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

than the cow. In fact, she fully intended to take off the ridiculous bit of buckram as soon as she was out of sight, but for the present, it might placate Daisy.

“Who’ll hear me call you ‘milady’ in this forsaken place?” Daisy complained with an encompassing wave of her hand. “The sheep? The children from the village who run from this place as if the devil himself lived here? ‘Tis haunted they say! And then there’s that fool curse.”

“The curse is something of a blessing, from my way of thinking. I would much rather people believe this place inhabited by spirits, for that will keep them from asking questions,” Kate said, touching the older woman on the shoulder.

The maid’s dejected look stirred feelings of guilt as Kate recalled Daisy’s gregarious ways. “Oh, my dear, I am so sorry that I involved you in all this. You could easily be in a fine position back in London right now, I am sure. Half the ladies in the ton were trying to lure you away from me and I know for a fact that Lady Jersey herself offered to double your salary if you would leave my employ. It was selfish of me to allow you to sacrifice yourself, I know.”

“As if I would have done otherwise,” Daisy said, her broad nose rising with an insulted sniff. “Needed me, you did, you and the little one. After what your Papa and Mamma done for me, what would make you think I wouldn’t stick by you, milady?”

Kate dropped the basket and embraced the woman fiercely. “It is ‘Kate,’” she whispered. “Even if by some miracle we are ever able to go back, you must always call me ‘Kate.’”

“If that day comes, I shall call you ‘milady’ and be glad of it. I was as proud as your Papa was on your wedding day and that’s the truth,” Daisy said prosaically, holding the young woman at arm’s length and reaching up automatically to tuck a wisp of chocolate hair into the bonnet. “Like a little girl you are with your hair always a mess . . . Kate.”

Kate beamed at her in approval. After most of a lifetime spent in service, it was extremely difficult for Daisy to reverse the force of habit, treating her former mistress as an equal. “Now I can be le dernier cri for the goats,” Kate said an impish smile on her pixie face as she stooped to retrieve the fallen basket. “Is Anne outside?” she asked, pausing at the door to slip her feet into wooden pattens.

“She were heading toward the orchard,” Daisy informed her, a smile transforming her moon face. “Her and that no-good dog wagging along behind. The two of them are sticking their noses everywhere. Caught her in the pasture this morning, I did, pulling at the cow’s teats and squirting milk into that hound’s mouth, as if we don’t need every drop for ourselves. She giggled when I scolded her. Giggled. A good sign, I’d say.”

Kate felt her throat tightening. “That is a very good omen indeed, Daisy,” she said, a trifle hoarse with emotion. “How I wish that I had been there, for it has been so long since I have heard my daughter laugh. I believe that her progress can be deemed excellent, when just four months ago she would shriek if we strayed from her sight.”

“Milady do you think . . .?” The look of hope on the maid’s face finished the question.

“I do not know, Daisy,” Kate replied softly, her green eyes brightening with a hint of tears. “I do not know if Anne will ever speak again. She has come so far . . . I suppose that all we can do is hope.” Deliberately, she dismissed the child’s problems from her mind. There was produce to be gathered and the livestock to be cared for. The matters of day-to-day survival perforce must take priority. “Will you find Anne and bring her back to the house, please?”

Daisy watched with a sigh as Kate disappeared from sight, looking for all the world like a village girl, clog-shod and ragged, but for the bonnet. Only a discerning eye could see the natural grace, the confidence of carriage that neither clothes nor the other trappings of poverty could conceal. Perhaps someday . . . Daisy shook her head. Someday was a foolish dream and she was not one to indulge in fancies. Here and now were far too difficult and tomorrow might be worse, she thought as she started down the overgrown path to the orchard to flush Anne from hiding.

. . .

Kate tugged the bonnet free as she stepped carefully among the rows, hands automatically stripping the stalks and vines of anything that looked remotely ripe. She knew full well that the small cucumbers would barely be of use for pickling, but she refused to sacrifice so much as a single bean to the coming storm. Coventry, the cow, was already in the byre, lowing mournfully as she awaited the afternoon milking and William, the goat, and his harem joined with her in a chorus of bleating sympathy.

She could only hope that the crumbling stone pen would hold through the coming tempest. A distant cackle reminded Kate of the sorry state of the chicken coop. It had nearly blown away in the last rain and given the threatening look of the thunderheads, it might not survive the approaching bout of foul weather.

There is so much to be done, Kate thought in desperation as she looked across the courtyard at the gaping maw where the rotten remains of a beamed oak door creaked on a rusty brass hinge. The ancient crenellated towers of the bailey rose above her like clawed fingers against the sky, their crumbling ruins dark and forbidding. Even though the east wing of Eilean Kirk Castle had reputedly been erected after Culloden, it was almost as much of a shambles as the time-worn main building. Pigeons flew through the