*
Late in the afternoon a couple of days later, they rode into Leslie’s Crossing.
“Thank heavens!” Alex threw her arms round Matthew’s neck. “One more night and I might have buried a knife in her back.”
Matthew set her back on her feet, smiling at the way her greeting had unfastened her hair, spilling curls from under her cap. “That bad?”
“Well, no, except for when she gets started on my moral lassitude.”
“Moral lassitude?” He nodded seriously. “It’s a bit of a concern. You’re somewhat remiss when it comes to matters spiritual.”
“Oh, really? And would you prefer it if I prayed instead of joining you in bed? That’s what she does apparently.”
“You can pray in bed – before and after.” He grinned.
“Huh,” Alex snorted and moved aside to allow his children to rush him.
“What’s the matter?” she said a bit later, hoisting Sarah up to sit in front of him. Ruth was already perched behind him.
“Later,” he mouthed, ducking his head to evade her eyes.
Homecoming was a bustling, noisy affair, and it was well after dark before Matthew and Alex retired to their bedchamber. Around them, the house was going silent, even if Fiona could still be heard in the kitchen, laughing at something Ian was saying.
“Did you know Providence has a new establishment?” Matthew sat down on the bed. “A brothel, no less.”
“A whorehouse? No!” Alex sounded sarcastic. “In a place so full of moral rectitude?” She sat at the wee table he’d made her, busying herself with her face and her teeth.
“Where there’s a town, there are whores.” He peeled off his dirty stockings and, after a tentative sniff, decided the shirt was ripe for laundry as well.
“Must be a tough business climate, in view of it only being Catholics and amoral Anglicans who fall for the carnal itch.”
“Alex! Do you want me to tell you or not?” He shoved a pillow under his head and suppressed a yawn.
“By all means do.” She braided her hair and came over to join him in bed.
“It’s a discreet establishment, standing somewhat south of the town proper but close to the docks.”
“Ah,” Alex nodded, “sailors…”
“...and the odd God-fearing merchant, an assortment of clerks and tradesmen, even Mr Farrell.”
“Mr Farrell? In a brothel?” She shook her head. “But he’s an elder of the congregation!” Her eyes narrowed. “Anyhow, how would you know?”
“Thomas suggested we go there on account of the food being particularly good.”
“The food?” It came out very clipped.
“Aye. Mrs Malone is a canny businesswoman. Men come there for food and beer – excellent beer, she’s Irish – and stay to partake of other pleasures.”
“But you didn’t,” she stated in a dangerous tone.
Matthew was hugely offended. “Of course not! I have no need to.”
“And if you did? If your wife was sickly or denied you her bed or just generally disliked having sex?”
Matthew smiled. “But that isn’t the case, is it?” He slid his hand up and down her thigh, over her hip. “Should I find myself entirely alone, then I might. After all, I have done so before – in my wild youth…”
“And the boys? Did they come along?”
Matthew sat up and stared down at her. “My sons? In a bawdy house? What do you take me for?”
Alex grinned up at him. “Well, Ian is in his wild youth by now, right?”
Matthew sank back down with a muttered comment that such things were best handled by the young man in question on his own.
“Oh, I’m sure it is.” Alex’s brow furrowed for an instant.
“Will you let me get to the point of my tale?” Matthew said, somewhat irritated.
Alex nodded.
“Thomas didn’t go there for the food alone.” He sighed and shook his head. “She’s a pretty enough lass, and she knew him from before.”
“Poor Mary, she’s still in love with him.”
“Aye well, it isn’t that Thomas doesn’t love his wife. It’s just...”
“That he thinks her too old,” Alex finished. “It’s not as if he’s God’s gift to womankind, is it?”
Matthew chuckled. Thomas was a nondescript man, leaving behind a vague impression of grey and more grey. Grey eyes, grey hair, grey clothes and grey stockings, Thomas very much melted into the background unless he set out on purpose not to. Always had, he reflected, recalling the first time he saw him, back in 1659 in Scotland.
“But I didn’t tell you this to have you revise your impression of poor Thomas,” Matthew continued. “I told you because, as I sat waiting, I happened to see a former acquaintance.” He almost spat out the words. “Jones, Dominic Jones.”
“Ah.” Alex scooted closer to him. “That must have been difficult.”
Matthew stretched out one arm and clenched and unclenched his fist repeatedly. Difficult? Aye, that it had been.
“Did he recognise you?” Alex fiddled with his chest hair.
“Aye,” Matthew replied with a short laugh. “When he stood to go upstairs he saw me sitting in the corner, and it took some time for him to make the connection, but finally he did.” It still pleased him that Jones had looked as aghast as Matthew felt.
He shifted in bed. All of him was drowning in remembered blackness and despair, and with a strangled moan he turned to face her. He wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for Alex and her determination to find him and take him home, saving him from an existence that would have ended far too quickly in an anonymous grave on a Virginia plantation.
“That was a long time ago,” Alex soothed. “Ten years ago, more or less.”
Aye, very long ago and since then they’d had five bairns, lost one, been forced to leave their home and cross the sea once again to come here, to Maryland. And yet it could have been yesterday when he woke to find himself in chains, sold by his damned brother Luke into indentured labour on a Virginia tobacco farm.
“I’d totally forgotten about him.” Alex stroked Matthew’s hair. “I wonder if people here know he left Virginia under something of a cloud.”
“Nay, I would think not. Being suspected of murdering your employer is not something you would share with all and sundry, is it? I must be a very unwelcome reminder of his past.” He frowned at that. “He recently moved up from the south of the colony; I found that out the next day. He has a plantation just outside of Providence. Numerous children, I heard. And slaves. He trades in them – well, it would seem he trades in everything.” Matthew pillowed his head as close as he could to her heart, closing his eyes to concentrate on the steady thudding of her pulse. In through his ear, down through his spine, into his bloodstream and up to his heart... Her rhythm wove itself tight around his own strong beat, a familiar sound that lulled him to sleep.
*
Next afternoon Alex went to find Ian, and as they worked in the root cellar she gave him a brief recap of Matthew’s time in Virginia.
“We think – well, Matthew insists he knows – that Jones killed Fairfax, the plantation owner down in Virginia. Remember I told you about that? How your father almost was hanged for a crime he hadn’t committed? Strangely enough, Jones inherited Fairfax’s estate – as per a will dated the day Fairfax died.” Alex shook her head. “Too much of a coincidence, according to your sleuth of a father.”
Ian held out his hand for yet another plank, hammering it into place with a couple of strokes.
“He was very upset.” Ian stood back to admire his handiwork: a much improved door to the root cellar. “He kept on scanning the crowds for him. Difficult to miss, yon Jones, what with him being the size of an ox.”
“He has reason not to trust Jones,” Alex said.
“But th
ey won’t run into each other much, will they?”
“No, I suppose not – a three-day ride makes it highly unlikely. Still, it’s good that you know, just in case.” She almost smiled at how Ian puffed up, chest expanding with pride at her confidence in him.
He tucked the hammer into his belt, grabbed the wooden spade and turned to her with a smile. “Shall we plant your bitty trees, then?”
Alex jumped up. “You dig and I’ll fetch water. And maybe come autumn we can bake one apple pie.”
“I don’t think so.” Ian laughed, prodding the little saplings.
An hour later, Alex sat back on her heels. “There.” She patted the slender little trunk. “Grow and grow quickly, okay?” She sighed, her shoulders falling together. “Pathetic,” she muttered, running a finger up and down the smooth dark grey bark. “It’ll take years and years before they come even close to the trees back home.”
“But someday they will.” Ian dropped to one knee beside her. “And your grandchildren will bake pies and thank the Lord they had a grandmama wise enough to plant a tree – for them.”
“It’s always the worst this time of the year.” Alex craned her head back to look at the sky. “I miss the twilights, those long, blue hours where nothing is either light or dark, but something just in between.”
“We have twilights here,” Ian said. “This is twilight.”
“But it isn’t the same. They’re never as long, never as magical as they were up there, in the north. For him, the worst part comes later.” She crumbled a clod of earth between her fingers.
“Aye, for Da it’s harvest time.”
“And you? Do you miss it?”
“Not as much as I thought I would; this is home now. All of this is home.” He opened his arms wide, indicating their surroundings. “It is easier for us bairns: we have you to make us a home, wherever we go.” He kissed her brow. “It’s enough to have someone who kisses you and wishes you goodnight and know she loves you.”
“Most of the time,” she said in a dry tone, trying to disguise how touched she was.
“All the time,” he contradicted her with conviction.
Alex laughed. “Yes, you’re right; all of the time. But I don’t always like you.” As if on cue, an angry shriek flew through the air, followed by some heavy thumps, and suddenly there were two voices shrieking in unison.
“Sisterly love.” Alex got to her feet, tilted her head in the direction of the noise, listened for some time, and shrugged. “They’re too small to kill each other – yet. Let’s go and see if Matthew and the boys have caught any fish.
“Was there a letter from your mother?” Alex asked as they made their way down to the river.
“Aye. She’s breeding again. It’s all she seems to do, lie in bed and rest her way through pregnancy after pregnancy.”
“Well, five pregnancies in six years is pretty impressive,” Alex said. Luke and Margaret were definitely making up for lost time. Quite the strain on Margaret, and the late miscarriage last year must have been a painful experience. “Is she alright?”
Ian dug into his breeches and produced the letter. “You can read it yourself.”
Alex unfolded it and looked down at the spidery, unformed handwriting that crawled its way across the thick paper. Margaret spent a lot of time describing her three babies, two boys named Charles and James respectively after their father’s royal patrons, and one girl named Marie – and now mayhap yet another son, but it was early days yet; the babe was not due until early October. Luke was mentioned in passing, the odd dropped hint that he was continuing to do very well, how he had commissioned their portraits from Peter Lely himself, and how Margaret had spent hours choosing what to wear for the sitting.
“Well, of course she would,” Alex muttered, inundated by that childish jealousy she always felt when thinking about Margaret – Ian’s mother, Matthew’s first wife. The wife who had cuckolded him with his own brother, lied to retain custody of Matthew’s son, Ian, and stood by and allowed Luke to falsely accuse Matthew of treason. Not – in brief – Alex’s favourite person, and it didn’t exactly help that she was startlingly good-looking to boot.
“I suppose Luke must be very proud.” Alex refolded the letter and handed it back to Ian. Right at the end there was a cramped effort trying to put into words how much Margaret missed her firstborn, but otherwise the letter was one long gushing exposé over a life that no longer included Ian.
“Aye.” Ian came to a halt and turned towards her, eyes shining with unshed tears.
“Her loss, Ian, her very big loss, and our gain. Our eldest son, and look at you. What parents wouldn’t be proud of a boy – no, man – like you?” She grinned at him. “Even if you can’t hold a tune and still complain when I serve you vegetables.”
Ian burst out laughing and gave her a quick hug.
“All of us complain. Even Da complains. If we were meant to eat so much green...”
“I know, I know, you would’ve been born a cow.”
*
After supper, the younger bairns were sent to bed. Ian took Mark with him to see to the beasts, and Matthew and Alex retired to the parlour.
“Have you read the letter from Simon?” Matthew caressed Alex’s cheek in passing and went to sit in his chair, facing hers in front of the fire.
“Yes, although I’m not entirely sure if I understood it all. Simon’s handwriting is at times atrocious.”
“It seems all is well with them, even though Simon does complain that life is a trifle difficult.”
Alex shook out Sarah’s mended smock. “What was it he said? Thousands of Highlander soldiers let loose on Ayrshire?”
“Aye, and they have no reason to love us, do they?” He pursed his lips, washed by a wave of concern for his sister, Joan, and Simon, his brother-in-law.
“Well no, given the way the Covenanter armies acted in the Highlands. Bloody religion,” she said, making Matthew raise a disapproving brow. “Well, it is, isn’t it? Making Scots turn upon Scots, English upon English...and at the end of the day for what? For the right to proclaim your own interpretation of the Bible as being the valid one? God must roll His eyes in desperation at times.”
“Aye,” Matthew sighed. “He must. But it isn’t His fault, and as for the Bible, it’s all there. You don’t need an interpretation; you must but read it and reflect on it.”
“Not according to some of the ministers. Some ministers are of the firm opinion that it is them that can interpret, and we must but listen and obey – especially us featherbrained women.”
Matthew laughed and raised his foot to rest in her lap. “Obedience is an attractive quality in a woman, one unfortunately very lacking in you.”
“Watch it,” she mumbled, brandishing her needle. “You don’t want me to run this through your toe, do you?”
He laughed again and sat back with his pewter mug of whisky in his hands to look at her. In the glow from the fire and the light of the candle by her side, all of her was haloed, her dark hair throwing off glints of bronze and even gold. Not much grey in it, just the odd hair here and there and the little patch just off her right temple, creating an interesting streak of light in all that dark.
For almost fourteen years she had been in his life, and there were still days when he would give silent and fervent thanks for having her with him, for that random and miraculous occurrence a day in August that had thrown her from her time into his. 1658, he mused, on a Scottish moor, and he had found her after a terrifying thunderstorm, badly burnt and concussed, wearing the strangest garments he had ever seen. Breeches on a woman... And what breeches, narrow and blue they hugged her so close it had been like seeing her naked, her rounded arse straining against the tight cloth.
Now her bottom was hidden beneath modest skirts, her hair was no longer a wild short cap but fell to well below her shoulder blades. And only he saw h
er fully; she was for his eyes only when the hair tumbled in wild disarray, when her limbs were uncovered to lie pale against the sheets. Only his... He stood up and waited until she met his eyes. A small movement of his head, and she folded her work together and doused the candle with her fingers before moving in the direction of their bedchamber. He banked the fire and followed, his bare feet silent on the wooden boards.
Chapter 4
“It’s a bit sad.” Alex ran her hand down one of the ring-barked saplings. “All these beautiful trees and we kill them.”
“Aye, well,” Matthew said, wiping the sweat off his face, “it’s trees or fields. And we can’t eat the leaves, however bonny they may be.” He swept the area with his eyes and sat down in the long grass. “In a year it will all be wheat, a large field of golden wheat.” But first it would cost him weeks of toil – as had every square yard presently under the plough. At times he felt like yon Sisyphus, constantly rolling a boulder uphill.
Alex came to sit beside him. “Wheat, hey? No tobacco?”
“Never, not on my land.” He drew the sodden shirt over his head and threw it to lie on the ground.
“Oh.” Alex stretched out beside him, her head pillowed on her arms.
Matthew swigged at the beer bottle, set it down and stuffed a boiled egg into his mouth, chewing methodically while he studied his surroundings.
Alex raised her hand to his bare back, running a light finger over his scarred skin. “Tobacco is a good cash crop.”
“I don’t care if it grows with gold foil leaves; I won’t touch it.” And especially not after having run into Dominic Jones again; not after having all those memories of his months on Suffolk Rose prodded back into uncomfortable life by laying eyes on his former tormentor. It would be best for all if he never met the man again, but he couldn’t help feeling a niggling curiosity about Kate, Dominic’s wife. Would she have aged as badly as her husband? Surely not, not pretty Kate with her honey-coloured hair and soft brown eyes. Not Kate, who had held him and loved him and thereby saved his life.
A Newfound Land (The Graham Saga) Page 4