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

hope of salvaging the moment. Someone was crossing the bridge over the stream. It would be no more than a few seconds before they would no longer be unobserved.

It was like the closing of a shutter, veiling all his thoughts within a winking. The scarred side of his face with its unseeing eye was inclined away from her now, as if he had just recalled his wounds. That unspoken appeal that had drawn her despite every instinct and sensibility had been snuffed like a candle without as much as a wisp of emotion to mark its passing. Had it been the invention of her own imagination or had she merely succumbed to the blandishments of a man that her late husband had somewhat enviously described as a wily seducer?

Far simpler to credit the latter of the two possibilities. Much easier to believe that this man was a rogue and treat him with all deserved disdain than to allow for the complications of genuine sentiment on his part. But try as she might, she was too honest to dismiss what had just occurred as entirely one-sided or the aberration of a moment. Indeed, it would be dangerous to stay willfully blind to this strange fascination. He could no more stop himself from charming women than change the color of his eye. She would just have to remain wary and keep her distance.

A colorful curse trumpeted Fred’s appearance. If he had come a few seconds later, or happened upon them unawares . . . Kate shuddered, deliberately ignoring niggling twinges of regret. Nonetheless, she could not help but wonder how reality would have compared to the conjuring of her dreams.

When Fred rounded the bend, it was easy to see why the Cockney was profaning the sacred. One eye was nearly swollen shut and his lip was bleeding. He pulled up the reins at the sight of the duo on the path. Duncan was beside him in a few long strides. “What happened?” he asked, raising a hand to gently touch the man’s lip.

Fred winced and shook his head. “Weren’t nothin’,” he said. “Should of known better than to try the village again. Little enough there to buy or to beg. Just that Daisy were talkin’ of biscuits. Now you know ‘ow partial I am to biscuits, Sir.”

“Fred once crossed the French lines to steal a pan full of biscuits,” Duncan explained with grim humor. “Nearly joined his Maker for a bit of fried flour.”

“They was good!” Fred remembered. “Best I ever ate, though Daisy’s are as near to them as I tasted and I told ‘er so. Now what did ‘appen, but the woman started goin’ on and on ‘ow these weren’t her bestest. Says ‘ers could all but fly if they weren’t tethered to the ground. ‘So,’ I asks, ‘why don’t you make them for me?’” Fred’s voice rose to a falsetto.“‘Ain’t got the right flour,’ says she. ‘Got to ‘ave fine wheaten flour,’ says she.” The man sighed. “So I ask ‘er where kin I get me some wheaten flour?’ and she says ‘Sometimes you can get some from Tam in the village, but it costs dear.’”

“And biscuit connoisseur that you are, off you went in hot pursuit of the ingredients,” Duncan said, stifling a smile. Fred’s imitation of Daisy was right on the mark, tone and expression.

“Well,” Fred said sheepishly. “Seein’ as ‘ow we was needin’ a few things else, aside of flour; salt so as we can lay by more of the game that you and milady ‘as been catchin’ and such. I thought I’d take care of it all, save me a trip, fool as I was.”

“Who struck you, Fred?”

Duncan’s voice was deceptively quiet, but it was easy for Kate to discern that he was a powder pan on the verge of ignition. “Perhaps the question to ask is ‘why?’” Kate added hesitantly.

Fred’s expression was pained. “Didn’t start no fight, I didn’t. It was the old man Daisy was talkin’ of, this feller name of Tam.”

“Tam who keeps the store?” Kate shook her head in disbelief. “It cannot be! Tam is almost as old as the Mad King himself and as amiable as a lamb.”

“A ram is more the like,” Fred muttered. “No sooner as I set foot in the shop when ‘ee goes for the throat. Says as ‘ee don’t want no one from the castle in ‘is place. Says ‘is lordship . . .” Fred’s voice trembled in outrage.

“Go on, Fred,” Duncan demanded.

“Says ‘is lordship killed ‘is wee great-grandbabe and near to killed ‘is granddaughter as well. When I asked ‘im ‘ow ‘ee reckoned that, ‘ee just kept sayin’ it were your fault, Sir.”

Kate groaned softly. “Maeve’s time must have come early. Why did she not send for me?”

“You have been acting as the midwife?” Duncan asked.

“There was no one else,” Kate said, meeting the challenge in his look. “Old Marie, who likely saw you into this world, milord, is too weak to leave her croft. She appealed to me as your er . . .”

“My widow,” Duncan supplied, enjoying her discomfiture.

“Yes . . .” Kate flushed. “She begged me to take over the task. I know something of herbs and simples; any army wife worth her rations is aware of the rudiments of caring for the wounded and ill, the relief of pain. Old Marie taught me what she knew and I have been doing that duty ever since.”

“Ever the gracious Lady MacLean,” Duncan said.

It was almost easy now to convince herself that the other Duncan had never been. Anger whirled about him, thick as the storm clouds over Beinn Airidh Charr. The sneer had returned along with the biting sarcasm. “What would you have had me do?” Kate asked. “Stand aside and play lady of the crumbling manor? There is sore need here Lord MacLean, if only you would bother yourself to see it!”

“I fully intend to,” Duncan said, his jaw clenching. “Perhaps it is time that Lord MacLean has