The Harlot (Taskill Witches 1)

Gregor nodded. He could see the narrow path she had to walk. To use magic to protect herself brought its own danger. Thankfully, she’d been able to keep herself safe. He stroked his hand down between her breasts and across the soft curve of her belly, where she was still naked and warm from their lovemaking. With one finger he caressed her, and her skin shivered under his touch. He covered her belly with his splayed palm. “You can deny a man’s seed, here?”

She nodded. “I have been doing that particular enchantment for so long that I think maybe now I cannot ever change it back, and…” Turning her face away, she left her statement incomplete.

He sensed pain in her, as well as fear and loss. Something inside him yearned for that to be gone. He had thought her mercenary and tough, but beneath it all she was soft and womanly and craved the things she was made for—desire, affection, safety, a warm bed and a better life than she had been granted thus far.

“Hush now. Better things lie ahead. Believe in that.”

“Yes, we must, for that is what keeps us alive.” A moment later she drew his hand away from her belly and meshed her fingers with his. It was an attempt to divert him from where the conversation had led him.

“Terrible things happen to whores and their children.” Her voice had changed, the vulnerability had gone, and yet he felt it still, for he would not forget that wishful, yearning note in her voice. “I have seen the bairns dying of starvation, and I have seen the women beaten and left for dead in the gutter. Or worse still, the pox.” Jessie’s pretty mouth tightened and she shook her head, as if unwilling to say more.

Gregor’s thoughts clarified. He sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. He pushed his fingers through his hair. “You will not have to re

turn to that. I will double what I promised to pay you. You will be comfortable and you can start a new life in the Highlands.”

Jessie sat up alongside him and covered one of his hands with hers. Mercifully, she held her tongue and nodded in agreement.

“The sooner you locate the information we need, the sooner you will be safe and my task will be done.” He steeled himself. “Mister Grant, the excise man—do you remember him?”

She nodded.

“I spoke with him last night, and he informed me there will be a sale of land and cattle soon, and it is definitely Wallace who is selling. All I need you to do is to find out which land will be offered to the auctioneer, and I can bid on both it and the cattle.”

Her mouth lifted at one corner and mischief flitted through her expression. “Which land would you like it to be, Gregor?”

He was about to respond and then paused, gazing at her, his ability to comprehend her talents sorely stretched. Could it be true? “You think you can hold sway over such a thing?”

“I believe so.”

If she could influence the choice of land, all the better. Marveling at her, he simply stared, dumbfounded.

She shivered and reached for her nightdress and pulled it on. “You wish to reclaim your father’s homestead, Strathbahn?”

The question pulled him out of his daze.

“Aye, I do.” His heart was, however, heavy on that matter. “I cannot go back to Strathbahn, that much I know. But I would like to see a tenant happy there, making good use of the land. Bringing it back to what it was.”

“Put your faith in me.” She clutched his hand and lifted it to her lips, where she planted a kiss upon his palm. She closed his fingers over it, and he felt both heat and a deep sense of reassurance in the strange token. That she was not quite of this world he now knew for sure.

“I will put my faith in you, if you promise to protect your self, first and foremost.”

When she smiled, it made him want to keep her by his side. However, the knowledge that she could call upon magic calmed his reckless thoughts about forbidding her return to the hall. It was getting more difficult by the moment to imagine sending her back there, but if she could use her secret talent to protect herself and to influence what land would go on sale, that would hasten matters.

As they rose to their feet he held on to her with one hand around her waist. “Meet me at the same time tomorrow night.”

“Yes, but wait for me close to the stables.” She gestured to the opposite side of the hall, where stables and outhouses sprawled beyond the tall hedges. “There is less chance of me being seen from the windows if I stay close to the building. Be cautious in your approach.”

She stepped away, her fingers still in his. As she peered up at him she broke into a soft laugh. “Why, Mister Ramsay, you look so serious. Be happy. We are within reach of your goal.”

Her eyes flashed in the moonlight and then she flitted away, a fast-moving white streak in the darkness that held his attention until she vanished from sight, and long after.

Jessie raced along the wall toward the servants’ entrance, then paused and rested her back against the cold, rough surface, catching her breath. It was the heady rush of their meeting as much as the run that had left her this way.

When she’d left this spot to meet Gregor earlier that night, she had expected him to be stern and cold, as he had been the last time she’d seen him. Instead he’d looked distraught, and he’d held her close. He had missed her. A fist clenched in her chest, then loosed and blossomed when he kissed and held her.

She could still see him now, his face and shirt visible as he stood among the trees, observing her return to Balfour Hall. Longing whispered across the space between them. Her breath huffed out in a soft laugh. It had to be her essence that made it so. She had marked him like a wild thing claiming its territory. The strange connection was fading even while she stared over at him, but it touched her deeply all the same.

Their lovemaking had been so poignant and so powerful that her magic had swelled and rippled all around them. Now she knew that it truly was Gregor who made her gift more rich and powerful. It was her union with him that had brought it about.