“Simon is Luke’s least favourite person in the world bar one. To send it to me wouldn’t do him much good as he knew we would recognise it for what it was.” Matthew shrugged. “Ah well, it didn’t work. That evil piece of magic is safely burnt.”
“Thank heavens for that,” Alex said before turning to smile at Joan, returning with pitcher and mugs.
Chapter 3
“But with the Duke of York openly papist, God alone knows where all this will end,” Simon Melville said, receiving nods of agreement from the assembled men. The recently failed plot against the king and his brother, the duke, had left England heaving with religious conflict – again. Matthew shifted in his chair and caught the eye of Thomas Leslie. The latter smiled weakly. Both of them had fought for the Commonwealth back in the 1640s, and neither of them wished to see the country plunged into the devastating disaster of civil war again.
“There are rumours that the king himself holds papist sympathies,” William Hancock said, “and as to his wife, well, we all know she is.”
More murmurs. Catherine of Braganza was undoubtedly Catholic, and it was very fortunate from a staunch Protestant view that she had proved incapable of giving Charles II any children. Now it was too late, she being near on forty-six, but who knew what influence she exerted over the king?
“It must be terrible to have your own son plot against you,” Matthew said, thinking that Monmouth was an ingrate. Everything he had, the royal bastard owed to his royal father, and then to conspire against him, plan the murder of him no less…
Hancock shrugged. “All that need not concern us, but the situation here is becoming strained as well.”
They all nodded. Squabbles between neighbours acquired undertones of religious fervour. Protestants of all colours ranged themselves against the few Catholics that had made it this far north of St Mary’s City, and, increasingly, the protests against Catholic Lord Baltimore grew.
“We must rid ourselves of the papists,” one man Matthew didn’t recognise said. “Force them to leave lest they stab us in the back.”
“They came here for the same reasons we did,” Thomas reprimanded, “to live in accordance with their conscience. They’ve built themselves lives and families just as we have.”
“A Test Act, that’s what we need,” the unknown speaker went on, rudely ignoring Thomas. “Have them swear an oath by which they disavow themselves of all that papist heresy.”
“Papist heresy?” Matthew laughed. “It’s us that are the heretics, at least to them. After all, the Catholic Church came first.”
“For shame, Matthew!” William Hancock looked quite severe.
“Tolerance is a virtue,” Matthew said.
William shook his head. “Not always, not when it puts our faith at risk.”
Matthew chose not to reply, somewhat relieved Alex wasn’t present. His dear wife would by now have been most incensed, berating them all for bigotry while reminding them that they lived in a colony that had passed an Act of Toleration, allowing for all Christian faiths to live side by side.
“What?” Matthew was brusquely returned to the ongoing discussion by Thomas’ hand on his back.
“We were saying that at present we need do nothing,” Thomas said. “It’s not as if we’ve experienced much violence – at least not from our fellow colonists.”
“Ah, are you having problems with the Indians?” William asked.
Thomas pursed his mouth. “At times, but it’s mostly theft, no more. No, it’s the others that worry me more.”
“The others?” The unknown man leaned forward.
“Renegades: bands of white men that have lost much in the previous Indian wars and now compensate themselves as they can.” Matthew regarded his hands, fisted them a couple of times. Men like the Burley brothers, men who burnt and killed and ravaged.
“Papists.” The new man nodded. “See, I told you.”
“Papists?” Matthew said. “I don’t know about that, but it seems to me they’re not much concerned with religion anyway.”
The meeting broke up shortly after. Thomas and Matthew strolled back to their respective lodgings. The June evening was agreeably warm, and as a consequence business was brisk in the taprooms that abutted the port area.
“Who is he?” Matthew asked as they made their way across the deserted marketplace.
“Lionel?” Thomas made a disgusted sound. “A young hothead, recently come from the home country with the intent of building More’s Utopia over here – in glass, no doubt, given his profession.”
“Ah. As intolerant as the author, I gather.”
“It would seem so,” Thomas agreed. “More was a rabid and cruel pursuer of those that held faiths other than his own.”
Matthew wouldn’t know: he was nowhere as well read as Thomas, and said so, making his friend smile at him.
Ten years older than Matthew, Thomas suffered from hair loss, and had decided to compensate for this with an exuberant wig of glossy black hair, which if anything made him look even older than he was.
Now he lifted the hairpiece off his head and scratched. “Damned heat! Were we like him? In our youth were we as righteous as he is now?” He sounded out of breath, chest heaving slightly after their quick walk up the main street.
Matthew thought about that for some moments.
“Probably.” He had per definition hated Papists and Anglicans as a youth, had signed the Solemn League and Covenant that called for the extirpation of popery and prelacy. And then, several years later, he had sworn an Oath of Abjuration of his previous loyalties, officially bowing to the supremacy of King and Church of England. “An oath I took without any intention of upholding it,” he said, grimacing somewhat.
“One does as one must, and at the time you couldn’t have done otherwise without placing your family at risk.”
“I placed them at risk anyway.” Riding off to Conventicles, helping Covenanter preachers… Now those memories made Matthew shake his head at that younger self burning with convictions he no longer held.
“That isn’t true. You still hold to your beliefs. A society ruled by free men for free men, a church that recognises every man’s right to speak directly to God.” Thomas patted Matthew on the back. “And some of these things we have here.”
“Aye, some we do.”
*
Matthew was somewhat disgruntled when he arrived at the inn to find Alex had already supped, but at least his wife joined him at the table as he ate.
“I saw Constance today,” she said.
He picked at the stew on his plate. Bower’s Inn was relatively clean, served a good breakfast but a dismal supper, and this was awful.
“Constance? Peter Leslie’s wife?”
“Mhm.” Alex grabbed a piece of bread. “With a man,” she added, waggling her eyebrows.
“Mayhap her father.”
“Too young, and no, it wasn’t her brother either – not unless she’s into incestuous relationships.”
“Ah.” Matthew wasn’t all that interested.
Alex chewed her bread in silence. “If—” She drank some of his cider and took yet another bite.
“If…” Matthew prompted.
“If she were to take a lover, would that be considered adultery? Given that Peter Leslie doesn’t want her back, but refuses to divorce her?”
“Of course – she’s a married woman.”
“Who hasn’t had her husband in her bed for what? Four years? She’s not even thirty yet!”
“Peter Leslie is doing mankind a favour by keeping her out of the marital market, surely you agree? What that wee baggage did to poor Ailish Leslie…” He shook his head. Peter’s daughter-in-law, Ailish, was permanently scarred – badly scarred – after the time Constance threw hot sugar in her face.
“Yes, that was pretty bad, but to leave her permanently in limbo… It wasn’t her idea to marry Peter in the first place, was it? That must have been a pretty dreary initiation in the pleasures of the marital be
d, what with her nineteen to his fifty-odd.”
“For better and for worse,” Matthew said, even if he considered his neighbour had shown severe lack of judgement in wedding the lass. He shoved his wooden platter away with an irritated gesture. “If the boat doesn’t come in tomorrow, we leave for home anyway. I can’t go on eating pig swill.” And he had to get back home – in these uncertain times, all of him itched with an urgent need to ensure his family was safe.
Alex yawned and nodded. “Tomorrow, and then we leave.”
*
The sloop was visible already at dawn, and with Alex’s hand safe in the crook of his arm, Matthew stood waiting by the docks, eyes stuck on the tall shape he assumed to be his son. Daniel whooped when he came within hearing distance, using his hat to wave at them, and Alex tugged her hand free from where it lay on Matthew’s arm, using it to wave at their son.
“God, he’s big,” she said with evident pride, near on tripping over her feet as she dragged him towards where the sloop was being moored.
“Aye, he is.” The lad had grown yet another inch or two; was now near on as tall as Matthew himself was. Blue eyes, hair so dark it was almost black – his son was a handsome lad and educated to boot. His wee Daniel a minister in the making; it made Matthew’s throat constrict with emotion. He dashed at his eyes, smiled at how effusively Alex greeted their son, and finally pressed the lad to his chest.
“Best in your class,” he crowed, “well done, lad.” He looked him up and down.” You even look the part,” he said, taking in Daniel’s sober clothes.
“So do you,” Daniel said, making Matthew laugh.
He wiped at his dark grey sleeves and tapped a finger to the cuffs. “Embroidered,” he said, showing Daniel the intricate designs of revolving stars with which Alex had chosen to decorate this his best summer coat.
“A cravat?” Daniel teased, tugging at the flowing linen around Matthew’s throat.
“Some things you don’t attempt to fight,” Matthew said.
“Oh, come off it,” Alex snorted from behind him. “You enjoy looking good.”
Matthew draped an arm over her shoulders to gather her to him. “And do I? Look good?”
She stood on tiptoe and whispered just what a delectable piece of eye candy he was, and went on to describe exactly what she wanted to do to him – later. Matthew felt his cheeks heat into bright red, a tingling sensation rushing through his privates.
Beside them, Daniel groaned and shook his head. “Da! It’s unseemly. What will—” Whatever else their son had intended to say was interrupted by Ian, who came limping towards them with Betty and one of their huge dogs in tow.
“Can you still ride, or will you be riding pillion?” Ian said with a wide smile for his brother.
“I can,” Daniel huffed. He bent down to scratch Dandelion behind his ear. “He’s growing old,” he stated, fondling the huge head.
“So are all of us,” Matthew said, “and back home we now have a Delilah and a Daffodil as well.”
“Daffodil?” Daniel laughed. “You can’t call a dog Daffodil!”
“Try telling your sister that.” Alex nodded in the direction of where Ruth was flying down the street towards her favourite brother. Daniel rushed to meet her, swinging her in several wide arcs before setting her back on her feet.
“Oh, Daniel!” Ruth kissed him, her dark red braids tumbling free from cap and hat. “I’ve missed you so much!” She seemed to dance on the spot, and Daniel danced with her, for a moment becoming a young lad before recalling he was now almost a minister and a certain gravitas was to be expected.
After Ruth came Temperance, light eyes wide with pleasure at the sight of Daniel. But no wild embraces, no more than a curtsey and a bow.
“Tss,” Alex murmured, clearly disappointed by this rather formal reunion. “Do you suppose he’s ever kissed her properly?”
Matthew swallowed a surprised gust of laughter and coughed.
“He has,” he said once he got his breath back. “And more than that, aye?”
“How do you know?”
“I caught them at it in the hayloft last year, threatened to belt them both if something like that ever happened again.”
“But you’ve never told me!” Alex let her eyes wander over their son and his sweetheart.
“You never asked.”
Alex sniffed and eyed him from under lowered brows. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I find out something concerning our children, shall I? Unless you ask, why tell?”
Matthew grinned down at her. “You could try, but that tongue of yours is mightily fond of wagging.”
Yet another blue look, this one bordering on glacial, but Matthew just laughed and moved over to talk with Minister Allerton.
*
“Bloody man, more or less accusing me of being a gossip.” Alex adjusted her new shawl and turned to find her daughter-in-law frowning.
“Who’s that?” Betty said, ducking her head in the direction of a woman who was staring at them – and in particular at Ian, who was staring back, his back stiff as a board. Alex had to squint to make out the woman standing by the fish stalls.
“Fiona!”
“Fiona?” Betty growled in a way that indicated she knew all about this particular woman and liked her not one bit. “What is she doing here?”
“She lives here,” Alex said, “down behind the school, at the cobbler’s.” Well, she assumed she did. She hadn’t seen Fiona except for the odd glimpse in almost a decade, and the intervening years had not treated Fiona kindly, at least not from what she could make out from here.
“Her children?” Betty asked, looking at the three boys who were hovering around her.
“I suppose so.” Alex shrugged. “She looks awfully worn, doesn’t she?”
“That’s what you get,” Betty said icily. “Some God punishes already in this life, doesn’t He?”
Alex threw Fiona a look. Given how thin and old she looked, how threadbare her clothes were, it would seem she had more than paid for seducing Ian when he was a boy, trying to coerce him into marriage by assuring him the child she was carrying was his when all the while she’d known it wasn’t.
“She’s not had an easy life,” Alex said, feeling quite sorry for Fiona.
In response, Betty snorted and walked over to where Ian was standing. She said something to him that made him laugh and shake his head, one arm sliding round her waist. When Alex looked again, Fiona was gone, as were the scruffy boys.
Chapter 4
“And you are surprised?” Matthew blew into her nape, tickling her.
“She was pretty harsh,” Alex said, “and Betty generally isn’t.”
“Except when it comes to Ian. Surely you’ve noticed how protective she is of him?”
“Protective? She was flamingly jealous!”
“And you wouldn’t be?”
“You know I would,” she grumbled. She still was, a wave of puce green washing over her whenever she thought of Matthew and his first wife, Ian’s mother. “Are you?” she asked, pummelling at her pillow. Occasionally, she wanted to claw Kate Jones’ eyes out as well, she reflected, in particular when Matthew was too attentive to her.
“Am I what?”
“Jealous.” She could feel him laughing behind her.
“Is it William Hancock that has caught your eye?”
“William?” Alex twisted round to see him. “What would I see in William?”
“I don’t know,” Matthew said, “but he, I think, is overly fond of you.”
“He is? Oh, don’t be silly. He looks at me with mild disapproval most of the time.”
“I know, aye? I see it in how his eyes follow you around, and how he lets his gaze linger a wee bit too long on your bosom and your arse.” It came out in a very dark voice, and Alex smiled.
“So you are jealous.”
“Not as such,” he replied with a yawn. “Not of him.” He sounded very dismissive.
“So who?” she said, no
w very wide awake.
Matthew groaned and pulled her down to lie against his chest. “Sleep, aye?”
“Who?” she repeated.
“Of John,” Matthew admitted sulkily. “I don’t like it that I wasn’t your first.”
Alex rubbed her face against his chest. “Idiot. I was twenty-six when we met.”
“Aye, and I still don’t like it. I would that no one but me had ever touched you, taken you, loved you.”
Alex struggled up to sit, making the whole bed sway.
“I’m glad that you weren’t.” She smiled at the way his eyes narrowed. “Otherwise, how would I have known just how lucky I was?” She kissed him: a long kiss. “Very lucky,” she said, licking her lips.
“Very,” he agreed huskily.
*
The sun had just cleared the eastern forest when they set off next morning: six horses, two loaded mules, and seven people. Thomas Leslie took the lead, with his armed manservant riding just behind him. For practical reasons, Alex was riding pillion behind Matthew, while Daniel rode the roan she’d ridden down. Given the general bustle of departure, it took Matthew some time to realise his wife seemed out of sorts, uncharacteristically quiet and distracted. She didn’t join in the banter between Ian and Daniel; she expressed a vague “Hmm?” when Betty asked her something; and to Matthew she didn’t say a word – a silent warmth at his back, no more.
“What is it?” he finally asked.
“Bad night.” She tightened her hold round his waist.
She’d tell him in her own good time what it was that was preying on her mind, so instead Matthew concentrated on the way his stallion moved beneath him. Aaron was in many ways a throwback to his sire, but where Moses had been a singularly docile horse, Aaron was far more hot-blooded, capable of taking a leap to the side in an attempt to dislodge his rider – or get closer to the mare.
“You’ve had her already, you wee daftie,” Matthew said, slapping Aaron on the neck. “She’s with your get.”
Revenge and Retribution (The Graham Saga) Page 3