The Libertine (Taskill Witches 2)

Lennox saw it then. Far beyond the responsibility, her loyalty was deeply bedded, but she was opening her heart in ways he had never seen her do before. A prickly lass she’d been and it moved him to see her so humbled.

He cupped her face in his hands, gently wiping away her tears

with his thumbs. “It is what I do. When I hear tales of brethren I seek them out. If I cannot help them, I will try to help the ones they’ve left behind.”

She reached her hand to cover his and her lower lip trembled.

“As a lad I ran,” he confessed, “in fear of my persecutors. If someone had come to rest their hand upon my shoulder I might have tracked down my sisters, but I did not. I do not want anyone to feel what I have felt, but so many of you have and will.”

Her eyelids dropped. Still, she wanted to know that she was more to him than the rest, he sensed it in her. “Ailsa, I will always try to protect you, but you must be strong.”

When she lifted her eyelids, her eyes shone. “Lennox, you are everything to me, you are my laird.”

“Hush now.” He rested a kiss on her forehead, treasuring her as he had treasured all those he’d brought together. He did not deserve their loyalty, and yet it was freely given, for they trusted in the one who guided them, the one who nurtured them and their craft.

“The fear, it runs amongst us,” Ailsa whispered, “and when one of us is directly threatened we all feel it. But you grow distant, you only want to win over the town council.”

She spoke the truth. His attentions were divided, just as they always had been. And life had yet again played a cruel trick on him, for his intentions toward Mistress Chloris were shifting of their own accord, and that, too, played its own part in what he wanted and the actions he took. “I see it, I know it.” He sighed. “It’s hard for me because part of me yearns to stand amongst them, to be recognized for what we are, not feared.”

Her eyes flashed in the moonlight. “That part of you will lead us to ruin.”

“I will not let it happen, rest easy. All around us people have questioned the fear of witchcraft. Some simply do not believe it, they say the law was written by a madman who feared everything. I long to find my way to a middle ground where we are accepted for what we are. If it does not happen, we will go north to the Highlands.”

Solemnly, she regarded him. “You are a strong man, but you are ruled by your emotions.”

“Would you want me to change that?”

She shook her head.

“Right then. Away back to the house, I have work to do.”

Still she hesitated. “Shall I warm your bed for your return?”

There was tension in her voice. They had not lain together for some time. Was she testing him?

Lennox shook his head. “It will be late when I return.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

As spring came into full bloom and the foliage in the glens became more colorful and plentiful, their illicit meetings became a daily occurrence. Despite the danger, Lennox was completely bound up in Chloris, more absorbed with her than he had ever been with any woman. He woke every day before dawn broke, his body eager and ready for her. Images of her writhing beneath him, moaning like a wanton as he gave her his length, made him instantly hard, fueling his blood with fire as he made his way to the meeting spot and awaited her arrival.

Under the continued guise of an early morning ride Chloris would meet him in the forest. Sometimes it would scarcely be enough for him, and he was often tempted to go to her at night again, risking discovery for a taste of her—just to feel her relinquish herself to him, her body becoming supple in his embrace. It was hard, but he restricted himself to their morning meetings. Sometimes she would ask him to reinforce his ritual magic for the sake of her fertility. More often than not she would just run into his arms and they would be entwined as one.

As time went by Lennox found he grew increasingly concerned in the moments before her arrival in the forest. It was not that he was afraid she would not come. He knew with full certainty that she would. However, he did not want their illicit rendezvous to be discovered. Upsetting Keavey had been his primary aim. At first he had relished the image of Keavey discovering that his precious cousin had offered herself to the local Witch Master. Not once, but repeatedly.

As time went by Lennox wasn’t ready for that to occur. There was too much pleasure to be had—to be shared. It wasn’t how it started, but Lennox soon found that he wanted all of her. To touch her, taste and hold her forever locked in his embrace. So while he waited for her to arrive each morning he sought her out, glad when he saw her riding his way, always eager to lose himself between her soft, silken thighs. She’d made him come alive when he was weary of life, weary of fighting for a doomed cause and forever hunting for lost brethren. Chloris had given him something else. At first he thought it a momentary, sensory distraction. He simply could not get enough of her and fully intended to slake his lust for her repeatedly before this thing ended. Then he realized that she affected him in a deeper, more resonant way.

Somehow his involvement with Chloris was making him think more deeply about the driving forces in his life, and how much he owed those around him. It had been a long slow battle, and his search for respectability for the people he was responsible for was taking too long. Too many innocents had been put to death in the Lowlands. Glenna and Lachie were right. They should have taken to the North, to the Highlands and safety there, years before. He was torn, though, because he might never find his sisters if he moved his people north. He had thrust roots down here in Fife in order to find his sisters, and he had become part of the fabric of the place. It wasn’t his birthplace. He’d been born in the Highlands, taken Fingal as his name after the place that was his true home.

The burden carried by the Taskills was not easily shrugged off. His mother had led them south to find their father. An ill-destined journey it had been. Their kin in the Highlands warned them against it, but his mother was a stubborn sort. To her detriment. In the Lowlands their craft was feared and shunned. Witches and healers were put to death, stoned and burned for their craft. Their mother became one of them.

He’d been split from his sisters, bound and gagged and thrown in an old stone quarry where he’d been left to die. But anger kept him alive. He used his craft and his wits to survive and fight his way out. The need to spite those who damned him was great, but it was also foolhardy, for he knew it might bring punishment or death to his sisters. Hollow and defeated he let his feet lead him, seeking work and food along the way, until he was back in the safe haven of the Highlands.

His mother’s sister and his cousins had nursed him back to health, gentle people who lived with their hearts tied to the land and seasons. They sighed and fretted over what had returned to them, for Lennox Taskill had been a broken youth.

When he grew well he watched and waited for Jessie and Maisie, but his twin sisters were too young. Their feet would not know the way home as his had done. Within the year he was back in the Lowlands, his mission to find his sisters. First he returned to the place where his mother had been put to death, faced it, allowing the sorry memories to stoke his will to survive—and to help others of their kind to survive. He discovered that Jessie had been kept there in the village in the charge of the schoolmaster, until she’d broken free of her owners and run. Of Maisie there was no word at all. Vanished. Both of them. All these years later and he was still trying to find them.

Establishing himself in Saint Andrews, he’d forged a bond with others of his kind, people who became his new family, people who watched out for him as he did them. Most of them had been born in Fife and they had helped him settle there. However, there was a part of him that would always belong to the Highlands, for he had been born there and all his childhood spent there, learning the old ways under his mother’s guidance. Moving south had brought nothing but trouble, but it was hard to break with the hunt for Jessica and Margaret.