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

the stairs. Together, they gazed at Vesey’s unseeing eyes staring into emptiness. “You need not fear him anymore, Kate.”

“You sir, are breaking your oath,” Kate protested weakly.

“And did you not swear to me that you would keep yourself off of my roofs?” he asked.

“That was different,” she said, laying her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

“As is this,” Duncan said softly. “If lightning is going to strike for the sins of oathbreaking then we’re both of us doomed to fry like herring.”

“I see no clouds, yet, not a one- Daisy!” she exclaimed. “Listen to me nattering on like a fool while the poor dear is tied up in the pantry.”

“Sit yourself here,” Duncan said, easing her gently onto a bench in the sunshine. “I shall see to Daisy.”

Kate breathed deeply, trying to calm the panic that was still trying to rule her. It was over. It was all over.

In a few minutes, Duncan seated himself beside her with a basin, cloth and a jar of Daisy’s salve in hand. “I report to you that Daisy is shaken but unhurt; not yet quite steady on her feet due to being trussed up like a Christmas goose. She sent me back post-haste to tend to you. She’ll be brewing some tea.”

“Daisy is a firm believer in the curative powers of tea.” Kate shook her head, wincing as he started to undo the buttons on her back.

“Set ye still lass, while I follow General Daisy’s marching orders.” As he spoke, he carefully parted the fabric of her dress, trying to contain his rage at the rising welts that were revealed. “Not much blood, from the look of it, barely broke the skin. I’m sorry, but this will pain you.” He gently sponged her back clean with the cool water, cursing inwardly as she shied from his touch. “I’d kill him again if I could.”

“It is a strange feeling Duncan. I can scarcely believe that it all happened. I did not pull a trigger, but I was responsible for his death,” Kate said.

Duncan turned his attention to the raw scrapes and cuts on her hands, dipping the cloth and marveling that she had been able to endure.

“He chose his own doom. If anything, he killed himself,” Duncan declared as he opened the jar and spread the soothing cream on Kate’s back. “I’m thinking that Vesey got an easier end than he deserved.” He tended to her hands, kissing each wound after anointing it with ointment.

“The running, the lies . . .”

“Are done with. You are a free woman now, Kate,” Duncan told her, though the thought of her leaving was a pain beyond bearing. “You and Anne can go and do whatever you please now. Do you go home to London?”

“Home to London,” Kate gave a wistful smile. “An oxymoron if ever there was one. London could never be home to me, Duncan. It never was, in fact.”

“You need not fear spending your wealth.” Duncan pointed out, knowing he was a fool for doing so. “You do not have to choose London. Home could be wherever you wish to make it, Kate.”

“Let me help you, Duncan,” Kate suggested. “As you just pointed out, I am practically rolling in lucre. We could restore Eilean Kirk Castle and build a distillery that would outdo Tam’s wildest dreams. Let it be my gift to the people here who have been so kind of me. My gift to you.”

“Och, Kate, you had best be watching that pretty head of yours, for I am certain what I’m about to be saying will make the sky fall in,” Duncan said. “I cannot take your money.” He covered his head with his arms and peered up expectantly. “Did you hear that Charlie, the Sassenach woman is offering The MacLean gold and I am not taking it.”

Kate could not help but laugh “Be reasonable, Duncan. Call it a loan.”

“I have no need, Kate,” he said, his expression abruptly earnest. “I admit that I’ve been deceiving you. Actually, I am a very rich man, or I will be once that incompetent Dewey retrieves my inheritance.”

“If that is true,” She asked, encompassing the castle with a doubtful wave of her hand, “why did you choose to live like this?”

A dozen flippant remarks came to mind, witty comments that would turn the subject to safer ground. Instead, he chose to tell the truth. “For a long time, Kate, I didna care much how I died,” he said. “When I escaped the French prison and found out that this place was all that was left to me, I didna much care how I lived until I managed my revenge. A crumbling ruin seemed much to the taste of a man who half-fancied himself a living ghost. But when I found you here . . .”

He looked away from her, because he was afraid to see her reaction, now that she no longer needed him. “When I found you, I was afraid because you did not believe in the hant that was Duncan MacLean. You did not think me the monster I knew myself to be. You trusted my honor, dubious though it was. Och, Kate that was a heavy burden, a terrible trial to a man like me. You spun your fantasies about my kindness, my goodness and vain popinjay that I am, I couldna disabuse you of your notions. Though I did try, you must admit that Kate. I did try.”

“Not hard enough,” Kate said mildly.

“Aye, that was the worst of it,” he ran his hands through his hair like a nervous school lad. “Because by then you see, I wanted you to stay. I knew money was not the end-all and be-all to you. I thought that if you knew that I was wealthy, you wouldna feel needed and you would leave me. I wanted you to remain here in my ruin with me, groom my horse, darn my socks and tell me your lies about my kindness and charity and