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

Even though Vesey was Marcus’s brother-by-marriage and a fellow officer, there was no love lost between the two. Duncan had little doubt that Marcus’s senses of honor and duty would have moved him to lay charges, regardless of family ties. Nonetheless, if Marcus still had that volume of Songs of Innocence in his possession, there might yet be a chance that Duncan could prove Vesey’s crimes. Without the names and dates encoded in the margins and underlined passages in Blake’s poems, however, Duncan would never be believed.

“I will ask you to post a letter to his lordship, Dewey,” Duncan commanded, rapidly calculating his current options. He had not reckoned on this setback.

The only penny’s worth of fortune in this muck pile of ill luck was the fact that there were only a few people who knew he was among the living. His time in the hell of La Purgatoire had schooled him in the notion that prudence was sometimes synonymous with survival. The officer once known as the Mad MacLean would have marched into Whitehall waving a battle flag, using the news of his resurrection to light a fuse to the powder keg.

Instead, Duncan had limited himself thus far to discreet inquiries regarding the disposition and whereabouts of his nemesis. The retrieval of the book was crucial to waging the campaign to bring the traitor down. Without the evidence in hand, Duncan could ill afford to alert Vesey to his presence.

Given the information Duncan had discovered, it might be wise to go to ground and reevaluate his strategy until Marcus was contacted and the book was reclaimed. Fortunately, Duncan knew just the place for his covert command post. London was too much of a risk. But given the sorry state of his face and the fact that he had almost never spent any significant time in Edinburgh, there was little likelihood that anyone would recognize him in the city. “Like as not Marcus is still on the Continent. While we wait for his reply, I have some business to attend to. Open up the town house.”

“I canna, milaird,” Dewey croaked like a bullfrog in distress. “It’s been sold.”

“What?” Duncan roared, the timeworn chair giving an eldritch creak as he leapt up and lunged over Dewey’s desk as if to take him by the collar.

“Aye,” Dewey said, cowering in his seat. “‘Tis what I hae been trying to tell ye. All but one of the properties hae been sold. Ye canna blame us. The Home Office confirmed that ye were daid and in the absence of an heir, all reverts to the Crown.”

“And in the meantime, I am virtually penniless,” Duncan said, seething. Bad enough that the precious book of proof was out of his hands, but this turn of events laid all his carefully made plans to waste. Although he knew that Vesey had resigned his commission, his enemy had grown more powerful. Duncan had not dared to be too specific in his inquiries, but it seemed that there was a peerage in the offing, and Vesey’s highly-placed friends would likely protect his back.

Once he had reacquired his full battery of damning documentation, the task would be simpler, but Duncan had no illusions that the battle would be won solely on his proof. Despite his war record, his personal reputation as the “Mad MacLean” was none too savory. Certainly his credibility could not fail to be improved by the weight of wealth behind him and, he added, looking at the doddering old fool before him, the acquisition of the aid of a competent man of law. “So it seems the Crown decided to take my fortune.”

“Nae, nae, milaird,” Dewey said, his Scots burr rasping heavily in growing uneasiness. He opened his desk drawer and searched frantically, finally pulling out a small ledger, speaking rapidly all the while. “It shouldna be too difficult to recover nearly every penny under the circumstances. A lucky thing that the wheels of the Crown have only recently begun to grind, but it still may take some time. I can arrange credit for ye easily enough. The auld laird left a substantial estate as ye can see from his accounts and we can borrow as much as ye might want upon your expectations.”

Duncan considered that possibility and rejected it out of hand. Too many transactions might well cause news of his resurrection to travel. Until the evidence and his fortune were secure, it might be best to live modestly in relative obscurity.

“Ye should nae have any problems securing whatever you wish. He was a canny man, your sire. If ye would but look at the last page.” He extended the book with shaking hands.

“Aye, canny indeed,” Duncan remarked as he accepted the inexpensively bound volume, leafing through it gingerly, for the cheap paper was flaking away at the edges. Every farthing of expenditure was accounted for in handwriting so crabbed that it was almost impossible to discern. “Not many men have the wisdom to consistently wed heiresses on the verge of death,” Duncan commented, giving a long low whistle as he came to the final figures. “My father never quite gave up on the possibility of another son to be Laird in my stead.”

“Surely, ye canna think . . . your ain father . . .” Dewey sputtered. “To speak so of the daid! ‘Tis blasphemous!”

“Mr. Dewey, you forget that I am a MacLean. In our family our only faith is that we hold nothing sacred,” Duncan said his voice deceptively soft as he sat down once again. “Certainly no profanity would suffice to describe my father. He was a greedy, selfish man who stole land and livelihood from his crofters. He drove my mother to her death and I suspect that my succession of unlucky stepmothers were glad enough to stick their spoon in the wall upon discovering the unsavory Scots bargain they had married.”

Duncan knew full well that nothing that had been said could be denied.

Dewey regarded MacLean in uncomfortable silence before