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

“Must be somethin’ about bein’ born within the sound of the bells rings all the sense out of them Cockney heads. Next time you go takin’ a bath, you might try undressin’ first. Shakin’ like a leaf you are, ‘tis a wonder your hand was steady enough to snatch that food from under my nose,” she said, lowering her skillet and voice. “I got some hot soup in the kitchen. Now take them wet clothes off, little man.”

“Like to see that, wouldn’t you?” Fred asked with a leering smirk. “Don’t see many fine figures of men ‘ere do you?”

“And I ain’t likely to see none now,” the woman retorted. “I’ve seen scrawny roosters that’d do better than you for the dressin’! Though I must say, you have somethin’ of the look of a drippin’, plucked chicken.”

Fred’s rubbery lips fell into an indignant scowl, his fists clenched at his sides. Amusing though it was, Duncan decided to put an end to the Punch and Judy show. “I will unload the supplies, Fred,” he said. “It looks as if you’ve already finished with most of it.”

“Ain’t done nothin’ yet, except kept me noggin from bein’ bashed,” Fred said with a frown as he gestured toward the paltry array of sacks. “That’s all there is, barley, bit of oat flour, some sugarloaf, salt. Couldn’t even get you a razor to take place of the one what you lost and with mine broke this mornin’. We’ll both be lookin’ like Father Christmas afore the week is out.”

“What else happened, Fred?” Duncan asked, reading more in his servant’s expression. “Obviously there is something that you are not telling me.”

“Nothin’,” Fred mumbled. “Ain’t much to spare in the village. I ‘ad to show them the color of my coin first, Sir, before I saw so much as a grain of barley.”

Duncan skewered him with a look. “What else happened?”

“The sot brain probably told them that he was from the castle,” Daisy informed his lordship. “If he gave them the glad news that you still bide on this side of Hell, milord, ‘twas a wonder that they didn’t hang him on the spot.”

“You ‘ush your bleedin’ mouth, woman,” Fred warned, shooting her a threatening look. “And don’t dare call me sot again. I don’t touch the drink.”

Daisy cast him looks that were, by turn, impressed and skeptical, before turning to address Kate, who was leading a small donkey into the courtyard. “They might as well know of it,” Daisy argued. “Better to be aware where you stand with the folk here, I say. Tell them.”

“I believe Daisy is right, milord,” Kate agreed, untying a brace of game. “I fear you will not find much of a welcome down in the village.”

“I expect no joy at the sudden resurrection of the house of MacLean,” Duncan said, his tones clipped. “But I will not suffer my servant to be abused.”

“I weren’t ‘urt none,” Fred hastened to reassure him. “No man what I know of ever got killed by a lick of spittle in the face. I’d ‘ave learned them a bit of respect, I would ‘ave.” He shook his fist. “But I ain’t a man to be usin’ fists on no Methuselahs.”

Duncan frowned, knowing how much it must have cost the prideful little Cockney to swallow such treatment, even from old men.

“You mustn’t blame them, milord. ‘Tis a poor place,” Kate explained. “A worse hole, I would warrant, than some I have seen on the riverside streets of Lisbon.”

“Surely you exaggerate,” Duncan said, recalling the filthy warrens and tavernas that abounded near the Tagus. Some of them had made the Seven Dials seem like Mayfair by comparison. “The village was fairly prosperous when I was a boy. I know that my father was in the habit of taking what he would without a thought to paying back the tradesman, but they seemed to do well enough nonetheless. Even if they knew Fred to be from the castle, he had gold in hand.”

“Gold will not buy what is not to be had,” Kate said, responding to the puzzlement on his countenance. Perhaps she had misjudged him; it appeared that he was genuinely unaware of the state of his people. “There is but one shop remaining in the village and that barely stocked with a few staples. You will find little to spare here and naught beyond the most rudimentary necessities.”

“What caused the change?” Duncan asked.

“You are aware of the Clearances?” Kate asked cautiously.

“No need to beat around it,” Duncan said, his jaw tightening as he realized what she was getting to. “When I was a stripling, my father was well on his way to fencing and claiming any bit of bog that he could for sheep-grazing and woe to the crofter who stood in his way.”

“Then you know that there was an exodus then, not just from here, but from much of the Highlands. Many of the young men left,” Kate explained. “When your father passed and you were presumed dead, the flocks were sold. That left almost no means of making a livelihood. Entire families headed for the cities, and from what I understand, a good many of Eilean Kirk’s boys are in Canada now. I sometimes read the letters that they pay someone to write to those they left behind. ‘Tis mostly old people who eke out a meager existence as your tenants, milord, grandfathers and grandmothers, those too timid or too weak to seek a new life or those who fear that their leaving would be the sentence of death on those they love. Perhaps they think that you intend to dun them for the rent that they cannot pay.”

Outrage blended with sadness in her voice. Did she dare to blame him then? It was not his fault, he told himself, but his father’s. Duncan had not set foot here since he was a boy. “You seem to know a great deal about my crofters, Madame,” Duncan said.

Kate shifted uncomfortably. “They thought me your