Cait and the Devil

About this book

As a long time reader of historical romance novels, I yearned to create a story that contained all my most favorite romance elements: the tortured, gruff hero, the painfully innocent but plucky heroine, the evil villain, long lost relatives and meddling servants, secrets and hidden alliances and a liberal sprinkling of magic and mystery. I also wanted to introduce power exchange into the mix
—
no small feat in a medieval Scotland setting, but something I wanted to attempt nonetheless.
Cait
and the Devil was the result of this singular experiment.

Admittedly, this novel is more of whimsy and fantasy than historical accuracy, but I hope you will enjoy
Cait
and Duncan’s story just the same.

Chapter One

Cait
shifted on her horse. The endless journey was growing more and more difficult to take. If she only knew they were near, she could bear it better, but none of the soldiers talked to her or so much as looked her way. It felt like she was traveling to the end of the world; that wherever they were going got farther and farther away. She’d lost count of the days now, although she guessed it was nearly two weeks she’d been on the back of a blasted horse.

Patience,
Cait
, she could hear Erma saying quietly in her ear. It was as if her nurse was still there beside her even though it had been nearly a month since she passed.
If only. If only.
If only Erma hadn’t died, she might yet be living happily in their cozy cottage in the wilds of Aberdeen, instead of traveling to Inverness to be wed to a man she’d never met.

Her hair stood up on the back of her neck as it always did when she remembered. She was traveling to be
married
, married to a stranger with the unfortunate name of the Devil of Inverness.
Cait
had no desire to marry at all, much less be married to a devil, and for that reason she remembered as infrequently as possible that she was traveling to be made a bride. But forgetting didn’t make anything different. Forgetting didn’t make any of it go away.

She wished she could forget Erma dying. Forget that lonely journey to find help, only to learn at Aberdeen’s castle that she was the king’s own daughter. The king’s bastard, unwanted and despised. His eyes had narrowed when she’d been hauled before him. He hadn’t looked on her with anything akin to fatherly love.

“I thought you died,” he’d said. “I was told you died. Your mother tells lies.”

“I don’t have a mother, sir.”

“You certainly do,” he’d snapped, “and that noxious slut glories in making my life miserable even to this day. Even to this hour,” he said, looking down his long nose at her, his lips twitching in disgust. “I’ve no doubt you’re as much a meddlesome slut as she. What is your name? What is your age?”

“Caitlyn, sir.
And I turned seventeen at the end of January.”

“Of course you did. Well, seventeen is old enough to be married, is it not? That will get you out of my hair,” he added under his breath, turning to look at a nearby advisor.

“The earl of Inverness, the younger.
Douglas’s son.
His name escapes me, but they call him the Devil. You know of whom I speak?”

“Lord Niall?”

“No, the other.
The bastard son with the white hair.”

“Lord Duncan?”

“That’s the one. Did he not recently lose a wife in childbirth?”

“Yes,
sire
.”

“Very well.
Send this girl to Inverness to take her place. Tell the Devil earl I order him to wed her.
A bastard for a bastard.”
He laughed coldly. “They will understand each other, will they not?”

“Yes,
sire
,” said the advisor, his eyes flicking briefly to
Cait
and then away. “I’ll arrange for transport of your daughter at once.”

“Yes, at once,” the King demanded. “I want her gone as soon as possible. Her strange looks disquiet me. And do not bother with a big retinue. She is not valuable to me. If I get my wish, Duncan will dispatch this one in childbirth too, then this thing will be done which should have been done long ago.”

Cait
listened to all this kneeling before him, listened to the soul-numbing words from the mouth of the man who had fathered her. She’d never known he existed until this awful day. Of course she had imagined sometimes what sort of man her father was.
If he was a kind man.
If he ever wondered where she was.
Now she knew the truth about him and wished she didn’t. It hurt her to hear him call her mother a slut, and to wish
Cait
gone so coolly. The entire conversation had hurt, but nothing quite so much as his cold, plain hatred for her existence.

Cait
was not a vain girl. She knew she was no beauty. She knew her looks were unappealing and strange. Her hair was so black, her eyes so light; her skin so pale and translucent. She had not a trace of her father’s golden blond hair and deep brown eyes. But must he hate her so without even knowing her? She tried to be pleasant and agreeable to everyone she met. She had cared for her old nurse Erma like her own mother. She could garden and keep house. She tried to keep busy and live happily and hurt no one or nothing on earth. She had never been hurt either, not as her father had hurt her that day. She’d never been cut so carelessly and so deep, and to have it come at the hands of her own father was terrible. She cried for hours afterward though no one took notice. Before nightfall she’d been lifted summarily onto the back of a horse.

And now here she was, journeying endlessly to Inverness. She doubted the men with her cared whether she lived or died. For a long while she’d feared they would ride out with her some distance and kill her and leave her body for the wolves, at her father’s command. It soon became obvious, though, that they would never journey this far just to slay someone and leave them to rot. Perhaps they were riding with her into the wilderness to abandon her, to let her wander lost and starving until she died. As it was, they barely took a care for her needs, or fed her. If one of them spoke to her, it was little more than a grunt. If she reached her future husband’s keep alive it would be a miracle. Some days she wished she’d never reach his keep at all.

A devil living at the edge of the earth.
A bastard son with white hair and one wife already dispatched in childbirth.
She wondered how old he was. If he had white hair he was advanced in age, and if he was frail and old enough he couldn’t pose her much harm, devil or not. She wondered what kind of home he lived in. A small cottage like the one she’d shared with Erma was easy to tend. If he was a bastard son and not well in the king’s favor, he probably had a simple domicile, and she could try to live a simple life with him.

If he hated her, if he despised her for her looks or her personality or her parentage, well, she would bear it as well as she could. None of those were things she could change, any more than she could change this new path her life had taken.

* * * * *

The messenger arrived at Inverness Keep just before nightfall and looked around the hall for the man they called the Devil.
Lochlan
hoped he wouldn’t be overly angered by the news he was charged to impart. He was kept waiting some time as the earl was fetched from the practice fields and elected to bathe and take dinner before granting audience to his guest. When at last
Lochlan
was admitted before him, he worried that the subject of the message would arrive before the actual message did.

“My esteemed Lord Duncan, the king sends his greetings.”

The Devil nodded, not looking up from his meal.
Lochlan
peered at him to be sure he was paying attention. Otherwise he was soon to be in for a surprise.

“Go on then, man, relay the message,” Duncan prompted. “I’m listening, but I’m a busy man and I must eat. Sit if you like and eat with us.”

“Oh no, sir, thank you but—”

“The message then, quickly.
What does the king require of me now?”

“The king wishes you to take a new wife.”

Duncan laughed, taking a deep draft of his drink. “You may thank the king for his good wishes, friend, but I’ve less than no desire to be married again.”

Lochlan
hesitated, unsure of the best way to reveal the news. “My lord, your new wife arrives presently.
This very night.
This hour perhaps.”

Duncan paused, his face growing hard. “What the hell did you say?”

The messenger swallowed, watching the Devil’s hands curl into fists. He had expected a more sinister looking man, dark and strange like the bride they brought him. But the Devil earl was fair-haired with stormy grey eyes, as grey as the sea that surrounded the keep on three sides.