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

are not going to the village,” Duncan told her, “not after what happened to Fred.”

“That is why I must go,” Kate said, wringing her hands. “Something has obviously happened to Maeve and her baby and they are blaming you for it. Were it not for me . . .”

“Were it not for you, Kate,” Duncan admitted, “they would likely be even less kindly disposed toward me. They hate their chieftain and with good reason. It is an awful heritage that we have, we MacLeans.”

“Yes, let us blame it all on the curse,” Kate said impatiently. “I have heard whispers of this terrible malediction. What utter falderal! To live one’s life in fear of a few angry words said half a century ago. It seems to me nothing more than an excuse for wickedness and wallowing in self-pity.”

“Perhaps,” Duncan agreed. “But words have power, Kate, more than you would ever credit. There was wisdom in what the Bonnie Prince said. He understood the MacLeans you see, knew what has ever been in our blood, ever been in the murky depths of our hearts. Know you the story of the MacLean who set his Campbell wife on a rock in the Sound of Mull, expecting the tide to drown her?”

Kate shook her head, unable to speak, trapped by the grey look that was as bleak as the sea.

“Luckily, some fisherman rescued her. And Campbell of Cawdor avenged that bit of cruelty by knifing his brother-by-marriage to death. And should you not believe me, you have only to ask the fisher folk to point out the place they still call the ‘Lady Rock’. The story is known by all, from the crofters to the king, along with other tales of the MacLean leanings to cruelty.” The old pain flooded him, the burden of his blood, the darkness of his thoughts. With that history, was it madness to want her so much? Even as she was, mud-stained, her hair tangled with bits of twig and leaf, she was no less desirable, a nymph to his satyr.

Duncan’s throat was tight as he continued. “So do not mock at curses, Kate. When he uttered his bane, Charlie was well aware that we would have to go against our very nature to break his blight. There is darkness in our sept of the MacLean line, Kate, a blackness of the soul that fouls all that we touch, all that we love. ‘Tis that shadow of melancholy that drove my mother from her home and then it killed her.”

“But I thought that she had left your father,” Kate said, startled.

“Aye, she did,” Duncan said, gazing beyond her toward the ruins of the castle as he recalled that day, remembering standing at the Hellgate and wondering if he would ever see home again. “But it was too late. If she had left me behind, it might have saved her. But Mother had chosen to take me with her.”

“And you were the heir,” Kate murmured. “It must have taken a great deal of courage for your mother to leave, especially with you in tow.”

“Aye, my father never suspected that she had the backbone in her,” Duncan said, surprised that Kate had discerned just how much fortitude it had taken. “Mother was the mildest of woman, full of fairy tales and dreams. My grandfather was a rich man and his clan is a powerful one. Once she had left here, The Munroe kept my mother from my father’s clutches, but my presence galled her relations. I am my father’s image or at least I was once.” His laugh was bitter as his fingers rose to absently trace his scar. “By choosing not to forsake me, she had brought the MacLean curse to her family’s bosom. If a babe was born deformed, if the milk was gone sour, it was no one’s fault but her MacLean son’s. But she would not let them return me to him, despite my father’s demands and my grandfather’s dislike. Her family made her life miserable because of my presence and never let her forget that it was her own foolish choice to wed a man with a curse upon his head.”

“Why did she marry him?” Kate could not help but put forth the question although she knew it was none of her affair. Even though Duncan kept his tones even, the pain ran like a leitmotif through his narrative. While he spoke of his mother’s anguish, it was clear that the child he had been had suffered deeply.

“I asked her much the same, though I could never understand her answer. She had honestly believed that she would be the one to break the curse,” Duncan said, his lips twisting in a wry mockery of a grin. “She loved my father, fool that she was, loved him enough to blind herself to everything but his charm. She remained deliberately deaf to the rumors that kept every girl of respectable family at a distance. Mother was fey, and she claimed that when she met my father she saw great joy in the future. That was the only time, I think, that the Sight failed her. In the end, it was Charlie’s bane that broke her and not the other way around. My grandfather couldna wait to be rid of his MacLean grandson, so much so that he even parted with a bit of his precious gold to purchase me a commission in the army. On the day after I left, my mother took her own life.”

“Coward,” The word was out before Kate could stop it, forced from her lips in an unreasoning surge of anger at the woman. Surely Duncan’s mother ought to have guessed that her son would blame himself, as he clearly did for everything else.

“How can you call her courageous in one breath, then name her coward in the next?” Duncan asked, annoyance patent in every staccato syllable. “She knew that I was safe. Her note said as much.” Why was he babbling on