“A book,” Sir William said, hefting the larger of the objects, and the look of pleasure on his face was so spontaneous that Alex smiled, despite the fact that she was still mad as hell. He put down the parcel unopened. “May I offer you some breakfast?”
She eyed the heaped eggs and felt her stomach somersault, a swift wave of nausea flowing up towards her mouth. She couldn’t be! Not so soon…
“An orange, perhaps?” Sir William suggested, scratching at his impressive beak of a nose. “I’ve grown it myself, out at my plantation.”
Alex made adequate complimentary noises, doubting the Governor had done much more than oversee the planting. From the look of his hands, he wasn’t much into manual labour.
“Why don’t you open it?” she asked, indicating the book.
“The longer I wait, the more of a surprise it will be. It will keep a few hours more.”
Alex nodded, slicing her orange into edible sections. “And the other?”
Sir William weighed it in his hand. “A ring,” he guessed, “or perhaps a medallion.”
He opened it and showed her an excellent miniature of a man with saturnine features and a lot of long hair; the king, obviously. Around the central image was depicted an oak, and she wondered if that was an attempt to relay the impression that Charles the Second was as stout and long-lived as an oak. Sir William laughed at her.
“It’s the Royal Oak, the tree in which he hid whilst hunted like an animal by the Commonwealth troops.”
Another huge hole in her history education, Alex concluded. The miniature was mounted and Sir William pinned it on his dressing gown to show it off.
“Very nice,” she murmured, hiding a smile.
“Yes,” the Governor said, “a small reminder, I think, of where my loyalties must lie.”
“Thank you for the orange,” Alex said once she had finished it and got to her feet. “I hope it’s a good book.”
Sir William called her back before she reached the door. “The deed, I will sign it now, if you have it with you.”
“I do.” Alex dug into her pouch, heat flying up her neck, her cheeks, and all the way to her ears when her fingers grazed the third package, the one she had chosen not to hand over. She shivered just from touching it. She handed the deed to Sir William, who unrolled it and signed it before giving it back.
“I was not at my best yesterday,” he muttered, avoiding her eyes.
“No, you’re much nicer today.” She placed a hand on his. “We all have our bad days, right?”
If he was taken aback by her forwardness, he didn’t show it. “Yes, I dare say we all do.” He smiled, dark eyes crinkling together.
*
Once she was back outside, Alex half ran in the direction of Mrs Adams’. She had no idea what had made her unwrap the third package on her way into town, and she had taken but the quickest peek before shoving it deeper into her pouch. Now the package called to her, an insistent whisper that she pull it out and look at it, look closely and drown.
Oh God; sweat broke out along her spine. A painting; one of Mercedes’ magic time portals, blue and green swirls leading towards a vertiginous midst of brilliant white. And all the time it had been lying among Don Benito’s things, talk about a coincidence! If one was given to fanciful thoughts, one could almost imagine the painting was doing its best to find her. Alex laughed shakily. That was totally ridiculous, she told herself, but she had to stop and take a couple of steadying breaths.
She hefted her pouch. It should burn – no, it must burn – and yet…well, maybe she shouldn’t. Matthew would insist it be destroyed the moment he clapped eyes on it, and that insight made Alex come to a halt, turn and set off towards the apothecary, hoping to find Mrs Gordon there.
She was. Alex blinked and broke out in a huge smile. Mr Parson and Mrs Gordon stood face to face in the little shop, holding hands. Alex watched tall, distinguished Mr Parson creak down to kiss Mrs Gordon on her brow. She turned her back, counted to one hundred and then barged in, catching the courting couple in a heated kiss.
“I need your help.” Alex grinned at the mottled red that stood bright against the white of Mrs Gordon’s collar. “You can kiss her a bit more later,” she promised a peony pink Mr Parson, tugging Mrs Gordon in the direction of the kitchen. “Look at you,” Alex said to Mrs Gordon. “Quite the guy magnet you are.”
“Och, aye? And what is a guy magnet?” Mrs Gordon patted her starched collar back into place.
“A woman who has men drooling.”
“Not all men,” Mrs Gordon said primly.
“No, just Captain Miles, Mr Coulter on Barbados and now Mr Parson.”
“Mr Coulter was a bereaved widower and Captain Miles is a married man.”
“They still fancied you, and you know that.” Alex smiled at the expression that flashed across Mrs Gordon’s face. “I want you to keep something for me,” she went on, digging into her pouch.
In her haste, she threw the package at the table but missed, causing it to teeter on the edge before falling to the floor. The soft cloth around it snagged on the wooden table top, thereby allowing the painting to land uncovered on the floor. Alex squeaked and took an instinctive step back.
“It’s not a snake,” Mrs Gordon said, bending over stiffly to study the small oblong painting.
Alex looked at her in surprise. “You don’t feel it?”
Mrs Gordon shook her head. “Feel what?”
“Hmm,” Alex gnawed her lip. “Don Benito gave it to me,” she lied, “my mother painted it.”
Mrs Gordon picked up the lightweight square and placed it on the table, eyeing it with interest.
“Your mother? Did he know her?”
No of course he didn’t, Alex felt like saying, my mother hasn’t been born yet – hang on a minute; yes she had, Mercedes had been born ages ago, in medieval Seville. And she’d been here – in this time – leaving paintings behind her, and all of this was so confusing it made Alex want to retreat to bed and sleep for a week. Alternatively throw up.
“No, but he must have found it in Seville, that was her home town.”
“She wasn’t very good, was she?” Mrs Gordon said, making Alex choke on a bubble of laughter. If only she knew! “What is this? A wee sea? A portion of a river?”
“I don’t know, and maybe it isn’t good, but it was my mother’s, and I’d like you to keep it for me.”
“Why?”
Alex sighed. “Matthew doesn’t like it.”
Matthew didn’t even know it existed, but the moment he did, he’d cleave it in two with an axe, and that was something Alex couldn’t allow to happen. She had no idea why, the rational part of her mind was telling her that the right thing to do was to destroy it, but her instincts were telling her not to. Mrs Gordon’s black eyes darted from the picture to Alex, but finally she agreed.
“We have to wrap it up, cover it completely,” Alex said.
Ignoring Mrs Gordon’s surprised expression, she approached the painting with her eyes squished shut, wrapping it up by feel alone. At Alex’s insistence, Mrs Gordon found yet another length of cloth, and by the time Alex was done, a neatly tied parcel rested on the table, the seductive whispers from the canvas muffled into an indistinctive hum. Alex relaxed.
“Explain,” Mrs Gordon said, her peppercorn eyes indicating none of them were going anywhere until Alex had told her the truth.
“I can’t, you won’t believe me.”
Mrs Gordon shoved the parcel in the direction of Alex. “If you won’t tell me, then I won’t keep it. I can see you think it dangerous.”
Well, she had a point there, Alex conceded, wondering how on earth to begin.
“You can start at the beginning,” Mrs Gordon suggested. “You can start by explaining why a lass would wander around in long, blue breeches and her hair cropped short, like you did the first time I saw you, nigh on four years ago.”
Alex gave Mrs Gordon a considering look, squared her shoulders, and took a deep brea
th. Here goes.
“Jeans, they’re called jeans, the long pants, and where I come from everybody wears them, both men and women.”
Mrs Gordon didn’t say a word. Not once did she interrupt or exclaim her disbelief. She just sat and listened, her face a perfect blank. Alex talked and talked, unnerved by her silence.
“The painting is a door back, I think,” she concluded, looking at the wrapped object with fear.
Mrs Gordon poked at the painting. “You think you might need one?”
“No! Of course not! But I just…well, you know, sometimes I miss her, my mother.”
“Was she a witch?”
“Mercedes?” Alex laughed hoarsely. “Well, yes, I suppose she was.” She hugged herself. “But I’m not.”
Mrs Gordon’s face wreathed itself into a huge smile. “You? Of course not! You can’t even knit properly.”
At this point in time, Mr Parson stuck his nose in through the door to tell Mrs Gordon there was a baby on its way, and would she please hurry as the future father had just fainted on his shop floor. Mrs Gordon swept the packed painting into her midwifery bundle, winked at Alex, and hurried after him.
Alex chose not to return to her room. Instead she wandered down to sit on the landing stage, paddling her bare feet in the muddy water of the James. It had been a relief to tell Mrs Gordon, but her suspicion regarding the back door rankled, especially as it had struck a bit too close to home.
These last few weeks, she’d found herself thinking far too often about that lost life: a life of comfort and security, a life where she had her father and a son. Here she also had a son, and she had thought herself to have a man, but the Matthew who had been returned to her was fundamentally changed, and she didn’t know how to help him heal. She followed the wheeling flight of a couple of terns and sighed.
Chapter 25
“Here,” Alex dropped the signed deed in front of Matthew, lobbed her pouch into a corner and threw herself on the bed. She yawned, thinking that maybe she should take a long afternoon nap. Undress, get out of these itching stays and let her body relax into the coolness of the sheets. Almost six weeks since she last bled…she considered telling him, but decided it was far too soon. She peeked from under her arm as he unrolled the deed and read it, his throat working. Her heart went out to him, but she remained where she was, waiting for him to do or say something. Matthew got to his feet and left the room without a word.
*
Matthew got back late and after looking for Alex in their room, went over to where James was sitting outside the stable door.
“Have you seen Alex?”
James shook his head; apart from a brief glimpse of her at dinner, he hadn’t. “Is she not down by the tree?” he said, pointing in the direction of the sycamore. “I seem to recall she spends her afternoons there, sewing.”
Matthew strained his eyes in the indicated direction. Dusk was falling, and why would she choose to remain out there without any light to work by? His eyes caught on something pale, a flutter of cloth, and he strode towards it.
She had been weeping. When she heard him approach she started and ducked her head to hide her face, but he gripped her by the chin, forcing her to meet his eyes.
“Why?” he asked, tracing the tear tracks. She tried to twist out of his hold, but he wouldn’t let her. “Why?”
“Because I don’t know how to help.” She stood up, turning away from him to stare at the tangle of undergrowth that bordered the little meadow. Alex brushed at her skirts, flicking a light green caterpillar into the grass.
“The first few days it was like it always used to be, but then with every day you’ve grown more and more distant, excluding me. And I don’t understand; why won’t you talk to me? Allow me to try to help you?” Alex retreated further under the tree, her face hidden in shadow. Matthew came after and took her hand, twisting his fingers into hers. He stood in silence braiding and re-braiding his fingers with hers, trying to find words to explain.
“Those first days…well, I was dazed. I thought I might be dreaming, that you’d soon fade away and I’d be dead. And then, as the days passed and I knew myself safe again, I was taken over by rage. It’s still uppermost in me, an all-consuming rage at the people who did this to me, and it leaves me less human, more beast.” He looked away, tightening his hold on her hand. “The rage is like a barrier. I wake in the night and my cock throbs not with love but with anger, and I won’t…I can’t, because I fear what I might do to you. So I stumble out of bed and I…”
He’d sit and watch her, rubbing himself until he jerked in painful release. Nothing of love or pleasure, just a burning urge to take her, force her to submit as he had been forced by others. And so he retreated from passion to the technicalities of love making, he didn’t dare to let himself go lest he be overwhelmed by all that black inside of him, and God alone knew what he might do then.
“I don’t understand,” Alex said.
Well, no, how could she? Matthew sighed and tried again, attempting to describe just how scared he was of losing control, because once unleashed, how was he to hold back on all that rage and desperation?
“But…” Alex gnawed her lip, flexing her fingers against his hold on her hand. “Is this how it’s going to be? Will you always shut me out? Never trust yourself in bed with me again?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, and the expression in her eyes made him look away.
“I don’t think you would,” she said.
“What?”
“Hurt me. I don’t think you can.”
“Then you have greater faith in me than I do,” he said. “I just can’t risk it.”
He fell silent, his fingers braiding themselves around hers. Around them, the elongated afternoon shadows were morphing into early evening darkness, a blackbird flashed by, a small butterfly soared upwards towards the purple sky. Beside him, she was holding her breath, a sure sign that she was making an effort not to weep. Matthew shifted on his feet and tried to think of something to say.
*
Alex peeked at him from under her lashes. He kept his eyes fixed on something unseen, his jaw clenching and unclenching rhythmically. He shrugged, gave her a lopsided smile and tugged at her hand, his eyes a deep brilliant green in the fading light – green with glints of gold.
“Coming?”
She snatched her hand back, shaking her head.
“Alex—”
“Go,” she said, “go on, hurry off to have your supper so that you can hurry up to bed and pretend you’re asleep when I get there.”
“I don’t —”
“Yes you do! And every time you do, it tears me apart, you hear?” He flinched, tried to take her hand. “No! Leave me alone, just go.” She backed away from him.
“I don’t mean to. Of course I don’t want to hurt you. But I—”
“Coward!”
“Coward? For not wishing to harm you?” His hands closed on her arms, pressing her back against the trunk.
“I already said; I don’t think you would.”
“And I told you; I’m not willing to take the risk.” He was getting angry, she could see it in how his mouth pressed together, the soft curve of his bottom lip thinning out into a straight line.
“But I am!” She glared at him, struggled against his hold. “I didn’t travel the world for this…this…gelded stranger.” Oh God, oh God; her heart wrung itself into the shape of a banana at the look of absolute hurt that flashed across his face.
“What?” His fingers dug into her arms, and she hated herself for doing this to him, for taunting him, but somehow she had to breach the goddamn wall he was constructing around his inner core, and the only way she could think of doing that was to spur him into anger. Alex gulped; it frightened her, but she saw no other option. She ignored the way his hands were sinking into her flesh, leaned back provocatively against the tree, and looked him up and down.
“You know what I mean, Matthew Graham. You’ve lost your balls, haven’t
you?” He paled at her insulting tone and she cried inside. She took a long shaky breath. “Let me know when you find them again. Until then, let’s put this whole charade on ice, okay?”
She wrenched herself free and made as if to go to the house. Three steps and she was thrown on her back, all air knocked out of her. She fought him, she shoved and clawed at him, she twisted her legs closed, egging him on, very much on purpose.
His breathing was ragged, and in his eyes the golden flecks had vanished, replaced by something far, far colder. He kissed her, furiously, hungrily, and she bit him, attempting to slap his face. He undid her lacings, ignoring her attempts to escape, and she was flat on her back, her shift open to her waist to reveal her breasts to the falling dusk.
“Let me go!” She wasn’t sure she wanted to do this anymore. He scared her, he was hurting her, his hands and mouth punishing her. But it was too late, Matthew spread her legs apart and ploughed inside. He pinned her down with his weight, he came and he went, her wrists held in a painful grip above her head. She pitched and struggled, trying to heave him off. He grunted, he pushed, he drove himself harder and harder inside, and she was being battered by this uncaring stranger, a human perpetuum mobile that sent thrust after jarring thrust into her.
He pulled out and sat back, and she took the opportunity to get away, crawling on all fours. His hand closed around her ankle, dragging her back towards him. Alex kicked at him, at this animal that was treating her like this. Ah! She whimpered when he took her from behind, hard hands holding her hips immobile. He groaned and panted, uttered strings of unintelligible sounds, and all the while he came and went, deaf to her protests. She was being ravaged by her own husband – no, not by him, but by the accumulated rage that lived in him, the rage she had purposely goaded into fury.
“Oh, Jesus,” she groaned when he flipped her over. She swiped at him, he slapped her and then he was inside of her again, and all of her shrieked at the ungentle treatment.
“Matthew, please! No, honey, please…” She raised her hands to his face in supplication. He froze at her touch.
Like Chaff in the Wind (The Graham Saga) Page 19