The Libertine (Taskill Witches 2)

“Why? Am I not allowed my say?”

Lennox glared across the bed at her. She was as slippery and determined as a salmon leaping upstream. “You are allowed your say,” he retorted, “but I am currently troubled on many accounts. I fear for Mistress Chloris, who has suffered greatly and took a great risk the night she came here for our help.” The leaden weight in his gut made him shake his head. “It is the way of my life, and it has always been so, to fret over women.” He paused, but it had to be said. “Until I find my sisters I will not rest. I do my best for you and the other members of the coven, but for my own part I cannot commit more than that to you and you have always known that.”

“I have always known that, but that is not the problem now.” She folded her arms across her chest and stared at him. “I have sympathy for your burden, believe me, for I, too, have lost people who were close to me because of the craft, but you use your sisters as an excuse far too often, Lennox.”

Irritation was fast turning to rage. “Hold your tongue!”

She shook her head. “You will hear me out.” Relentlessly, she held his gaze. “You say that you wish to gain respectability for us. Yet, at the very same time you try to impress them, how...? By seducing their women?”

Anger roiled in him. He wanted her to stop.

“Do you know what they call you in the burgh? The Libertine. And they do not say it in hushed tones of admiration, no. It is said by those who doubt your claim to respectability, and I do not blame them. Passion might be the source of our greatest power, but not the way you have sought it out...seducing women to hurt thine enemies. Well, now you are mired in a situation you would do well to pull away from, but you won’t.”

At one time he might have been able to ignore the words, but her description made his bones so tight that his teeth ground and he had to grasp the bedpost to stop himself marching around there and silencing her with his hand over her mouth. “I told you to hold your tongue.”

She shook her head, fire in her eyes. “Not until you tell me why you do that. Why you take risks with their women when you have loyal witches who can satisfy you in ways they cannot even begin to understand?”

This was the second time in the turn of a day that a woman had faced up to him, exposing the deep flaws in his character, the ones he knew he had, but denied.

“Because it is easy,” he admitted. “There are days when I am sick to my belly with fear for our kind and I hate them for their superior ways and their ability to call us on our beliefs. The witch hunters scour the land on the promise of an ousting and the tally of lives ended cruelly grows ever longer. I cannot bear it, and when I look at those men who smugly turn us away...”

He sighed, for the confession shifted the weight he carried.

“I am not proud of it, Ailsa, but my actions are often driven by the need for retribution. I have given them every chance to accept us, but when a reasonable offering is rejected, I see them stoning my mother to death and forcing my young sisters to watch, and I want t

hem to feel the pain that I felt when my family was crushed and torn apart.”

They stared at each other in silence, then Ailsa’s lower lip trembled and she skirted the bed and threw herself into his arms, clutching at him.

He held her to him with one hand against her back. The sound of her soft weeping against his chest only confirmed that he was making them all unhappy.

“Everything you have said is true. You are a sensitive young witch.” He stroked her hair. “You must ally yourself to a better master, for you will be immensely powerful one day and you need someone to guard you well.”

Ailsa lifted her head to look at him. Her strange gray eyes glittered with tears. “You have guarded us well. I want to stay by your side.”

Lennox gave a wry smile. She was attempting to mend the rift, but her accusations made him want to make amends in a different way. He set her from him. “We will find your destined lover, just bide your time.”

He glanced at the window. Dawn was breaking. He was due to meet Chloris. He snatched up his belt.

“You are going to her.” It was not a question.

“It is the time for action, Ailsa. Today the council issues the list of the tradesmen who have been accepted into the guild. I want to see it just to know that my efforts were not in vain. I will speak to the coven this evening and if everyone is agreed, we head north to a new beginning. I must mend things with Mistress Chloris in case the coven votes to depart soon.”

“You would have her leave with us?”

“It will take some convincing on my part, but it would be my wish for her to come with us, yes.”

Ailsa took a deep breath, lifting her chin. “Then you had better hasten to her side.”

Hurt still shone in her eyes and Lennox felt her withdrawing from him.

“If you have doubts about me, perhaps you no longer accept me as your coven master?”

She gave a sad smile. “Lennox, I cannot deny that I ache for you, and I will miss you as a lover if you choose her instead, but you are the Witch Master who gave me life when death took my sister. I remain loyal to you and will follow wherever you lead us.”

There was honesty in her eyes, alongside the pain. “And I will do all I can to ensure you remain safe.”

Ailsa nodded.