The Jezebel (7 page)

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!”

“You think so?” With his free hand he pinned her down at the collarbone, stemming the rise and fall of her torso, and then he glanced at her hips, still moving rhythmically in response to his touch.

“You are a beast,” she blurted, then instantly regretted it.

“Perhaps I am, but I am not blind. I can see you are enjoying it, no matter what you say.” With that he set about stroking her with even more deliberation. Abandoning the cloth, he extended one finger inside her and then rubbed at her swollen nub with his thumb.

“Oh, oh, oh, I cannot allow it....” Her words trailed off.

The rhythmic movement of his thumb while his hard finger was inside her was a dangerous combination, one made to drive a woman mad. Maisie’s body tightened at the intrusion, her hips rocking as he stroked his thumb back and forth. It was a fleeting, almost feathery touch, and it made her throb with want. His actions tormented her, yet drew her close to a rapid release.

She reached out blindly, catching at his arm while she lifted her hips to meet his hand. Pleasure washed through her in a dense, hot wave, and for a moment the clutch and spill of her release made her feel faint. Panting for breath, she felt her body grow limp. It was astonishing, and she relished the way the heat seemed to reach every part of her. Minutes later, she found she was still clutching his arm. Reluctantly, she loosened her grip.

“Apparently you can allow it,” he teased.

There was humor in his expression and it reached her, warming her. Breathlessly, she accused, “You have the advantage of knowing how to touch a woman.”

His expression grew more serious. “I did not believe you were a novice, for which I apologize. I’m sorry, too, for my rough handling of you, my demands.”

“Did not believe?” She repeated his words, confused, barely able to speak because the sensations he had aroused in her were so oddly invigorating. Her body tingled, and the source of her magic, deep within, felt freshly stoked.

“That you truly were a virgin.”

She was not offended, for her virginity had become an immense burden to her, but she did not understand his confusion. She had stated her condition quite honestly to him. “Why didn’t you believe me?”

“Virgins do not appear so wise nor so wily, nor do they brazenly offer themselves to complete strangers.”

Maisie considered his words. What he said was most likely true, for most young women. She was not like them, but if she had been she supposed she would have thought differently on the matter. She did not have many friends amongst her own age group, having been brought up in a very particular and controlled world, but she knew that a girl’s maidenhood was what gained her a good marriage. “I had no other choice.”

The captain wrapped his hand around one of her thighs. “I’m sorry for that.”

“Don’t be. My virginity was a burden to me.” The words were out before she considered how strange they would sound to him.

He cocked his head, looking at her as if she were not in full possession of her faculties.

It seemed necessary to offer an explanation. “It was of value to someone who...who wanted to use me in ways I could not endure.”

She could say no more.

He reached out and cupped her face. “You have enjoyed this?”

She knew what he was asking, and nodded. He wanted to be sure
he
was not using her in ways she could not endure. He seemed to be a decent man. No doubt he would think her a fallen woman, probably had done since the moment she approached him. It had not discouraged him, though. In fact his kindness toward her now that he knew the truth of it touched her deeply. Maisie had known the protection of a man, a guardian, but she had never been in a position such as this, where a man who knew nothing about her treated her as a lusty, desirable woman, then cared for her in the aftermath.

Was this how it was between a man and woman?

She did not want to consider such things. It had been important that a stranger take her virginity because she didn’t want to be bound to someone who knew of her ways and knew how the carnal act would enrich her. Neither could she risk becoming attached to a man. She was vulnerable to that, being accustomed to a sheltered existence. She had taken her first steps along the path to independence and she would need to gird herself and be strong if she was to continue all the way to the Highlands. This man was merely someone she had done a trade with, nothing more.

“I would not enjoy it, if you did not,” he whispered. Then he smiled and lowered his head to her groin, where he placed a kiss upon the cleansed flesh of her mound.

Maisie leaped at the touch, then almost fainted away.

As if that kiss was not startling enough, he then proceeded to lick and tease her sensitive folds with his tongue. She cried out, not only from surprise, but from the dizzying pleasure that his actions caused. He ran his tongue over her intimate places, licked, stroked and sucked on her exposed folds with slow deliberation, and then pushed his tongue inside, lapping at her entrance.

Maisie writhed on the bed, driven to distraction by his attentions. She felt wildly empowered, yet exposed and trapped, all at once. The way his tongue explored her had her nub swollen and pounding again. She felt hot and weak, and as if her whole body was being drawn into the spot he currently lavished with openmouthed kisses.

Never had she felt more alive than she did this night, in his bed.

“You are delicious,” he said as he lifted his head to look at her.

Eyeing him with curiosity, she had to ask. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I wanted to.” His mouth quirked. “You enjoyed it, did you not?”

It wasn’t as if she could deny it. She nodded.

Glancing down, she saw that his cock was fully ready for her, long and hard and bowed up from his hips, the crown touching the hard, flat surface of his belly as he arched over her. Inside, her body rippled and clenched, reacting to the sight of his male virility.

“Instinct is a great thing, and when it leads to mutual pleasure I see no reason to deny such urges.”

Recognition pumped through Maisie. Whether he knew it or not he’d tapped into her true essence, because it was one of the fundamental beliefs of her kind. Passion was deeply connected to nature, and those who welcomed and explored it would be gifted with its bounty. The lingering embarrassment she felt was only because it was all new to her, but deep down she knew it was right and true.

Passion bound them to nature, and to each other.

Her breathing hitched.

She must not be bound to any man. That was why it had to be a stranger. The captain was a passionate man, a worthy man. Luck had been on her side. Meanwhile, at her center, her body ached for him again, the tenderized flesh freshly slick with wanting. Meshing her fingers in his thick hair, she did not attempt to resist calling him closer, inviting him to take her again. “Please,” she whispered. “Let us be as one again.”