The Jezebel (Taskill Witches 3)

As if she sensed his thoughts, she lifted her head. “I’ll never forget you, Roderick Cameron.”

“And I will never forget you, Maisie from Scotland.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Cyrus lay on his back, staring at the damp wooden beams above his bunk, resisting the urge to vent his frustration on his meager surroundings. He could happily smash the lone wooden chair into a thousand pieces, the wait was so intolerable. All night he’d lain there, arranging his thoughts in order of retribution

and justice, imagining how he would punish Margaret, and then bind her to him forever.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Enter.”

A uniformed soldier stood in the doorway. “Begging your pardon, sire, the captain has asked me to alert you. The ship we seek is within our sights.”

Cyrus was up and pulling his boots on before the man had even finished delivering his message. He followed the young soldier up on deck, thoroughly delighted that this moment had finally come. Out in the chilly morning air, he searched the skies. It was blustery and gray, scarcely dawn, and mist clung around the ship. He stepped quickly to the rail and looked beyond to where the various naval officers were focusing their attention. At first he saw nothing, and craned his neck. Then he saw it, a much smaller ship moving along the coastline in the distance.

At last. She was almost within his grasp. Not long now, and he would have her, and he would make her feel his wrath. The need to do so heightened his senses, invigorating him, making his pulse race.

A voice at his side drew him from his thoughts. It was Captain Plimpton. “I have issued orders to our sister ship. We idle here awhile, until everything is in place.” Plimpton smiled. “We will have some sport with these vermin.”

“Excellent,” Cyrus replied.

He trained his eyes on the distant boat, thinking of her, and his appetite for power sharpened.

* * *

Roderick didn’t sleep that night, nor could he rest in his cabin. Instead he remained at the helm, watching the night sky, waiting for dawn. His ability to ensure Maisie’s safety wasn’t worrying him, for he would simply tell the men he wanted rid of her, and take her to land. It was as if he was already mourning her departure, though.

How could it be? He was a man of the sea, and no woman had ever called to him this way. It wasn’t even as if she were a normal woman, a woman he could wed and set up in a harbor somewhere, a woman he could visit like Brady’s Yvonne in Lowestoft.

No, Maisie was something strange; he admitted that to himself, now that he’d had time to think on it. He’d known that first night that she wasn’t a lowly sort, but he’d never imagined she would be so thoroughly shrouded in secrets, nor that she practiced the forbidden craft. Now he saw the immensity of the risk he’d taken bringing her aboard. A woman was bad enough, a forbidden passenger, but her secret nature made her sex seem as nothing in the scale of danger he had courted.

The image of her lowering her hood, with that beseeching look in her eyes, flashed through his mind. Her lips had trembled when she thought he wasn’t going to take the offer of her virginity. It had intrigued him, and now he knew why. There was a wisdom about her. She was young, but with eyes that knew too much, had seen too much. And yet there was an acceptance about her, too, for her pride was tinged with desperation. All of those things and her strange beauty had left him unable to turn away. If he had, he knew he would never have stopped wondering about her.

As dawn split the horizon, he peered toward land. They had kept the coastline in their scopes. He could take her to shore at any time, but he waited as long as he could, unwilling to say goodbye. They’d passed Saint Andrews, and now he was looking toward Fife. He’d been born in the Lowlands of Scotland, across the Tay from Saint Andrews, in a back room of a tenement in Dundee. Lurid tales of witches and their burnings had been part of his childhood. He’d never pictured one looking anything like the woman he had been consorting with these past few days, though. Despite his dark mood, Roderick gave a wry smile at that thought.

During his years at sea, visiting many strange lands, he’d heard stories of people with magical powers, and oftentimes those people were revered and respected, not put to death as they were in his homeland. Maisie’s mother had been one of those victims. That was a harsh realization for him. No matter how humble his beginnings—and they had been humble, hampered by poverty and misfortune—he hadn’t had such a dark history as Maisie. No wonder she’d looked so afraid when she was brought above deck and the men had threatened to end her days because of her forbidden craft. Roderick couldn’t blame them, for he couldn’t claim to understand her, either.

Witchcraft. He never would have guessed it. There was something strange about her, but not that. He’d never been a believer, but there was no denying what he’d witnessed, and in matters of their joining, yes, there had been much that was not easily explained. He’d been so taken with her, it had been easy to ignore. At first.

Once again he looked at the distant shoreline and at the sky. They were almost within sight of the Tay estuary. It was time to set her feet on dry land. She could go where she was destined.

Roderick decided it was the right thing, no matter how wrong it felt. While the majority of the men still rested, he would instruct Clyde to lower a rowboat. He could trust the sailor to do it without question, he knew, because Clyde had been wary of her, but had not called for her to walk the plank. The old man had been wise about her from the outset, and had made good points about her. Clyde knew she meant them no harm. He watched Roderick even now, a glint in his eye as if he was running a wager with himself on how this matter would play out.

If any of the men argued with Roderick, he had a perfectly good reason for escorting her away from the ship. Depositing her on dry land would rid them of the burden of carrying a witch, well before they reached their destination.

He called to Clyde, and was about to instruct him to lower the rowboat and prepare Maisie to leave the ship when a whistle sounded above their heads.

The watchman pointed at the horizon. “Ship ahoy, Captain.”

Roderick reached for Clyde’s eyeglass and focused it in that direction.

A large vessel was headed their way. At the top of the main mast a familiar flag was flapping. “It’s a navy ship. If they’re patrolling the waters, they wouldn’t be headed straight toward the coastline.”

He approached the starboard railing, looking back over their wake at the tossing waves. “They have come in from a distance. If we were closer to Saint Andrews, I’d think them headed there, but we’re almost at the Tay now.”

Brady ran up the steps from the main deck. “The ship appears to be making ready to engage. They are coming for us, Captain,” he added in an alarmed tone.