She had to walk for a full five minutes before she spotted the boys. Though she had not walked very fast owing to her delicate condition.
The two were sitting in a groove, on the board of a small pond under an old oak flanked by a bramble of berries. Their hands were full of clumps of berries, and they were feasting on them busily unmindful of the pulp oozing down their wrists, spiraling around their arms and dripping from their elbows.
When they heard the noise of her steps, they looked up in fear. Alexandra’s heart went out to them. Mother Bernardine would say that no child deserved to have that fear in their eyes and no man had a right to put it there.
The fact that the man who had put that fear there was her own beloved husband, the father of her yet to be born child left Alexandra sad with guilt and helplessness.
“Is this a private party or may I join you as well?”
When the two boys did not say anything, she quietly stepped forward and sat between the two of them. Eagerly, she picked a crushed berry from Rus’s fist and ate it with a slurp. Then she licked her lips and her fingers and giggled like a little girl caught in mischief. The two boys suddenly started laughing and the next few minutes went in the three of them sharing berries.
“Sorry, we ate your berries, Mrs. Sullivan,” Dom said at last as they washed their hands in the pond.
“They are god’s berries child. And anyone can have them.”
“Our Pa says God’s not fair to the poor. He is just the rich man’s God.” He replied promptly.
Alexandra was shocked to hear what the children were being taught. Not only was the father a poor example of a parent he was a failure as a human being. But she was careful not to show her feelings.
“Maybe your Pa was not told the right things about the Lord. Maybe you should know the right things about the Lord.”
“The priest Johnson does not allow us in church when Pa’s not around, and we don’t like Sunday school. All the girls are dressed in their Sunday best, and they look at us funny and talk about us in each other’s ears,” Rus said, and there was real regret in his voice.
“And the boys are just waiting to get out and pound into us. They are all real mean,” Dom said making his point.
“Mrs. Sullivan down at Gray cottage teaches real good things to kids who go to her school. And if you sweep up the yard afterward she even gives out a sandwich.”
Alexandra was stunned at what had popped out of her mouth. But the twinkle of hope she saw in the two boys’ eyes made her forget her own astonishment.
“Why don’t you boys try going there now?”
She suggested, and the boys scrambled up and readily started off in the direction of the cottage.
As Alexandra watched their backs, she wondered what she had done. She had not only disobeyed her husband but also sent the boys unannounced to Eileen the one person Jim would never tolerate her associating with.
Chapter Fifteen
As Jim rode down the forest trail, towards Gray Cottage, he told himself, it was solely for the purpose of keeping up with the good work started by his grandmother. When she had been alive, it was she who made the monthly visit to the school. But now along with the rest of her responsibilities that job had fallen into his lap.
He had requested Ara to do it for him, but she had laughed out loud and refused flatly. I would gladly break a team of wild horses with my right hand tied behind my back before I go back to that place. Eileen has a grudge against me coz she could never make me understand arithmetic. For all you know she would kidnap me and keep me there till she had drummed all the equations into my head.” She had said flatly refusing to go.
Now as he approached the cottage and the adjoining school building which was nothing more than a shack, he warned himself that he needed to keep his calm. He was here to visit an employee.
His shock knew no bounds when upon reaching the place, he saw Dom sweeping the front yard and Rus and another boy weeding the vegetable patch.
As he descended the boys gathered together and looked up at him in awe.
“Ms. Eileen’s in the barn picking eggs. Maybe you would like to take a seat while I fend her.” Rus said with what Jim detected in his voice and his face as pride.
“Fetch her…” Dom corrected him promptly then hastened to explain.
“Ms. Eileen is very particular about being welcoming to company.”
“I own this place, so I am not company. However, I would really like to know what you are doing here.” Jim asked with a straight face.
“We go to school here. And since the village is too far for us to go and come back every day, Ms. Eileen suggested to our Pa that we stay here.” Dom provided the information eagerly
“But we don’t stay for free. We work to pay for our boarding.” Rus put in proudly. Before Jim could say another word, Eileen came in from behind the barn.
“Rus, Dom, Timothy, here take the eggs to the kitchen. Then ask Jenny to give you your lunch. As soon as you are done, you need to sit down to do your tables.” The three boys wished Jim good day and sauntered off.
“Jim. How do you do?” Eileen said with distant politeness while her heart was racing with excitement to find her son at her doorstep.
“I came for the monthly inspection.”
“I was expecting you or one of your men to come by for that. I have kept all the children’s work and the ledger ready for you to go through.” She said.
Jim stepped back with an elegant bow and waved his hand in the direction of the school. There was nothing but cold professionalism on his face. But Eileen was ridiculously pleased by the gallant gesture. It brought to her mind the image of another young man who had swept her off her feet many years back. But she was not seventeen and naïve anymore. She knew well how deceptive the Sullivan charm could be. So she kept her pleasure covered with a straight face and led the way while Jim followed.
The schoolroom was neat and organized. The children’s work neatly stacked in cubby holes marked clearly according to their levels. The progress report on each child had been neatly typed out and filed away for further reference. The report on Dom and Rus told him they had been with her for a month now and were making startling progress.
“Thanks for the cooperation Eileen.” He said as he closed the last file and handed it back to her. She winced at hearing her name being called out by the son she had borne from her womb. But she kept her calm. She would have time to react, later.
“Thank you. Would you like to see the ledger now?” She asked quietly. He did not answer immediately. Instead, he rose and went to the window. With his hands tightly held behind him, he said with his back to her.
“I was in Washington last month. There I met an old professor of mine. He said I was an astute businessman because I could do all my figures in my head. It would be disrespectful to check the ledger kept by the teacher who taught me to do that, don’t you think?
Eileen was thankful he still had his back turned to her. How else could she have explained the shudder that ran through her and the slight trembling of her lower lip as she spoke?
“Sometimes one has to do things purely out of obligation.” She said, and he whirled on to her.
“Why?” he hissed and looked at her for a long moment, and she knew he was not speaking of the ledgers anymore. And though the icy blue eyes and that cold stare, an exact replica of his father were killing her inside, Eileen did not look away. She knew that somehow if she did it would be taken as a mark of guilt. Then suddenly the raw emotions that had swum into his eyes closed up, and he said once again in a calmer tone.
“Why, do you keep these boys here?”
“They are good boys, unfortunate but brilliant. I am trying to give them a good education.”
“With all due respect to the work you are doing here Eileen, I think your education is lacking in something very important.
When she waited for him to explain he continued.
“Teaching them only Literature and arithmetic an
d the Holy book is not going to help them. You need to introduce general science. Because that is the need of the day.”
‘Funny Trev said the same thing a few days back.”
“Trevor comes here?”
“Yes, he used to come with the Doc to see Andreadora. And since she is gone they sometimes come to keep me company.”
A sudden feeling that he had somehow failed his mother crept inside Jim. He never thought of the solitude she would be enduring after the death of his grandmother. The fact that strangers had been taking care of the issue irked him more.
As he rode back to the villa, the recipe book his grandmother had left for his wife tucked inside the pocket of his coat, Jim felt a strange tug in his chest.
He had no idea his grandmother owned a recipe book, least she knew how to cook until Eileen had given him the book saying that Andreadora had once said that she wanted to give it to Jim’s wife.
But that was not what was troubling him. What was troubling him was the quiet enduring look of the woman he had left behind. He had not missed the shadow behind her eyes as she bade him goodbye. Nor had he missed the thrill in those eyes at seeing him in the courtyard or the tremor in that voice when he had called her by her name.
Chapter Sixteen
Sometime just before dawn, Alexandra floated out of languid slumber with a feeling of yearning desire. Even before she opened her eyes to the endearing, familiar, the silhouette of her husband stretched alongside her, she had felt the weight of his hard lean body crushing her against the mattress.
“Jim,” she said drowsily then and giggled as he echoed her tone mockingly as he called back her name.
“I am hungry.” He whispered in her ear before he caught the lobe of her ear between his sharp teeth, pulled at it then let it go as she hissed.
“It's four in the morning.” She said as he nuzzled the crook of her neck and tried to lose all his senses in the lush abundance of her hair.
“Haven’t you heard, love is timeless? I thought you were a learned lady,” he said accusingly, taking just enough time away from the work at hand before he nipped at her bare shoulder and her collar bone as he undressed her slowly
“Yours is rather shameless. We made love just before we went to bed.”
“It’s helpless.” he said, “against your powers of a siren.” He said drawing a finger down from the V between her breasts and circling around her navel
“And relentless, you seem to be going on and on.” She said as she slipped into the mindless swirls of lustful sensations. Fully aware of what his assault was doing to her senses, Jim bent down and retraced with his tongue the path his finger had taken. Alexandra fisted her fingers in hair with both hands. Then twisted and groaned as his tongue continued further down.
“Ok, you have proved you are a scholar after all. Now shut up and pretend you are a dumb waif for some time while I ravish you.” He said abandoning his quest suddenly and coming up beside her just as her breath had started to become laborious.
She stretched with longing curling the toes of one foot over those of the other. Jim firmly parted her legs and pushed his knee in between of them to keep them apart. Then caressed with gentle care the soft flesh of her thigh.
As Alex gasped and bowed upwards, Jim bent down and caught the peak of one creamy breast in his mouth and drew on it ruthlessly. She whimpered and gasped as he repeated the treatment with her other breast once he had had his fill with the first one.
Then he gently closed his fingers around her core and pushed them in. She came violently crying out his name as he caught the gasp with a consuming kiss. Breathless and riding on waves of acute desire as she succumbed to helpless abandon, Alex held on to him and a few last shards of sanity.
It always surprised him how, after going through this course countless times she still reacted with surprise and shock as he readied her for the final plunge. So he quietly but firmly pulled her knees apart and inserted himself into her slowly watching the play of emotions on her face and in her eyes. At first, he was careful and gentle. After all, the woman was carrying his child, and he did not want to hurt either of them.
Slowly as the tempo increased and the desire for gratification built inside them, she pushed forward to give him better access, and he seethed himself inside her to the hilt. Then he thrust himself into her with all his force, and she cried out as they both reeled towards the peak. She came into his arms with shuddering release seconds before he poured into her bursting with fulfillment.
Chapter Seventeen
“I went to see Eileen yesterday.” He announced at breakfast the next morning.
Alexandra tensed at once, her spoon full of porridge arrested in midair on its way to her mouth. Then the tension ebbed out of her shoulders, and she closed her lips around the spoonful of warm oats as she saw him buttering his bread with relaxed unconcern.
“I went to pay the school the monthly inspection visit. Andreadora was very particular about it.”
“I think Eileen does a wonderful job with the school.”
“My grandmother thought so too. The inspections were just her way of proving she was not partial to anyone.” He said taking a bite out of his toast.
She quietly ate her porridge and looked at him from the corner of her eye.
“How did it go?” She murmured afraid that the magic of the moment would disappear if she spoke any louder.
He nodded and continued to munch. Then he took a sip of his coffee from the cup beside him and placed it back on the saucer.
“Did you know Eileen took boarders?”
She put the spoon down this time and dabbed at her lips with snow-white linen. Then nodded slightly.
“She took in her first just before Andreadora...before the harvest festival” she amended.
“Is that why you took the Darwin twins there?”
“Sent. I wouldn’t have dared take them there after the way you behaved.”
“Didn’t stop you from walking out on me spurting venom.”
“I was angry.” She said looking down at her lap. “I could not bear the pain of the Darwin twins. I grew up as an orphan, and I know how it feels to be uncared for. I just wanted to reach out to them. Exorcise that pain. I did not mean to cause you any. That would never be my intention.” She said, and her voice shook.
Jim got up from his place slowly, came around to her, then most unexpectedly bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheeks. There was just a trace of his carnal desire in it, but it sent a tremor of anticipation through her body.
“I love you Alex. The two souls you tried to save are thriving well under Eileen's care. You may visit them if you wish. I must leave, Trevor must be waiting for me.” He said and walked out. In the doorway, he turned, looked at his wife who was watching him with the most serene expression. Then he strode back to the table and reaching into the pockets of his work pants he pulled out a small tattered book. He dropped it in front of her.
“My grandmother left it for you. She had entrusted Eileen to pass it on to you. She gave it to me yesterday.” Having said that he left.
Alex sat there for a long time, contemplating her tattered but valuable legacy. She picked up the book, and her heart did a summersault. She had not spent as much time with Andreadora as either Eileen or Jim. But nonetheless, her association with Andreadora had been a valuable one.
As Rosa started to clear the table, Alex rose from the table, lost in the pages of the tattered old book, and walked out into the yard. She sat on a wooden bench under an old oak and started turning the pages carefully. She smiled as she came to the recipe for apple pie. She remembered a conversation between Andreadora and Morgan who had once argued on the usage of cinnamon in apple pie.
“There’s no place of an exotic spice like that on in the good old nave pie.” Morgan had tried to brush off the idea.
“My grandmother always said a pinch of cinnamon could give a delicious edge to the pie.” Andreadora had insisted. And there in the book under the
recipe was a little note with an asterisk telling how a pinch of cinnamon can add a rich flavor. Alex smiled down at the page, one hand resting on her bulging belly.
As she tried to turn the page with her other hand, the book slipped and dropped to the floor. The binding was old, and some loose pages flew out and scattered around. As Alex bent down and started picking the pages, she came to a folded piece of paper, that was not one of the book’s original page. Curious she opened the sheet.
It was a letter, written on a fairly recent Sullivan letterhead. Before she could realize that it was a private letter addressed to someone else and perhaps that someone had not yet read the letter, or may be Andreadora had died before she could hand over the letter to the intended person, Alex had already read the first couple of lines. And then she was hooked.
She sat back down on the bench lost in reading. When she was done she looked up at the sky and pressed her lips heard, tears were flowing down her cheeks and her hand trembled slightly.
Jim, she needed to find Jim.
Chapter Eighteen
Jim and Trevor were working in a field just north of Gray Cottage. When Jim saw the picture perfect figure of a woman walking towards them from the fields he recognized her at once to be his wife. The next moment his keen observation told him she was walking too fast. The fine tuning, he had with her mind told him, even before she had reached him that something had upset her.
“What…is…this?”’ she said to him hissing and out of breath, waving the letter in front of his nose.
Jim did not move, nor did he attempt to take the letter from her. Trevor stood next to him glued to his place with shock and fear.
“What is this?” Alex screamed this time. She had been ignoring the dull pains that had started to origin in her lower back since after breakfast. She had ignored them as they had become sharper as she had plowed through the fields. Now the anguish of that pain pushed forth in her scream.
Something in that voice and the way her face contorted made Jim act fast. He took the letter from her hand and read it, throwing furtive glances at her as she struggled to stand straight.
The Campus Jock: A College Bad Boy Romance Page 82