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

taking a key from his pocket and unlocking another drawer. “Ye shall be needful of some funds, I suppose,” he said, setting the clinking purse on the desk. “‘Tis but a hundred pounds, but at the least 'twill get you decent lodging and clothes. I will draw you more on account once the banks open on the morrow.”

“I have no intention of being here on the morrow,” Duncan said, making a sudden decision as he weighed the bundle of coins in his hand. What would be the use of staying in Edinburgh without the financing to proceed with his plans? “How long do you think it will require to put matters to rights?”

“I canna say, milaird. We hae ne’er had such a thing happen before,” Dewey replied raising his hand and beginning to count off items on his fingers. “There are volumes of paperwork to be filed. We must reverse or stop the sales of such property as we are able, and then there is the matter of dealing with the Crown. Och! It may take months.”

Duncan clenched his fists, trying to contain his anger and impatience. Months! But he had learned at great cost, the dangers of proceeding rashly. It would be foolish beyond permission to pursue the matter without sufficient resources lest Vesey escape the net. Vengeance had waited years. Duncan could afford to bide yet a bit longer.

“You mentioned that one property has not yet been sold,” Duncan remarked with a scowl. “I suppose that I shall live there until this mess has been undone.”

“Ye canna, milaird,” Dewey protested. “For ‘tis the Castle upon Eilean Kirk which is why we couldna find a buyer. I even inquired from Laird Steele himself, if he knew of anyone who might find it desirable, for ye ken that many an English fool wants his ain draughty Gothic keep these days. But even if Walter Scott himself tried to find a kind word to describe the auld edifice, he couldna. The place is naught but a pile of rubble.”

“It always was,” Duncan commented. “Even while my father lived, they say ‘tis part of the curse.”

“It has become mair so,” Dewey said, stirring uneasily at the mention of Prince Charles’ legendary bane. “We couldna find a man willing to live on the place, so ramshackle it was. Not a penny piece did the old laird put into the upkeep. For your father, rest his soul-”

“My father’s soul, if he had one, Mr. Dewey, is doubtless roasting in hell,” Duncan commented, his eye narrowing in anger. “I will not abide any pious pretense, for we both know what manner of man he was. I have little doubt that the few crofters who remain dance on his grave, if any troubled themselves to give him a Christian burial.”

“He was a hard man,” Mr. Dewey murmured in understatement. “They say he haunts the castle. That was another reason that there we couldna even find a caretaker.”

“So that is why you wish his soul rest,” Duncan said with a chill laugh. “I doubt that my father’s spirit is clanking about the place, Dewey. He abhorred crowds. If the legends are true, there are veritable hordes of ethereal MacLeans haunting Eilean Kirk that neither heaven nor hell would claim. However, if, by chance, I do meet up with my sire’s ghost, there are a few choice comments that I had always planned to make. ‘Twas his good fortune that the French deprived me of the opportunity to attend his deathbed.”

“But surely ye willna wish to stay in that auld pile of stones,” Dewey said, chins quivering as he shook his head.

“My man, Fred, and I are quite adept at making do,” Duncan remarked, half to himself. “I daresay that Eilean Kirk Castle will seem like Carlton House after the accommodations in the place they called La Purgatoire.”

Dewey looked at MacLean with pity. “Ye can stay in my ain house, milaird,” he offered in a rush of generosity. “‘Tis nae fitting for a hero to dwell in a place that’s no better than a cow’s byre. Yer exploits at Talavera were the talk of Edinburgh!”

“Aye,” Duncan admitted mockingly. “Beyond belief is it not? A MacLean in the dispatches? But then, the MacLeans of Eilean Kirk have always been the talk of Edinburgh.”

“They say that ye near won the battle by yourself,” Dewey said, ignoring the earl’s sarcasm. “A brave thing, sair, a verra brave thing. ‘Tis a miracle that you escaped that Frenchy prison.”

“There are no miracles, Dewey,” MacLean said his jaw setting in a hard line. “And bravery is but a label given to those who have faced terror after the fact. Eight men left La Purgatoire with me; six of them had families, wives and children waiting in England. If miracles truly existed, those with something to live for would have come safely home. As it was, only one other endured with me, both of us men who could have perished with none to shed a tear.”

“Will ye come with me then for the night?” Dewey offered once more.

“Thank you for the offer, but I cannot accept,” he declined, forcing himself to be civil in the face of the solicitor’s obvious pity. Duncan found the sudden sympathy far more difficult to bear than barely concealed contempt. The solicitor’s chamber was closing in on him, stifling him.

Blast those newspaper accounts! He had wished nothing more than to be left alone but they had insisted upon making a hero of him. Duncan wondered if it was the burden of those public laurels of heroism that had caused him to wait until he had sufficient details to fully identify the truly guilty. More than once before that fatal day of betrayal, he had resisted blurting out the truth. If he had laid his charges against Vesey without the names and dates accumulated in that book, any number of innocents would have been consumed in the ensuing scandal, including Marcus and even Wellington himself. What was it that