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

“Supplies,” Duncan said, puzzled at the sudden change of subject, but willing to follow where she went. “There were huge amounts of supplies being ordered, paid for, but diverted or never sent at all.”

“Are you certain that his relative had no part in it?”

Duncan laughed. “No, I would swear that it was entirely Vesey’s game. Marcus was the soul of honor, besides being possessed of a fortune that would make Croesus himself look like a pauper. I confess myself surprised that he retained his commission once he inherited the title. The pickings in London were always far better than the assortment of camp followers that he consorted with. There were a few of his friends who thought that he was trying to get away from his wife. By the time I made Adam’s acquaintance he had her tucked away in the country somewhere. ‘The worst mistake of his life’ he used to call her. But I suppose London’s loss is Wellington’s gain. Marcus is a damned good soldier, a brilliant tactician.”

“Was,” Kate said, turning away as she fought against the waves of pain and humiliation.

The quiet emphasis in her voice startled him. “What did you say?”

“Marcus was a damned good soldier,” she repeated, her tones flat as she forced herself to face him once again. “Marcus, Lord Steele, is dead and if his marriage was his worst error, milord, then it was his own fault. The girl made no effort to deceive him, to be anything other than what she was, Colonel Braxton’s brat.” The fury boiled up within her. “That ‘soul of honor’ as you call him, wed an innocent on a whim simply for the sake of a foolish wager, then proceeded to destroy every shred of her confidence, every iota of her self-worth. How dare he fix the blame anywhere but himself? That bastard! That selfish, bloody bastard!”

The feeling of disbelief was impossible to conceal. This was Marcus’s wife. He had not mentioned her often, never in Duncan’s memory had he even referred to her by her given name. “The Steele Trap,” was what Marcus had called her. Duncan silently blessed whatever benevolent being had kept that sobriquet from his tongue on this night.

How many times had Duncan listened to the story of her first sortie into Almack’s and laughed? Although he had long respected Lord Steele as a soldier and a friend, his regard for the man waned. How could Marcus have looked at another female with this woman waiting for him, loving him? For Duncan had no doubt that a woman like Kate would only marry for love. Pangs of pity intermingled with jabs of jealousy.

She could see from his open-mouthed astonishment that he had pieced it all together. “Galatea, milord, at your service,” she swept a sardonic curtsey.

“And John Vesey-”

She cut him off before he could complete the question. “Is the man who was left to control my fate and that of my daughter. I never quite fit Marcus’s mold of the perfect society wife and he doubted my competence. John Vesey is now on the verge of becoming a baron by virtue of judicious loans to Prinny. All the Steele fortune, all the Steele power, are John’s to command. It is no impotent pusher of papers that you will face, but a man of considerable influence.”

“Vesey!” He uttered the name like an epithet of unsurpassed obscenity. “I will kill him, I swear, I will kill him with my own bare hands if I can. But before I do, I will make him suffer for every indignity, every outrage that he perpetrated on you, your daughter and your servants. He will cry for mercy and there will be none. He had none for you or for the men who died for his greed.”

“And what will that profit me, that vengeance?” Kate questioned. “To see you hang for the sake of justice? I could not bear it, Duncan.” Tentatively, she stepped forward, reaching up to brush her hand against the roughness of his beard. “I could not bear it.”

He caught her hand and held it there until he felt the warmth returning to her fingers. Moonlight accentuated the pallor of her face, turning her into a tormented ghost. “I am sorry,” he whispered, as the implications of what she had told him became clear. There was agony at the core of those jade eyes. “I was fond of Marcus, I will not deny. He was a good man to have at your back in a fight, a man who played his cards straight and fair, who held his liquor like a gentleman. I do not say that those qualities make for an ideal husband, but he was a fair friend.”

“He was self-centered and vain.”

“Aye, he was,” Duncan admitted. “And I was much the same manner of selfish coxcomb as he.”

“No, Duncan, do not malign yourself,” Kate said. “You are the most unselfish man that I have ever chanced to meet. You have sheltered me and mine, knowing nothing but that I deceived you. You did not shame me before your people but allowed me to act the part of your lady, even though I do not deserve the title. You care deeply, about the men who died, about the people of Strathkirk.”

“Dinna try to make me into a hero, Kate,” Duncan said uncomfortably. “I am nothing of the sort. The hants of Eilean Kirk are probably laughing at such foolish talk.”

“Then let them laugh. A powerful healing thing, laughter is. I think it would even do the ghosts some good to have a chuckle or two,” Kate said. “You made Anne smile, Duncan, you helped her to laugh again and heal. No truly selfish man would have bothered with a small, sad girl.”

“I’m a scoundrel, a philanderer and a wastrel.”

“You forget reprobate, gambler and reputed madman,” Kate chided him mockingly. “My husband was quite liberal with his descriptions of the attributes he so