Page 1 of Devil Black

Chapter One

Central Scotland, 1608

“Do you know what they call you? The monster without conscience; the destroyer; he who ruins whatever he touches. They call you the Devil Black: Diabhal Dubh.”

The words hissed through the hush of midnight, competing with the voice of the wind rising outside. Dougal MacRae—the Black Devil—narrowed his eyes and propped one booted foot on the hob, reaching for comfort he did not expect to find. The wet night, foul and chill, had cast a pall upon the hour and unsettled him. He had no desire for his companion’s wild opinions, smiting his ears.

But no one had ever convinced Lachlan MacElwain to keep his opinions to himself. Lachy had been Dougal’s closest friend—his one friend, would Dougal admit it—for as long as either of them could remember, and the sole person Dougal had not succeeded in driving away. Truly, Dougal had tried. Heedlessly and persistently, he had banished whatever good feeling anyone in his world harbored for him: his sister, his raggedy slew of cousins, his father’s men at arms, and the other companions of his childhood. Aye, well, the clansmen still stood with him. Had they any choice?

“They are saying,” Lachlan went on in a tone halfway between enjoyment and condemnation, “your soul is damned and even God has washed His hands of you.”

“God?” Dougal repeated the word in a harsh tone, and snorted. “Where is He, then? Busy playing chess with the Devil, no doubt.” He inclined his head toward Lachlan. “The real Devil, I am meaning. Never doubt he exists, Lachy. And he has been far more active in my life than any God.”

“Heresy,” Lachlan muttered.

Dougal drank deep from his cup of raw whisky, savored the bite as the liquor went down his throat, and shrugged. “I say only the truth. And who are ‘they,’ who speak so ill of me?”

Lachlan raised thoughtful eyes to meet Dougal’s. Lachlan, Dougal admitted, looked mild and harmless, the bonny sort of man with whom the lassies might get up to dance at the parties to which Dougal himself no longer received invitations. Lachy’s honey-brown hair brushed the shoulders of the leather jerkin he wore, and his blue eyes looked almost serene in the dim candlelight.

“‘They,’” he said concisely, “are the neighbors you have been busy robbing these last eight years, the clans you have battled, the many women you have wronged, the very government of Scotland itself. They would hang you if they could.”

Dougal crooked a brow. “I cannot deny those charges.” Whatever else he might do, he strove always for honesty. “If these folk feel better for calling me by a foolish name, so be it.”

“Do you not care?” Lachlan asked, only partly feigning his surprise. “I recall a time when you did.”

“Long ago—almost beyond memory.” Dougal slanted his gaze so the firelight reflected from his eyes in a fiendish manner. He knew he looked the part of a Black Devil, with the dark curls spilling down his neck and eyes so deeply grey they might as well be black.

He knew, too, what the clans folk whispered—that Satan himself had marked Dougal MacRae with the scar that marred his right cheek in the shape of a claw or talon.

Dougal alone knew the true origin of that scar, and he would not tell.

“I care for naught now, Lachy,” he finished in a hard voice. “You know that.” Naught but revenge.

“They would hunt you down like a rabid fox, did your father’s reputation not still stand,” Lachy mused on, “even now, after his death.”

“Only let them try,” Dougal said carelessly. He had confidence in his ability to protect himself and his own. The keep he had inherited from his father, not far west of Stirling, and from which he terrorized much of Central Scotland, stood strong. He could take down any man who challenged him with sword or bare fists. As for the rest of it, he’d been clever enough to preserve at least a suggestion of innocence. “There is no proof.”

Lachlan drank from his cup. “Make a man angry enough, as you well know, and he will dispense with the requirement for proof. Revenge is a fine thing, Dougal, but not if it begets the desire for more revenge.”

“Bah,” Dougal said dismissively. “You tire me, Lachy. When did you become such a cautious old woman?”

“Perhaps when the King got involved. No less than five of your neighbors have applied to him for relief from you—not the least of whom, MacNab, is a particular favorite of the King’s. What will you do if James calls you to Stirling and decides to make a judgment?”

Dougal’s lips curled in an unpleasant smile. “I suppose I will need to appear before him—he is my Lord and King. Yet you know James is busy in England and comes to Stirling quite rarely.” And the King could be bought, Dougal added to himself—sometimes with stolen gold.

“He cannot ignore his subjects’ complaints forever,” Lachlan asserted uncomfortably. “And I do not think you can accuse me of being an old woman for warning you.”

“Is that what you are doing, then?” Dougal asked with mock surprise. “Warning me?”

“Aye, for my sins. I do not know why I bother.”

“Nor do I,” Dougal agreed readily, and drank again. Sometimes his very veins seemed to crave the fire in the cup. It brought forgetting and, if he was lucky, even oblivion.

Lachlan shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “Perhaps it is Meg about whom I am worried,” he admitted.

“My accursed sister?” Dougal narrowly avoided snorting. “That harridan? I assure you, Lachy, Meg can look after herself.”

“Aye, so,” Lachlan agreed, looking unhappy. “Yet, does she not concern you?”