“This will shock you,” Master Cyrus warned her, “but it is important you understand they are driven by their fear.”
Margaret was only a few pages in when she began to feel sickened, tormented by the words, and the images they conjured. It took her back to that fateful day. Since then she’d had her mind opened, and she’d been excited to find that those who believed and practiced magic were everywhere. Even though she’d witnessed her own mother’s persecution, it was hard for her to see how something borne of nature could offend souls and make them afraid. This document only reinforced the fact that she and others like her were in constant danger. Those in power—the monarchy and the church—feared and despised them, and turned honest workingmen against them. The more she read, the more ill she felt.
She drew back from the book, confused by it.
“Perhaps reading it aloud would be better, so that we might discuss it,” Master Cyrus offered, encouraging her to turn another page.
She had hoped that he would set the book aside for another day, for it was too close to her own experience, and the words of the magistrate and the villagers who had condemned her mother were reflected in every page.
“Ask me anything,” Cyrus said, forcing her on.
Why was he so determined she read it? Margaret stared at the page, faltering, yet afraid to disappoint him. “It says the witches serve one master. Who is this master?”
His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Read on.”
She read aloud, needing to do so to share her confusion with him. “The devil...it says the devil entices witches into his service. He lures them to follow him by promising them great riches.” She paused, turning to the man who was her only protector, her only master. “The devil? But this is Christian belief. They said this about my mother, but I didn’t understand it then and I do not understand it now. We believe in that which folds in on our lives time and again, bringing life and growth and good things. We believe in nature’s way, the seasons and the rebirth of everything that is good.”
He nodded. “Your people have often been unjustly accused of being evil, although I expect some turn that way.”
He tapped the page, encouraging her to read on.
Reluctantly, she did so. “It says that the devil bestowed the knowledge to cure illness—” she shook her head in disbelief, for that was not her experience “—or to curse and kill via means of wax figures.” She felt quite ill. “Wax figures to curse or kill? I have never heard of such a thing.” Upset, confused and angered, she wanted to destroy the book and all it represented. “These are lies!”
“People believe this because it is the king’s word, and the church and the lawmakers agree and act upon it. Try, if you can, to imagine you knew nothing of witchcraft, and how you might feel if you read this and believed it.”
The thought sent a cold shiver through her. “Yes, it would make me afraid, and if there really are people who did such things...people who used magic for their own gain...then I can see why men believed the king’s word.”
Master Cyrus did not respond to that.
“And the remedy they recommend?” He seemed determined that she finish reading the king’s Daemonologie that very night.
She read aloud again, unable to analyze the words on her own. “‘What form of punishment think ye merits these magicians and witches? They ought to be put to death according to the law of God, the civil and imperial law, and municipal law of all Christian nations.’” Her voice faltered as she remembered, the tears welling. “But...but what kind of death...I pray you?”
She heard the jeers, the accusations, the thud of stones that made her mother drop and bleed. Margaret did not need to read on, for she knew what the answer was. Fire.
“Burn her to death,” they had shouted. “Rid our village of their evil.”
Tears spilled down Margaret’s cheeks as the wounds reopened and she relived the pain, remembering it all.
“Hush now.” Master Cyrus rested back in his chair. “You are safe, and you always will be, with me.”
Crying and gulping in distress, she found her vision misting.
“I do not want to remind you of your mother’s fate,” he said, after some time had passed. “You know that. But it is important that you understand why it happened.”
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “Why do they think these things about us?”
“It is ignorance and jealousy that lead people to do such things to a gifted, special one such as you.” His eyes flickered thoughtfully. “Fear of the power that you might have over them.” His brows lifted.
Maisie stared at him. He seemed pleased with her. Was it because she had been brave enough to read it all?
His eyes gleamed as he contemplated her. “I do not have your powers, my precious, but I respect them in you. You will not be harmed, not while I watch over you. That much I promise you.”
And she believed him.
“In time these laws will be revoked,” he added. “I have heard it spoken about amongst the important people, and there has been much written about the injustices that have taken place.” Cyrus’s mouth twitched into a smile. “And many people do not even believe witchcraft exists,” he added, “which suits us rather well, don’t you think?”
Margaret nodded, although deep down she wanted to disagree and state that she’d rather her kind were acknowledged. But she trusted Master Cyrus to guide and protect her. “I hope that you are right, that these laws will be altered.” She pushed the book away, resisting the urge to set it alight with a choice Pictish enchantment.
The lessons were hard, but she learned.
Acceptance, knowledge, caution and experience wove together in the fabric of her soul. She had been born into a line of folk who were different than most, and who must hide their skills. She accepted that. The more she read under Master Cyrus’s guidance, the more she understood, and the more wary and sheltered she became. So it was that Maisie Taskill grew into Margaret Lafayette, elegant, beautiful, educated and wary beyond her tender years, a girl who had earned her guardian’s approval.
When she was considered old enough, and Master Cyrus and Mama Beth introduced her to society, she found herself much admired. It was her thoughtful expression and her resigned gaze that she heard whispered about when she sharpened her hearing by magic. Some remarked she was gifted, that her intellect was said to be as sharp as a man’s, if not more so. The influence of her clever guardian, no doubt, they would surmise.
Her clever guardian watched on.
It was when she blossomed into young womanhood that Master Cyrus brought out his most precious tome on witchcraft—the book that told of the powers that could be sourced from the physical and emotional union of lovers.
As was their usual practice, they sat side by side at the heavy mahogany desk in his private library. The candlelight flickered as Master Cyrus set down the book he intended to study with her that night.
She looked at it curiously, for it was not leather bound, nor did it have a title page. Instead, the loose parchment pages were stitched together in a makeshift binding. The parchment was rough and heavy, and when Master Cyrus carefully turned the pages to the first words written, she saw they were hastily scribbled with an erratic hand.
The content startled her. It was about carnality.
She glanced at him in surprise.
“My feeling is that you are grown-up enough to study the most important subject of all, the gateway to your most powerful magic.”
She felt heat rise in her face, and could not force herself to meet his gaze again. Instead, she stared down at the document before her. She felt embarrassed because he meant for them to look at this together, and yet by some deep instinct she also knew what it contained and how significant it was. Memories whispered through her mind, memories of her mother’s words, and more.
“Why did you bring us here to the Lowlands?” her brother had asked their mother, when they were scorned for her pagan ways.
“Because we must find your father, for without him I am not complete,” she had replied.
“He’s not worth it, not if he abandoned us the way you said he did.” Lennox stomped off angrily, as he often did, frustrated that he carried the burden of an errant father. It was then that their mother had turned to Maisie and her twin, and confided to them a witch’s deepest secret.
“It is through our physical union with one another that magic is at its best. When you are grown women and you couple with your lover, you will become more powerful. You will learn more about these things soon, for I will tell you all you need to know.”
It was not from her mother that Maisie Taskill learned, though.
It was from Cyrus Lafayette.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “This is your destiny. You will be a woman and a witch fulfilled, and you must know these things and be ready for them...when the time comes.”
She stared down at the pages, heat burning her skin as she read the passionate words and descriptions, and studied the drawings of lovers entwined. She saw their desire and recognized the exaltation in their expressions as their lovemaking unleashed a new vitality in them. It made her blood heat and her heart yearn for completion.
The words and images were intensely stimulating, and she wanted to know more, but she also dreaded meeting Master Cyrus’s stare, for it embarrassed her that he was there while she read about such intimate things.
He did not leave her side, and the air became heavy with tension.
“If you wish to ask me questions, or discuss anything you read, you know you can.”
“Thank you.” She did not ask questions.
Thankfully he did not encourage her to read aloud, as he so often did.
Instead, she just read on silently, her emotions oddly skewed because she had been thrust into this subject matter while he observed her reactions intently, turning the pages for her as soon as she was ready.
Silently, she would lower her eyelids to the desk when she reached the end of a page, and he turned it to the next. There was no conversation, and she was glad of that, but she could feel the weight of his stare on her all the while, and her discomfort built.
When she reached the end of the document, he closed the book.
Turning her to him with his hand beneath her chin, he searched her face with blazing eyes.
Margaret could scarcely believe he looked at her that way, and a fresh rush of embarrassment took her, flaming into her face and making her squirm in her seat.
Master Cyrus did not pass comment, but his lips curled into a knowing smile, and for some reason it chilled her to the core.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Maisie watched the flex of the captain’s broad back as he rose from the bed.
His naked form was breathtaking.
She had never seen a naked man before that night. In illustrations, yes. She had seen drawings of the male body as part of her studies in witchcraft, but not a real man, not in real life.
Not only that, but his build was so much larger and sturdier than anyone she’d met in the limited but privileged circles in which she moved in London society. His strength must have come from his work aboard ship, she surmised, for his muscles were big and flexed readily as he moved. Many women would find him uncouth, but he stimulated a different reaction in Maisie—an urge to touch and explore his body. The suspicion that she would feel secure wrapped in those mighty arms also flitted through her thoughts. It was not a notion she had encountered before and she wondered at it. Her master had once made her feel safe, but that was with clever, twisted words, not comforting embraces and the vague hope of genuine loyalty that came from who knew where.
Loyalty? I have made that silly notion up in my head, because I crave a protector.
Again she eyed the captain, impressed by his male strength. The rest was but a dream. How easily she had fallen for Cyrus’s promises. It was a long time, too, that she had believed what turned out to be duplicity on his part. She must never allow herself such naivety again. Especially not with a man of the sea. I mustn’t, she told herself. This is merely a transaction of convenience for us both.
When her gaze dropped to the taut outline of his buttocks, she found that the view affected her in a decidedly carnal manner. It made her recall how she had clutched at his back, and the deeper he pushed within her, the lower her hands had roamed, until her nails were bedded in that fine posterior. At that very moment he turned around and caught her looking.
Blushing, she glanced away, but it was too late. Not only had she been caught, she had also caught sight of his cock. Even in its current indolent state it seemed spectacularly large to her, and she could scarcely believe she had survived it.
“You are not used to seeing a naked man,” he commented as he returned to the bed. In one hand he held a dish of water. In the other he had a folded cloth.
“No,” she responded, watching as he dipped the cloth into the water, then wrung it out in his hands. “I have never seen a man unclothed before now.”
Again her gaze was drawn to his starkly male form. What was it about his broad, shapely shoulders that made her hands ache to explore him? There was a dusting of burnished hair across his chest and it narrowed into a line that drew her eye down to his groin. The drawings she had seen in the books her guardian had given her to study about witchcraft and carnal rites never looked as enticing as the captain currently did. Seeing his potent masculinity—even in its dormant state—fascinated her. And he was unashamed. He wore his nudity like the finest cloak. Was it shipboard life that stripped him of any self-awareness or shame, or was he used to a woman admiring him the way Maisie was? Perhaps he enjoyed it.
“You are getting an eyeful now,” he said, with no small amount of humor.
Blushing once again, she looked pointedly at a spot on the wall beyond his head.
Tension arose between them, but how oddly stimulating it was. Like the tug of his ship’s anchor rope, it captured her attention. Peculiar though it was, it made Maisie want to spar with him. “I am curious about you. It is a natural instinct, is it not?”
He shrugged. “Look all you want.”
When she met his gaze again, she did so with astonishment and curiosity.
“I intend to get my fill of looking at you during our voyage to Dundee,” he clarified. “It is only fair.” With that statement he set the dish of water on the floor. Turning to face her, he raised the damp cloth in his hand to her groin.
Maisie gasped aloud when she realized it was his intention to bathe her—down there, where she had been so recently plundered. She shot out her hand, intending to stop him, but he stayed it with his free one and continued his ministrations with the other.
“Lie back. I will see to this.” His eyes twinkled.
Maisie balked. “No!”
“I will enjoy the task, believe me,” he promised with a chuckle.
That only served to deepen her embarrassment. “You cannot do such a task.”
“Oh, but I can.”
Then the firm swipe of the cold cloth on her sensitive mound distracted her from her argument with him, making her cry out and squirm against the surface of his bed.
He laughed again, a low rumble in his chest that both teased and inflamed her.
A dribble of cool water ran down into her niche, arousing her. She squeezed her thighs tight together, mortified. “I can see to it myself,” she murmured, weak with sensation, racked with embarrassment.
He shook his head.
Did he know that bathing her would affect her this way?
After dabbing at her mound, he squeezed the bunched cloth between her locked thighs, prizing them open.
Pressing her head back into the mattress, Maisie covered her mouth with the back of her wrist. How delicious it felt, but how wrong. The two wildly conflicting reactions confused her, for they made her feel hot, lusty and liable to do something she regretted.
When she dared to look at Captain Cameron again
she could see he was indeed enjoying it. His mouth was pursed in a half smile, his eyelids lowered as he eased apart her legs and stroked the damp cloth over her inner thighs. Maisie whimpered when she realized he was looking directly at her splayed flesh. Every part of her was on display to him, and he was studying her intently. His expression was brooding, pleasured and intense. He clearly approved of what he saw.
The fact he was looking at her that way made her chest feel tight and breathless, as if a weight pressed down upon her. Yet it was pleasurable. Again she was astonished at the effect his intimacy had on her. Not only was she rapidly aroused once again, but she felt almost dizzy because of it.
Her mind flashed to what could have happened, how different proceedings would have been if it had been Cyrus who had deflowered her. It would have been awful, of that she was sure, because she could not think of him that way, even though it was what he wanted. In contrast, mating with Captain Roderick Cameron made her feel stronger in every way. She thanked nature for playing a part, for landing her in his charge, when all she had to offer was herself.
Much to her astonishment, she realized her legs shifted farther apart of their own accord, her body responding to him without censure. She covered her eyes with her hand, unable to bear witness. Control was gone, reason, too.
The captain only took advantage of her opening legs, pushing the cloth against her plump folds and then swiping it up and down. When her body arched, then fell supine, it was because he had extended a finger beneath the cloth and probed her entrance.
Clutching at the thin blanket that covered the mattress beneath her, she tried to calm herself. It was no good. His ministrations were about to make her lose her last vestige of self-control.
“Oh, please,” she begged, pleading for mercy.
“More?”
She shook her head, adamant. “No, I did not mean that.”
But it was too late. He was moving his finger inside her as if testing her.
Her spirit flared. “You embarrass me, sire, and I sense you are enjoying it!”
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