The Libertine (22 page)

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.”

Their leader rolled his eyes.

Lennox observed intently. It would appear the woman they sought
had given them a runaround. Despite his caution and his increasing need to know
who she was, that pleased him. He had to usher these men on their way, fast.
Summoning his deepest reserves he whispered under his breath, evoking the
elements. Within moments the sky darkened, clouds moving in from behind him.
Thunder cracked overhead.

“We have bigger worries,” the man said, looking at the sky.
Looking at Lennox he added, “Be on your way quickly and be wary of a couple on
foot.” With that he gestured at his men and they headed off back to the ridge
beyond, where Lennox spied their mounts.

Lennox rose to his feet, dusting himself off and taking his
time about it. The soldiers mounted and the leader directed them back toward
Cupar. As he’d hoped, the threat of poor weather had sent them back the way
they’d come. When one of the soldiers looked back, Lennox raised a hand then
headed toward Shadow. Mounting, he set off quickly. Once he arrived at the ridge
he paused and watched them gallop into the distance. He wanted to go back, but
not until he was sure he would not lead them to her. There was a tight knot in
his chest. It was born of hope. When he attempted to quash it, to allay the
potential disappointment, he could not.

Only when he was sure the men would not return, he looped back
and returned to the spot by the brook. Dismounting, he stood and waited. Hoping
all the while—willing it to be Jessie.

If the woman wanted to come out, she would surely know she was
safe in his company. Perhaps not. Not all members of the coven he knew well had
the same level of skills he did, in fact they each had different abilities. He
stood his ground because he had to know her identity. Even if it were not
Jessie, he wanted to warn the woman of the direction they took, but he did not
want to frighten her by stomping over there and hauling her out. If she came out
of her own accord, he could reassure her.

“Those who hunt you have gone,” he called out, “you are safe
now.”

A figure emerged and peered across at him, a young woman.

Lennox felt her scrutiny, and it was so intense the hairs on
the back of his neck lifted. Her head and shoulders were swathed in a dark shawl
that obscured her features. Nevertheless a connection, deep and undeniable,
flared across the space between them. He opened his mouth to ask her name, but
found he could not speak.

“You...” Her voice faltered. “You are Lennox Taskill, are you
not?”

The sound of his family name spoken aloud made Lennox’s heart
stall. Outside of his coven, only his sisters would know that.

A tall man emerged behind the woman. He attempted to block her,
his arm in front of her causing her to pause. “Jessie, be careful.”

Jessie.
Lennox felt as if he’d lost
touch with the ground beneath his feet—that he might stumble and fall. It truly
was Jessie.

The woman shook her head at her companion. “Do not fear. He is
brethren, I sensed it.”

She took a few tentative steps forward and then removed the
dark shawl that she had wrapped around her head. She lifted her chin.

Lennox inhaled sharply. For several moments he thought he was
looking at the ghost of his dead mother.

“Jessie?” He spoke his sister’s name gruffly, for he was
overwhelmed at the sight of her.

She nodded then broke into a run, hurling herself into his
arms.

Lennox clutched her against him, his vision blurring as he felt
her real and solid—alive and safe—in his embrace. Staring down at his young
sibling, he could scarcely believe the woman she had become. “Is it truly
you?”

“It is.”

“You escaped them in Dundee. I went there.”

“Aye, a week or more since. Gregor here freed me.”

Lennox looked beyond her at her companion. The man had followed
and stood close by, observing, one hand wrapped around the hilt of an ornate
handled dagger.

Lennox returned his attention to Jessie. “Maisie, is she with
you?”

Jessie shook her head. “I have not seen her, not since...that
day.”

She did not say more, but Lennox read it in her face.

Not since their mother had been hanged and burned before their
very eyes.

* * *

It was not easy to recapture the intervening years for
one another, but Jessie’s companion left them alone while he went in search of
provisions. In the shelter of the rocky enclave they became brother and sister
again. When Lennox quizzed Jessie about her life during the intervening years he
found himself both fraught with anxiety and lost in admiration for her tenacity
and her ability to survive the harsh reality of her young life. For his part, he
kept things simple, but Jessie seemed equally awed that he had escaped the
attempt to silence him forever, returned to the Highlands, then made his way
back, intent on finding them. When he told her about his current mission in
Edinburgh, she smiled.

He reached into his pocket and drew out the two magical charms
he had crafted from wood and kept for his sisters. “I have carried these many
years, for I made them when we were first parted.”

He held out his hand, gesturing. “Keep it with you always. Hold
it to your heart if you need me and I will come to your side.”

Jessie looked down at the objects in his hand, and then took
one, studying it. “I feel your magic. You’re most gifted, brother.”

“I have had years to learn, and knowledgeable people around me,
a coven of my own.”

For a moment she rested her fingers over the second charm and
he felt her yearning for her twin. Then she tucked her own into her bodice and
smiled at him.

“Was there never anyone for you?” From the information he had
gleaned, it seemed that she had always been alone.

“Until Gregor. Sometimes I wondered about people, but I was too
afraid to ask them, after what I saw.”

It tortured Lennox to think of her so lonely, in a time and
place that did not accept their beliefs. “That will never be the case
again.”

Jessie stared down at his open palm.

Lennox closed it, pocketing the second charm. “You and Maisie
were so close,” he commented. “Do you ever feel anything of her?”

Jessie nodded. “Not often, but there are times when I feel how
far away she is, and she longs to find us as much as we crave to find her.”

“The villagers who kept you said nothing?”

“No. No one would even answer me if I spoke of my family.” She
fell silent awhile, and Lennox saw how hard her life had been, and for a long
while. “I did see the carriage that took her, when they finally let us down from
the pillars outside the Kirk.”

“A carriage?” Lennox’s attention sharpened.

“Aye. It was a fancy affair, with a crest on the door.”

“Would you recall the crest if you were shown it?”

Jessie’s forehead creased. “Possibly.”

“Several members of my coven are wainwrights. We had good trade
in Saint Andrews these past two years. It might be possible to study a record of
crests, once we are all safe and can give the subject some time.”

“Oh, Lennox, that would be grand.”

“Keep the image of the crest in your thoughts and we’ll find a
way.” The priority was to get everyone to safety in the Highlands, but there was
a slender chance there and he could see Jessie’s yearning, the hope that they
might find her twin. Lennox could scarcely imagine how hard it must have been
for her. They were inseparable as children. He’d assumed them together all these
years, with each other for comfort.

By the time the man she called Gregor Ramsay returned from a
nearby village with provisions, they knew the important events of each other’s
lives and how they both came to be at this spot where their paths had
crossed.

“Jessie tells me you are a seafaring man,” Lennox said, as her
companion shared out bannocks and cheese.

“I was.” The man seemed not to want to say more on the
subject.

Lennox eyed him with curiosity. There was a tightly packed
bundle that he kept close at his side, and Lennox sensed it was of great value.
The man had a scarred face, and yet he was not cowed by it, nor did he try to
hide it. How had he come by the wound, Lennox wondered, wary of the man’s sway
over his sister.

Jessie ate heartily, which encouraged Lennox to eat, too.

“We will come to Edinburgh with you,” Jessie stated. “We can
help you find your Chloris.” She smiled at Lennox.

“You cannot go to Edinburgh,” the man called Gregor Ramsay
insisted. “We take the road north.” He directed his next words at Lennox. “Where
Jessie is safe and unknown.”

Lennox did not argue with him because the man was correct in
what he said.

He was not sure he liked the man, though. Neither was this
Mister Ramsay one of their kind, although he seemed to have accepted it in
Jessie, as Chloris had in him. It affected him oddly because the sight of these
two together made him think even more about his relationship with Chloris, and
how they might manage together, despite their differences. They would make it
work.

Nevertheless it was not what he’d wanted for his sisters. They
held beliefs that meant they would be safest with a Witch Master, someone who
would not be afraid of them and would not turn on them. He thought of the young
men in his coven, strong, loyal young men. This man, Gregor Ramsay, had
knowledge and wisdom in his eyes, something he saw in those who traveled to
faraway places, but Lennox was not sure of him yet.

“Nonsense,” Jessie retorted. “My brother needs our help and I
am not known in Edinburgh.”

Lennox shook his head. “Your companion is right in what he
says. You should be on your way north. I was in Dundee two days ago, I went to
the tolbooth. I spoke to people there. The hunt goes on. They want your blood.”
As much as they will all want mine in Saint Andrews by
now,
he thought, realizing it was well after noon and Keavey’s men
had likely breached the warding spells set for them.

Mister Ramsay looked concerned. “They did not realize you were
Jessie’s brother when you asked after her?”

Lennox shook his head. “No. I invented a tale to cover my
queries. But they are still looking for you, not just those three who we sent
off earlier, but many more.”

A shadow passed briefly across Jessie’s expression and her lips
parted, but she did not speak for a moment. When she did it was only to insist
that she help him. “Aye, we know they are not far behind us.”