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

. . .

Kate blinked, instantly awake, her insides knotted as a clenched fist. Daisy’s snore echoed across the room, strong and reassuring. It was the dream, Kate told herself. That idiotic dream had woken her yet again. Once more, she had been in Duncan’s arms; he had been holding her, his mouth hard upon hers with an all-consuming hunger. Although she had been able to partially avoid him by day, Kate could not evade him at night.

Shameful though it felt, she did not want to. Two kisses were the sum of her experience, yet over the past weeks, imagination had woven those brief moments into a tapestry of emotion, the feel of his hand, the texture of his tongue, the taste of his lips, the deep rumble of his voice and every shade of grey from laughter to desire in that single mocking eye. Far better to dream of him than to face that reality had transformed her into a fool.

As the drowsiness dissipated, Kate became aware that something was wrong, missing from the usual night sounds. The gentle rhythm of Anne’s breathing, she couldn’t hear it. Frantically, she pulled away the cover beside her. Anne was not there. “Anne?” she whispered.

The chamber pot in the corner was unoccupied. Daisy murmured softly, turning on her side and her sawing ceased momentarily. Kate drew a deep breath as she tried to arrange her thoughts. The candle by the bedside had been taken. Surely the child would not have ventured outside alone? Not with her fear of the dark.

At first, Kate thought it might be the wind she heard, but the distant melancholy sound was not coming from the window. It came through the open door.

. . .

“No,” The Sad Man cried. “Leave him alone . . . he’s only a boy. Il est un enfant.”

Anne cocked her head, watching the Sad Man, wondering what would do next. He was sitting bolt upright, his eye open, but she knew that he didn’t see her.

He was seeing the boy.

He was telling a story.

“Do not dare touch him. Stay behind me, Colin, lad.”

A story about a boy named Colin.

. . .

Kate heard Duncan’s voice from the stair. “Non . . . non . . . aren’t you man enough to find yourself a woman? He’s only a child for heaven’s sake.”

“Anne?” Kate held her candle high, startled at the sight of her daughter in the room. “Lord MacLean?”

But there was no reply, just a cold forbidding stare, a look that held both terror and threat.

The girl ran to bury her face in the soft flannel of her mother’s gown.

“You bastards! You buggering bastards! If you want him, you will have to come take him,” Duncan roared, his arms thrown wide as if to bar a path. The room was hot, but not warm enough to account for the heavy sheen of sweat on his chest and forehead. “Stay behind me Colin; they will have to get past me, laddie.”

A nightmare; he was in the throes of a horrific dream. Kate moved forward, ready to pull him from the grip of his imagination’s conjuring.

“No, ma’am, don’t be wakin’ ‘im now, not that way.” Fred came from behind Kate and put a restraining hand on her arm.

“He’s in pain,” Kate said, her eyes upon that agony-contorted face. “You must wake him.” She led Anne outside the room to the stair and sat her down with Cur and the candle before returning to the bedside.

“Aye, I will, but not just yet, else I’ll ‘ave a fist in the face, and it’ll be me with a black eye and ‘I’m sorry, Fred’ till it fades,” Fred said, putting himself between her and his master. “The Major won’t know you, or me. Best thing to stay clear of ‘im, and take the little miss away. ‘ee don’t see any of us; ‘tis Frenchies ‘ee sees. Most times, I wake ‘im when ‘ee starts to tossin’ and moanin’, before the dream gets this far. But devil take it, I couldn’t get any shuteye and got to longin’ for a pipe and went walkin’ and smokin’. I’ll take care of ‘im now. You take the little one and go before things get real ugly.”

Duncan was panting, his breath coming in great heaves, his eye dark with terrors that Kate could only imagine. “Who was Colin?” she asked Fred in low tones.

The Cockney shook his head. “A drummer boy what was taken with us. Couldn’t ‘ave been more than a dozen years in ‘is dish. Colin was the company pet.” The small man sighed before he continued in an undertone. “Blue eyes an’ lashes long as your own, ma’am, I swear. Pretty as a lass, poor lad.”

Though his words were garbled by haste and his Cockney accent, there was no misreading the unspoken message in Fred’s eyes. Kate felt the blood draining from her face as she recalled Lord MacLean’s words.

“The Major put himself twixt the boy and the Frenchies. Goes without sayin’ ‘ee couldn’t do nothin’ against men with cudgels and bayonets. But the Major tried, the only one of us what did, I’m blamed to say. Bloodied ‘em though, ‘ee did,” Fred said with pride, “knocked two of them Frenchies cold before ‘is eye got put out.”

“Non passent.” Duncan’s eye narrowed as the enemies in his mind advanced.

“Lucifer’s own luck, the Major lived through it. A Welsh doctor was taken with us in La Purgatoor. Saved ‘im.”

“And Colin?”

“Never saw ‘im again,” Fred recalled, his eyes glistening. He glanced significantly at the glow of the candle from the kitchen stair. “Best to get the wee lass gone. She might get scared with what’s yet to come.”

Kate nodded and carried Anne upstairs, the dog following. So far it seemed that the child was more fascinated than frightened. Thankfully, Anne did not seem to understand the drama that was being reenacted before her. She lifted her child and hugged her close