that, considering the events of the previous night. A half-drunk, half-wit was what he had been, throwing her kindness back into her face. It was astonishing that she could bear to speak to him at all. “Fred and I are just fine as we are in the butler’s pantry.”

  “Are you indeed?” Kate asked, keeping her eyes firmly fixed upon the next nail. “Is that why you were sleeping out in the hay last night, Duncan?”

  Duncan groaned inwardly. Of course, she had noticed. “I prefer the open when the weather is fine,” Duncan said shortly.

  “That is as may be,” Kate agreed, gesturing with an upraised hammer toward the mountains, “but you ought to know that clear skies are a tenuous prospect to depend upon in these parts. There are thunderheads upon Beinn Airidh Charr. And winter will come before we know it.”

  “Get down off the roof, Kate,” Duncan told her, his heart pounding at his throat as she rose and stepped casually along the ridge.

  “The master’s suite is rather large,” Kate informed him, making no sign that she had heard his command. “In fact, I had considered repairing it first, since a great portion of the roof above it is sound. However, it will be the very devil to heat because of its huge size. I vow, you could carpet it with grass and raise sheep in there.”

  Although her remarks seemed offhand on the surface, Duncan became more than a little suspicious at the third reference to the room’s spaciousness. Had Fred been talking too much? “Then bring up the sheep, by all means,” Duncan said. “For I dinna have intention of moving.”

  Kate shrugged. “You are the master here. If it pleases your lordship to sleep with the cow, who am I to naysay you?”

  “Who indeed?” Duncan asked.

  “However, since I have taken the obligation of caring for you upon myself, I cannot allow you to risk your health to ill weather,” Kate continued, wondering whether she was crossing the boundaries of prudence by challenging him.

  The obligation of caring for you.

  Duncan turned the phrase over in his mind, trying to decide if her use of caring outweighed the employment of obligation. “You cannot allow! When did it become your province to naysay me, madame?”

  Although it was difficult to discern from his expression, there was something in his tone that encouraged her. “Naysay you, milord, I would not dare!” Kate said.

  Duncan softened at the tentative smile that accompanied the denial. Perhaps she did not hold him in contempt as much as he feared. “I had thought that we had dispensed with the use of ‘milord,’ Kate,” he ventured.

  “If you wish to act the seigneur, sir, then I shall address you as one,” she replied.

  “Saucy wench, get down from there.”

  “Stubborn mule, I shall not until I am done!” she replied, the anxiety within her gradually dissolving. The revelations of secrets and the exchange of confessions was always a chancy affair, either the cement that bound or the blow that shattered. She had spent a good part of the previous night worrying that he might wake with regrets or take a perverse disgust to a whiskey-swilling hussy who would follow him into the night.

  “I am your employer,” he reminded her.

  “And I am doing my job of housekeeping,” Kate explained, setting another nail in place. “It was not my intent to dispossess you, Duncan. I will take but a few more minutes and then we may all rest in comfort,”

  “No, not a few minutes. Now. Get down, Kate, immediately,” Duncan demanded. “I will move the ladder closer.”

  “Not quite yet, milord,” Kate said, frowning at his dictatorial tone. “I have no wish to sleep with water dripping on my head tonight. A few more shingles and I shall be done.”

  “Now, Kate!” Duncan said. “It is far too dangerous.”

  “Nonsense, ‘tis no more than fifteen feet up, but a hop compared to the roof above the tower,” Kate retorted, pointing to the steeply pitched roof that sloped to gird the small turret above the servant’s hall.

  “You were up there?” Duncan asked, feeling the pit of his stomach roiling at the thought of Kate climbing on that perilous incline. It was at least forty feet to the ground.

  “It is not nearly as difficult as it might seem.” Kate laughed, edging her way to the next loose piece of roofing. “I have been climbing trees since I was knee high to a macaque. My Papa often used to say that the monkeys in India must have tutored me.”

  She and her father had lived in India when she was a child. That narrowed down the possibilities insofar as regiment. Duncan added that bit of information to his store as he went to get the ladder. If she would not come down, he would have to go up and get her. However, the moment he set his foot on the first step, the wood splintered.

  “I would not attempt it,” Kate warned. “Tis a miracle that that rickety old thing can bear my weight.”

  “Do you often rely on miracles?” Duncan eyed the aging ladder in disgust.

  “When I must,” Kate said solemnly, bringing a skewed shingle back into position before fastening it in its place. “I have lately found that miracles seem to occur in direct proportion to need. There! That is the last of them.” Her foot felt for the rung and found it. Edging herself off of the roof, Kate was on the third rung when she heard the cracking sound. She threw herself forward, trying to grab hold of the ridge, but it was too late. She was sliding, then falling. From the bedroom window overlooking the courtyard she heard Daisy scream.

  “Kate!” He reached for her, bracing himself as she dropped, but when the force came, it still knocked him from his feet, taking the breath out of him.

  “Milord!” Kate rolled to her knees, totally unhurt. “Milord . . . are you alright?”

  “Milady! Kate!” Daisy called anxiously from above.

  “No harm done to me at all,” Kate said, with a wave of her hand. “Barely a bruise. ‘Tis his lordship that I fear for.”

  Having determined that Kate was uninjured, Duncan kept his eye closed, enjoying the touch of her hand on his cheek. He could feel her breath as she bent nearer.

  “Duncan, please look at me,” she begged. “I am so sorry, so very sorry.”

  The guilt in her voice forced him to open his eye, but her closeness was a temptation. He smelled the clean fresh scent of her hair, like the heather that bloomed on the hillside. How he wanted to lift his fingers to feel that softness, to smooth away the tension in her mouth. But if that was not allowed him, he could at least keep her near for a few minutes longer. Surely he deserved that much. He moaned softly.

  “Can you speak?” she asked, her eyes green pools of anxiety.

  “Closer, Kate” he whispered with a grimace. He was in some pain after all, his ribs ached; there was a rock digging into his left buttock; and the earth was cool against his bare back. Her hair fell loose, brushing like silk against his chest as she leaned forward to listen, her fingers splayed above his heart. “Does this . . . make me . . . a . . . miracle . . . Kate?” he asked, softly.

  “Yes
, I suppose you are,” she said, reassured by the strong steady beat beneath her hand. “I could have come to serious harm had you not been there to catch me.” She found herself momentarily trapped by his gaze, but she forced herself to look away and begin to examine him, running experienced hands over his limbs in search of broken bones.

  “Oooh,” he moaned, as she touched his thigh, “there . . . right there.”

  “Does it hurt?” Kate asked anxiously.

  “Aye, there’s an ache,” he told her, closing his eye and enjoying the sensation as her fingers explored for the wound.

  Neither of them noticed as Daisy came running up beside them. The small smile that was playing at the corner of Duncan’s mouth was the first thing to catch her attention.

  “Will you kiss me, Kate?” he choked weakly. “Just once before I die.”

  At those words, any doubt that the older woman might have had was replaced with certainty. The man was definitely playing her mistress like a fiddle. Kate seemed utterly befuddled. She looked up at Daisy and shrugged her shoulders.

  “Nothing seems to be broken,” Kate said.

  Duncan moaned once more, his eye closed as he whispered weakly. “Just one kiss, is all I ask.”

  Daisy put a finger to her lips and knelt, elbowing Kate aside. As far as she was concerned, if Kate saw no injury then like as not there was none.

  Kate’s eyebrow arched in a question mark. The servant shook her head and bent, cupping Duncan’s chin firmly before bussing him full and hard on the lips.

  Duncan’s eye flew open. He made a muffled sound of protest as he smelled and tasted garlic, onions and some other things best left unidentified. It must have lasted no more than seconds, but it seemed like half an age before she let him free. He sat bolt upright. “Are you trying to kill me woman?” he roared, wiping at his lips with the back of his hand in disgust.

  “Another miracle,” Kate said, her face alight with suppressed laughter. “You drew him back from the verge of death, Daisy.”