The Jezebel

by Saskia Walker

  That seemed to please him immensely. He paused to look down at the place where her breasts swelled up from her corset, and she realized her nipples had ridden above the edge of her bodice. It looked lewd to her, but the captain only grinned and bent to run his tongue over the hard pink tips that had been revealed. It felt achingly good—not only in her breasts, but all through her, from her nipples to the pit of her belly.

  “I cannot wait long enough to undress you, but I will, before the second turn.”

  The second turn?

  With that pronouncement he rearranged his position, then reached down and moved his fingers into her folds, stroking them into her entrance. With a deeply satisfied sigh, he nodded. “I want to be inside you badly. It must be done and now.”

  She closed her eyes a moment when he directed his rigid manhood to that place, pressing it against her. He coaxed the head of his erection up and down over her entrance, coating it in her juices. That only made her want it more. No matter how big, she had to have him inside her. “The way you touch me...” She rolled her head and then stared at him, captured by the desire in his expression. Her own body echoed it, craving him. “Use me, make me yours.”

  He growled at her words.

  That triggered something between them, something that felt untamed and right. Every part of her clamored for him.

  With one hand he stroked up and down the length of his shaft, squeezing a drop of dew from its tip. She swore and closed her eyes when she caught sight of its size again, her body clenching. It was too large, too hard. Surely it would injure her! But she did not have time to deny it, for he eased it into her opening.

  The sudden push, stretch and fullness at her entrance captured her senses fully. “Oh!”

  He pressed on.

  Stretching her to capacity, he plundered her in ways she could not have imagined. Pain flashed through her and she felt hot fluids running onto the bed. She cried out. Her innermost flesh contracted and she tried to pull away.

  The captain lifted his head and stared at her in surprise. “It was true, you really have not...?”

  “Of course it was true,” she blurted, her vision misting.

  He paused, but did not withdraw. Instead, his jaw turned to rock, his hands firm on her hips as she struggled against him.

  “Oh, oh!” she cried. “It is too much.”

  “Hush. Hold tight, my lady, it will pass.” Slowly, inexorably slowly, he eased back. “You are plenty wet enough to receive me. I will go slowly for as long as I can.”

  With that promise he worked his length inside her again, measure by measure.

  Through the pain, rapture sprang from the place where they met. Maisie lifted her eyelids and looked at him in wonder.

  “Better?”

  She nodded, forcing herself to take a deep breath. The rigid bulk of his cock was hot and throbbing against her tender flesh, but she could tell he was holding back, waiting for her to get used to his presence there. Thankful for his care, she wrapped her hands around his shoulders and rocked her hips, getting the measure of him and the way they fitted together. Then she found that she could clasp his hardness within, welcoming him.

  “Ah,” he said, through gritted teeth, “now it is me who is nearly come apart.” The muscles in his neck were rigid with restraint. “Go steady or I will not be able to hold back.”

  She nodded again. “Show me,” she whispered, encouraging him to lead the way.

  His eyes gleamed. Needing no further encouragement, he moved his hips, pulled back and then plunged deep, an action he repeated immediately, over and over again, until Maisie thought she might faint from the pressure he built there at the pit of her belly.

  “Yes, oh, yes,” she murmured, nearly delirious under him.

  Pleasure and power welled inside her, its intensity threatening to overwhelm her. “Please,” she whispered, begging for something she wasn’t sure of.

  “Eager again now,” he commented with humor. “I like that.”

  The need inside her was feverish and her hips rocked to meet his as she sought her release. It shocked her how it took charge, how driven by instinct they both became.

  The captain pulled out almost fully, before returning again to thrust her into a frenzy of anticipation and pleasure. The muscles in his arms gleamed in the candlelight as he rose up and drove into her with fierce determination. The more she moaned, the faster he thrusted, as if trying to tip her into madness.

  Sheer ecstasy poured through her. Each time he thrust she moaned aloud, the force of their joining swamping her with ebullient emotions. The well of her magic was full to overflowing, and soon it would be visibly reflected in her eyes. To avert that she loosened her hands and let some of the energy escape from her fingertips into the air around them, creating a tremor in the cabin. The candle in the lantern fizzed and popped, and the captain glanced at it, but did not break his stride. He’d shifted, though, and the pressure of his body against hers—inside and out—made her grip her hands around his back again, holding tight to him, for she felt she might drown in pleasure. A garbled plea caught in her throat. Heat flamed in her groin, and her juices flowed even more readily.

  “Ah, now, that is pleasure incarnate,” he gasped.

  His shaft seemed to get harder still, then she felt it jerk, and he pulled free. Rolling to one side, he erupted in his fist, which he continued to pump up and down for several moments after, enthralling her.

  When he saw her watching, he seemed pleased.

  He kissed her mouth, then rose to clean himself.

  When he returned, he began to undress her.

  Dizzy with pleasure, but eager to do the appropriate thing, Maisie half sat, giving him access to her laces.

  “You have undressed women before?” she murmured.

  “No, but it appears to be a similar mess to a tangle of rigging, and I’ve always had a knack with unraveling that.”

  That made her laugh, and when she glanced back over her shoulder at him, he smiled her way. Now that they had uncoupled she felt strangely adrift, but the way he undressed her, with care and attention, soothed her. Even so, she was embarrassed when he bared her fully.

  He encouraged her to climb beneath the cover on the bed, then he carried her gown and under things to the map table, where he deposited them.

  Joining her under the cover, he rested on his side, propped on one elbow to study her, observing her even more closely than he had before. Reluctant admiration shone in his eyes.

  Maisie saw curiosity there, too. She had impressed him.

  It hadn’t been her intention. This whole endeavor was a means to an end for Maisie, her virginity a trinket that she had to be rid of, for all it was worth to her keeper. Being admired wasn’t something she was unaccustomed to, however. She had spent so long being nurtured by Cyrus Lafayette, cocooned safely—or so she thought—in his worldly arena, that she had grown used to being watched and admired by a man.

  When she looked at her lover she realized that what she saw in his eyes was very different. Admiration, yes. But he knew nothing of her secret talents, and he was admiring her as a woman, a woman who had apparently satisfied his lust.

  That did surprise her. As much as she knew what she was doing by offering herself to him, and why, she did not expect that she would enjoy it herself—and she had, immensely. Nor did she expect the man she had chosen by default, in exchange for her passage to Dundee, to seem so thoroughly sated and pleasured by her company.

  “There is one thing I do not understand.” He considered her, his gaze encompassing her body, stretched upon his bunk, as he spoke. “It is true that you have not lain with a man before—that much is plain to see.”

  He paused and lifted the cover, the look in his eyes brooding as he considered her intimate womanly flesh at the juncture between her thighs, so freshly invaded by his rigid manhood, and the lingering streaks of blood on her inner thighs.

  Maisie trembled. Every sensation she had experienced—from pleasure
to pain, and back again into ecstasy—was so close in her physical memory that when he looked at her that way it ran through her flesh like myriad lightning strikes. How strange that was, that she had been so thoroughly affected by him. Maisie marveled at it, her heart racing as she contemplated the intense pleasure that had been borne out of the pain.

  “How is it then,” he continued as he lowered the cover, “that you seem to be so skilled, that you know so much about giving yourself willingly, and pleasuring a man?” He asked the question in a forthright manner, as seemed to be his way.

  But how was she to answer? The explanation would sound strange to anyone she might offer it to, and she would not blame a man for not believing it.

  A virgin who was highly educated about fornication.

  It was little wonder his brow was so furrowed. Maisie could not give her answer aloud. Instead, she rose up to kiss his firm, masculine mouth, in order to distract him.

  It is because I was taught everything I would ever need to know by my guardian, my keeper, and that included detailed study of the nature of physical congress and all it can bring for a woman such as I.

  CHAPTER SIX

  At his wife’s request Cyrus Lafayette allowed “young Margaret” several weeks to grow accustomed to her new life in their Islington home before he began her education. Even though her guardian waited for her to settle in, Maisie could tell he was impatient. He wanted her instruction to begin. She soon discovered that her education was of great importance to Cyrus, although it was not until she was much older that she fully understood the reasons why.

  The Lafayette house was large and overwhelming, and it took some time for Margaret to think of it as her home. The hallways were filled with sculptures and paintings, and the many rooms each had a different purpose, unlike the small croft cottage in which she had spent her infancy, and later the rented room she and her siblings had shared with their mother in the Lowlands. Maisie’s favorite place was the garden, where she felt closer to nature, but also safe, because of the high walls that surrounded it and kept it private. There were mulberry and crab apple trees, and neatly planted borders either side of the path. Cyrus often reminded her that she was safe inside those walls, indicating that would not be the case if she ventured beyond.

  Margaret learned that the house was located in London, close to the cabinet where Cyrus was known as an influential government orator, and near the fashionable coffeehouses where he engaged in intellectual discourse with other important men. In those ostentatious environs Cyrus discussed subject matter for many of the articles he wrote on important issues of the time, essays that were circulated far and wide in books and then pamphlets and newspapers.

  The passage of time did settle her, eventually, and it helped that the Lafayette household was run with strict routine, according to the master’s instructions, the servants and the mistress of the house following his orders without fail. So it was that Maisie adopted their strange but somehow comforting regimen. As the Lafayette ward, she did not want for anything, and that was strange, for it was very far from what she had known in her life before. The horrific memory of witnessing her mother’s death made her lower her gaze and be grateful that she and her siblings had been spared. During this time she did not even dare to think of her magic, let alone use it, lest her saviors cast her out to face a death like her mother’s.

  Almost everything of a feminine nature was introduced to her life by Mama Beth. It was the master of the house who took control of her education—and through that, ultimately, took control of her.

  “Young lady.” He beckoned her over one evening before Mama Beth and the upstairs maid prepared her for bed. “You must begin your classes tomorrow.”

  Maisie instinctively went to his side, nerves building within her as she grew concerned about his meaning.

  When she stood beside his winged armchair, he took her hand in his. “If you are to become a proper young lady you must learn about the world.” He looked at her with a searching gaze, his opaque eyes shrewd, his black hair shot through here and there with gray strands, drawing her attention, for he didn’t wear a wig in the informal setting of his home. “Can you read?”

  “No, sire.” It was not a question she had been asked before, but she felt shameful, knowing she was amongst privileged people now and did not want to disappoint them.

  “That can soon be remedied. Your schoolmistress arrives on the morrow. You will begin your lessons then.” He tapped Margaret on the end of her nose with one finger. “She will have you reading in no time, and then we can study together.” He showed great interest in that prospect, and his faith in her potential made her a little less afraid.

  From then on her mornings were devoted to lessons with a schoolmistress, lessons that might be considered normal fare for a girl of her age. Under the governess’s instruction her reading and writing skills quickly improved, and her mind broadened as she took on geography, history and arithmetic. Her teacher, Mistress Hinchcliffe, was a widow. She had nut-brown hair and sad eyes, and her smile was so rare and special that Maisie soon learned its immense value. Mistress Hinchcliffe was a keen teacher, and she rewarded Maisie for her enthusiasm. Sometimes with her smile.

  Maisie quickly learned things that she recognized to be useful and important—things that were not often afforded to young women of her age, and especially not those of her questionable background.

  Once her reading skills were addressed, Master Cyrus began to undertake some of her tutoring himself, just as he had promised. He studied with her after Mistress Hinchcliffe returned to her lodgings, and the books he shared with Margaret were very different from the ones she studied with her morning tutor. At first he kept the volumes in a locked wooden cabinet in the schoolroom. However, Mistress Hinchcliffe often looked at it with a dubious glance, and eventually it and its contents were moved back to the library, from whence they had come.

  “You must not share the nature of the lessons we look at together,” Master Cyrus instructed her after the cabinet was moved, “for neither Mama Beth nor your tutor would understand the precious subject matter, and it is my duty to protect you from those who would wish to harm you...the way your mother was harmed.”

  He told her this as he led her to his personal library.

  Her grip on his hand tightened.

  In those early days he didn’t often refer to her mother’s demise. He did not have to remind her of it, but when he did so it was always in warning.

  The books they studied were never shared with his wife. Neither did Mama Beth partake in any of the special lessons.

  “I want you to know and understand your beginnings,” he informed Margaret. “You come from a long line of witches, and you are gifted and special. It is not my intention to quell that part of your nature. In fact, I mean to encourage it, but only in private. It is to be our secret.”

  “Why are you so generous to me, Master Cyrus?”

  “Because I have a great interest in your skills, and if we learn about them together I can protect you, and you can perhaps help me in return, one day in the future.”

  “You might need me to undertake healing?”

  “Perhaps.”

  She was innocent of his real intentions.

  “We will study all the books that I have on the subject, together, and we can discuss the matters therein. Do you understand?”

  Young Margaret nodded. She felt excitement at the prospect, and was humbled that he cared to encourage that part of her for which most people would persecute her.

  “You will discover, when we read together, that there are people all over the world who understand the natural rhythm of life and the power inherent in nature.”

  “All over the world?”

  Cyrus nodded and opened her first book.

  They spent several weeks studying that first tome, returning to the beginning to read the important parts again, talking about it as they went. Margaret learned that people practiced magic in many faraway countries
, and it wasn’t something solely borne of the Scottish Highlands. The book was beautifully handwritten in painstaking script, each page illustrated with tiny drawings. The knowledge excited her, introducing her to possibilities beyond her own experience and beyond the difficult days that her family had endured after their mother led them to the Lowlands.

  There were several such books, and one in particular captured Margaret’s heart, for it documented Highland witchcraft. She was enthralled when she saw the old Gaelic and Pictish words written within. There were enchantments that her mother had taught them by ear, and many more besides.

  “Some of these I know, but others I don’t.”

  “Try those that are new to you, if you want to,” her protector encouraged. “Only when we are alone, though.”

  Delighted, she nodded. “I promise. I will only make magic with you, Master Cyrus.”

  His lips curled.

  Under his watchful eye she learned to flex her skills, growing her craft and her repertoire of spells. It was an exciting time, and one in which her loyalty to her guardian evolved.

  In time he tempered this by introducing a different kind of tract, books that advocated the hunting down and killing of witches. Young Margaret, who had flourished through her learning, had come to believe that it was a terrible mistake that her mother was persecuted. When she saw what he meant for her to study next, she felt instantly afraid. Two years had passed and she felt safe at last. Now that would be undone. “Why?”

  “In order to be strong you must understand the reasons why your kind are so often feared and persecuted. Be brave, for it is only through understanding such ignorance that we can hope to defeat it.”

  However, when he sat her down and encouraged her to read King James’s book entitled Daemonologie it shattered her heart and put her young life into stark relief. This was the very document from which all laws about and persecution of witchcraft had spilled down in her homeland and beyond. It was a brutal indictment, one that used the justness and power of religion and royalty to seek out and kill her kind.