The Devil’s Due Boucher, Rita (ebook reader for pc TXT) 📖

if torn between the two. “She needs you more, caraid gaoil,” Duncan said softly, addressing the descendant of his dearest friend in the Old Tongue. The mutt gave him a look of canine approval, seemingly concurring with Duncan’s decision. He padded to Anne’s side and the child’s pudgy arms twined about him. Silken curls mingled with mottled fur as she locked the dog in her embrace.

“You can take him with you, if you would like,” Duncan said. “It seems that he prefers you to me.”

The corners of Anne’s mouth trembled. Had she suddenly realized that she was confronting the gargoyle? For one agonizing second, Duncan thought that she was going to cry. Then it dawned, a shy hint of a smile that disappeared so quickly that he knew he must have imagined it. Before he could look again, her face was buried in the animal’s furry neck.

“Just like a man, to vex one,” the older woman complained with a snort. “Here I was tellin’ the child how we have to ditch Cur because he ain’t ours! What will we be doin’ with a dog, I’ll ask you?”

Duncan rose and left without a word. He had caused enough trouble. Much as he hated to admit it, Kate’s servant was right. His offer of the dog had only added to Kate’s distress. They were going to go; there seemed no question now. It would be best if he were gone when they took their leave. A bracing morning swim in the loch might help to put jumbled thoughts in order. Perhaps, when he returned, he would have the solitude that he craved. Why had that thought become strangely depressing?

. . .

Daisy knelt on the flagstones, for once, heedless of the dirt. Eagerly, she sifted through the debris until she had found every last coin. “The man must have his attic to let. Far more than the animals are worth, he gave us. Nigh on to fifty pounds here, I’d say. More than enough here to get us to a port for passage money and maybe more. Nothin’ fancy, mind, won’t be private cabins with places at the captain's table, but it’d get us to America. With your Mama’s brooch and that signet ring that you got, we might even have a decent stake to give us a start.”

“I thought that you feared for your scalp, Daisy,” Kate said, a wry smile touching her lips.

“Rather savages than that one,” Daisy said, nodding in the general direction that MacLean had followed. “A dangerous man, no mistaking it. Give him so much as a finger and he’ll be to your wrist and once he’s past the wrist, my girl, there’s no tellin’ where he’ll go-”

Kate flushed.

“I can see what’s what,” Daisy continued, heedless of Kate’s discomfiture. “Ain’t but twice I’ve come face to face with the man, but it’s plain as that scar, that hunger in his eye. Looks like a man starvin’ and you a prime roast.”

“Beef or mutton?” Kate asked.

“Now don’t you be mocking me,” Daisy said, wagging a warning finger. “He wants you, wouldn’t have said what he did last night if he hadn’t.”

“Daisy, I spoke to him this morning. He said that we may stay, without any obligation,” Kate explained. “He was badly provoked last night, after all we-”

Daisy rolled her eyes heavenward. “It’s startin’, heaven help us all. Now you’ll be askin’ me to be puttin’ my own self in his shoes. Next you’ll be tellin’ me how kind he really is.”

Kate shifted uncomfortably. “He did leave us nearly fifty pounds.”

“Aye,” Daisy chuckled, “so he did. And seems to me we ought to take it and quit this place while we still can. While he’s still willin’ to let you go.”

“I think you are misjudging him, Daisy,” Kate said, recalling how gently he had treated Anne. “Sometimes wounds run far deeper than scars.”

Daisy looked at her mistress anxiously. “Don’t be doin’ that, now. Just like your Pa you are. He was a soft touch and it was everyone from the drummer boy to Wellington what knew it. There ain’t a man who came to him with a tear in his eye and a hard luck story that came away with an empty hand,” she recalled. “'Twas my milk that suckled you, Kate, and ‘tis hopin’, I am, that you got some common sense from it. Sometime there ain’t no shame in blowing the bugle for a retreat.”

Kate considered her friend’s words, weighing all the possibilities. She was honest enough to admit that Lord MacLean did present a danger, but not because she worried that he would break his word. Somehow, she knew that his oath would bind him. It was herself she feared, this strange reaction to a man that she barely knew. But was that small risk worth leaving the isolated haven of Eilean Kirk? It was foolish to hope that John had given up on locating them. There was far too much at stake.

Kate looked at Anne, happily playing with Cur, almost as if the night before had never happened. Twice, the child had defied MacLean. To be sure, in the first instance, Anne had reacted to a perceived threat to Kate’s well-being. But the second time? Kate regarded at her daughter thoughtfully.

If Anne were truly frightened of MacLean, then there would be no question of staying. Kate had watched the confrontation in the courtyard carefully. If anyone had seemed intimidated, it had been MacLean. The tension in his expression would have been almost comical were it not so pitiable. His fear of the child’s reaction to him had been an almost palpable force. Perhaps that was why Anne had behaved with such odd fearlessness. Kate had little doubt that even a child could easily read what was so obviously writ on his countenance. Besides, if Anne was in terror of MacLean, she would never have dared to approach him, much less remain near him once her objective was achieved.

The wind blew, rattling a loose shingle and causing