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

“Do you call me a liar then, Duncan MacLean?” Kate asked, her hand reaching to cover his.

“You are the most honest and true woman I have ever met, Kate . . .” Duncan faltered. “What is the Steele family name anyway?”

“Denton,” Kate prompted.

“Kate Denton, you are honest and true.”

“I have concealed the truth and deceived you outright, sir, but you persist in maintaining that I am the soul of integrity. If you may mislead yourself about me, I claim the right to do the same about you. How is that for a bit of twisted logic?” she concluded breathlessly.

“Logic has nothing to do with it, unfortunately,” Duncan said, raising her hand and stroking it gently. “There is so much I dinna understand. When I came here, the only thing that kept me going were the ghosts. Yet, when Vesey had you at his mercy, I could hear them screaming in my ears, telling me that the book was their right, their monument. When he threatened to kill you, I realized the truth. It is not the dead, but the living who seek vengeance, Kate.”

“You would truly have given Vesey the book?”

“What do you think, Kate?” he asked, letting her plumb the depths of his soul.

“Yes,” she said at last in an awed whisper. “I believe you would have.”

Duncan smiled “I had hoped I would have found some way to retrieve it, mind. So dinna be thinking too well of me, woman.”

“I will think what I please, Laird MacLean, and if I think you the most marvelous man on earth, what would you say?

“I would say that you are foolish and deluded and be grateful for it,” he said, bringing her hands to his lips for a kiss before moving behind her to tend to her back.

“And if I were to be foolish enough to delude myself into believing that I love you?” she asked, as she felt his touch soothing the aches away. “And I said that I wished to dwell for the rest of my days in a remote Scottish castle in a gothic state of disrepair?”

“I would think you had been hanging too long by your thumbnails or feverish from the effects of a whipping and some idiotish man who has been keeping you talking too long in the afternoon sun.” He put his palm on her forehead and a finger at her throat. “How is it that you’re not even warm? But that pulse of yours is pounding.”

“And if I claimed to be perfectly lucid?” she asked, searching his face for answers.

“I would ask you why you would choose a beast, a man with an accursed name and a worse reputation. A woman like you . . .”

She put a finger to his lips. “Colonel Braxton’s brat? The woman who informed Lady Jersey that the cake at Almack’s was stale and the orgeat insipid? That pillar of propriety who bet a member of the Four-in-Hand Club that she could tool a phaeton far more expertly than himself.”

“And did she win?” Duncan asked.

“The race and an indefinite stay on her husband’s country estates,” Kate said with a laugh. “I do not want a man who will manage me, Duncan MacLean.”

“I would not dare try,” Duncan said, his hopes rising. Her eyes were clear and guileless as green glass. He realized that no woman had ever looked upon him with true love before, because this shining gaze that wrapped him in tangible joy could be nothing but that mystical wonder. “There are ghosts enough already on Eilean Kirk.”

“I know,” Kate said. “I confess that I have met one of your MacLean hants. He visits me in the darkness, and fills my dreams, this bearded ghost.”

“Most unfashionable.” Mindful of her back, his hand stole gently around her neck.

“Yes, and it tickles this phantom’s bristle, but I’ve come to like it quite well.” She reached up slowly and stroked the curling strands.

“Have you now?” Duncan asked in fascination. “What else about this ghost intrigues you?”

“His kisses are unearthly, both heaven and hell. Heaven when I am in his arms, hell when he leaves me.”

“Heaven.” He touched his lips to hers, trying to be gentle in his pledge of newfound faith, but she edged closer. He could feel the strength of her need, the full measure of her longing. Tenderly, he began to fill the void of desire within her and to his surprise; the yawning emptiness within him was gone. Kate was filling that once hollow place and somehow, he knew that she would always be there.

“You will be the death of me yet, Kate. You have no idea how difficult it is to stop here,” he said, tracing the gentle slope of cheek and chin. “The death of me and the life of me, love. Now let me bring you inside. Your back must be paining you something fierce by now.”

“No, Daisy’s salve is doing its magic. I want to stay quiet in the sun for a bit.”

But that was not to be. There was a blaring skirl of pipes and a mass of humanity erupted into the courtyard. The inhabitants of Strathkirk armed with clubs, hayforks and dirks, stormed the castle and came to an abrupt halt before their Laird.

“See, told you the Major would set all to rights,” Fred said proudly.

“Mamma! Mamma!” Came the shout and the crowd parted to let Anne through. The girl launched herself toward Kate, babbling a mile a minute. “They wouldn’t let me come at first, but I cried and cried, and so Tam said that I could come but only if I stayed toward the rear and Fred’s horse cast a shoe . . .”

“Anne,” Kate whispered, her eyes widening with disbelief. Tears began to flow as she cupped her daughter’s chin in her hands. “She can talk, Duncan. Anne spoke!”

Duncan looked to Anne. “Vesey is gone forever, Anne. He is dead. Do you want me to tell her now?”

Anne nodded solemnly.

“Vesey had threatened you, Kate,” Duncan explained.