The Harlot (Taskill Witches 1)

THIRTEEN

THAT NIGHT GREGOR WAS AWAKE AND LOOKING at Jessie when the nightmares began. After Morag had gone, they’d shared a bottle of wine that he procured from belowstairs, and then conversed into the night about Morag’s stoic yet brazen ways. Once again, Jessie had startled him. He’d discovered that she was observant to a fault. It was no bad thing, for he wanted her to observe his enemy, above all.

As the passage of the moon across the sky bathed the room in light and shadow, he watched her sleep, admiring her. In repose she could pass for a Madonna, a classical statue of great worth. With decent food and clothing she was an unquestionable beauty. Any man with half his faculties would find her bewitching. And yet Gregor missed the ribald character that usually lit that face, the unique traits and wild-eyed glances that made her the bawdy wench who had caught his attention.

Wryly, he attempted to address the fact that he had grown so curious about her. How had that happened? She was meant to be a cipher, no more. For many years no one had even entered into his thoughts this way. He preferred it like that. Thinking only of avenging his father’s tragic end and securing his land, Gregor had moved through the most exotic places in this world with little thought of women and companionship. Was it because he was so near his home that he had started to feel again, or was it Jessie who had broken the pattern?

He was addressing the conundrum when her head went back against the bolster and a low, pained cry came from her mouth. Gregor lifted himself onto his elbow and was about to wake her when she spoke.

Her eyelids flickered but did not open. “No,” she cried. “Màthair.”

Gregor was surprised. She was calling for her mother in the Gaelic tongue. Was she a Highlander? More to the point, she had not mentioned any family, and it made his curiosity grow. Would she say more?

Sweat had broken out on her forehead and her breathing was labored. Her limbs moved restlessly in the bed. She was obviously in great distress.

Gregor could not bear it.

Kissing her cheek, he whispered her name, calling to her gently, willing her to wake easily and not carry the bad dreams with her. “Jessie, wake up. Come now, you are here with me at the inn. You are safe.”

Her eyes flickered open and her hand moved to cover her mouth, but not before she cried out again. Her eyes were wide and troubled, and when they locked on him, he drew her into his arms.

Her hands opened and closed on his shoulders, needy and fretful. “Gregor, hold me.”

“What is it that troubles you so?”

She stilled and then shivered.

Silently cursing himself for asking, he drew back and lifted her chin with one finger. He needed to view her face.

He didn’t expect the sheer terror he found in her eyes. She did not seem to see him at first, but looked beyond, as if at some other thing that disturbed her. “Jessie?”

Although her eyes showed recognition in response to his voice, she buried her head in the curve of his neck as if not wanting to see more. “I cannot say. You would scorn me if you knew.”

“No. Never. Hush now, Jessie. Come closer, my wild little creature, come closer.”

Her hand fisted against his bare shoulder. “You promise you would think no worse of me than you already do?”

“I do not

think badly of you.”

“But I am a whore.” The great regret in her voice made him want to calm her more than ever.

“And I have been a thief and some would say a blackguard, in order to survive. I have lied and cheated, and pretended to be what I am not, in order to get ahead. I did not plan for it to be so. It was not the way I was brought up, but life sometimes takes choices away from us.”

He shifted, lifting her chin again so that she had to meet his gaze. “Neither of us are holy souls, my dear. I think we understand each other well on that account.”

For the longest moment she stared into his eyes, with raw emotion in her expression. Then she nodded. “When I was a wee bairn, my mother was put to death. I saw it all. They made me watch.”

“They?”

“The villagers, the people who condemned her.” Jessie took a deep breath. “We had come south from the Highlands, because my mother wanted to find my father. He’d run off when she fell pregnant a second time. But when we came to the Lowlands she never found him. Instead, she found her end. Stoned, hanged and burned.”

“It was a charge of witchcraft?”

Jessie nodded.

Gregor’s mind ticked over fast. “That woman in Dundee, Eliza. Did she know what had happened to your mother? Is that why it was easy for her to accuse you of the same crime?”