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

a “friend.” A simple word it was, but it echoed in the hollows of his soul, summoning a part of him that he had thought long dead. That candid assertion of friendship bound him inexorably to her, pledged him to a level of honor that had hitherto applied only to other men. At that moment, he accepted the burden of her pain and swore to ease it. Both justice and vengeance were a part of the silent vow; the enemy of his friend was now his eternal foe.

“Please, Duncan,” she implored, somehow reading the intent in his glare as the grey shifted from a warm shade of dove to a glinting steel. “Do not try to go after him; promise me.”

There was a decided trembling to those fingers that sat so lightly on his bare shoulders and those eloquent eyes were still shadowed with fear. And part of that worry was for him, for Duncan MacLean. “There’s no need to fash yourself for me, Kate.” He touched her cheek with a soothing hand. “I canna very well seek him out, not when you do not deign to trust me with his name.”

“It is not a matter of trust, Duncan,” she explained. “We have already lost so much because of one man’s evil. I would not put you at risk. I do not want to lose you.”

Once again, Duncan found himself bereft of words, not quite daring to believe that Kate actually cared for him. As a friend, he reminded himself, as his other hand rose to touch the pulse at the base of her throat. Nothing more.

Her breathing was shallow, touching him with warmth as his fingers traced their way to her lips. Beast that you are. It was like drowning, going down in a pool of green as her eyes widened. To take advantage of her when she is vulnerable. Strands of her hair glinted with sunlight in his palm. Mad you are MacLean, mad as they have named you. He felt her grip on his shoulders grow tighter, sending waves of heat down his spine to the core of him, kindling a conflagration within. If you would toss friendship away for a touch. The need, that aching desire consumed him.

“Duncan?”

Through the roar of the inferno, he heard her anxiety, saw the uncertainty in her expression.

“I do trust you, Duncan,” Kate said, softly, trying to shroud the intensity of her feelings by looking away. When had the comfort of his closeness been transformed into this agonizing yearning for more? Was she truly a wanton, to thrust herself upon him as she had, using her overset state as an excuse to cling like the worst kind of tease? His body was as taut as a drawn bowstring and Kate was mortified, knowing that she was the cause. Marcus had told her often enough that all cats were much the same in the dark and that his tension signified nothing more than a reaction to female proximity. Reluctantly, she pulled away from the safe haven of Duncan’s touch, feeling bereft, vulnerable once more. “Never doubt that I trust you, Duncan MacLean.” Unfortunately, she could not say the same for herself.

That simple assertion shamed him, coupled as it was with withdrawal. Obviously, she had not failed to feel the raw hunger in his touch, discern the depths of his naked need. Yet, absurdly, she still believed in his honor. He longed to run, to hide himself from that undeserved faith. Another moment and there would have been no holding back before the searing blaze. But more hellish yet, was the fear that Kate felt nothing more than the simple friendship that she had professed, that the flare of emotion had left her wholly untouched. Oath or no oath, he longed to pull her into his arms, to find those embers and nurse them into flame, but it was a risk that he refused to take. Kate’s friendship, confidence, and her innocent belief in him were more than he had ever dared to hope for. Yet, how much stock would she place in that questionable integrity once she found out that her daughter could speak, and that Duncan had concealed it from her?

“Shall we go back to the castle?” he asked, breaking the awkward silence.

Kate shook her head, staring mutely into the loch as a nebulous realization began to solidify, like a vision in the mist. The swirling storm of emotion within her took shape and significance, until the meaning was beyond any denial. She could not look at him for fear that she would be unable to conceal the truth, that he would see the feelings that Kate herself had only begun to acknowledge.

It was unconscionably foolish to fancy that she was in love with Duncan MacLean, she told herself. There were as many reasons to avoid the entanglement as the smooth spheres on Daisy’s rosary. First and foremost, he did not love her. She enumerated those other rationales, one by one, letting those beads of bitter truth tell through her mind, reminding herself of the cruel hoax of Marcus’s wager, the pain of wondering if love had ever existed, the futility of believing in happiness, the lunacy of handing her heart to a man known to be a rake. To offer Duncan the full measure of her feelings knowing that he did not love her in return? To risk the forfeiture of his respect for an illusion? All of those foolish actions should have been outside the bounds of consideration. But though Kate knew it was beyond sense, beyond sanity, she was aware that her heart was a lost battlefield. She could only pray that Duncan would remain ignorant of his victory. “I shall be along later,” Kate murmured.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Kate,” Duncan said, his voice deep with dismay. The posture of her body, the defeated slump of her shoulders spoke volumes. “Are you going to let the past destroy you? Will you allow the fear and guilt