The Devil’s Due by Boucher, Rita (free reads txt) 📗

She lay still, barely able to see the edges of an outline limned against the moonlight

“Dinna cry out,” the apparition warned softly.

Kate shook her head in an infinitesimal movement signaling submission. Mindful of her sleeping daughter huddled beneath the covers, she prayed heaven that he would not notice Anne and that the child would stay wrapped in slumber.

With deliberate care, the intruder eased his grip, but the knife remained steady at her neck. “I will not scream,” Kate whispered hoarse with fear, trying desperately to think of some way to distract him. “Money . . .” she said. “If it is money you want, I shall lead you to what we have, but first you must let me get up.” When the knife was withdrawn in seeming acquiescence, Kate pushed the blankets aside, lumping them into a heap to mask Anne’s presence.

Duncan watched as she rose in a fluid movement, the folds of her flannel nightrail falling around the briefly revealed curves of calf and ankle. As cool as moonlight, she was, with an air of composure in the face of being roused at knifepoint that startled him almost as much as her beauty. The beams of light played on her hair, coloring the rich brown with silvery tints. Green cat’s-eyes glittered in the darkness. He recognized the terror in their depths, yet her expression did not otherwise betray her. Her carriage was ramrod stiff as she turned to face him. He stepped into the moonlight revealing his face, and waited for her reaction, the horror, the shrinking that was inevitable when members of the frail sex first beheld his scarred countenance, but she did not recoil.

“Follow me,” Kate said quietly, searching the stranger’s marred face for some sign of his intent. That single icy grey eye was empty of any clue. The lack of visible emotion was far more disturbing to her than the marks on his skin or the hideous black patch. For a brief moment, dread held her in thrall, but she quickly passed the outer boundaries of that initial panic. A minute movement from beneath the covers caught her eye, but the intruder apparently had not seen it because of his blindness on one side. With a cold sense of purpose, she recognized what must be done and done quickly. Another few seconds and he might notice that she had not been alone in the bed.

It was a dangerous game, one that she would likely lose, but it was her only chance. Kate turned her back to the intruder, moving to the door with calculated provocation, swaying her hips in a manner that needed no interpretation, even masked beneath a thick layer of flannel. She glanced over her shoulder, giving the intruder a smoldering look half-veiled beneath a curtain of thick lashes.

For a moment, Duncan was startled. It had been a long time since any woman had looked at him that way, not unless she had been paid well for her glances at any rate. Surprise quickly gave way to cynicism as he followed the temptress in brushed cotton. He moved warily, expecting some trap to spring upon him soon. There was not long to wait.

They had reached a turn in the hallway when the woman bolted abruptly. She sprinted rapidly out of arm’s reach, her hair flying behind her like a dark fox’s tail before the hound’s nose. Duncan gave a grin of satisfaction as she disappeared down the kitchen stairs. Trapped between himself and Fred, there was little chance of escape. He ran down the staircase, fully expecting to find his manservant holding her at the bottom, but he reached the final step just in time to see her disappear through a door. The servant’s hall, he recalled, as he followed, a room with no other exits save the tower. She would not evade him again.

Kate glanced at her bow and the quiver beside it. There would be no time to string it, much less nock an arrow, and the door to the tower was kept locked and too decrepit to deter a determined pursuer for long. Even if she could find safe passage among the ruins in the dark, there would be no gaining time by luring him up there. Swiftly but carefully, she made her way across the room to the mantle and reached for the ancient flintlock, grabbing it, the shot and the powder horn. In their scavenging search of the castle, she had found the rifle and bow hidden, wrapped in oilcloth in a corner of the tower. Although the flintlock was far heavier than the weapons her father had taught her to shoot, in their situation, she had deemed any weapons better than none and spent many precious hours restoring it.

Just as she hoped, he ran in after her without heeding his feet. He trod on one of the geese and it rose to peck at his legs, a hissing, angry bundle of feathers protesting its disturbed rest. As he backed away, he slipped on some goat droppings, falling into the nesting hens. They began to cackle in an agitated chorus, waking the rooster to protect his brood and he began to crow. William, the goat, roused from his sleep, bleated irritably. Focusing on the source of the disturbance, the billy lowered his horns to charge the intruder. The stranger scuttled out of the way just in time, placing a chair between himself and the rampaging animal.

Kate focused on the process of loading, shielding her actions from the intruder’s sight as best she could in the shadows. Despite her fear, she followed each step deliberately, just as she had been taught.

Always start with dry powder, my girl. She could almost hear her father’s voice as she measured grains from the flask into the muzzle.

Now tuck in the baby. A cloth wad held the shot tight as she used the rod to ram it home

She dared to look up just as William wheeled and began yet another attack. The trespasser