The Devil’s Due Read online

  He had changed somehow and Kate suddenly realized that she had never heard his laughter before, never seen him smile without that twist of the lip that was closer to a sneer than a grin. For once, his expression was unguarded, an open path to the very depths of his emotions. The longing, the loneliness that she had sensed were there for her to see, like words on a printed page. A silent plea. Let me comfort you. I know you are in pain, so am I. I am drowning inside myself, the silver eye told her. I need you. I want you. I am afraid. At the moment, she wanted nothing more than to step into the circle of those arms, to accept the terms of mutual surrender.

  But once that temporary truce came to its end, she knew that she was bound to be a casualty, a victim of her own emotions. Still, the temptation was strong. But it was Duncan’s fear that held her in check; his air of vulnerability frightened her almost as much as the sudden force of her own feelings. Rake though he might be, Kate could not believe a face could lie so convincingly. If there was any truth in that gaze, the passion that he promised was a blade with two edges. Inevitably, they would both be wounded when she left here, left him.

  The clip-clop of steel-shod hooves sounded against stone, its hollow echo cutting through the silence. Potent imprecations in multiple languages slipped through Duncan’s mind as Kate blinked, then backed away, eyes wakening in realization of what had nearly occurred. Those slender fingers flew to her mouth in horror, whether at him or at herself, he could not determine. Her cheeks were aflame. There was no hope of salvaging the moment. Someone was crossing the bridge over the stream. It would be no more than a few seconds before they would no longer be unobserved.

  It was like the closing of a shutter, veiling all his thoughts within a winking. The scarred side of his face with its unseeing eye was inclined away from her now, as if he had just recalled his wounds. That unspoken appeal that had drawn her despite every instinct and sensibility had been snuffed like a candle without as much as a wisp of emotion to mark its passing. Had it been the invention of her own imagination or had she merely succumbed to the blandishments of a man that her late husband had somewhat enviously described as a wily seducer?

  Far simpler to credit the latter of the two possibilities. Much easier to believe that this man was a rogue and treat him with all deserved disdain than to allow for the complications of genuine sentiment on his part. But try as she might, she was too honest to dismiss what had just occurred as entirely one-sided or the aberration of a moment. Indeed, it would be dangerous to stay willfully blind to this strange fascination. He could no more stop himself from charming women than change the color of his eye. She would just have to remain wary and keep her distance.

  A colorful curse trumpeted Fred’s appearance. If he had come a few seconds later, or happened upon them unawares . . . Kate shuddered, deliberately ignoring niggling twinges of regret. Nonetheless, she could not help but wonder how reality would have compared to the conjuring of her dreams.

  When Fred rounded the bend, it was easy to see why the Cockney was profaning the sacred. One eye was nearly swollen shut and his lip was bleeding. He pulled up the reins at the sight of the duo on the path. Duncan was beside him in a few long strides. “What happened?” he asked, raising a hand to gently touch the man’s lip.

  Fred winced and shook his head. “Weren’t nothin’,” he said. “Should of known better than to try the village again. Little enough there to buy or to beg. Just that Daisy were talkin’ of biscuits. Now you know ‘ow partial I am to biscuits, Sir.”

  “Fred once crossed the French lines to steal a pan full of biscuits,” Duncan explained with grim humor. “Nearly joined his Maker for a bit of fried flour.”

  “They was good!” Fred remembered. “Best I ever ate, though Daisy’s are as near to them as I tasted and I told ‘er so. Now what did ‘appen, but the woman started goin’ on and on ‘ow these weren’t her bestest. Says ‘ers could all but fly if they weren’t tethered to the ground. ‘So,’ I asks, ‘why don’t you make them for me?’” Fred’s voice rose to a falsetto.“‘Ain’t got the right flour,’ says she. ‘Got to ‘ave fine wheaten flour,’ says she.” The man sighed. “So I ask ‘er where kin I get me some wheaten flour?’ and she says ‘Sometimes you can get some from Tam in the village, but it costs dear.’”

  “And biscuit connoisseur that you are, off you went in hot pursuit of the ingredients,” Duncan said, stifling a smile. Fred’s imitation of Daisy was right on the mark, tone and expression.

  “Well,” Fred said sheepishly. “Seein’ as ‘ow we was needin’ a few things else, aside of flour; salt so as we can lay by more of the game that you and milady ‘as been catchin’ and such. I thought I’d take care of it all, save me a trip, fool as I was.”

  “Who struck you, Fred?”

  Duncan’s voice was deceptively quiet, but it was easy for Kate to discern that he was a powder pan on the verge of ignition. “Perhaps the question to ask is ‘why?’” Kate added hesitantly.

  Fred’s expression was pained. “Didn’t start no fight, I didn’t. It was the old man Daisy was talkin’ of, this feller name of Tam.”

  “Tam who keeps the store?” Kate shook her head in disbelief. “It cannot be! Tam is almost as old as the Mad King himself and as amiable as a lamb.”

  “A ram is more the like,” Fred muttered. “No sooner as I set foot in the shop when ‘ee goes for the throat. Says as ‘ee don’t want no one from the castle in ‘is place. Says ‘is lordship . . .” Fred’s voice trembled in outrage.

  “Go on, Fred,” Duncan demanded.

  “Says ‘is lordship killed ‘is wee great-grandbabe and near to killed ‘is granddaughter as well. When I asked ‘im ‘ow ‘ee reckoned that, ‘ee just kept sayin’ it were your fault, Sir.”

  Kate groaned softly. “Maeve’s time must have come early. Why did she not send for me?”

  “You have been acting as the midwife?” Duncan asked.

  “There was no one else,” Kate said, meeting the challenge in his look. “Old Marie, who likely saw you into this world, milord, is too weak to leave her croft. She appealed to me as your er . . .”

  “My widow,” Duncan supplied, enjoying her discomfiture.

  “Yes . . .” Kate flushed. “She begged me to take over the task. I know something of herbs and simples; any army wife worth her rations is aware of the rudiments of caring for the wounded and ill, the relief of pain. Old Marie taught me what she knew and I have been doing that duty ever since.”

  “Ever the gracious Lady MacLean,” Duncan said.

  It was almost easy now to convince herself that the other Duncan had never been. Anger whirled about him, thick as the storm clouds over Beinn Airidh Charr. The sneer had returned along with the biting sarcasm. “What would you have had me do?” Kate asked. “Stand aside and play lady of the crumbling manor? There is sore need here Lord MacLean, if only you would bother yourself to see it!”

  “I fully intend to,” Duncan said, his jaw clenching. “Perhaps it is time that Lord MacLean has a word or two with his loyal clansmen. Go back to the castle, Fred and get yourself cleaned up. I will go to the village.”

  Fred cleared his throat. “Beggin’ your pardon, Sir, but you cannot be thinkin’ of goin’ now.”

  “A little rain will do me no harm,” Duncan said.

  “What he means milord,” Kate said, reading the servant’s discomfort, “if it is your intent to lambaste the crofters into submission, then you might wish to change your clothing. I have seen mud larks better attired.”

  Duncan looked down at himself, noticing for the first time, his lack of shirt and the shabby state of his trousers. He reddened beneath his beard and without a word, bolted for the castle.

  Kate sighed. “Let me examine those cuts,” she said.

  “Ain’t nothin’ but a scratch ‘ere and there,” Fred told Kate as she inspected his hurts. “Daisy kin patch it up, she will. Wouldn’t of even made mention of it, milady. Just my bad luck, it was, meeting up with you both like this.”
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  Bad luck indeed, Kate thought, recalling what nearly occurred between her and Duncan. “I’ll ask you again. Please do not call me ‘milady,’ Fred. I feel bad enough about the deception that I perpetrated. Indeed, it seems to have caused even more problems than I could have imagined. Why did Maeve not call me when the baby was on the way?”

  Fred shrugged. “Don’t know, but ‘er grandfather were right grieved about it.”

  “I have to go the village and find out what happened. Perhaps I can get matters in hand before your master arrives in all his avenging fury and Maeve might need me still. If I could borrow your horse?”

  Once more there was a vigorous bobbing of the Cockney’s Adam’s apple in a loud attempt to discreetly gain Kate’s attention.

  “What is it you wish to tell me, Fred?” she asked. “Or did someone knock some teeth back that you wish to clear from your gullet?”

  “Ain’t my place to tell you, but Daisy’s,” he began hesitantly.

  “I give you leave to speak for her then,” Kate said with growing impatience.

  “Don’t know right how to say,” Fred began.

  “Say it just as she would, Fred, since you do so credible an imitation. And do it now,” Kate told him. “I will have to ride like the very devil to get to the village and back before the rain starts to fall.”

  Fred grinned and put one hand on his hip in womanly mimicry. “Milady,‘ow can you be thinkin’ of showin’ yourself dressed like an ‘oyden! I vow, ‘tis two of a kind you are, yourself and ‘is lordship, goin’ about like paupers.”

  “Thank you, Daisy,” Kate murmured with a rueful look at her soiled ill-fitting breeches. “If I attempted to visit Maeve looking like this, they would think that the hobgoblins had come calling. I had best go change.” She flew down the path.

  Fred chuckled, then winced and composed his face into a mask of woe, determined to let Daisy tend to his wounds. However, his dreams of feminine comfort were short-lived.

  “Where in blazes are my shirts?” Duncan demanded, pointing down to his pants. “And what happened to the good pair of trousers I purchased? These ragged things are all that I can find.”

  “Those what you teared up the other day was the best,” Fred explained mournfully, dismounting and making his way toward a small patch of white midst the sodden ground near the pump. “As for your shirts, ain’t got to mendin’ the other yet, and it looks to me like this is the one you wore yesterday.” He held the length of linen up distastefully between the thumb and forefinger. “Got washed in the mud. Seems to me that you ought to be stayin’ close to ‘ome till I can get you lookin’ decent, Sir.”

  “What do you mean, I cannot wear the blue?” Kate’s voice rang in the courtyard as she strode out the kitchen door.

  “Thought you meant to wear those nasty breeches all the day,” Daisy said defensively, following her mistress. “It seemed a good idea to give your dresses a cleaning, though a decent burial might serve those rags better! Ooh when I think of what you left behind, milady, I could just-” The older woman caught her tongue as she caught sight of the two men in the courtyard. Her eyes went wide. “Fred! You poor lamb! Whatever happened to you?”

  “Ain’t nothin’,” Fred said, in a somber tone that put him somewhere between last prayers and death.

  “Come into the kitchen,” she said, hurrying to brace him up beneath her beefy shoulder. “Let me take care of that handsome face.”

  Kate and Duncan watched in astonishment as the two servants disappeared indoors without as much as a backward glance at their masters.

  “And thus we are firmly put in our place,” Kate ventured.

  “Well now I know how I should have done it. Lesson learned. ‘take care of that handsome face,’” Duncan mimicked. “Is your woman blind or merely cozening him?”

  “Daisy hasn’t a deceptive bone in her body,” Kate said. “If she calls his face fair, then it must be so in her eyes. The eye of the beholder is what makes the difference.”

  Duncan turned away from that frank gaze bewildered by what he saw in those troubled green eyes. Was she wary of him now, because of what had occurred on the path or was there something else in those jade depths? And what do you see, Kate, when you look at my face? He longed to ask. Strange, how a woman who had perpetrated a massive fraud seemed possessed of an inherent integrity. He knew that she would not lie to him if she could help it. Therefore, he would not ask the question for fear of outright evasion or the answer that she might give.

  “It is sopping wet!”

  Kate’s exclamation caught Duncan’s attention. She had gone to the wash line and was fingering the flapping blue fabric with obvious dismay.

  “And it is the only thing I have fit to wear to the village,” she said.

  “You are not going to the village,” Duncan told her, “not after what happened to Fred.”

  “That is why I must go,” Kate said, wringing her hands. “Something has obviously happened to Maeve and her baby and they are blaming you for it. Were it not for me . . .”

  “Were it not for you, Kate,” Duncan admitted, “they would likely be even less kindly disposed toward me. They hate their chieftain and with good reason. It is an awful heritage that we have, we MacLeans.”

  “Yes, let us blame it all on the curse,” Kate said impatiently. “I have heard whispers of this terrible malediction. What utter falderal! To live one’s life in fear of a few angry words said half a century ago. It seems to me nothing more than an excuse for wickedness and wallowing in self-pity.”

  “Perhaps,” Duncan agreed. “But words have power, Kate, more than you would ever credit. There was wisdom in what the Bonnie Prince said. He understood the MacLeans you see, knew what has ever been in our blood, ever been in the murky depths of our hearts. Know you the story of the MacLean who set his Campbell wife on a rock in the Sound of Mull, expecting the tide to drown her?”

  Kate shook her head, unable to speak, trapped by the grey look that was as bleak as the sea.

  “Luckily, some fisherman rescued her. And Campbell of Cawdor avenged that bit of cruelty by knifing his brother-by-marriage to death. And should you not believe me, you have only to ask the fisher folk to point out the place they still call the ‘Lady Rock’. The story is known by all, from the crofters to the king, along with other tales of the MacLean leanings to cruelty.” The old pain flooded him, the burden of his blood, the darkness of his thoughts. With that history, was it madness to want her so much? Even as she was, mud-stained, her hair tangled with bits of twig and leaf, she was no less desirable, a nymph to his satyr.

  Duncan’s throat was tight as he continued. “So do not mock at curses, Kate. When he uttered his bane, Charlie was well aware that we would have to go against our very nature to break his blight. There is darkness in our sept of the MacLean line, Kate, a blackness of the soul that fouls all that we touch, all that we love. ‘Tis that shadow of melancholy that drove my mother from her home and then it killed her.”

  “But I thought that she had left your father,” Kate said, startled.

  “Aye, she did,” Duncan said, gazing beyond her toward the ruins of the castle as he recalled that day, remembering standing at the Hellgate and wondering if he would ever see home again. “But it was too late. If she had left me behind, it might have saved her. But Mother had chosen to take me with her.”

  “And you were the heir,” Kate murmured. “It must have taken a great deal of courage for your mother to leave, especially with you in tow.”

  “Aye, my father never suspected that she had the backbone in her,” Duncan said, surprised that Kate had discerned just how much fortitude it had taken. “Mother was the mildest of woman, full of fairy tales and dreams. My grandfather was a rich man and his clan is a powerful one. Once she had left here, The Munroe kept my mother from my father’s clutches, but my presence galled her relations. I am my father’s image or at least I was once.” His laugh was bitter as his fingers rose to absently trace his scar. “By choos
ing not to forsake me, she had brought the MacLean curse to her family’s bosom. If a babe was born deformed, if the milk was gone sour, it was no one’s fault but her MacLean son’s. But she would not let them return me to him, despite my father’s demands and my grandfather’s dislike. Her family made her life miserable because of my presence and never let her forget that it was her own foolish choice to wed a man with a curse upon his head.”

  “Why did she marry him?” Kate could not help but put forth the question although she knew it was none of her affair. Even though Duncan kept his tones even, the pain ran like a leitmotif through his narrative. While he spoke of his mother’s anguish, it was clear that the child he had been had suffered deeply.

  “I asked her much the same, though I could never understand her answer. She had honestly believed that she would be the one to break the curse,” Duncan said, his lips twisting in a wry mockery of a grin. “She loved my father, fool that she was, loved him enough to blind herself to everything but his charm. She remained deliberately deaf to the rumors that kept every girl of respectable family at a distance. Mother was fey, and she claimed that when she met my father she saw great joy in the future. That was the only time, I think, that the Sight failed her. In the end, it was Charlie’s bane that broke her and not the other way around. My grandfather couldna wait to be rid of his MacLean grandson, so much so that he even parted with a bit of his precious gold to purchase me a commission in the army. On the day after I left, my mother took her own life.”

  “Coward,” The word was out before Kate could stop it, forced from her lips in an unreasoning surge of anger at the woman. Surely Duncan’s mother ought to have guessed that her son would blame himself, as he clearly did for everything else.