Devil's Lady

by Patricia Rice

  “Just wrap it up, lass. ’Twill be fine in a day or two.” Morgan’s voice was weary, and he spoke as if from a distance.

  Faith looked dubiously at the gaping wound, but the bleeding was not such that it required more drastic measures. At least, she didn’t think it would. Remembering her mother’s strictures on cleanliness and the treatment of wounds, Faith reached for the bottle on the table. She had a better use for the alcohol than rotting his stomach.

  Morgan roared at the unexpected rush of stinging liquor across his leg. His eyes flew open, and he glared at Faith with ire at this betrayal, but she ignored the daggers he looked and proceeded to tear her thin shift into long lengths.

  Morgan grabbed a strip of the threadbare linen, discovered the suspicious remains of a bit of lace and a button, and growled ominously.

  “What is this? Can you not follow the simplest of orders? Bring me the bolt of cloth, and I’ll do it myself. I’ll not go about with lace dangling from my leg.”

  Faith jerked the scrap from his hand and pushed his palm hard against the padding she had folded over the gash. “Hold this still. I cannot work when you wiggle about.” She removed the offending bit of lace and the one button and carefully set them aside for other use. “Unless you intend to go about as God made you, no one will know what you have on. There is no sense in wasting perfectly good cloth.”

  “It is my perfectly good cloth and I’ll waste it as I wish,” he snarled. “If you had other plans for it, I’ll buy you more later. I’ll not have you tearing up your garments for my sake.”

  “Did you think I could sit here for a fortnight and do nothing but comb my hair? Your cloth is already made up into a serviceable garment. I saw no reason to render it into rags. I apologize if you are offended, but you did not say you meant to set up a hospital.”

  Odd, he had never heard that tone of defiance in her voice before. It quavered slightly, as if from disuse or as if she were waiting for the blow to follow, but he could not raise his hand even if he wished to.

  He could not begrudge her a new shift or two if that was what she wanted of the cloth. The one she had on was a child’s loose bodice buttoned to the neck, without the frills and furbelows he was accustomed to seeing when he undressed his women. It didn’t suit her.

  That wasn’t a particularly coherent thought, and he shook his head groggily. The slim figure in white rose to carry away the bloody water and bandages. Her waist-length braid glistened in the firelight, and he caught a glimpse of a well-rounded calf and dainty ankle, and he groaned at his fevered imagination.

  He refused to open his eyes again when she returned. He would not let his fever turn a scarecrow child into a full-grown woman to suit his lust.

  “You need to be in bed.” Her voice was almost seductive to his fevered mind, and Morgan growled. To his surprise, the sound emerged as a groan.

  Rejecting her offer of help, he pushed against the table and staggered to his feet. He needed to rid himself of his sweat-drenched clothes, but he could not offend the child’s modesty. He attempted to remove his coat and felt himself falling before small but strong hands caught and steadied him.

  With much tugging and pulling, both coat and waistcoat fell to the floor. Morgan lurched for the bed and caught himself on a slender shoulder conveniently placed by his side. Her bones were more frail than a bird’s, but she held his weight as far as the bed.

  She managed to remove his boots without his help. The ride had been eternally long, and he knew he’d lost a lot of blood. A little rest would bring him around. Gratefully he swung his legs into the bed and allowed the covers to be pulled up around him. A little rest, and he would be fine.

  Faith brought her blankets down from the loft and curled up by the fire, where she could be close should Morgan call for her. She doubted that it would ever occur to him to ask for help, but she wanted to be there if he did.

  He was so perversely self-sufficient that he could have bandaged his own leg, got himself to bed, and undressed. She didn’t fool herself into thinking he would be grateful that she was there. Morgan had made it plain that he didn’t need anybody.

  But he wouldn’t throw her out as long as she could cook. Holding that thought, she slipped into slumber.

  The next morning, apparently groggy with fever and pain, Morgan tried to stumble outside. Faith caught him, pushed him back into bed, and handed him the cracked china chamber pot from under the bed. She then absented herself to feed the horses.

  When she came back in, he was asleep. She emptied the pot and started a light broth cooking from the last of the dried meat. When he woke, he refused to eat it, demanding something more substantial. She gave him bread and poured the broth into a mug and he drank it as if it were coffee, too fevered to know the difference.

  The next day was a repeat of the first, only Morgan’s fever had subsided slightly, and he was a little stronger. Faith had a harder time keeping him in bed and forcing nourishing liquids down him. She knew in another day or two it would be impossible to control him, and she fretted over the slowly knitting wound in his leg as she bandaged it. Too much movement would reopen it.

  By the fourth day, Morgan was aware enough to lie in bed and observe Faith move out about the cottage while garbed in the overlarge gown she had worn when she first arrived. She had apparently taken in the ugly bodice and hemmed the skirt, but it was a woman’s gown and required curves and a corset to fit properly. She covered the lack with a large kerchief and a chemise with large ruffles and succeeded in almost creating the illusion that she was more than a child.

  Deciding that lying in bed was sapping his brain, he swung his legs over the bed’s edge. The little shrew in drab brown placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. He gave her his best grin and dragged himself to his feet. She braced herself for his fall. He stepped forward, staggered, and gratefully grabbed her shoulder.

  “Get me to a chair and fetch me a stout stick, Faith, me lass. I’ll not be a burden to you for long.”

  “Don’t try your blarney on me, James Morgan de Lacy. That leg shouldn’t be moved until mended. I’ll take the stout stick to your thick head should you try to go farther than that chair.”

  Morgan cast his small maid a look of astonishment as he sat down, then chuckled at her grim expression. “Hit a man while he’s down, will you? Just remember, I’ll be up again soon, and then I’ll seek my revenge.”

  Faith offered a quivering smile and dipped an impudent curtsy. “Yes, master,” she replied. “I have made a vegetable soup. Will you have some?”

  “No meat in it, I suppose.” He stretched his leg and considered that fact gloomily. He needed to be up and about.

  “You will not miss it.” Faith ladled the soup into a cracked bowl and carried a loaf of bread to the table with it. She was dying to hear the story of how he had injured his leg. At the same time, she really did not want to know. She could be serving a meal to a murderer.

  Reminding herself that it was her Christian duty to lead Morgan to the path of righteousness, Faith perched on the barrel at the table rather than avoid him by cleaning the pots, as usual. She watched as he savored the soup, reading the pleasure on his broad face. Were it not for the harsh angles of his cheekbones and the occasional glint of ice in his eyes, he would almost be a handsome man. Surely he could do better than this life of crime.

  “Have you ever thought to seek a less dangerous occupation?”

  Morgan choked on his soup. “This one suits me,” he answered curtly, recovering.

  “It suits you to nearly lose your life, or at best, your leg?” Faith ignored the ire leaping to his eyes. If her father could face a mob, surely she could face one maimed highwayman.

  “’Tis my business what becomes of me, and none of yours. I’d rather die with sword in hand than perish of starvation.”

  “You are far from starvation,” she pointed out. “You can buy a cow and some more chickens and start a garden, and you will have all that you could possibly need.�
�

  “And you think that’s all a man wants?” Irate, Morgan struck back. “You think I should be grateful for a puling little acreage and a cow? Do you wish to spend the rest of your life gathering eggs and stirring pots over an ancient hearth?”

  Dreams of silks and lace briefly entered her thoughts, but Faith resolutely cast them out. Happiness wasn’t silk and lace, but a lifetime such as he described did seem a trifle tedious. “It is far better than hanging from the gallows,” she replied tartly. “Have you no trade? You could sell this land and move to the city if country life does not suit.”

  “Oh, country life suits fine enough.” He sneered. “I could be riding my thousand acres of rolling hills, taking my horses to Newmarket, overseeing a tenant population of hundreds, but a papist is not good enough for such as that. Your fine English parliament leaves me no other career but that of thief. This land is mine only through an Englishman’s unlucky gamble. Should it be discovered what I am—not a thief, mind you, but a papist—I would not hold title long. One fine day I’ll have all I want, but it shall be at the expense of the bloody Sassenachs who cost me all I owned.”

  His bitterness soured the food on the table. Faith had nothing to say in reply. The Wesleyans had been jeered and set upon by ruffians across the country, but they had never been persecuted as had Catholics. She knew little of the penal laws, but surely they could not be so cruel as to deprive a man of a proper living. She sighed and rose to clear the table.

  “I think it will cost you your most precious possession should you continue this course,” she said slowly.

  “My life is none too precious, even to me, if it must be lived forever this way.” Morgan rose and stomped toward the door.

  Faith heard the door slam and lowered her trembling hands to the dishwater. She was a fool to think she could change him, but he was a fool not to change. If only she could make him see—but he was blind, blind from hatred and perversity. Where was the good in fighting that?

  Remembering the man who had taken her in when no other would, Faith straightened and vowed to try again. Somewhere inside that hardened shell waited a good man needing to get out.

  Morgan returned with a rabbit for the cookpot and using a stout tree limb for support. Faith shook her head at his stubborn foolishness. From the lines of exhaustion on his face, his pride had cost him enough this day. She brought him a cup of coffee and found a keg to prop his leg on, and resumed paring potatoes for their evening meal.

  “When my leg heals, I will go into London and find what I can of your family. You need to tell me what you can of them.” Morgan sipped his coffee and followed Faith’s movements.

  She was still angry, he could tell by the set of her shoulders. It seemed odd to have anyone reprimand him or care what became of him, but he would not succumb to her weakness. She would be gone in a few weeks’ and there would be none to care whether he lived or died.

  “There is naught to tell,” she responded curtly. “My grandparents disowned my parents when they accepted the Wesleyan way of life. I have never met them, and their names were never mentioned in my presence. My father’s name was George Henry Montague and my mother’s Leticia Carlisle Montague. Other than knowing that they came from good families and were well-educated, I know nothing.”

  If Montague was truly from the nobility, it would be a simple matter to discover him. Returning the long-lost child to the fold might be another matter entirely. Judging by the glimpses of temper she had shown him, her family might not find her particularly obliging in casting aside her father’s beliefs.

  “That will give me somewhere to start.” It was more pleasant to pacify her with promises than to delve into his criminal activities.

  “It would be better could you find me a position,” Faith responded defiantly. “I have no desire to be anyone’s poor relation. I can earn my own way.”

  “That’s a damned foolish thing to say,” Morgan answered irritably, forgetting his desire for peace. “You are much better off in the protection of your family than working for strangers. You know nothing of the world out there.”

  Faith threw down the knife and glared at him. “I know never to trust what a person says he is. I’d thank you to mind your own business in the future.”

  Faith stalked out of the house, leaving the man to pare his own potatoes. She didn’t know why she ached so at the thought of being forced to leave this isolated cottage to join a family she had never known, but it cut more cruelly than any knife.

  She had no home, she told herself, but when she reached the hay-scented warmth of the barn, grief sucked her in. Never would she see the ginger cat again, or pet the mare, or feed the mighty stallion, should she go away to London. She did not know if she could bear to be torn away.

  They dined in stony silence that night and went to bed without the quiet exchange of the day’s events that they had come to share. Faith climbed into her loft with her back taut and pretended she did not hear Morgan reaching for the bottle above the cupboard. Let him drown his evil tempers. It was none of her affair.

  Only later, when she had drifted into a restless half-sleep, did she hear the quiet sounds of someone creeping about the room below. She willed herself to sleep, but the shuffling footsteps pried on her nerves. Morgan never crept or shuffled. Even in pain, he stomped and swaggered. Something was not quite right. The hour was much later than she had thought, judging by the cold enveloping her. The fire was long since banked.

  Her hand slid beneath her pillow to the pistol she had not touched since Morgan returned. The hated metal burned her palm, and she almost dropped it, but a muffled sound from below forced her fingers to close around the butt.

  Quietly she slid to the loft hatch and peered down. At first she could see nothing, but as her eyes adjusted to familiar shadows, she stifled a gasp.

  A hulking silhouette that could not be Morgan filled the center of the room. A flicker of moonlight through the windows caught the point of silver in a massive hand. Even as Faith watched, she could see Morgan staggering from the bed, reaching for the scabbard left dangling from a nail in the wall.

  Her hand clutched convulsively around the pistol as Morgan’s bad leg gave out beneath him.

  A club bigger than Morgan’s head swung downward. Stifling a scream, Faith tightened her fingers on the weapon in her hand.

  Chapter 7

  Faith did not even remember pulling the trigger. She certainly did not remember aiming the gun. She only remembered complete terror as the deadly club swung at Morgan’s head.

  The explosion sent both men rocking backward and stunned her as well. Morgan grabbed his sword. The intruder crumpled to his knees and fell sideways.

  Suddenly it was no longer a puppet show in make-believe. Faith felt the horror creep upon her as the pistol scorched her hand. She dropped it, and the noise of it bouncing in the silence below seemed almost sacrilege. Her stomach cramped, and she wanted to retch, but she could not bring herself to go down the ladder to find the bowl.

  Morgan glanced upward. At the sight of the white face framed in the loft entrance, he ignored the body on the floor and started up the ladder. The bastard wouldn’t be going anywhere soon, and the child in the loft was a thousand times more important. The wrenching pain in his leg went unnoticed as he grabbed Faith and lifted her frozen form against his chest.

  Awkwardly he lowered her to the ground, thanking the heavens that he didn’t topple them both. Faith shivered uncontrollably in his arms and buried her face in the curve of his shoulder.

  She felt more frail than a newborn filly, and he gentled her as he would any injured animal. Somewhere inside, a fire stirred, but his tenderness was only for a terrified child.

  He carried her to the bed and pulled a blanket around her, and uncurling her fingers from the hairs on his chest, left her huddled in the protection of the massive cupboard where he had been sleeping.

  It took only a moment’s work to verify what he had already guessed. Morgan had killed befor
e and knew the gut-wrenching horror of seeing life disappear in a puff of smoke. He had grown hardened to death, however, and felt no sympathy for the blackguard who would have taken his life had he been given but a minute more.

  From the shape and size of the body, he knew it to be Tucker. The man had evidently come to steal and kill as he had done before. Perhaps news of Morgan’s injury had made him brave. Whatever the reason, the villain had died more quickly than he deserved.

  He had to remove Tucker’s corpse. Then, somehow, he had to erase Faith’s memory.

  Normally, removing a body would have been little problem, but his injured leg could not bear the extra weight. He would have to drag it out.

  He donned his shirt and boots, but did not dare look in on Faith. She was a murderer now, like the rest of them in the forest. If brought before the law, she might cry self-defense, but she would die inside before she ever reached a courtroom.

  Morgan had seen the insides of enough prisons to know a gentle female could not survive. It little mattered if she were a child. Half the occupants of Newgate were children.

  Reflecting bitterly on the British system of justice, Morgan managed to haul Tucker over his smallest mare and lead it out of the clearing. No one would mourn the dead man’s passing. Even had he wife and children somewhere, they would certainly be grateful to see the end of his abuse. Faith had merely saved the law the necessity of erecting still another gallows. But Morgan rather thought this rationality would not impress a child who was terrified of guns and had never killed before.

  When he returned, Faith was still sitting wrapped in the blanket where he had left her. At least this time she had not fainted, although oblivion might be preferable to the horror etching those wide gray eyes. He sat down beside her, easing his aching leg full length to keep from disturbing the knot of pain.