Cathy Maxwell - [Chattan Curse 03]

The Devil’s
Heart

The Chattan Curse

Cathy Maxwell

Dedication

The dedication for this book was offered as a silent auction prize to the benefit of Blessed Sacrament–Huguenot School in Powhatan, Virginia. The following dedication is from the school’s generous supporters who won the prize:

To two of the most important people in our lives—

Suzanne Miller

and

Doris Estes

You are amazing mothers.

Thank you for being both strong and inspirational.

Love,

Jacques and Lisa Gits

Contents

Chapter One

1814

The last days of December

The Road to Loch Awe, Scotland

M
argaret moved deeper into the forest. The air was colder here but she sensed the chill rather than felt it. Such was the nature of dreams, and she knew she dreamed.

The path she followed was not easy. The forest floor was deep with damp, rotting leaves. The roots of ancient trees threatened to trip her. Heavy, gnarled limbs loomed overhead as if reaching out to claw her back. She carried a short sword in her hand.

She had come to battle the Macnachtan.

She knew they were close.

She did not know what to expect.

A faint green light appeared just around the curve in the path. Margaret paused. She tightened her hold on the sword. The time of reckoning had arrived. She must not lose her courage.

She stepped forward, the fear in her heart pounding in her ears.

At the bend in the road was a huge tree, an oak, with a trunk wider than the span of a man’s arms. She paused, knowing that her enemy was about to be revealed—and then the heavens opened.

Rain poured down, rain that changed to falling corpses. Dead, lifeless bodies, falling upon her from the oak’s mighty branches—

L
ady Margaret Chattan came awake with a gasp. She had raised her hands above her head as if she could ward off the bodies—and she held them there, waiting . . . waiting for nothing.

For a long second, she stared around the confines of the rolling coach, needing a moment to recognize her surroundings, to realize she was safe. Confused, stunned by the horror of the dream, and more than slightly embarrassed, she lowered her arms.

“Are you all right, my lady?”

Margaret turned toward the speaker, her abigail, Smith, who had been hired especially for this trip.

Smith was a prim, self-contained sort who wasn’t any more certain of her new employer than Margaret was of her. For most of the trip, she’d sat on the coach seat facing Margaret’s. She’d always had a piece of needlework close at hand and an air of judgment on her round face.

She was knitting now. Her needles hadn’t even paused as she made her inquiry. It was almost as if she assumed Margaret would exhibit extreme behavior.

“I had a dream,” Margaret answered in a voice that encouraged no inquiries.

Smith had replaced Higgins, who had been Margaret’s closest confidante. She and Higgins had been together for over ten years. Higgins had recently married one of the household footmen and was now expecting. Therefore, she was unable to accompany Margaret on this trip.

If Higgins had been here, Margaret could have told her about the dream. Higgins had never sold information or gossiped, which had made her worth her weight in gold. Smith was different. The woman was gallingly curious about Margaret’s every action, and Margaret knew she annoyed the maid by being so tight-lipped about their purpose in Scotland.

Margaret sat up on the tufted velvet seat and lifted the flap over the coach window, needing to assure herself they were on a mountain road and not in the forest of her dream.

Winter had finally arrived in the Highlands. Over the past two gray and dismal days of traveling, they had encountered light snow, sleet, rain and, for one rare moment, the sun, proving what everyone claimed about the unpredictability of Scottish weather to be quite true.

Both she and Smith wore heavy woolen dresses and cloaks. They each had a fur-lined lap blanket over their knees, and neither had taken off her gloves. Smith even wore them as she knitted.

The wind seemed to whip at the window. At this particular juncture of the winding mountain road there were no trees to stop it. No gnarled limbs or rotting leaves. As far as Margaret could tell, they seemed to be the only living creatures in the world. There were no crofters’ huts, or a herd of sheep wandering over the rocky moorland, or a bird in the cloud-laden sky.

She let the flap fall back over the window. “Thomas says we should reach Loch Awe before nightfall.” She tried to keep her voice nonchalant, to hide the doubt and uneasiness inside her.

The task that lay ahead called for a warrior, not a confused, “pampered” miss who didn’t feel she had any purpose in her life and was all too aware of her miserable failings.

But she couldn’t let any of that show. She never could.

After all, she was Lady Margaret Chattan. Society thought her perfect, complete, whole. She was an acclaimed beauty and on all the best social lists, although she rarely went out. They thought her aloofness was due to her being imperial, discerning. They respected her for it. They speculated on whom she would someday marry and offered potential matches.

Little did they know she did not go out because she was not worthy of any honorable man. She was not what they thought her.

Not even her brothers Neal and Harry, the people who knew her best, were aware of how she had degraded herself—and God willing, they never would. It was her secret, one only Higgins knew. In the rarefied air of the highest ranks of London society an unmarried woman’s virginity was her badge of honor. Margaret had tossed hers aside for something as foolish as believing she’d been in love. Of course, she’d been very young when she’d done so, but she’d known what was at stake.

For a period of time, she’d carried on as if nothing was the matter, but it was hard living a lie and easier on her conscience to retreat from society. The curse offered the justification. She’d told her brothers she would not marry knowing that she could pass the curse on to her children. They’d understood. They knew the danger of love.

And now, to save them, the curse was calling her out.

The Chattan Curse.
When a Chattan male falls in love, he dies.

A Scottish witch of the Macnachtan clan had placed the curse upon them almost two hundred years earlier when Margaret’s ancestors had left Scotland for England. And it had not been some bit of nonsense or hocus-pocus. The curse had claimed her father’s life, her grandfather’s, and their fathers’ before them. Knowledge of the curse and the dangers of love had always been a part of her life.

Unfortunately, and against all wisdom, both of her brothers had fallen in love and were the curse’s next victims unless she could stop it. Her oldest brother, Neal, Lord Lyon, had been too weak to walk when Margaret had left London. And Harry, well, Harry had surprised her.

He’d traveled ahead of her to Scotland in search of a Scottish witch who could break the curse. Instead, in that short period of time,
he’d
fallen in love and his left arm was already numb, one of the first signs of the curse taking hold.

She was their only hope. For this reason, she was on her way to Loch Awe, the family seat of the Macnachtans.

Smith interrupted Margaret’s thoughts. “I won’t be telling fibs, my lady, I’m tired of travel. It’s hard to believe we left London only six days ago. I feel as I’ve been around the world twice and back.”

Margaret was tired of travel as well. However, she felt herself bristle at the servant’s complaint. This was no pleasure trip but one of life and death.

If Harry’s suspicions were correct, Margaret could be the key to breaking the Chattan Curse. She was the first daughter to have been born since the curse existed, and Harry believed her birth might not have been just happenstance.

In Glenfinnan, once the home of Margaret’s ancestors, Harry had discovered a book of recipes once owned by Fenella Macnachtan, the witch who had placed the curse upon them. The book rested on the seat beside Margaret now. She’d read it front to back thrice over.

At first it appeared to be the sort of book one chatelaine passed down to another. The leather binding was cracked and worn with age. The records were handwritten and covered everything from how to make unproductive hens lay eggs to the refining of soap. But there were other entries as well, notes that read like spells. There was one for the lovelorn who wished to reclaim a lost love, with the word “Charles” written in the margin.

Charles, Margaret’s Chattan ancestor who was the first to die from Fenella’s spell.

Harry believed that Rose of the Macnachtan, the lass Charles had jilted to marry an Englishwoman, had written that inscription. She’d taken her life over Charles’s betrayal by jumping off the tower of her family’s keep.

He believed there were no more answers to be found in Glenfinnan and that they must go to the scene of Rose’s death—and he believed only Margaret could do it.

She prayed Harry was right but she had doubts, especially with Neal so dangerously ill.

What if she was traveling in the wrong direction? What if Harry was wrong and there was nothing that she or
anyone
could do to break the curse’s terrible power?

Right now, Neal’s unborn son would feel the weight of it. And if history were any indication, Harry, too, would sire a son before he died.

“If only I had a sign,” she murmured. Some indication that she was on the right path. Something that could give her hope.

“Something that would bolster my fragile courage.”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until Smith piped up, “I’m sorry, my lady, what did you say?”

Margaret waved her question away with the hand that had been resting on the book. “Nothing. I’m just musing.” Wishing was more like it. Or praying.

A small meow caught her attention. Owl, the strange little cat she’d found clinging to the undercarriage of the coach, poked her head out from under the far edge of Margaret’s blanket where she’d been curled up taking a nap. She now stretched in that indolent, satisfied manner of all cats as she eased herself out from under the cover. She climbed into Margaret’s lap.

Margaret had never had a cat for a pet. Her mother had not liked them.

However, Owl had captivated Margaret from the moment she’d laid eyes on the animal.

Beneath the mud from the road, Margaret had discovered white fur as slick as silk. But it was Owl’s ears that had charmed Margaret. They were folded over, an aberration of Owl’s birth, giving a flat, owlish shape to her head, an image that was enhanced by her wide eyes. Margaret had never seen such large, expressive eyes on a cat. Sometimes, they had an almost human quality. She’d heard that many white cats were blind or deaf, but that wasn’t the case with Owl. This strange little puss had the uncanny ability to give Margaret, who by her own admission could be overly tense, a sense of peace.

The cat began kneading her paws into the blanket over Margaret’s legs as if settling herself in. The sound of purring filled the coach and Margaret felt her worries begin to fade, especially as she ran her gloved hand over the cat’s fur. The stakes were literally life and death, but a sense of certainty filled her.

She
was
on the right path. Harry believed it and so must she. From here going forward, she must act on faith—

“Are you certain you are not coming down with an ailment, my lady?” Smith suggested. Her knitting needles had stopped moving and she eyed Margaret with great concern. “Perhaps we should return to England?”

“I informed you when I hired you that we would be making a hard journey.”

“Yes, my lady,” Smith answered. There was a pause. The maid seemed to be considering something and then said with an appearance of genuine concern, “I fear this trip is having an unusual effect on you, my lady.”

“How so?”

The maid frowned at Owl, who was blissfully enjoying Margaret’s attention. “Well,” she started as if finding the topic more difficult than she had imagined, “You had that dream that seemed to have startled you, and I, well, I fear it weighs heavy upon you.”

Margaret felt herself laugh. Yes, the dream had been frightening, but she was fine now. Bold, even. “It was a dream, nothing more.”

Smith’s frown deepened. “Dreams can mean the mind and body are not well.”

“I feel in excellent health,” Margaret answered. And she did.

The corners of Smith’s mouth tightened and she once again eyed Owl with grave concern. Smith might not be a cat person. Like Margaret’s mother.

Another mark against Smith.

Margaret knew she and the maid would be parting company the very second they returned to London. Until then, she’d had to tolerate the woman.

Owl lifted her chin up, silently begging for a scratch there, and Margaret was happy to oblige.

Smith grew more agitated.

She set her knitting aside, not bothering to fold her handiwork or give a care over losing stitches off her needle.

For a long second, she sat tense and nervous, and then, as if she could bear it no longer, she said, “My lady, I
must speak
and I pray you pardon me for being so forward.”

“Forward?”

“I don’t want you to think I don’t know my station.”

“I will think nothing of the sort. Speak. Higgins and I rarely stood on ceremony.”

A fear that she was dooming herself crossed Smith’s face, but when she spoke, the words practically exploded from her. “
There is no cat
.”

The charge seemed to hang in the air.

Margaret wasn’t certain she’d heard the maid correctly or understood her meaning. “Are you talking of Owl? Of course, there’s a cat. She is right here.”

Smith glanced at where Margaret’s fingers scratched the purring cat beneath the chin. Her gaze shifted back to meet Margaret’s. “No, ‘Owl’ as you call him—”

“Owl is a
her
.”

A flash of provocation crossed Smith’s face. “I beg pardon, my lady. Owl, as you call
her
,” the maid corrected, “is not there. You are playing with the air. Your fingers are moving but you are not touching anything. Now I want you to understand, my lady,” she hastened to add, “I have had my share of eccentric employers. Your secret is safe with me, but I believe you should know that
I
know there is no cat.”

For a moment, Margaret didn’t know what to say. If she’d had any second thoughts about terminating Smith once they returned to London, they were gone from her mind. She’d never let a servant go before. Her brother Neal’s holdings were vast and there was usually another position somewhere to place a retainer who was less than satisfactory.