Alex put a hand on his back and waited until he turned to face her. “I want my Matthew, not a man bent on vengeance. I don’t want our son to grow up surrounded by the corroding hatred of this family feud.”
His eyes flashed with anger. “Will you have me forgive him?”
“No, but maybe forget him.”
Matthew laughed sarcastically. “And are you fool enough to think he will let me forget?”
Alex bowed her head. He was right, Luke would never stop, not until his brother was destroyed.
He nodded in silent agreement, grabbed his coat and left the room.
Alex went over to the small window to watch him stride away. Healing rapidly on the outside, but on the inside… At times, she suspected he forced himself to play the part of reunited husband, when all he really wanted to do was wallow in anger and hate – alone.
There were barriers between them, whole months of terrible experiences that he didn’t seem capable of sharing with her beyond the short factual description he had given her that first morning, and the few attempts she had made to have him speak to her about it, had been violently rebuffed.
Give him time, she admonished herself, leave him be for now. To her surprise, she found she was crying and rubbed at her eyes. He was safe, alive and whole, and the rest of him would knit itself back into place with time – of course it would.
*
“Graham!”
To his intense humiliation, Matthew halted, a kneejerk reaction to a voice he’d obeyed for almost a year. Jones sauntered over to him, took his time looking him up and down.
“Well, well, quite the gentleman.”
“A gentleman? I think not. But a free man, aye that I am. But then I always was.”
“Free?” Jones snickered. “Not as I hear it. You’re owned by your wife now.” His light eyes glinted, the small mouth opened as if to say something but then closed.
“Get out of my way,” Matthew said. “Go, before I do you bodily harm.”
“Oh I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Graham. An indentured to raise his hand to a free man? No Graham, that would be very unwise. It might lead to you being hanged.” The piercing eyes swam very close to Matthew’s. “But please try, give me the pleasure of beating you to a bloody pulp.” Jones straightened up, standing a scant inch or so taller than Matthew’s six feet and two.
“One day…” Matthew began.
Jones snickered. “One day? I think not. One day soon you’ll be dead, Graham, and I’ll receive a nice fat purse in compensation.”
He shouldn’t have said that.
“Who? Who’ll pay you to see me dead?”
When Jones didn’t reply, Matthew’s fingers closed like a pincer around a fold of skin along Jones’ neck, twisting until the overseer was kneeling in the dust, gasping with pain.
“My wife taught me this, it hurts, doesn’t it?” Matthew twisted some more. “So who?”
“Your brother,” Jones gargled. “Fairfax had a letter some weeks back.” He squealed when Matthew’s fingers sank even deeper into his neck. Matthew released him, and Jones sat down heavily in the dirt. Someone laughed, and to Matthew’s consternation he saw that they’d collected a small but avid audience.
“You’ll pay,” Jones assured Matthew, hands rubbing at his reddened neck.
“So will you, and I have a bigger debt to collect than you do.” With that Matthew walked off.
For some minutes, Matthew was buoyed by his confrontation with Jones, energy buzzing through his system. He strode through the little settlement, shaking his head yet again at the idiocy of situating a town here, in this swamp infested corner of the earth. Barely a half mile from the town centre the original forest encroached, ground squelching wetly underneath. It was only April and already the heat at midday was uncomfortable, and he could only imagine how it would be to live here in summer, the sun steaming dampness off the ground.
He made his way down to the harbour, as yet empty of any larger ships. A breeze danced across the water and he undid his coat, sitting down on a crude bench to stare in the direction of the east. Over the waters lay his home and there his son was waiting.
Sometimes it struck him that they didn’t know: Mark might be dead, carried away by illness or drowned in the millpond. Like his grandfather before him, Matthew grimaced, recalling the day when his father, Malcolm Graham, had been pulled dead from the water. Not an accident, he mused, no, someone had pushed his unsuspecting father to fall into the cold winter waters of the pond. Margaret or Luke, it had to be one or the other. Luke, of course it was Luke, and Matthew sat with black anger simmering inside of him, wondering how on earth a man as warped as Luke could be his brother. Mayhap he was a changeling.
He was deep in thought when a hand clapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to find a familiar face smiling down at him.
“James! You’re still alive!”
James laughed and sat down beside him. “You mustn’t sound so surprised.”
Matthew studied him. Much thinner, arms and legs like brittle twigs, but yet with something of a paunch. He took in the tired face, the sunken eyes and the yellowed skin.
“You’ve got jaundice.”
James shrugged. “I don’t rightly know. But as I can’t do a day’s work without toppling over, I’m sent here to town to earn my living best I can.”
“They set you free?”
James smiled crookedly. “Nay. They but threw me out. Why waste good food on a dying man?”
“How do you live?” Matthew asked with concern.
“I do this and that. I can read and write, so I’ve been doing a bit of scribing. And I sleep where I can find some cover.” He patted at the small bundle on his back. “A blanket.”
Matthew got to his feet and took his friend by his arm. “You’ll come with me. We’ll find you board.”
“We?” James smiled, “so she came then?”
“Aye,” Matthew said with pride. “She did.”
“I saw you earlier,” James said as they walked side by side in the direction of the boarding house. He shook his head at Matthew. “Best be careful lad, Jones is not a man you want as your enemy.”
“Not my choice.”
“Still; best no go about unarmed – not after today. He won’t forgive the humiliation of being forced to his knees.”
*
Whatever doubts Alex had about clasping this ragged sorry spectacle of a man to her bosom, she didn’t show them, curtseying in deference to his age. Mrs Gordon took one look at James and called for a bath, promising the man that unless he scrubbed himself clean enough for her satisfaction, she’d do it herself – with lye.
“I haven’t washed in a year,” he protested.
“Aye, I can see that. And smell it.” Mrs Gordon handed him a clean shirt and two worn linen towels before leading him off in the direction of the kitchen.
“Where will he sleep?” Alex asked, “I don’t think Mrs Gordon will want him in her room.” And she definitely didn’t want him in theirs.
Matthew laughed and assured her it was all taken care of, James would sleep in the stables.
“Is he very ill?” In her opinion the shrunken man looked as if he was about to expire at any moment.
“He’s dying,” Matthew replied, “and he knows it.”
Washed and dressed in a clean shirt, James sat with them to eat, but he ate little, and finally Mrs Gordon stood up and disappeared, returning in some moments from the kitchen with a frothing mug. Alex sniffed; spices, hot wine, and very much honey beaten together with eggs. James smiled his thanks.
“I have a problem with the solids.”
Alex gave him a narrow look; no wonder he looked so frail if he couldn’t eat properly. James gave her a weak smile and sat back, visibly wincing when his emaciated shoulder blades settled against the wall. He looked out at the dark night with disgust.
“It’s April, time for long evenings of soft light, for the smell of new leaves on the trees…” He so
unded so homesick Alex reached across and patted his hand.
“Maybe one day you’ll go back.”
James smiled, his eyes misting over. “Perhaps. But I think not.”
Chapter 23
The bed creaked when Matthew got out and moved over to the window. One of the shutters screeched against the windowsill, and with an irritated sound Alex sat up. Matthew was standing by the opened window, arms braced against the frame. She padded across the floor and put a hand on his shoulder. The effect was spectacular. Matthew whirled, snarling like a cornered dog. She gasped, raised her arms to shield herself from the blow she expected to come flying her way. Instead, Matthew cursed and flung himself towards the door, and a few moments later she heard him in the yard below. His shirt was a blob of white in the dark, a blob that moved with speed away from her.
“Shit.” Alex sat down on the bed. Far too often she woke up alone, him long gone, and if anything his confrontation with Jones had made it worse, with Matthew coiled in constant anger, an anger that had him tossing restlessly through most of the nights. After those first wonderful days, the darkness in him tainted their sex life as well, Matthew being too careful, always holding back. Whenever she came too close, whenever her caresses became too intimate, he shied away, retreating into the safety of the mechanics of sex rather than the magic of making love.
He reminded her of a wild fern; one long brush along its fronds and it curled itself up tight around its inner core, a whispered Noli me Tangere – don’t touch me – echoing in the wind. But this was her man, goddamn it, not some piece of greenery! Worse of all was when he retreated to lie for hours on their bed, rejecting her company as he stared unblinkingly at the wooden ceiling above. It unnerved her, this absolute stillness that left her standing very alone on the outside. She sighed and slid down to lie on her back, eyes locked on the door.
When she next woke it was daylight, and he was back, busy shaving.
“Today,” he said.
“Today?” Alex had no idea what he was on about, and anyway, shouldn’t they first discuss last night?
“The Governor; I want us to see him today.” He wiped his face clean. “I won’t be an un-free man anymore, and after that run-in with Jones I want to do this as soon as possible.” A month and more since she bought him free, he reminded her.
Alex resigned herself and inspected her meagre wardrobe. “The russet, it’s the best I have.”
“As long as you’re decent,” he warned, and with a quick kiss hurried off to find some breakfast.
“He might not be there,” Alex pointed out when they set off. Her linen shift was already sticking to her skin and she found herself longing for air conditioning – or at least a good deodorant.
“He is. I saw him ride in right early.”
“Ah.” She yawned. Always so tired lately, her body surprisingly heavy. It must be the heat, in combination with a humidity that made her hair go Shirley Temple in the extreme, spontaneously transforming into a mass of fashionable ringlets. Not that anyone saw them; Matthew Graham’s wife always wore her hair neatly coiled and capped.
“What did you do all night?” she asked him.
“I walked.” He pressed her hand tight under his arm. “I’m sorry, lass,” he muttered, and she could hear that was all he intended to say about last night – at least for now.
*
Sir William was bored. He fluffed at his shoulder length hair, still mostly its original dark brown, eyed the line outside his office with irritation, and swept inside to settle behind his desk, quill in hand to convey the impression of a very busy man that must not be importuned more than necessary.
His mind wandered back to his mulberry trees and silk worms, congratulating himself yet again on having succeeded in multiplying them so well. He groaned inwardly at having to be here instead of at home on Green Spring, and in particular now, in May, when his fields were a promising, beckoning green.
An adjustment to his tasselled sash, and with a wave of his hand he indicated to his secretary to let the first supplicant in. Hopefully he could conclude business in time to ride the few miles out to his home before dark.
He suppressed a sigh as he listened to the concocted little story of the couple in front of him. The wife was pleasing to the eye, if excessively modest with an unfashionably high neckline to her linen shift, and he noticed with mild interest that it was she who was doing most of the talking, her husband standing silent beside her. Not out of choice, he decided, but because at present he had no legal status. He considered their situation; she was wed to him and therefore she and all her worldly goods were his to dispose of as he saw fit. At the same time, she now owned his indenture, having exposed herself to a daunting sea crossing to find him and buy him free. So now he was both owned and owner… He stopped listening, sinking into this interesting little conundrum until he realised she’d fallen silent and was expecting him to say something.
“Have you got any proof of his supposed innocence?”
“How am I supposed to get that?” she said. “In general courts only issue documents on convicted people, or people who have at least stood some trial. My husband has not been accused, nor yet been on trial, so how could I furnish you with this document you request?”
He shrugged. He let his eyes wander over them again. The man was a Scot, he heard that in his speech.
“Are you Presbyterian?” he asked, a slight interest sparking in his brain. The man nodded that he was. “A Covenanter?” Sir William inflected his voice with disgust.
Matthew Graham straightened up to his full height, ignoring the restraining touch of his wife’s hand.
“I am.”
“A soldier?” Sir William leaned forward, eyes boring into the uncommonly tall man.
“For a while,” Graham said. “Four years, aye?”
“How old are you?”
Graham looked somewhat surprised. “Thirty-two.”
Sir William sat back; this Graham would have been fifteen at Naseby, twenty-one before that accursed Cromwell won the north. But only eleven when he himself left England to hold Virginia for the crown – after far too many months spent in Scotland, fighting for the King.
“On what side did you fight?”
This was a rather needless question, Sir William recognised, watching the tall Scot square his shoulders. But one never knew, did one, and men had been known to change sides – in some cases more than once.
“I was for the Commonwealth,” Matthew Graham said, and Sir William frowned at the pride in his voice.
Sir William eyed him with dislike. He had no patience with these extreme religious fanatics, although he had to concede that the couple in front of him looked no threat to law and order, for all that the man admitted to being of Puritan beliefs. The King was restored, he reminded himself, and the kingdom was healed. No more rifts, no more conflicts that tore the country apart. Still…he’d loved the old king, and in the younger man’s eyes he saw a mild satisfaction at having been on the side that won the armed conflict. It galled him, spurring him to a pettiness not generally in his nature.
“You wish to free him?”
Mrs Graham nodded, presenting a freshly inked deed, rolled together to preserve it from creasing. He read the document through and shook his head.
“No; I have no proof that this man isn’t a dangerous criminal, and I fear that he’s a potential dissenter. I’ll see you back in two months, and then we’ll see.”
The green flare in Graham’s eyes had him sitting back, and he turned to look at the wife instead. Blue ice made him recoil.
She curtsied and raised herself back up. “Until then, Sir William. And I will of course wait until that occasion to turn over some effects I have been requested to ensure reach you personally.”
He stuttered in indignation. “Are you carrying dispatches for me?”
She gave him yet another cold look. “Am I? Not that I know off. I have gifts to give you, at my convenience.” She placed her hand o
n her husband’s arm and swept out of the room, leaving Sir William slack-mouthed.
*
“That went really well,” Alex said. Matthew was stone under her hand, walking so fast she had to break out into an undignified trot to keep up. “Matthew! Please…” When he didn’t slow, she let him go, stumbling before she regained her footing.
In front of her, Matthew’s back was moving away and she came to a stop, not quite knowing what to do. Her pouch was heavy with the carefully wrapped objects she had been entrusted in getting to Sir William, and for an instant she considered throwing the three items into the river. But she didn’t, because for some reason handling them – and in particular the larger of the rectangular objects – sent shivers up her spine.
It was all Matthew’s fault; she had suggested that she should first give the Governor the packages, and then, once she’d established herself as a once removed trusted emissary from the English court, request he sign the deed – which she was certain he would have done, not even bothering to read it properly. But Matthew had been adamant. He wanted the Governor to sign the deed based on his own story, not because he was distracted by other things. And now he was off to sulk, or throw himself on their bed and refuse to talk to her, while the rage that simmered inside of him cooled down to manageable levels.
She decided not to return to the boarding house, but set off in the direction of the apothecary. She was sure she’d find Mrs Gordon there, generously dispensing advice in between her elegant flirting with the helpless proprietor, Mr Parson, a tall thin man with an impressive mane of white hair. His shop was crowded with flasks and jars, with bunches of drying herbs, honeycombs and strange things she preferred not to look too closely at, all of it suffused by a rather pleasing scent of beeswax and cloves.
“Mrs Graham! Come for a spot of tea?” Mr Parson beamed down at her from his ladder and she smiled back. One reason Alex appreciated Mr Parson, was that not only did he sell tea, he also liked tea, having developed an addiction to the beverage during several years spent in Lisbon. Having discovered an avid tea drinker in Alex, he always offered her a cup when she came by. It was horribly expensive, but every now and then she would allow herself the luxury of a two ounce bag, hoarding it for herself.
Like Chaff in the Wind (The Graham Saga) Page 17