The Devil’s Due

by Boucher, Rita

  “We will risk it, just for tonight,” Kate told her, pulling the cover up and tucking it carefully around Anne.

  “What happened?” Daisy asked, her voice low. “Those screams could have roused the dead.”

  “I awoke and found Anne gone,” Kate said, rapidly explaining what had occurred.

  “Well don’t that beat all,” the older woman said, shaking her head in disbelief. “That Anne would go by herself and stay by a stranger’s side. Maybe she was too affrighted to leave?”

  “I think not, Daisy,” Kate said, rearranging the blankets around the sleeping child. “She was concerned. Anne sent me back to tend to him. Heaven knows, the child has had more than her share of horrific nightmares.”

  “But he’s a fearsome-lookin’ man, he is,” Daisy persisted. “No less with that beard that he grew. Makes Fred look like a picture of a leprechaun I seen once, but makes his lordship look like a great big bear. ‘Tis a wonder she ain’t quakin’ at the sight of him.”

  “Yes, it is,” Kate said, her chin resting on the steeple of her fingers in a thoughtful attitude. “She avoids him, but she seems to be watching him all the time from a distance, almost as if she is trying to get his measure. Perhaps Anne’s yardstick is a more accurate one than mine, Daisy, for her assessment seems to be on the mark.”

  Daisy shook her head in bewilderment.

  “I measured the man by the gauge of gossip. I did not even attempt to see beyond his reputation,” Kate considered.

  “Well-deserved, from what I heard,” Daisy maintained. “The Mad MacLean was a byword from Bristol to Bengal and back again.”

  “And would you have thought that the Mad MacLean would risk himself in a noble futile gesture?” Kate asked. “To place himself in harm’s way with no hope of success?”

  “Mayhap you misunderstood?” Daisy posed the question.

  Kate shook her head. “There was no mistake, except on my part. He has done nothing but help us, these past weeks, repairing the pens and stable, clearing ground so that we may get in some a late planting. Yet I have been avoiding him, as if he was some lowly untouchable. I did not see him clearly.

  “Or you’re letting yourself be blinded by one grand gesture, I say,” Daisy disputed, settling herself down next to Anne. “Even the most forsaken man can do one bit of good and get himself a ticket to Kingdom Come. Could be that was the Mad MacLean’s claim to grace, but one minute don’t change a lifetime, I’d say. As for the fixin’ and the plantin’, ‘tis his property and his belly.”

  There was no denying the sense of Daisy’s argument. But Kate could not quite reconcile what she had just witnessed with the Mad MacLean’s reputation. The friend that Marcus had described was a vain coxcomb, a gambler, a charming scoundrel who viewed women as challenges and life as a lark. The haunted man below had dared to fight a hopeless battle, had paid an awful price for those moments of doomed courage. Which one was he then, the hero or the reprobate? Kate pulled her wrapper tighter around her and went to the window, hugging herself against a chill that had nothing to do with the uncommonly warm Highland night.

  He was out there; the glow of moonbeams touched him, wrapping him in a lambent silver sheath.

  “Are you back to yourself, Sir?”

  She heard Fred’s voice.

  “Aye, unfortunately,” came the reply. “Every time, I find myself hoping that the Frenchies will finish me and put me out of my misery, but lamentably, even my dreams run afoul of luck. Get yourself some sleep, Fred.”

  “Might be well to take your own advice,” the Cockney told him.

  Kate caught a harsh bark that was not quite laughter.

  “There’s no sleep for me tonight, Fred, so you can stop playing at Nanny. I’ll not be going back to that stifling room. ‘Tis too much like a cell for my peace, even sharing it with just one instead of a dozen others. I think that I’ll be making my bed out of doors from now on. After two years of not seeing the stars, I still have not got my fill of open skies. I’ve my blanket and some bottles to keep me company. What more can a man ask?”

  Kate heard the sound of retreating footsteps echoing against the stone. She went to the wardrobe and pulled out a shawl.

  “Where you goin’?” Daisy asked, eying her through half-shut lids.

  “To get some air,” Kate said. “If Anne calls for me, I shall be right below in the courtyard.”

  “In sight of the window, I hope.”

  Kate concealed a smile. Even partly asleep, there was little that could get past Daisy. “I am not a green girl who needs a duenna, my friend.”

  “I know, but don’t you be forgettin’ either what he is. Seen a hundred like him, you have, in your Pa’s regiment, bold as the brass buttons on their uniforms; playin’ with hearts like they were so many draughts. ‘Tis a game to him. But ‘tis you who have everything to lose.”

  “I am not likely to forget just what is at risk here, Daisy,” Kate said, affection mingling with annoyance. Really, the woman was forever treating her as if she was just barely out of swaddling clothes.

  Daisy sighed. “I know that lass.”

  “I shall return shortly after I have made certain that his Lordship has not come to grief.”

  “‘Tis not his grief that brings me to worry,” Daisy mumbled under her breath as she watched Kate light another candle and go out the door.

  . . .

  The scotch seemed to get smoother with every swallow. It was a crime, Duncan knew, to be drinking fine aged whiskey like so much water, but that was not, by far, the worst trespass that the MacLeans of Eilean Kirk had ever committed. “To you dear Father,” he said, raising the bottle to the sky in a mocking salute, “for having the foresight to put this down in your cellar and the grace to die before you drank every dram, God curse you.”

  “Blasphemy, milord?” Kate asked softly.

  Duncan spun round. “Well, well, what have we here?” he asked, drinking in the sight of her, the candle in her hand casting a halo of light round her face. Her hair fell simply about her shoulders glowing strands of copper imbuing the chestnut with embers of seductive flame that made a man wish to singe his hands. Kate had an air of innocence that was breathtaking in its allure, yet entirely at odds with the experience of a widow. Her dressing gown caught the dull moon-glow with an unmistakable gleam. As many lightskirts as he had franked, Duncan knew the sight and sound of silk and marked it as one more inconsistency among the many he had upon his list. Silk and flannel, luxury and poverty, porcelain and steel, fragility and strength, the woman was a walking contradiction.

  He took another swig of the bottle, but it did nothing to extinguish the burning sensation that seemed to radiate throughout his body. “No, ‘tis the mother’s milk of the Scots, not sacrilege, my erstwhile Lady MacLean,” he answered at last. “Uisgebeatha, we call it, MacLean’s Gold, a rare brew, famous throughout the Highlands for its taste. My grandfather filled many a purse with the profits from this liquid gold.” He held the bottle aloft in salute. “This batch was distilled before the Prince ever set foot on Scot’s soil and there has not been another to match it since Culloden.”

  “Another aspect of Charlie’s curse?” Kate asked.

  “Aye, so ‘tis said. Now you may either leave, or douse that damned candle. I came out here to enjoy the stars and you are spoiling it with the light.” He did not want her to see him like this, bestial, wallowing in the full measure of his darkness. With better than half a bottle down the hatch, the last thin veneer of civilization had already begun to peel away. He had to make her leave before that meagre facade was entirely gone, before he went down on all fours and bayed at the quarter moon.

  The light went out with a gentle puff. Foolish woman, not to know her imminent danger. “I am being behindhand as a host; would you care for a swallow?” It was not so much an offer as a command. No gently bred female would countenance passing a bottle with a half, no, a three-fourths sotted rake. He fully expected her to run.

  Trust Kate to do
the unexpected.

  “Only a dullard would disdain a well-ripened Scot’s whiskey,” came the reply.

  “And you are no dullard, I take it,” Duncan said, deciding to give her another chance to retreat. “However, we have no glasses.”

  “Did I request one?” Kate asked, “You seem to be doing well enough without a proper vessel.”

  “Half-seas over, without a vessel, but well-pickled in the brine” Duncan remarked, “and three sheets to the wind.”

  He heard a groan.

  “Drunkenness is not an excuse, milord, for such word-mangling atrocities. Are you trying to drive me away?”

  “Are bad puns the talismans that I must employ as the means of keeping my oath then?” Duncan asked, raising the bottle to his lips once more, hoping to blur the last outlines of her features, to make her but a voice in the dark, but damned if his eyesight did not seem to grow sharper, seeing every plane of her face with impossible distinction. Despite the lack of light, she seemed to glow more beautifully by the moment. “Very well, did you hear of the dolphins that took to abduction and kidnapped gulls for immoral porpoises? Or when Rowlandson published his caricatures of His Highness and his brother Cumberland sans corsets, otherwise known as the ‘Prints of Whales.’”

  “Spare me,” Kate giggled, her eyes growing accustomed to the scarce light. But, try though she might, he was nothing more than a disembodied outline, a shadow within the shadows.

  The chuckling sound touched his spine with heat and suddenly the night became warmer. “I am trying,” Duncan said, hoarsely. “Though it is driving me half-mad, I would spare you, but you do not seem to understand Kate. If you want whiskey, here. Take it!” He thrust the bottle into the night and her fingers lightly brushed his as she took possession of the bottle. “Take the rest up to your room and share it with your woman.”

  Kate cradled the glass, still warm from his hand and put the lip to her mouth. It was strangely disconcerting, an unexpected communion as she took a slow small sip and felt the simmering sensation on her tongue. It slipped down her throat lightly, without a trace of harshness, spreading its heat with a languorous touch.

  “Excellent,” she commented, handing him back the bottle. “I have never tasted the like of it.”

  Duncan accepted it back without comment, then took himself a long, hard pull. Was it his imagination, or could did the taste of her linger on the bottle’s mouth, mingling with the flavor of the spirits? The potent mixture of woman and whiskey became suddenly difficult to swallow and he found himself choking.

  “Such whiskey is a treat to be savored, milord. Not guzzled like gin or swallowed in hasty gulps like cheap claret,” she commented, coming round behind him to pound on his back.

  “And what do you know of whiskey?” he sputtered, catching his breath. Surely, he had to be entirely cast away if a few thumps on the bare back could feel so incredibly sensuous. What if he were to turn, to reach round that waist and pull her close, to feel those hands upon his chest? But before he could pursue that ill-advised course, the hammering of her hands ceased and she stepped back, out of arm’s reach, but dangerously within the touch of his senses. Even above the liquor fumes, Duncan could smell her scent, attar of night, an essence of woman.

  “Good Scot’s whiskey was one of my father’s few weaknesses,” Kate admitted. “He could decline even the finest of ports and would drink an occasional sherry just to be sociable, but a whiskey of quality was manna to him. Upon occasion, he would come upon a particularly excellent bottle and he would nurse it along, doling it out to himself dram by dram. Sometimes, when I became older, he would let me taste and explain the qualities that made that particular bottle choice.”

  Her voice was tender, filled with the fondness of memory, but there was an undertone of sadness. “He’s gone, isn’t he, your father?”

  “Rolica,” Kate confirmed.

  “A botched business if ever there was one, Lake’s charge. Shows the kind of damage an officer can do when he takes too much on himself.” Duncan shook his head. “So your father and your husband were soldiers both.”

  “I was raised upon the drum.”

  Her voice was a like the lapping of waves on a distant shore, and Duncan gave himself over to the peaceful sound, letting it soothe the turmoil within.

  “Papa wanted a son; I suppose all men do,” she said, giving voice to a long-held realization. “But there was only me. Mamma was scandalized, of course, but there was no denying Papa when he had the bit between his teeth. He taught me to hunt, to shoot, to ride and to know when the cards are marked.”

  “All the essential skills for a young gentleman,” Duncan remarked.

  “Aye, I suppose so.”

  Despite the dark, Duncan could envision her self-deprecating smile from her tone.

  “To be fair, Mamma did her best. She and Daisy both tried to make me a lady as well. But it was an unfair competition. Fine needlework and furbelows cannot compare with handling the ribbons of two high-steppers and a phaeton. And skirts and sidesaddle are a blamed nuisance, if one wishes to keep pace with the hounds. But I did try to be a lady, for their sakes.”

  “And succeeded,” Duncan noted. “You achieved the ultimate objective, marriage to a well-born man, a family. . . What went wrong, Kate?” At that question, he heard her draw a sharp breath. Clearly she did not wish to talk about that part of her past. But even though he had found the lever that would move her, that would get rid of her, he did not want her to go. “You need not name names,” he told her. “Give me no clues. Surely you realize that if I really wished to, I have enough information to find out who you truly are. How many women have an abigail named Daisy and a child of six or seven who is as silent as a doorpost. You are obviously genteel, you hated Almack’s and are not overly fond of Prinny. When we add the facts that you are the oddly indulged child of an army officer, raised as a daughter of the regiment, I am sure that it would take but a wee bit of investigation to uncover your real name.”

  She gasped and he cursed the whiskey for loosening his tongue. He had frightened her. “I won’t Kate, I swear. I won’t seek out what you are unwilling to tell me. I just want to understand. All considered, is that too much to ask?”

  He felt a mixture of regret and relief when she turned away.

  “I was a failure.”

  Her voice was faint, almost a whisper.

  “My husband thought himself grievously deceived, to marry a woman whom he expected to be the epitome of femininity and find himself leg-shackled to a hoyden.”

  She stopped for a moment, framing her words carefully before she went on. “When I found myself increasing, he was monstrously relieved. My father was his superior officer and it was just the excuse that my husband had been seeking to ship me back to England, you see.” She could hear no reaction from him. Marcus had not spoken of her, of that she was almost certain. Her late husband had told her often enough that she was less than a source of pride to him. “I was hidden away in the country to whelp. Yet another disappointment.”

  If it had not been for the darkness, he might have taken her words at their surface value, given the detached tone of Kate’s voice and the fact that her countenance was hidden from him. But he was listening carefully, weighing every nuance and there was no mistaking the pain beneath her deliberate nonchalance. “I take it he had hoped for a boy?”

  “As did my own father. What man does not wish for a son to succeed him,” Kate said, omitting the fact that Anne could inherit her father’s title in her own right. There were so few exceptions to the rule of male heirs. It would be almost tantamount to revealing that it was Marcus Denton, Lord Steele that she spoke of. “Perhaps we could have made things right, if there had been time. I was very young, full of childish expectations. If I had tried a bit harder, perhaps-”

  “Ah, poor Galatea,” Duncan murmured, “you blame yourself.”

  “If I had done different, we would not be at this sorry pass. If we-”

  “If, i
f, if,” Duncan mocked. “‘If wishes were horses then beggars would ride,’ my old nurse would say. What is the use of dwelling on ‘if’? There is no certainty that you could have changed your husband’s attitudes. Even if you had made yourself into the perfect statue of a spouse that he so obviously desired, what would have been the cost to you, Kate? Would you have so willingly destroyed everything that you are?”

  He rose, taking a step towards her, but halting just short of reach. “You would have died by inches, woman, a part of you perishing with every insipid afternoon call, every banal ball, and every commonplace remark. The words that you really wanted to say would stick in your craw and choke you. Your cogitations would crowd your mind until it was fit to burst, but you could never give your boiling thoughts voice for fear of angering Pygmalion.”

  Duncan’s hand lifted to touch that shining fall of chestnut flame but he recalled himself. “The fool thought that you were his creation, he saw only that beautiful shell, that silken marble skin that can be found in a heart of stone by any sculptor of skill. But it was not he who gave life to you, Galatea, it was the gods. You were blessed in bow and saddle by Diana, the huntress; given understanding by Athena, the wise; and it was Aphrodite herself who granted you the capacity for love. For a statue cannot love, Galatea and heaven knows that the assembly halls of London are filled with walking statues.”

  He could see the shimmer of her robe. She was shaking and when she turned round to face him once more, he could see the silvered trail of tears on her cheek. “Do not live in ‘ifs,’ Kate,” Duncan told her. “Else you will make your life a hell. I know.”

  It was all he could do to keep himself from gathering her into his arms, from urging her to spill her heart on his shoulder. He wanted to calm that trembling body, to soothe that wounded spirit, but he could not. Duncan lifted the remnants of the whiskey in silent offering. Unfortunately, liquid comfort was all that he could give.