The Libertine (Taskill Witches 2)

Drifting on vows and promises, Lennox dozed.

The sound of voices did not reach him for some time.

When they did he inhaled sharply, but forced himself to keep his eyes closed as he sought awareness. Someone had approached. An urgent discussion was taking place nearby. Lennox kept still. He honed his senses then attempted to rise to his feet as he opened his eyes.

“Stay down.” The man who stood over him had a pistol pointing at his chest.

Lennox eased back while he stared up at the weapon. Inwardly, he groaned and cursed. A quick side-glance alerted him to three other men several paces away, one with a musket and two others with swords. They were soldiers.

Was the hunt for the Somerled coven already under way? That was not good, although he could quickly distract this party from their cause by means of magic. Chastising himself for resting, he rued the extra time this intrusion would add to his journey. It was an irritation he could do without. Chloris was in danger. Every moment he wasted might be recorded in fresh scars, and he could not live with himself if that were the case. However, if he could draw these men away from the coven’s trail, there was some purpose in it.

The man standing over him was smartly dressed in civilian clothes but appeared to be their leader. Lennox assumed him to be a bailiff. The man did not remove his tricorne hat, and he booted Lennox in the hip as he looked him over. “What have you done with the woman?”

Lennox frowned. “I travel alone.”

He mustered an enchantment, readying to call upon the elements to deflect their attention from his coven, who would by now be well on their way and perhaps even past Kilmaron, north as the crow flew from his present whereabouts. Beneath his breath he whispered the Pictish words. The nearby stream bubbled and rose fast. Within moments it would breach its banks.

Shadow lingered by the stream’s edge and he backed up and neighed, but the strangers had their full attention on Lennox. One of the soldiers stepped forward and nodded at Lennox. “I think I was mistaken, sire, ’tis not the man I saw at The Drovers Inn, the one who helped her escape.”

Lennox tried to make sense of what they said.

“And they were on foot,” the second soldier added, “this man has a horse.”

The leader of the group shot the two men a disapproving glance. “They could have stolen a horse by now,” he barked. Looking back at Lennox he demanded more information. “What is your purpose and where are you headed?”

Lennox’s mind worked furiously. They were looking for someone but it was not him, nor was it his coven. He kept his expression open and steady. “I travel to Edinburgh on a family matter. I am alone. Search my goods, you will find I only carry provisions for one.”

The leader did not take his attention from Lennox and continued to train his weapon on him, but he gestured at Shadow and one of the men darted over and began to search the saddlebag.

Lennox didn’t bother to watch. There was nothing there that would connect him to Somerled. It was not Somerled’s coven they were after, though, of that he was now sure. Something nagged at him. Who was it that they sought? A leaden feeling in his gut grew, alongside the suspicion that it was people of his own kind. They sought a man and a woman, by the sounds of it. As the men’s comments came together in his thoughts, Lennox’s heart thumped wildly. A woman, a woman had escaped them. Escaped. He recalled what he’d been told in Dundee, that Jessie had been aided by a man. Could it be that these men hunted his own sister, and that she was hereabouts? Sharpening his senses, he sought knowledge by reaching out for the presence of the person they hunted.

“Who is it you seek, sire?” Lennox asked the man who watched him, to hold his attention. “Perhaps I have seen them. Perhaps I can assist you in your quest.” He opened his hands in an innocent gesture.

The man pursed his lips thoughtfully.

Before he had a chance to answer, Lennox felt the woman’s presence.

A witch, there was no doubt about it, and she was hiding nearby. Without taking his attention from the man who stood over him, he honed his deepest, most innate senses, and attempted to discern the woman’s whereabouts. A moment later he sourced her heat, and recognized therein her pagan heart, her burgeoning craft. She was hiding some forty strides beyond, at his back, sheltered in the deep gorse that grew at the place where the steeper slopes sprang from the more sheltered glen.

He also felt her fear.

The woman had faced this situation before. She’d been hunted and scorned. She’d seen dreadful things and she’d run many times. Worse than that, she feared her end was near, and the end of someone she loved who accompanied her.

That age-old pain rose inside him. With effort, he kept it in check. That was hard because he felt as if someone had put a fist in his chest and wrung his heart. Could it be Jessie? Could it truly be his sister crouched there fearing for her life? Through the pain, hope flared.

“There are witches about,” the man with the pistol answered.

Aye, there are. And I will use every whit of the magic I know so that you never discover the one who is hiding at my back.

“Witches, you say!” He widened his eyes, but he could not do more than whisper the words, for they were all but trapped in his throat. Meanwhile, he assessed the danger. He had to protect her from discovery. The men had come into the glen the way he had, and if they passed on in the same direction they would skirt the woman’s hiding place.

The soldier had completed his hunt through Shadow’s saddlebag. “Nothing there, sire, and he spoke the truth. He carries only enough for himself.”

The second soldier nodded over at the stream. “The water is rising, sire.”

“A bit of water won’t hurt you!” The man lowered his pistol, his expression angered. “Your brains are addled.”

“So would yours be, sire,” muttered the second soldier, “if you’d been charged by a possessed pig.”