“Where is she?”
“Do you think that I would tell you, even if I knew?” Kate asked, her voice rising. “My daughter knows every inch of this island and the shores of the loch. She could hide from you forever and I pray that she does. You might as well finish me now, John.”
His laugh made her skin crawl. “You would like that wouldn’t you, Katherine? An easy end? But the game is not over yet. I doubt that she will be able to continue to ignore her mother’s cries. And I will have you screaming, my dear. One way or another you will bring her to me. I know how to make pain last Kate. I have begun lightly since I don’t want to damage you. Yet. Now call your daughter.
Kate raised her head. Vesey moved to stand before her, thinking she meant to submit. As he focused on her face, she worked her bonds, loosened her wrists a bit more. She looked him in the eye and spat, and then waited for the inevitable.
. . .
Duncan cursed silently and thanked God that he had left Anne behind as he assessed the situation. Once, when his sight had been whole, he might have tried to take down Vesey with a shot, but it was far too much of a risk for a one-eyed marksman.
“Now call your daughter.”
Duncan could hear the frustration in Vesey’s voice and steeled himself as the lash came down again.
“I do not want to hurt her, Anne,” Vesey called, dropping his crop before pulling the pistol from his belt and holding it to Kate’s head. “I shall count to ten and if you do not appear by then, you will force me to shoot your mother. One. . . two . . .”
Duncan was almost certain that Vesey was bluffing. He would not be foolish enough to destroy the only hold that he had on the child. Or would he?
“four . . . five . . . six . . .”
Not a fool perhaps, but a madman?
“seven . . .”
“Vesey!” Duncan called from his hiding place. “Your game is over.”
“MacLean? Back so soon?” Vesey laughed raucously. “I have not yet reached ten. Would you like to see what will happen at that number if you do not come out and show yourself? Eight?”
“Release her, Vesey.”
“You jest, MacLean. You always have underestimated me, you know. That was your fatal error. Nine. Are you willing to chance ten?”
Duncan stepped into plain sight and Kate moaned softly as Vesey’s pistol trained on him.
“The girl, MacLean, where is she?” Vesey asked. “She’s mine.
“I doubt that you want her Vesey, not now,” Duncan said, “She speaks, quite articulately. In fact, it was Anne who told me that you dared to invade my home and touch my woman. I suspect that the child would be most interesting in a witness box. Perhaps she might not be believed, but there will certainly be some uncomfortable questions raised.” From the look of consternation on Vesey’s face, Duncan could see that he had hit the mark, but that would not get Kate out of his clutches.
Desperately, Duncan scrambled for some semblance of a plan. Then the wisp of a thought materialized. The howls and protests of his dead comrades echoed in his mind. He could not repudiate that blood debt, but he could not allow Kate to suffer anymore at Vesey’s hands. “But I have something that you want, something far more valuable than a wee girl who might say some embarrassing things about you, John,” Duncan said. “What I have is a book, a book of names and dates and happenings involving one John Vesey and a number of other fine fellows. ‘Tis worthwhile reading, all those wicked doings and unless I make certain arrangements to stop it, it will be on its way to the gentlemen at Whitehall.”
“No, Duncan,” Kate whispered hoarsely. “No.”
Vesey blanched. “You are bluffing MacLean.”
“Are you willing to chance it?” Duncan asked pointedly. “With the information in that book, I can cut you off at the knees. Without it, I can do nothing.”
Once again the pistol went to Kate’s skull. “The book, MacLean, or I kill her.”
“Do you think that I would be fool enough to keep it on my person?” Duncan asked. “Or that I would be sufficiently stupid to hand it over to you without some assurance of safety for Kate, the child, and myself. I was a fool once; I will not be so again. If you want the book, you’ll have it on my terms, Vesey. Kate and Anne are to be free of you, in writing. I will supply the materials and the text.”
“You must think me insane,” Vesey retorted.
Duncan smiled. “Consider your position, Vesey. Should you harm Kate, a hempen rope would be the least of your troubles, for I would tear you apart with my bare hands. Refuse my offer and Wellington will have the evidence within a sennight. Those are your choices.”
Vesey thought for a moment. “I could kill you right now.”
Duncan debated the wisdom of drawing Vesey’s fire, but quickly rejected the idea. “Aye, you might get lucky at this distance, but I dinna recollect you being the best of shots. Would you risk missing me, John? Besides, if something were to happen to me, I’ve left specific instructions regarding the disposition of the book. Your sins will be the talk of Carlton House.”
“And the girl?”
“Would not stand witness against you, unless you were fool enough to force her back to your custody. I would not put a child through that pain unless absolutely necessary for her safety.” Duncan shrugged in a show of nonchalance. “I will meet you at the causeway in an hour to make the exchange. The book in return for Kate, her daughter and a signed statement.”
“That is all you offer?”
“That and the opportunity to leave here in one piece,” Duncan said.
Vesey laughed. “You must be as mad as they say to think that I would agree to so poor a bargain.”
Kate saw her opportunity. With Vesey distracted, she had worked loose the last of her bonds. Her fingers slipped to her knife and she brought up the blade with a quick slashing motion. She barely scratched him, but the second of surprise was all the chance she needed. Kate dashed toward the castle as Vesey’s weapon discharged into the air and fell to the ground.
Vesey snatched up the gun, made a fumbling attempt to reload then discarded it to follow his fleeing captive. As MacLean drew closer, the look of murder on his countenance made Vesey realize that Katherine was his only bargaining chip. Without her as a shield, the Scot would like as not tear him to pieces for the sheer pleasure of it. Vesey hurried inside just in time to see Kate bolting into the servants’ hall.
Kate struggled with the rusting tumblers, opening the lock to the tower door just as Vesey came into the room. There would not be time to lock it behind her as she had hoped. She ran up the stairs, a strategy forming in her mind. She could hear the door swing shut, the protest of the mechanism as the key locked her in with Vesey. The sinister sound of his laughter echoed up the stairway followed by the sound of footsteps. Praying for strength, Kate boosted herself out the small window, ignoring the pain in her back as she reached for handholds. Her only hope depended on Vesey keeping his attention on the stair.
“Katherine, you might as well stop this nonsense.”
She could hear his voice coming closer.
“You are trapped, little fool. There is nowhere to hide.”
He was perilously near the window. Kate held her breath, not even hazarding to inhale. A peculiar sound came from below and she uttered a silent blessing. It sounded as if Duncan had found the axe and was taking the flimsy door apart.
“Do not force me to come up after you, you stupid bitch.”
Vesey’s anxious voice echoed as he called up to the tower room. Her back throbbed and her sweaty fingers protested as her tenuous hold began to slip, but she did not dare to try for a better grip. She strained to hear his footfall as he mounted the stair, imagined him climbing to search the dark reaches of the windowless room.
“Katherine!” The angry roar was muffled as it reverberated through the tower. “Kath- . . .” the cry cut off abruptly as the groan of wood became a roar. Rotting timber protested as ancient beams splintered beneath his weight befo
re being drawn downward by the irresistible forces of gravity and momentum. A cloud of debris flew through the window, showering her with bits of wood and dust. Then there was silence.
Kate tried to haul herself up, but there was no strength left in her. She felt herself sliding until a firm hand gripped her wrist and hauled her in.
“Duncan,” she whispered as he grasped her close.
“Och, Kate, did you expect me to catch you from below again?” He tried to smile, but the effort was beyond his ability. “I damn near lost you, Kate. When you needed me, I couldna protect you. You were right.”
“As were you,” Kate said, coughing and catching her breath. “It was foolish to hide my head and believe that evil would never find us again.”
“He won’t,” Duncan told her, nodding towards the gaping hole in the floor. He lifted her into his arms and carried her down the stairs. Together, they gazed at Vesey’s unseeing eyes staring into emptiness. “You need not fear him anymore, Kate.”
“You sir, are breaking your oath,” Kate protested weakly.
“And did you not swear to me that you would keep yourself off of my roofs?” he asked.
“That was different,” she said, laying her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
“As is this,” Duncan said softly. “If lightning is going to strike for the sins of oathbreaking then we’re both of us doomed to fry like herring.”
“I see no clouds, yet, not a one- Daisy!” she exclaimed. “Listen to me nattering on like a fool while the poor dear is tied up in the pantry.”
“Sit yourself here,” Duncan said, easing her gently onto a bench in the sunshine. “I shall see to Daisy.”
Kate breathed deeply, trying to calm the panic that was still trying to rule her. It was over. It was all over.
In a few minutes, Duncan seated himself beside her with a basin, cloth and a jar of Daisy’s salve in hand. “I report to you that Daisy is shaken but unhurt; not yet quite steady on her feet due to being trussed up like a Christmas goose. She sent me back post-haste to tend to you. She’ll be brewing some tea.”
“Daisy is a firm believer in the curative powers of tea.” Kate shook her head, wincing as he started to undo the buttons on her back.
“Set ye still lass, while I follow General Daisy’s marching orders.” As he spoke, he carefully parted the fabric of her dress, trying to contain his rage at the rising welts that were revealed. “Not much blood, from the look of it, barely broke the skin. I’m sorry, but this will pain you.” He gently sponged her back clean with the cool water, cursing inwardly as she shied from his touch. “I’d kill him again if I could.”
“It is a strange feeling Duncan. I can scarcely believe that it all happened. I did not pull a trigger, but I was responsible for his death,” Kate said.
Duncan turned his attention to the raw scrapes and cuts on her hands, dipping the cloth and marveling that she had been able to endure.
“He chose his own doom. If anything, he killed himself,” Duncan declared as he opened the jar and spread the soothing cream on Kate’s back. “I’m thinking that Vesey got an easier end than he deserved.” He tended to her hands, kissing each wound after anointing it with ointment.
“The running, the lies . . .”
“Are done with. You are a free woman now, Kate,” Duncan told her, though the thought of her leaving was a pain beyond bearing. “You and Anne can go and do whatever you please now. Do you go home to London?”
“Home to London,” Kate gave a wistful smile. “An oxymoron if ever there was one. London could never be home to me, Duncan. It never was, in fact.”
“You need not fear spending your wealth.” Duncan pointed out, knowing he was a fool for doing so. “You do not have to choose London. Home could be wherever you wish to make it, Kate.”
“Let me help you, Duncan,” Kate suggested. “As you just pointed out, I am practically rolling in lucre. We could restore Eilean Kirk Castle and build a distillery that would outdo Tam’s wildest dreams. Let it be my gift to the people here who have been so kind of me. My gift to you.”
“Och, Kate, you had best be watching that pretty head of yours, for I am certain what I’m about to be saying will make the sky fall in,” Duncan said. “I cannot take your money.” He covered his head with his arms and peered up expectantly. “Did you hear that Charlie, the Sassenach woman is offering The MacLean gold and I am not taking it.”
Kate could not help but laugh “Be reasonable, Duncan. Call it a loan.”
“I have no need, Kate,” he said, his expression abruptly earnest. “I admit that I’ve been deceiving you. Actually, I am a very rich man, or I will be once that incompetent Dewey retrieves my inheritance.”
“If that is true,” She asked, encompassing the castle with a doubtful wave of her hand, “why did you choose to live like this?”
A dozen flippant remarks came to mind, witty comments that would turn the subject to safer ground. Instead, he chose to tell the truth. “For a long time, Kate, I didna care much how I died,” he said. “When I escaped the French prison and found out that this place was all that was left to me, I didna much care how I lived until I managed my revenge. A crumbling ruin seemed much to the taste of a man who half-fancied himself a living ghost. But when I found you here . . .”
He looked away from her, because he was afraid to see her reaction, now that she no longer needed him. “When I found you, I was afraid because you did not believe in the hant that was Duncan MacLean. You did not think me the monster I knew myself to be. You trusted my honor, dubious though it was. Och, Kate that was a heavy burden, a terrible trial to a man like me. You spun your fantasies about my kindness, my goodness and vain popinjay that I am, I couldna disabuse you of your notions. Though I did try, you must admit that Kate. I did try.”
“Not hard enough,” Kate said mildly.
“Aye, that was the worst of it,” he ran his hands through his hair like a nervous school lad. “Because by then you see, I wanted you to stay. I knew money was not the end-all and be-all to you. I thought that if you knew that I was wealthy, you wouldna feel needed and you would leave me. I wanted you to remain here in my ruin with me, groom my horse, darn my socks and tell me your lies about my kindness and charity and honor.”
“Do you call me a liar then, Duncan MacLean?” Kate asked, her hand reaching to cover his.
“You are the most honest and true woman I have ever met, Kate . . .” Duncan faltered. “What is the Steele family name anyway?”
“Denton,” Kate prompted.
“Kate Denton, you are honest and true.”
“I have concealed the truth and deceived you outright, sir, but you persist in maintaining that I am the soul of integrity. If you may mislead yourself about me, I claim the right to do the same about you. How is that for a bit of twisted logic?” she concluded breathlessly.
“Logic has nothing to do with it, unfortunately,” Duncan said, raising her hand and stroking it gently. “There is so much I dinna understand. When I came here, the only thing that kept me going were the ghosts. Yet, when Vesey had you at his mercy, I could hear them screaming in my ears, telling me that the book was their right, their monument. When he threatened to kill you, I realized the truth. It is not the dead, but the living who seek vengeance, Kate.”
“You would truly have given Vesey the book?”
“What do you think, Kate?” he asked, letting her plumb the depths of his soul.
“Yes,” she said at last in an awed whisper. “I believe you would have.”
Duncan smiled “I had hoped I would have found some way to retrieve it, mind. So dinna be thinking too well of me, woman.”
“I will think what I please, Laird MacLean, and if I think you the most marvelous man on earth, what would you say?
“I would say that you are foolish and deluded and be grateful for it,” he said, bringing her hands to his lips for a kiss before moving behind her to tend to her back.
“And if I were to be foolish
enough to delude myself into believing that I love you?” she asked, as she felt his touch soothing the aches away. “And I said that I wished to dwell for the rest of my days in a remote Scottish castle in a gothic state of disrepair?”
“I would think you had been hanging too long by your thumbnails or feverish from the effects of a whipping and some idiotish man who has been keeping you talking too long in the afternoon sun.” He put his palm on her forehead and a finger at her throat. “How is it that you’re not even warm? But that pulse of yours is pounding.”
“And if I claimed to be perfectly lucid?” she asked, searching his face for answers.
“I would ask you why you would choose a beast, a man with an accursed name and a worse reputation. A woman like you . . .”
She put a finger to his lips. “Colonel Braxton’s brat? The woman who informed Lady Jersey that the cake at Almack’s was stale and the orgeat insipid? That pillar of propriety who bet a member of the Four-in-Hand Club that she could tool a phaeton far more expertly than himself.”
“And did she win?” Duncan asked.
“The race and an indefinite stay on her husband’s country estates,” Kate said with a laugh. “I do not want a man who will manage me, Duncan MacLean.”
“I would not dare try,” Duncan said, his hopes rising. Her eyes were clear and guileless as green glass. He realized that no woman had ever looked upon him with true love before, because this shining gaze that wrapped him in tangible joy could be nothing but that mystical wonder. “There are ghosts enough already on Eilean Kirk.”
“I know,” Kate said. “I confess that I have met one of your MacLean hants. He visits me in the darkness, and fills my dreams, this bearded ghost.”
“Most unfashionable.” Mindful of her back, his hand stole gently around her neck.
“Yes, and it tickles this phantom’s bristle, but I’ve come to like it quite well.” She reached up slowly and stroked the curling strands.
“Have you now?” Duncan asked in fascination. “What else about this ghost intrigues you?”
“His kisses are unearthly, both heaven and hell. Heaven when I am in his arms, hell when he leaves me.”
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