The Harlot (Taskill Witches 1)

“Does the horse meet with your approval?”

“She’s a beautiful creature. I know we will fare well together.” With that she marched alongside the horse, and with the help of the stable boy, mounted.

Gregor noted she sat astride, but did not question it.

When Jessie noticed, she shrugged. “I feel more comfortable riding this way.”

Once again Gregor had the feeling that she had never ridden a horse before, but now that she was mounted and they were on their way, he was not about to confront her about it. They had reached a fair level of compromise, and he wished only to move forward.

Mounting, he lifted the reins and urged his horse on.

Behind him, he heard Jessie making encouraging noises, then a slapping sound. A moment later her horse galloped past his. When she reached him she was laughing in delight, one hand on the pommel of her saddle, the other on the mane of the animal. She was being jolted along at a rapid and most dangerous rate, and she did not seem to be holding the reins. How could she possibly be in control of the horse?

Concern flooded him. He hastened after her, convinced that she was pretending she could ride to please him, and that she was about to fall and injure herself. However, he soon saw that her shapely bottom was still firmly seated in the saddle. He could not fathom how she did not fall off.

Gregor urged his mount to a gallop to keep up with her and to lead the way. He had not planned to cover the distance at quite such a pace, but if that suited her, that is how they would undertake it.

“Gregor, it is glorious,” she called out at one point. She said it with pure delight as she peered out across the rolling landscape of Fife.

“It is.” An odd sense of pride rooted in him, even though he currently had no claim on the land she was admiring.

Once they neared Ivor Wallace’s stronghold, Balfour Hall, however, Gregor found his own mood descending. One look at the rooftops of the manor house and the urge to march in there and flatten Ivor Wallace stirred in his blood. He’d thought that reaction long gone, and he quelled it, knowing that there was a better way to go about things.

He pointed at the rooftops in the distance. “That is the place.”

Jessie frowned. “You do not intend for us to ride up to the door, in order to show me it?”

“No, here is where we leave the lane.” He gestured off the worn dirt track and up into the woods that flanked the manor house on the far side. Beyond that was the path to his old homestead, and he’d often played in those woods as a child. He knew them well. Taking her reins, he led her horse, keeping it close alongside his own.

Once they were off the lane and the land rose away from the house, he indicated the forest atop the hill. “We will be able to rest the horses up there in the woods. It is a good vantage point. It is well above the house but the trees will give us good cover.”

When he pointed things out to her, she looked and nodded. But he noticed that when he fell quiet, it was the forest that attracted her attention. As they began to wend their way through the trees, under the canopy of summer leaves, she became most excited, glancing about happily.

“It is beautiful here, Gregor.”

“It is, especially so in summer.” He smiled. “I played here as a young lad.”

She peered at him as if trying to picture it, and chuckled to herself.

When he drew up the horses and indicated that she should dismount, she scrambled free of the horse, dropping to the ground with a big show and much grumbling. Gregor shook his head. There was definitely something about horses that unsettled her, and yet she had seemed amenable to the beast when she’d mounted it. When he turned back, however, it was to the sight of her running off between the trees, touching the bark of each she passed as she went. Bemused, Gregor watched her strange antics.

She danced from tree to tree, her hands pressed to the bark, looking around eagerly. In the long grass, she took to examining the brambles around her, pushing them between her fingers and inhaling the scent. Gregor found himself entranced when she began to twirl under the canopy of branches, arms outstretched.

Eventually she drew to a halt and let her head drop back. She seemed to be breathing the place in. “Ah, ’tis grand.”

Gregor wondered at her strange behavior, but her joy forbade him from questioning it. Once she seemed more settled, and smiled his way, indicating that she had recalled his presence, he headed over to her. “Come, if we skirt the edge of the woods, I will be able to point out the details of the house to you so that you will be prepared.”

She nodded and took his hand, but still trailed the fingers of her free hand through the buds and dangling foliage as they passed. “Foxgloves,” she declared, pointing over in delight. “And just look at the hawthorn and the ferns!”

Gregor looked where she pointed and then smiled at her, wondering about her again. At the brow of the hill, and with the forest at their back, he nodded ahead. “We are safe to observe from here. The trees give good cover. We are now at the rear of the building.”

Jessie peered down, agog. “It is a grand place. Is your enemy a laird?”

Gregor frowned. “A bonnet laird, no more.”

“What is that, a bonnet laird?”

“He craves the title and the power, but in truth he does little more than farm his own plot, for he is selfish and cannot win the respect or the loyalty of tenants.”