The Jezebel

by Saskia Walker

  “Rest now,” he murmured gruffly, “for you will get little rest later, when I return for my reward.” His brows lifted, humor flashing in his eyes. “I mean to ride you until dawn, Maisie from Scotland, by which time you will be so thoroughly used and sated that you will beg me for respite.”

  With that provocative pronouncement, he let her go.

  Maisie wilted, staggering backward until a chair halted her. Grasping at it with both hands, she held herself upright. Her entire body was hot and unsteady, a fever of nerves and longing assailing her as she thought on his words.

  She remained in that place for several long moments after he had gone, staring across at the door he had tugged closed behind him. Captain Cameron was a force of nature, no doubt about it. Her passage into womanhood at his hands would be memorable, she was sure. The kiss he had bestowed on her had left her feeling quite exalted, but there was no telling how events might unfold.

  Hastening to the bedside, she set her velvet bundle on the floor, close by. It contained her most prized possessions, and items she needed to ready herself for the moment. Alongside her training in the knowledge of witchcraft, she had been preparing for her initiation into full carnal congress for several years. It had to be done right, and it was crucial that the man who had nurtured and hidden her as a young witch did not claim her for himself now. Maisie still wasn’t sure that choosing a lover by chance would free her of her obligation to her master, but she had to do everything she could to break away from him.

  Perching on the edge of the bed, she was grateful for the moment to herself.

  Everything had happened so quickly. Inside the turn of one day she had learned the full truth of her situation, and had taken flight. Now she was on her way to her true home in Scotland. So often she had dreamed of returning, but it was hard to break with the life she had become used to. In many ways it had been a good one, and she had felt protected and valued for several long years.

  That was no longer the case.

  But she had broken free, and now—as she recalled the image of the captain in the lamplight, and her body still vibrated from his touch—she found the anticipation helped to quell any doubts she might have about her actions. Captain Roderick Cameron had given her his word he would not break her. It had been a lucky encounter, she knew, when the manner of selecting him for the task had been so random and fraught with untold dangers. He would make a fine lover, she decided, one who would make no claim on her when the deed was done. It would be a simple exchange, and when she left his ship she would easily be able to make the onward journey alone because of it.

  For a moment she reflected on how resourceful she’d been, buying her voyage with her virginity. Escaping from London as soon as she could had been essential, but so, too, was the small matter of ridding herself of that prize that was so valued by her master—for he wanted to be the one to have her.

  The strange echo suddenly came over her again—drifting around the cabin like a forgotten memory, or a tale as yet untold—and it stimulated a question. Were her siblings even alive? Resting her head in her hands, Maisie faced her deepest fear. Now that she was going back to the land where her mother had been put to death, she had to acknowledge it. The heady rush that accompanied her escape dimmed momentarily as she thought of the reality that had haunted her kind for so long: persecution and death.

  She lay down on the bed, as her emotions dipped and churned like the waves beneath the ship. The uncertainty of her journey was quickly overtaken by the imminent unleashing of her most powerful magic. Hope fluttered inside her.

  I will find a path home to my kind. I will forge it.

  For years she hadn’t wanted to return to Dundee, after witnessing the horror of her own mother’s death. Nevertheless, Scotland called to her—called to the purest part of her soul, reminding her that she could be free and whole in the far north of the Highlands.

  The journey had begun. Exhaling, she felt the tension in her body begin to unravel.

  She would seek out her kin—her twin sister, Jessie, and her beloved brother, Lennox. Homeward bound, she was on her way. As she drifted into sleep, she thought of them as she’d known them years before, children running barefoot in the forest, picking flowers and herbs for their mother, who used those gifts to teach them her craft, rooting the ancient ways in them. Maisie pictured Lennox as a wily, rebellious lad who cared for his sisters nonetheless. And her fey twin, who was wilder even than she. Had they thought of her as she had of them?

  Let them be safe and free in our birthplace, she wished as she drifted toward sleep, hoping that she would find them there. So many years had passed since they’d been torn apart. Too long. Pain twisted inside her as she remembered the day.

  * * *

  On the day her mother was put to death on a charge of witchcraft, Cyrus Lafayette and his wife, Beth, claimed Maisie Taskill.

  Maisie and her sister had been forced to watch their mother stoned until she was close to death, before the villagers forced her upright to stagger to the gallows, where she could see her own funeral pyre as the rope went around her neck. The villagers decided the lad, Lennox, was too far under the devil’s influence to be saved. They said he should be destroyed.

  Maisie heard every word they spoke about her and her kin, and a deep part of her became locked in a prison of fear and horror in response.

  The villagers decided the two girl children were young enough to be redeemed, if they were taught the wrongness and evil of their mother’s ways. So it was that Maisie had been placed on a pillar at the kirk gates alongside her twin. With the church at their backs and the persecution of their mother before their eyes, they were supposed to learn what was wrong and what was right. Both girls learned what was wrong, because they balked at what the villagers said was right.

  Maisie had struggled to stand upright on the stone pillar, but had kept her silence as she had been ordered to do by the people gathered there. Her brother had already been dragged away, lashing out and cursing the villagers. Jessie had whimpered and flailed, and Maisie wanted to go to her sister and help her, but could not.

  Instead, the two of them were made to watch, made to suffer every wound and insult as their mother suffered. When she tried to turn her face away and close her eyes, Maisie was prodded by the man stationed nearby, his task to force her to observe.

  Maisie had all but fainted from the horror unfolding before her when a man in coachman’s livery pushed through the crowd and lifted her down from the pillar. The villagers did not stop him.

  Maisie could not even attempt to break free, for she was in shock, petrified by what she had witnessed. The coachman had a scowl on his face and a whip in his hand, and she’d believed she was about to meet the same fate as her mother. However, the man held her tightly to him, with both arms around her, as he made his way back through the crowd. He did not speak, and Maisie had been so afraid, she could scarcely understand what was going on around her.

  He took her to a coach, and a grand coach it was. When the door opened, she was taken from the coachman’s arms by another man. He stood her on her feet in the interior and examined her before indicating the coachman should close the door.

  The din of the crowd grew muffled once the door shut. Maisie trembled violently, her legs buckling under her.

  The man put his hands beneath her elbows, easily holding her slight form in place. Then he forced her to look at him directly by putting a finger under her chin.

  Maisie’s first glimpse of Cyrus Lafayette was not reassuring, for he was an imposing man with dark hair and intense green eyes.

  “Your name is Margaret?”

  She nodded.

  Interest flickered in his eyes. He seemed to approve of what he saw. Instinct warned her that he knew what she was. Maisie could see it in his eyes and she shied back. But he smiled, and his eyes glittered, as if he was pleased.

  “Poor child,” a woman’s voice behind her said, and Maisie found herself drawn backward into a comforting
embrace. Shivering with fear and shock, she barely felt the woman’s touch and could not fight it. Lifted onto the woman’s lap, she was rocked to and fro. “We have saved you, child. You will come and live with us, and no harm will befall you.”

  The coach had set off, and Maisie remembered hearing the coachman ordering people out of his path, shouting and bellowing and urging his team to a faster pace. Was it true? Was she really safe? She turned to look at the woman who held her.

  Beth Lafayette smiled. With pale blond hair and a gentle smile, she seemed kindly.

  Eventually, Maisie reacted, speaking for the first time in several hours. “My brother and sister, Lennox and Jessie, are they coming with us?”

  “They will find guardians, too, never fear,” said the austere man, who sat opposite. “But your life is with us now.”

  “I have always wanted a beautiful girl child like you to call my own,” the woman told her, and tears shone in her eyes. “Even though you are not of my blood, I would be greatly pleased if you would call me Mama Beth.”

  Feeling the woman’s emotion and gratitude, Maisie closed her eyes, attempting to blot out the images she had seen, and gradually taking the comfort Beth Lafayette offered.

  And at first it was good and it was safe.

  But Cyrus had not collected her simply to fulfill his wife’s wish for a daughter.

  Cyrus Lafayette had plans of his own for Maisie Taskill.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cyrus Lafayette meshed his fingers together as he paced up and down the polished wood floor of the drawing room. He had to keep his hands that way in order not to throttle the young coachman who cowered before him. The urge to snap the servant’s neck was far too tempting.

  The coachman shifted uneasily. “Please, sire. With your permission I will go back and ask again, see what I might find out.”

  “No.” Cyrus paused and examined the man again, looking deep into his eyes. Was there something he was hiding, something else that he knew about Margaret that he was not sharing? Cyrus saw only fear, dim wit and incompetence.

  The fear that shone in the coachman’s eyes branded him a fool, in Cyrus’s opinion. If the man had any sense of self-preservation he would speak more confidently, offer to lead Cyrus to the scene of Margaret’s disappearance, instead of looking as if he was about to turn on his heel and run.

  Pain needled Cyrus’s eyes, the result of his barely withheld rage. He had to keep a rigid hold on it. He couldn’t afford to let it overcome him, not now. “Tell me again what you witnessed, from the beginning. Salient details only. Do not embellish.”

  The coachman swallowed and then cleared his throat. “I was waiting to escort Miss Margaret to the theater, as instructed. At the appointed time I went inside, announced that the carriage was ready and inquired her whereabouts from the housekeeper. Miss Margaret was said to have dressed for the theater, but was nowhere to be found. When I stepped outside I believe I caught sight of her climbing into a carriage at the corner of the street. I wondered if she had forgotten I was there to take her to the opera. I thought that perhaps she’d hired a passing carriage instead, when she didn’t see me. I quickly followed. My concern grew when I realized the direction the carriage had taken was away from the theater.”

  Cyrus interrupted the coachman. “You intended to stop the carriage?”

  That’s what he’d said on the first telling of the story. Cyrus’s levels of suspicion and mistrust were so acute that he was ready to string the lad up and beat the truth out of him if even one detail differed from before.

  The coachman nodded. “Unfortunately, I lost it in the maze of streets in Billingsgate. I secured the coach and then went by foot, but could find no trace of the carriage I’d seen. However, there was a mighty commotion down there by the dockside. Navy men and soldiers were everywhere, so I followed them to see what it was about.”

  “You say they were after the captain of a merchant ship?”

  The coachman nodded. He clung tightly to the hat he held in his hands as if it were a shield and he would be safe behind it. “I asked one of them, who said it was a ship by the name of the Libertas. But he knew nothing of a young lady who might be lost down there. In the chaos there seemed no hope of anyone having caught sight of her, alone or otherwise.”

  Cyrus frowned. Alone or otherwise. Why would she be down there alone? Did Margaret have a secret rendezvous? He could scarcely believe it. No, that could not be the case. He gave her no time in which to nurture friendships that were not conducted under his watchful eye.

  The coachman rattled on. “But I wended my way through the place, looking for her, and I was about to give up when I thought I saw her crossing onto a ship, with a man close behind her.”

  Cyrus ground his teeth. The darkest question of all reared its ugly head again. Had she run into the night to a secret friend? Or worse still, a lover? The raw anger he felt doubled in response to that thought. For years he had nurtured that girl. She is mine and mine alone.

  “I will return to Billingsgate,” the coachman offered, glancing at the doorway, eager to be on his way.

  “No.” Cyrus glared at him. “I will send others. Men who are more adept at seeking out information.”

  The man lowered his gaze to the floor. “Forgive me, sire. I know that my task was to watch over Miss Margaret when you were not doing so yourself. If you forgive me for saying so—” he dared to lift his gaze, cautiously “—it was as if she slipped away into the night.”

  Cyrus lifted his brows in query. He was starting to detest the sight of this inept young man, a worker whom he’d been assured was reliable and astute when he was hired as third coachman to the household the year before.

  The man stumbled on. “Perhaps Miss Margaret did not want to go to the theater.”

  Cyrus gave a harsh laugh.

  The coachman recoiled, his hands tightening on the brim of his hat.

  “If Miss Margaret had not wanted to attend the theater she was at liberty to say so. I am not a tyrant.”

  The coachman gave him a wary stare.

  Cyrus twitched. “Did she give you any reason to suspect she might run away tonight, or at any other time during your employment here?”

  The coachman shook his head.

  “She has never slipped away from you before?”

  Again he shook his head. Then he frowned. “She went for a walk earlier today. I heard of her intention and readied the carriage, but she insisted she needed no companion other than her lady’s maid.”

  Cyrus lit upon that. Mayhap he would have more success gaining information from the maid. This dolt appeared useless. He wanted to dismiss him immediately and have him thrown into the gutter, but he could not rule out the possibility that the young man might as yet furnish them with something useful. It was necessary to get someone else to deal with it, however. The urge to make the young man suffer some part of what he himself was feeling was growing too great.

  Cyrus snatched the man’s hat from his grasp and threw it aside, then pointed at a nearby chair, into which the coachman slumped.

  Standing over him, Cyrus forbade the man to move. “Miss Margaret is the most valuable thing in my life,” he said, lowering his voice in an effort to convey the importance of his comment. “You will stay here and be prepared to repeat the details of your sorry story to anyone who enters this room tonight. There may be many, for I intend to hire all the best men I can find. I will raze London to the ground to find her if I have to, and you might hold the only information that can stop that from happening.”

  The coachman looked suitably rooted to the spot.

  Cyrus headed for the door. As he approached, it sprang open and the housekeeper entered.

  “Master Lafayette, it is Mistress Beth. I fear she is near the end.”

  Cyrus grimaced. He had nothing left to say to Beth, who had been near her end for days now. He nodded briefly. “Make her as comfortable as you can. I have other matters to attend to.”

  The housekeep
er looked at him in dismay, disapproval flickering at the back of her eyes. “Begging your pardon, sire, but she is scarcely breathing.”

  Cyrus gave the servant a warning stare.

  The woman dropped her eyelids.

  Rightly so, and heaven help anyone else who stood between him and Margaret. Pushing past the housekeeper without further ceremony, Cyrus left.

  * * *

  Under limited sail the Libertas passed out of the Thames estuary and into open seas. Only then did Roderick breathe easy. It had been a near miss back there at Billingsgate. They’d had similar scrapes many times before, of course, but it was essential they were not stopped now. They were due in Dundee to meet with Gregor Ramsay, the fellow shipman with whom he owned the Libertas. Roderick had been ready, though. If he’d been arrested back in London the men were under strict instructions to sail with the tide without him.

  “Full sail,” Roderick instructed.

  Clyde relayed his orders, scurrying about as fast as any of the younger men, despite his hunched form and his advanced years. The man refused to rest. He also refused to make his home on land, swearing he would end his days at sea.

  Men leaped at Roderick’s command, climbing the rigging.

  More sails unfurled, quickly capturing the wind. He turned the wheel hand over hand, held course and inhaled the salt on the air. The creak of the boards and the snap of spar and sail reassured him, for they were a heartbeat that raced in concert with his own. Married to the sea, he was, and it was where he felt at peace. He directed the wheel awhile longer, then handed it over to Brady, the first officer. “Bear northeast awhile longer, then we turn full north.”

  Brady took the wheel, but stared at him, making it obvious he had something on his mind. Roderick could already guess what it was. Brady was waiting until they were in open waters before he confronted him, but the leaden stare had already conveyed enough.