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

was also a book of poetry that you left to Marcus, one of my favorites actually. I have always enjoyed Blake and Anne adored the pictures. She would beg me to read from it in the evenings. In fact, she once had many of the poems by heart.”

Tyger, tyger burning bright . . . his eye turned to Anne in a silent query. “Do you by any chance know where it is?” he asked, his voice raw with emotion.

“It was one of the few things that we brought along,” Kate said. “It was familiar, portable and a memento of happier times. I had intended to return it to you as well, but given the present circumstances, I thought that you might appreciate the ring more. Would you like the book back now?”

Duncan nodded, unable to trust his speech.

Without being bidden Anne ran inside.

“Duncan?” Kate tried and failed to interpret his odd expression. “I understand if you do not want to sell the ring. I do have some personal funds, but I have not dared to touch them for fear that John would be able to trace us.” She took a deep breath and made her decision. Eventually the final card had to be turned or the game would never end. “I am beginning to believe that you are right. We cannot hide from evil and hope that it will not find us. Perhaps with that money at your disposal you might find the help that you need?”

“You would risk that for me, Kate?” Duncan asked, startled from his watch on the kitchen door.

“Risk is unavoidable but it can sometimes be managed. Between the two of us, we might hope to hold him at bay,” Kate suggested

At that moment Duncan forgot the book, forgot Vesey, forgot everything but the woman standing before him. What she offered was no less than her all; for he knew full well that the contents of that tiny bag were the entire sum of her reserves. The fact that she had even suggested chancing access to her accounts was a gesture that bespoke complete trust.

He looked at that open hand and his heart filled with an uncanny wonder. It was true that he had known himself to be in love with her before, but this emotion unfolding within him was entirely new, infinitely deeper. With this gesture, she had claimed the last shadowy places of his heart. She had granted everything and asked for nothing in return. Slowly, he took her hand in his and closed her slender fingers around the ring. “‘Tis yours, Kate.”

“But you need . . .” she protested.

He shook his head. “There is but one thing that I need and that is you.”

He would have continued to explain, but just then, Anne appeared in the doorway, a familiar volume in her hand. Duncan held his breath not daring to believe until she actually placed it in his grasp. With a whoop of joy, he grasped Kate around the waist and whirled her in a spinning dance that was both an expression of elation and love. “Forgive me. . .Kate . . . forgot the . . . oath,” he said in a winded pant when he set her down at last. “But with this,” he waved the book like a banner, “we need not be content with keeping him at bay. He’s gallows-meat. Tyger, tiger burning bright!”

“Is that the book then, Sir?” Fred asked his smile stretching the full length of his face as he returned to the courtyard.

“Aye, the book,” Duncan said, “the one I feared lost forever.”

“I do not understand,” Kate said.

“Did you ever notice the markings?” Duncan asked. “Underlined parts of passages, numbers in the margins?”

“Yes, but?”

“Here, look,” he opened to a page at random. “See, this marked passage? W … a...l. .t… er... s and these numbers? September 18, 1803. Walters received a shipment of guns on that date, yet they were never distributed, vanished without a trace. And there is enough here to damn Vesey and his friends for eternity.”

At the mention of Vesey’s name, Anne shook her head and tugged at Duncan, her fears as plain as if she had spoken them aloud.

“Dinna trouble yourself, lassie,” Duncan told her squatting down to meet her eyes. “John Vesey hurt my soldiers and now, thanks to you and your mother, no one need fear him ever again. The men at Whitehall cannot ignore this, sweetheart and it’s on my way to London, I am, to wave it beneath Wellington’s long nose. There is no way that he can fail to smell the stench of it, now.”

“Not Edinburgh, then?” Fred asked.

“No, Fred,” Duncan declared with a slap on the man’s shoulders. “We are bound for Town, my friend. But I gave Tam my word that I would stop in the village and get the list of parts that he needs for his distilling apparatus. I’m certain that I can get whatever he requires in London.” He opened his saddlebag and wrapped the precious volume carefully in oilcloth. “The book of retribution, Kate,” he said as he tucked it in securely, envisioning Vesey before the dock, the crowds pelting him with offal as he stood at the gibbet. “He will suffer, but not enough for my taste. I would wring his neck with my own hands if I could. Vengeance is my right.”

Kate shook her head uneasily. Her yearning for Vesey’s downfall was no less than his, but the wild light in his eye was disturbing, touching her with a cold chill. “Vengeance is ultimately not ours, Duncan,” she said, “but is meted out by a higher justice than any at Whitehall or Windsor.”

“Do you not want to see him suffer, Kate?” Duncan asked, swinging himself onto his horse. “To make him pay for what he has done?”

“I just wish to be certain that John Vesey will never hurt anyone, ever again,” Kate told him. “That would suffice for me. As for suffering and ultimate payment, I will