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

“I cannot risk it,” Kate said, threading anxious fingers through her unruly hair. “All that I know of him is what Marcus mentioned in his letters. He is a fine officer, the man to have beside you in the fray. But off the field . . .”

“‘Tis ‘mothers watch your daughters,” Daisy nodded. “Don’t need a letter to know that, even starveling and scarred. Has that way about him he does. I would wager there weren’t a woman within the sound of the drumbeat that didn’t know of the ‘Mad MacLean.’ But he’s a lord, milady, and a belted earl. Surely, it is his duty to help you?”

“Or the Mad MacLean might just feel obliged to deliver us back into John’s hands. He is a man, after all. Why would he believe the word of a mere woman?” Kate said with barely suppressed venom, sitting gently upon the bed to avoid disturbing the child. “We cannot chance it, Daisy. If I did not think it too dangerous, I would steal away this very night. But the terrain is rough and we would certainly come to grief in the dark.”

Cur whimpered softly, thrusting his furry head beneath Kate’s hand in a comforting canine gesture, before settling himself once more at Daisy’s feet.

“But how far could we get?” Daisy asked the anguished question. “Barely even enough for a coach fare, do we have.”

“We will get money somehow,” Kate said, her eyes hard as gemstones as she watched her sleeping daughter. Anne was still shaking, her breath coming in small hiccups, the remnants of hysteria. “I have always wanted to see America.”

“America,” Daisy said in dismay. “A place of savages, it is. With Indians what takes your scalp right off your head.”

“Nonetheless, it is a big country, a place where Anne and I could easily lose ourselves,” Kate said.

“And what about me?” Daisy asked suspiciously.

Kate clasped Daisy’s hand. “Go back to London. By the time John finds you and questions you we will be long gone, and you can misdirect him. Someday, I will pay you back your savings.”

Daisy’s face reddened. “You’ll not be leavin’ me behind like so much baggage. And no more talk of payin’ me back, for if there’s any what owes, it’s me. My man died in India and left me alone, sickly from childbed and the shy side of sixteen, with no money or family to speak of. The Colonel and your ma took me in they did. I’d just lost my own babe and ‘twas I what suckled you. Do you think honestly that I’d leave you and the wee one?”

Kate shook her head, swallowing to ease the constriction of her throat before she spoke. “No, I did not,” she acknowledged hoarsely. “But I had to give you the choice. It will be far more difficult to go undetected this time. We were lucky that night; John did not suspect that we would fly immediately with little more than the clothes on our back, I have little doubt that his minions are searching for us now.”

“‘Tis a pity indeed that Lord MacLean came back,” Daisy said with a sigh. “Now there’s one what seems that the world might be better off without.”

“He is wounded, Daisy,” Kate chided. “It seems to me his hurts go far deeper than the skin. And we did invade the gentleman’s home.”

“Well he ain’t any kind of gentleman, if he don’t see that you’re a lady,” Daisy said with a sniff. “A slip on the shoulder he was offerin’ you and no mistake of that. ‘Tis a blessin’ the little one came when she did.”

“No,” Kate said, her eyes lowering before Daisy’s reproachful look. “It was most unfortunate, for I would have accepted his offer otherwise.”

Daisy’s mouth dropped open. “What would your Pa have said? And your husband? You . . .”

“They would have rightly called me a ‘whore,’” Kate said, completing the sentence, her fists clenching by her sides. “I hope that my father will look down from his place in Heaven and know that his granddaughter is safe from harm. As for my husband, it was his foolish notions that gave control of our finances and our lives into John Vesey’s keeping. No doubt, Marcus thought that John would keep my hoydenish tendencies in tight rein. But that water has long rushed beneath the bridge. I will do what I must, Daisy, to keep Anne safe and if that entails walking the streets for passage money then I shall do so. If you cannot stomach that thought, then you had best go back to London.”

Silent tears ran down the maidservant’s cheek as she clasped Kate’s hands. “Do it for you myself, but I could,” she said. “But there ain’t many what would want one such as me. I’ll stay with you, child, though it be breakin’ my heart.”

“Oh, Daisy,” Kate whispered, clutching the woman’s hands. “We’ll weather this. For Anne.”

“Aye,” Daisy said, her words imbued with solemnity of an oath. “For Anne.”

. . .

There were few people abroad before dawn in the fashionable Mayfair neighborhood. So, it was scarcely surprising that no one remarked the man slipping through the garden gate and into Steele House through an unlocked entry. He moved through the darkened rooms confidently, pausing for a moment to knock lightly upon the library door before entering silently.

“What kept you?” John Vesey said, glaring angrily. “I expected you nearly an hour ago.”

“I was waiting for the report from France,” the man replied, his demeanor composed despite his employer’s apparent rage. “My man had a rough time crossing French lines. We are at war, you know.”

“Damn your cheek, Roberts,” Vesey said. “What does he say? Has he found them?”

“It seems that they have vanished, sir,” Roberts replied.

“What do you mean vanished?” John Vesey roared, striking his desk with a meaty fist.

Roberts raised an eyebrow, sorely tempted to mention that raised voices and pounding were bound to attract attention, but then thought the better of it.