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

fallen and twisted ‘is foot on the cliffs, we would ‘ave been cut down on the beach same as the others. But ‘ee told them to go on without ‘im. And devil take them all, they left ‘im behind with no more than a fare thee well. Took the one rifle we ‘ad and one of them even ‘ad the cheek to order me to come with them, crack marksman what I am. Told ‘im where to put that rifle, I did.”

“With or without the bayonet?” Kate asked and was rewarded with an appreciative smile. “A hanging offense, to threaten an officer.”

“Good fortune then, that ‘is bloody lordship never got to report me. Eight men, ma’am, slaughtered before our eyes, and not a blasted thing could we do to ‘elp ‘em,” Fred muttered. “I keep on sayin’ to the Major, they would have picked us off like lice on a shaved-” Fred cut himself off. “Beggin’ your pardon. Forgot I was speakin’ to a lady.”

Even in the pale moonlight, Kate could see the change of expression as Fred told his tale, the anger, the bitterness, the profound sadness. She could only imagine what he and Duncan had felt as they had watched that carnage. Once again, her eyes sought for Duncan. He stood silhouetted against the silver glow, another bottle in his hand. “Does he always drink away these dreams, Fred?”

Fred shook his head. “Can’t, I fear. Sometimes, I be thinkin’ if all the sea was blue ruin and the Major could swallow it all, ee’d still be ‘alf sober. Why ‘ee could even drink Lord Steele ‘isself under the table and Steele was a toper few could match.”

Kate blessed the lack of light that concealed her reaction. “Lord Steele?” She made the name into a question, keeping her tone under careful control.

“You ain’t ‘eard of ‘im, and you followed the drum?” Fred’s bewilderment was obvious. “A regular Lord Thirstington ‘ee was, but rarely did the man ever seem the worse for it. Never touched the bottle before a battle though. Steele weren’t one of those officers that went on to the field pot-valiant.”

It was hard for her to imagine Marcus even mildly muddled. He had always been so totally in control of himself.

“Aye, a man’s man was Lord Steele, the very devil with the ladies too,” Fred reminisced. “Why I recollect . . .” but he trailed off. “There I go again, runnin’ my jaw.”

Kate was torn, but decided she wanted to hear more. “Why, I do seem to recall something now, but are you speaking of Marcus Denton? He was a married man, was he not?” she asked, praying that her voice would stay steady.

“Aye,” Fred conceded, “Always used to say ‘ee married below ‘is station. Wed Colonel Braxton’s brat, if you would credit it. Sure you ‘eard of that one, a real spitfire the Colonel’s girl. Wed ‘er on a wager, some say. Bet two ‘undred guineas that ‘ee could make ‘er into a perfect lady. They say, Steele won the wager, ‘ad ‘er dancin’ at Almack’s.”

“Like a performing dog,” Kate murmured, wondering how many had known. How many people had been tittering behind their hands as she had danced that first waltz so proudly in Marcus’s arms. All this time she had wondered why the great Lord Steele’s eye had fallen upon her, why so lofty a being who could choose any well-bred female for a bride had taken a hellion as a wife.

Braxton’s brat.

She had known of the name, of course, taken a perverse pride in it, convinced herself that it did not matter, though it had. Until Marcus began to woo her.

She had honestly believed that this man had seen the woman beyond the breeches, discerned qualities past the foolish badges that were reserved for those with an odd kick to their gallop. That supposed esteem had been the hope that had sustained her, through the long absences, through the numerous small cruelties that only Polite Society could contrive. And she had endured, for Marcus’s sake, striven to make him proud because, after all, he had chosen to elevate her. Kate stared up at the wavering stars as the underpinnings of her past crumbled.

“Milady!”

The cry that rose to punctuate the urgent tone of Daisy’s summons made the reason unmistakable. Kate’s ruminations would have to wait, and Duncan would have to wrestle with his demons alone. Anne’s nightmares had returned. “Keep an eye on him, Fred,” Kate said. “I must see to my daughter.”

“Aye, I will. . .” Fred promised, adding softly when she was beyond hearing, “milady.”

. . .

At first, Duncan thought that he had become disconnected from his body, that the small inner voice that he sometimes heard within had finally freed itself. The thin high wail pierced the heart of him, found an echo inside the recesses of his soul that keened like the winter wind through the barren wastes. All of his horror, the sum of all his deepest fear was contained in that reverberating shriek. He put his hand over his ears, knowing in the whiskey sodden recesses of his mind, that it would do no good; it never had before. But to his amazement the sound was muffled, and he slowly came to the realization that the scream that he heard came from without, not within. Once that had been determined, Duncan tried to discern the source of that agonized cry comparing it with jug-bitten judgement to every similar noise that he had ever heard.

An animal in a trap? A damned soul in torture? His own screams? Aye, a combination of all of those and yet unlike any of them. Like the cry of a bean sith, those ghostly heralds of death, this was, high, thin, and reedy . . . like a child. No, not a banshee, a little girl.

He turned toward the castle, toward the direction of the din, his eyes rising to the lit window above the courtyard and somehow, comprehension dawned. Pain instinctively recognized