The Libertine (13 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

As spring came into full bloom and the foliage in the
glens became more colorful and plentiful, their illicit meetings became a daily
occurrence. Despite the danger, Lennox was completely bound up in Chloris, more
absorbed with her than he had ever been with any woman. He woke every day before
dawn broke, his body eager and ready for her. Images of her writhing beneath
him, moaning like a wanton as he gave her his length, made him instantly hard,
fueling his blood with fire as he made his way to the meeting spot and awaited
her arrival.

Under the continued guise of an early morning ride Chloris
would meet him in the forest. Sometimes it would scarcely be enough for him, and
he was often tempted to go to her at night again, risking discovery for a taste
of her—just to feel her relinquish herself to him, her body becoming supple in
his embrace. It was hard, but he restricted himself to their morning meetings.
Sometimes she would ask him to reinforce his ritual magic for the sake of her
fertility. More often than not she would just run into his arms and they would
be entwined as one.

As time went by Lennox found he grew increasingly concerned in
the moments before her arrival in the forest. It was not that he was afraid she
would not come. He knew with full certainty that she would. However, he did not
want their illicit rendezvous to be discovered. Upsetting Keavey had been his
primary aim. At first he had relished the image of Keavey discovering that his
precious cousin had offered herself to the local Witch Master. Not once, but
repeatedly.

As time went by Lennox wasn’t ready for that to occur. There
was too much pleasure to be had—to be shared. It wasn’t how it started, but
Lennox soon found that he wanted all of her. To touch her, taste and hold her
forever locked in his embrace. So while he waited for her to arrive each morning
he sought her out, glad when he saw her riding his way, always eager to lose
himself between her soft, silken thighs. She’d made him come alive when he was
weary of life, weary of fighting for a doomed cause and forever hunting for lost
brethren. Chloris had given him something else. At first he thought it a
momentary, sensory distraction. He simply could not get enough of her and fully
intended to slake his lust for her repeatedly before this thing ended. Then he
realized that she affected him in a deeper, more resonant way.

Somehow his involvement with Chloris was making him think more
deeply about the driving forces in his life, and how much he owed those around
him. It had been a long slow battle, and his search for respectability for the
people he was responsible for was taking too long. Too many innocents had been
put to death in the Lowlands. Glenna and Lachie were right. They should have
taken to the North, to the Highlands and safety there, years before. He was
torn, though, because he might never find his sisters if he moved his people
north. He had thrust roots down here in Fife in order to find his sisters, and
he had become part of the fabric of the place. It wasn’t his birthplace. He’d
been born in the Highlands, taken Fingal as his name after the place that was
his true home.

The burden carried by the Taskills was not easily shrugged off.
His mother had led them south to find their father. An ill-destined journey it
had been. Their kin in the Highlands warned them against it, but his mother was
a stubborn sort. To her detriment. In the Lowlands their craft was feared and
shunned. Witches and healers were put to death, stoned and burned for their
craft. Their mother became one of them.

He’d been split from his sisters, bound and gagged and thrown
in an old stone quarry where he’d been left to die. But anger kept him alive. He
used his craft and his wits to survive and fight his way out. The need to spite
those who damned him was great, but it was also foolhardy, for he knew it might
bring punishment or death to his sisters. Hollow and defeated he let his feet
lead him, seeking work and food along the way, until he was back in the safe
haven of the Highlands.

His mother’s sister and his cousins had nursed him back to
health, gentle people who lived with their hearts tied to the land and seasons.
They sighed and fretted over what had returned to them, for Lennox Taskill had
been a broken youth.

When he grew well he watched and waited for Jessie and Maisie,
but his twin sisters were too young. Their feet would not know the way home as
his had done. Within the year he was back in the Lowlands, his mission to find
his sisters. First he returned to the place where his mother had been put to
death, faced it, allowing the sorry memories to stoke his will to survive—and to
help others of their kind to survive. He discovered that Jessie had been kept
there in the village in the charge of the schoolmaster, until she’d broken free
of her owners and run. Of Maisie there was no word at all. Vanished. Both of
them. All these years later and he was still trying to find them.

Establishing himself in Saint Andrews, he’d forged a bond with
others of his kind, people who became his new family, people who watched out for
him as he did them. Most of them had been born in Fife and they had helped him
settle there. However, there was a part of him that would always belong to the
Highlands, for he had been born there and all his childhood spent there,
learning the old ways under his mother’s guidance. Moving south had brought
nothing but trouble, but it was hard to break with the hunt for Jessica and
Margaret.

Scotland was on the cusp of immense change. He felt it, but he
could not clearly discern its direction. There was some resistance building to
the persecution of witches. That gave him hope. But how long until the change
came, and would people like Tamhas Keavey ever accept it? His coven was eager to
find the safe haven, and they trusted him. What of his sisters? If they were
alive would they have headed north, too, homeward bound? No word had come from
Fingal, so Lennox had to assume they were still lost to him and the Taskill
family.

They would be nineteen now, young women. How he longed to know
what had become of them. Every few weeks he traveled the land, whenever he heard
mention of strange goings-on, whispers about witchcraft and women who were
gifted. He sensed that his sisters may not have had the opportunity to hide
themselves in the community and live a life where they could conceal their
craft, or to use it to help others.

He thought on it while he guided his horse through the
woodlands toward the bluebell glen. Looking across the landscape he ached for
stability, for kin. A woman like Chloris in his bed every night? Yes, that,
too.

She was waiting for him, which chased away the darkest of the
memories, if only for a while. He climbed down from his saddle and let Shadow
roam free.

As Lennox approached, he gazed at her. Even though her eyes
were wide and she was nervous, her inner strength drew him—everything about her
called on him, and it was an intoxicating and unique experience.

The way her hair was pinned close to her head immediately made
him want to pull it free of the lace cap that held it there, in order to watch
as it fell over her shoulders. Her pale blue gown was simple, and yet everything
about it emphasized her softness, her vulnerability. The stiff bodice was hard
and unyielding, which only drew his gaze to the swell of her bosom at its edge.
Her skirts were not overly full, unlike some of the wealthy women in Saint
Andrews, but the folds gathered below the waist served to emphasize her
elegance, her womanly poise. The lace at her cuffs drew his attention to her
wrists, and then he noticed how she clasped and unclasped her fingers as he grew
close. She was eager for him.

She smiled his way as he approached.

“You grow more beautiful with each passing day.”

“And you grow ever more charming, but I am wise to your wily
ways.” Her smile was teasing.

“It is the truth.”

“You have made me happy,” she added.

“I am pleased to know that.”

“I believe your rituals have brought it about.”

“As they are meant to.”

“I do not refer only to the changes in my...womanly state,” she
said, blushing endearingly, “but in other ways, too.” Her eyes took on a distant
look, as if she were thinking.

“How so?”

“My memories of my family...they used to be dark and unhappy,
tied as they were to the end days when the illness came. More recently I think
of the happy times, before then.” She lifted one shoulder. “I do not understand
why, but it is a good thing and I thank you for that.”

He found her comments pleased him, unaccountably so. He did not
like to think of her having only dark memories about her loved ones. He knew
that state far too well. Craving her, he took her into his arms and kissed
her.

Her hands roving his chest beneath his jacket instantly roused
him. When her fingers brushed his bare skin where his shirt was open at the
neck, he put his finger under her chin and looked down into her eyes. “Come, let
me undress you. It is warm today and I have longed to hold you in my arms naked,
skin to skin.”

“No.” Her expression altered. “Someone might pass.”

“No one ever passes by.”

“I do not wish to undress.”

He cocked his head to one side. “That does not bode well.”

“Why ever not?” Chloris shifted one foot, nudging a rock with
her booted toe.

He was teasing her, they both knew that, but still he wondered
about her hesitance. “Because my magic and our encounters have emboldened you as
a woman, as a lover, and yet you will not be brave enough to undress before
me.”

“But I
am
emboldened.”

Lennox responded by folding his arms across his chest and
offering her an expectant smile.

“I can engage with you,” she insisted, “and I enjoy everything
we have shared.”

“I would hope so, but how emboldened are you?”

Her pretty mouth lifted. “You challenge me, sire?”

He nodded. “What is it that you want from me today?”

His demanding question appeared to let something loose in her,
for she cast down her eyelids but not before he caught the mischief in her eyes.
“It is too hard to speak it aloud.”

“Show me.” With his fingertips he encouraged her, stroking over
her skin from throat to the edge of her gown.

She responded visibly, her bosom swelling as her breathing
quickened. “Have you put a suggestion in my mind by magic?”

“No.” He laughed softly. “But now I am even more eager to learn
your thoughts, since you think I should take the blame for them.”

“I want you.”
With one hand on his
shoulder she nodded at the ground.

He arched an eyebrow at her, then dropped to his knees.

She hitched up her skirts, revealing her legs, blushing
delightfully as she did so.

“You truly have become wanton.”

“Under your spell, yes.”

It made him proud to hear her say that, but was that accusation
he saw in her eyes? It was, but there was humor there, too. She had entranced
him, too. Unruly passion built in him, his cock painfully hard for her.

Pausing barely a moment, she pushed him over onto his back and
then stood over him with one booted foot on either side of his hips. She lifted
her skirts and petticoats in order to straddle him.

“Ah, I see.” He ran his hands around her stockings where they
were tied with ribbons above her knees. She truly was attempting to show him how
bold she could be.

She put one hand on her hip. “Are you outraged?”

“Intrigued, perhaps.”

Her cheeks were flushed. Then she lowered herself over him,
knees on either side of his thighs. Her skirt billowed out around them, her warm
inner thighs a tantalizing weight against him, and so close to the straining
erection inside his breeches.

“As I am intrigued by you.” She tugged his shirt free of his
breeches and pushed it up, baring his chest.

He rose to assist, amused by her actions. Casting the shirt
aside, he arched one eyebrow expectantly. She stared at him for a long moment,
and then began to stroke his chest, her touch inquisitive.

Lennox rested back on the ground. The pungent aroma of
bluebells and moss and pollen rose all around them. She ran her fingertips over
his skin, and Lennox felt more than just the stimulation, he felt the bond
between them needling beneath his skin as she explored. A rich swell of fertile
magic bedded in him, and he marveled at how potent their connection was. It
strengthened his magic. That was irrevocable. Carnal congress always did, but
not like this. With Chloris everything about the experience was enhanced and
magnified.

She bent and kissed his chest, her tongue tasting his skin.

Lennox grumbled. “You’re making me impatient for you.”

She chuckled, her eyes flashing as she looked up at him from
the place where she currently tended to him, kissing the hard line of his
muscled rib cage as she moved lower to where his cock strained to be inside
her.

“It is good to see you so emboldened, Mistress Chloris.”

“Do not call me mistress or you will disarm me, and I know what
I want.”

He glanced down at her hand, where she fumbled with his belt.
“That you do.”

When his cock bowed out, free from the restraint of his
clothing, she clasped it in her soft hand. For a brief moment Lennox had to
close his eyes and think of something else in order not to come undone too
quickly.

He could not resist watching her for long, however.

A possessive look shone in her eyes as she stroked his length.
How good it would be to see her riding him, and he felt sure that was her
intention. Her fingertips touched him tentatively at first, then she grasped him
firmly and stroked him up and down while she bent to kiss his swollen crown.

“Chloris,” he warned when her tongue made contact with his
skin.