The Harlot (Taskill Witches 1)

Realization hit him: it was the two shillings he had given her in Dundee, when she had asked him to prove that he was good for his word. He had never once wondered where she had secreted the coins, but when he saw them hidden there, carefully concealed and covered over in dust, it made his gut ache. Every penny counted to this woman. She’d had to hide this bit of money as she would have had to hide her earnings, living with a greedy pimp and a bunch of other whores.

Gregor stood up, dropping her ragged possessions onto the cot. Jessie had suffered enough. From what little she had revealed of herself, he knew that persecution of one sort or another had haunted her all her life. If Wallace knew what she was, he would torment and persecute her, as well.

Gregor did not want life to be that way for Jessie Taskill anymore. Once he acknowledged that, he hated himself for the dangerous position he had put her in.

Within moments he was readying to leave. It was too early, yet he wanted to go up there and remove her from Balfour Hall before she put herself at any more risk on his behalf.

Jessie had refused to leave the night before, but he would hear no more of that talk. She’d set her sights on completing this task, and had convinced him she could protect herself, but he could not bear the uncertainty a moment longer. The urge to walk in, floor Wallace with a prize punch, and remove his woman overtook all his carefully crafted notions of subtle and devastating revenge, plans he’d spent years thinking up.

Gritting his teeth, Gregor made an effort to pace himself. If Wallace became aware that Jessie was connected to him, that would only bring more trouble her way, and Gregor would never forgive himself for that. With more than a little unwillingness he reminded himself that she would meet him at midnight. He would take her away from Balfour Hall then—even if she was kicking and screaming while he did so. With that in mind, he attempted to wait.

Time moved far too slowly. Never before had a day dragged by so interminably for Gregor Ramsay and by midafternoon he was on his way.

It was past sunset when he secured his mount in the forest above Balfour Hall. Staring down at the house, he tried to catch sight of her. That made him even more restless, and the urge to storm down there threatened to unhinge him. He could not take that risk. Instead he began to walk back toward the village, striding quickly to divert himself from doing anything rash.

By the time darkness fell he found that his feet had led him to the kirk and the small graveyard on the hill above Craigduff, where he’d spent his last hours years ago, before departing from Scotland. It was there he had watched his father’s coffin being lowered into the grave beside his mother’s.

He peered at the church, a dark profile against the night sky. When the breeze lifted and the clouds scudded away he saw a familiar path between the gravestones and opened the gate.

Moonlight scarcely lit the area, but his memories served him well and he wended his way through the graves to the exact place. His father had taken him there every Sunday after they attended the service, to pay their respects to his mother. Through each and every season they had come, and as Gregor thought back on it he could almost hear the congregation making their way home after the service, while he and his father stood there, their hats in their hands as they looked down at the grave of the wife and mother they still mourned.

Resting on his haunches, he rubbed his hand over the grave stone. His father’s name had been added. There had barely been enough funds to buy the coffin, let alone pay for the burial, but he had sent his first wage to the stone merchant with a letter requesting the work be carried out. Gregor was glad to see that it had been done.

Mired in his memories, he was startled when he heard shuffling footsteps close by. With a quick glance over his shoulder he saw it was an old woman hunched over a stick, her head and shoulders swathed in shawls. She tottered and swayed and hummed to herself under her breath. Gregor assumed she was taking a shortcut through the graveyard to her home. He was several strides away from the path she was on, and estimated that if he remained as he was, she would not notice him.

Much to his surprise, however, she paused and then turned off the path, heading directly for him. She lifted her stick from the ground and poked his shoulder.

“Gregor Ramsay, is that you?” The woman peered at him in the gloom, and then broke into a toothless grin. “Well, I never. I thought it was you the moment I saw you by your parents’ grave.”

Bemused, Gregor stood up.

The old woman pushed back her shawl from her forehead and shook her head at him. “You do not remember me. I am your mother’s cousin, Margaret Mackie.”

Gregor was not sure which startled him more, that someone here remembered him or the fact that her face, although aged, was so familiar that he was swept back through the years. “I do remember you, Cousin Margaret. I was merely surprised that you spotted me here on this dark night.”

She gave a gravelly laugh. “I did at first wonder if a demon was loose in the graveyard when I saw you there.”

The laughing made her cough, and he realized how frail she was. He crossed to her side and put a steadying hand beneath her elbow.

She lifted her stick again and pointed toward the village. “Walk me home, lad, and while you do you can tell me where in God’s name you’ve been hiding yourself these past years.”

Gregor had not been called “lad” for many years, and it made him smile. He wasn’t altogether willing to head into the village in case anyone else recognized him, but he owed her this and more. Margaret had had a hand in his upbringing, in the early days after his mother’s death. Besides, it would keep his mind off the interminable waiting until he could meet Jessie at the appointed hour.

Once she was moving Margaret seemed stronger, and her wit was every bit as sharp and forthright as he recalled.

“Have you a wife and children?” she demanded.

“No.”

“Well, you’d better be thinking about it soon. ’Tis fine and dandy for a man to wait around before making his choice, but it is not fair on the bairns if he is too old to work to support them, after bringing them into this sorry world.”

Margaret’s concerns were so far removed from his own that her comments perplexed him. Gregor felt as if he’d been shunted back twenty years, when he had often accompanied her along this path to her home and she would attempt to fill his mind with womanly notions that he’d never encountered before.

“I worried about you to begin with, especially after you torched the house. I knew you weren’t faring too badly,” she continued, “because the stonemason spoke widely about the good sum you sent for his handiwork.”

It hadn’t occurred to Gregor that anyone would miss him. Apparently both Robert and Margaret had. He’d not done right by them, disappearing like that and sending no word, and he felt regret over his actions. “Those were my first wages aboard ship. I signed up to serve at sea, after the funeral.”

“Aha, so the sea took you.” They had reached the main street and she gestured at the houses as they passed, pointing out who was dead and who had wed and had bairns. She obviously felt he should be brought up-to-date on such things. At the door to her cottage she ushered him in and told him to sit at the table, announcing she had freshly baked bread, ham and a wee dram of the good stuff.