“Take it all off,” he said in a strangled voice and sat back to undress.
“Here?” Jenny looked about the hayloft.
“No one will come.”
“I...” Jenny sat up half-dressed. “I’ve never seen a naked man in daylight before.” Ian felt somewhat flustered, but drew the shirt over his head, leaving himself nude to her eyes. He was painfully aware of his cock, rising from its fuzzy nest of hair. She extended a hesitant finger to touch his member and at her touch he experienced a jolt, a spark of live energy that flew up his spine. Her hand on his stomach, and it was as if a red-hot iron pressed into his skin, a delicious but singeing warmth shadowing her hand as it moved from his navel and downwards. His hand came down to stop hers, his breathing loud gulps.
He stood up, helped her up, and her skirts were a puddle around her feet, her shift floated down on top, and still they remained a scant foot or so apart. The hair of her crotch was much darker than on her head. And her breasts…small and topped with pink nipples that he just had to brush his fingers across. She was his; all of this creature standing in front of him was his, and whatever he saw he could touch.
He knelt, guiding her down to lie in the hay. Her thighs spread at his touch, and he slipped his fingers into her private place and looked at her, amazed. So warm...he wiggled his fingers, and her pupils widened and unfocused, her hips shifting towards him. So warm and so wet, her curls damp with her moisture.
His cock was screeching with pent-up need, screaming that it had to, God it had to, and somehow he was inside of her, in so deep he could feel how his balls crushed themselves against her. In his head, it all went red and purple and red again, and then he came, holding on to her as a shipwrecked sailor to a rock.
Ian propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her, and she gave him a slow smile from behind half-closed eyes. His wife...soon, anyway. His to bed, his to care for. He drew a hand over her soft stomach and wondered how long it would be before she carried his child.
“You must be getting back home,” he said.
She nodded but showed no inclination to move from where she was. Instead, she widened her legs in an inviting gesture, stretching herself to show off her neat small breasts. Ian didn’t need more encouragement; he rolled back on top of her.
*
“The foul deed is done,” Alex said to Matthew, leaning forward on her wooden spade. He was helping her manure the new beds of her expanding garden, and at her comment lifted his face to where Ian and Jenny were walking through the closest meadow in the general direction of the grazing horses.
“You think?” He came over to stand beside her.
“Definitely; look at how she’s walking.”
He tilted his head to one side, and in his head flashed a memory of Alex walking before him up a small hill on a Scottish moor, her gait wide-legged and unsteady after an afternoon spent on her back with him on top. He slipped an arm round her waist and squeezed.
“You don’t walk like that anymore,” he said with some reproach.
“You don’t make love to me like a rutting stag all through an afternoon anymore either, do you?”
“A rutting stag?” He nuzzled her hair. “Would you want me to?”
“This is when I should slap you over the head and tell you you’re out fishing for compliments, Mr Graham. But being a dutiful and most loving wife, I’ll do this instead.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him before whispering a hot “yes” in his ear.
“Mama?” Ruth’s voice rang with uncertainty.
“Yes?” Alex stepped out of Matthew’s embrace with a wry shrug. “What is it, honey?”
“It’s Offa. I think he’s hurting.” Ruth pointed up the slope towards the little graveyard.
*
Magnus was lying on the ground, curled shrimp-like with his hands held hard around his head. The skin around his mouth was numb with the effort of stopping himself from uttering a sound, and he’d squished his eyes shut to keep out the fucking painful light that was setting his damn brain on fire. It was a relief to feel Alex’s hands on him, to hear Matthew assure him they were here, both of them, and did he want Matthew to help him inside?
He closed his fingers round his son-in-law’s wrist and held on as the fire in his head burnt and raged, huge soaring flames of pain that abruptly flickered and died, leaving his brain sore but functioning.
An hour or so later, the pain had abated.
“This is ridiculous,” Magnus groused, looking at Mrs Parson for support. “I don’t need to stay in bed; it’s just a headache.”
“You’ll stay in bed for the rest of the day,” Alex replied, “and Mrs Parson here has promised to bring you something to drink and to keep you company.”
“I hope by drink she meant whisky,” Magnus said to Mrs Parson once Alex had left them alone.
“Later, perhaps, but for now it’s a good cup of wintergreen and St John’s wort tea. It will relieve that remaining headache—”
“I don’t have a headache!”
“Oh aye? And is that why you squint at the light from yon window?”
He drank the tea under protest, complaining that it was too hot, too bitter, totally useless, and anyway he didn’t need it. Mrs Parson just went on with her knitting. He fell silent and closed his eyes. This had been the worst one yet, and soon there’d be more.
He rolled over on his side and studied Mrs Parson’s flying hands. “You’re quite good at that.”
“Well aye, seeing as I’ve been doing it for close to sixty years.” She inspected the long knitted tube. “Stockings for you. The ones you came with are nothing but holes, and the wool is so poor they can’t be darned.”
Magnus eyed the dark grey stocking growing from her hands. “I’ll probably never get to wear them.”
“Aye, you will.”
He felt a flash of irritation with her, sitting there and telling him that he’d be around for yet another winter. But instead of saying something rude, he shut his eyes. Click, click, click, click...her needles beat out a steady drumming, and he fell asleep comforted by the sound and her presence.
*
“Are you better today?” Mark asked next morning, appearing by Magnus’ side as he made for the vegetable beds.
“Yes, it was only a headache.”
Mark scratched Narcissus on the broad, flat head. “A headache? It looked far worse when Da brought you in yesterday.”
Magnus looked at the lanky thirteen-year-old and sighed. “I’m going to die.”
Mark’s brows pulled into a little frown, hazel eyes regarding Magnus. “Everyone dies. Naomi’s wee brother passed away just after they got here, Rachel died when she was but four, our neighbours back in Scotland died of starvation and exposure… You’re lucky in that you’ll die of old age, not violent, untimely death.”
“I’m not sure that’s much of a comfort.” Magnus was taken aback by Mark’s laconic answer.
“Are you afraid?”
“Of dying? No, I don’t think so. Maybe of how I’ll die…” His hand closed around his secreted stash of pills. He shook himself free of all these dark thoughts and turned to face his grandson with a smile. “So, what are weddings like over here? Wild parties or sedate affairs?”
“Wild parties,” Mark grinned, “and Da is adding casks of beer and whisky just to make sure.”
“Do you dance?” Magnus waggled his hips in a stiff demonstration. Mark nodded that they did, but perhaps not quite like that.
“Mama says how you do it differently in Sweden.” To Magnus’ amusement, Mark began to hum something that sounded very much like a late seventies disco hit while dancing quite competently on the spot.
“Well done!” Magnus said. “But you have to work on the butt shakes.”
“Butt shakes?” Mark twisted to study his backside.
Magnus close
d his eyes, pretended himself back in a hot, steamy Seville night a year or so before Alex was born, and danced. And there was Mercedes, alluring as ever with her long hair flying as she twirled and laughed, and she was spinning round him, faster and faster, and he could no longer remain upright because the whole world was tilting violently from one side to the other. He sank down on the ground, his chest heaving with a combination of exertion and plain simple fear.
“I’m too old for this,” he muttered.
“Just as well. Mrs Leslie wouldn’t have been impressed.”
“Of course she would,” Magnus joked. “She’d be all over me.”
Mark looked at him strangely. “Who would want that?”
Alex detoured by the kitchen garden to ensure Magnus was okay, and got a black look in return for her effort as he told her to stop mollycoddling. She scowled back at him and flounced off to check on her chickens and the impressive sixteen piglets.
“All that nice ham,” she cooed at the small, black-spotted animals. “Won’t that be nice come Christmas?” After giving the sow a long rub behind her ears and commending her on her exemplary motherhood – not one piglet bitten to death – she stepped out into the June sunshine in time to see Ian walk off towards the river and hurried after him.
“Are you nervous?” Alex swept her skirts round her legs and sat down beside Ian. He nodded, his eyes locked on a hawk in the sky.
“I’m not sure. I like her but I’m not certain that I’m in love with her – but I would very much want to be.”
“And why are you marrying her if you’re not in love with her?” More to the point, why had he made love to her yesterday if he wasn’t sure? She stared up at the bird, thinking that there was something very self-sufficient about Jenny. She still had her doubts about this match.
“She came to me when she needed help, and I liked that.” He liked a lot more about her, he mumbled: the way her hair whorled over her left temple, how her tongue would peek out of the corner of her mouth when she concentrated, the way her hand felt in his…
Alex laughed and gave him a shove. “It seems you’re well on your way there.”
He made a non-committal sound and threw himself back to lie in the grass.
“It’s not like with you and Da.” He turned his head to look at Alex, a hesitant expression on his face. “But you grow into it, don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Alex said – well, what could she say? “It’s just a matter of nurturing it.”
“Aye.” Ian closed his eyes.
“How utterly archaic,” Alex said to Mrs Parson when they trailed the bride and her female well-wishers from the candlelit barn to the wedding chamber prepared by Elizabeth. Mrs Parson beamed and took a firmer grip of Alex’s arm in an attempt to walk as straight as possible.
Alex stood back, pitying her new daughter-in-law as she was undressed, perfumed and led to lie waiting in the bed, her long hair artfully arranged around her. Thank heavens they’d already gotten the sex part out of the way, Alex reflected, watching with some amusement when the bridegroom was led through the door, his shirt already half out of his breeches thanks to the many helping hands that surrounded him.
Alex escaped outside, leaning back against the warm wooden wall. Above her hung a fat full moon, a greenish white against the dark night sky, and a weak breeze caressed the leaves of the closest plane trees into a whispering rustle. She was tired. Spring had been one long hectic stretch of work except for the few days in Providence, and she would far prefer sleeping with Matthew in her own bed tonight than cramming down to sleep with Ruth and Sarah. She sighed and decided no one would miss her if she chose to retire. Besides, David needed to be fed.
“If you want, we can ride back home tonight.” Matthew’s dark voice startled her.
“What are you? A mind-reader?” Alex yawned widely.
“At times.” He came to stand beside her. He smelled of wood smoke, of beer and barbecued pork, but under it all was his own fragrance, warm and salt and startlingly fresh, like that of ice-cold water in a mossy spring.
She sniffed and broke out in a pleased smile. “You still smell like you did when we first met.”
“So do you,” he concluded once he’d done his own sniffing. “Of tart green apples and fresh split wood and warm milk.”
“Warm milk?” Alex unstuck her breasts from her shift – she had to find David soon – and shook her head. “I didn’t smell of warm milk when we met.”
“Aye, you did; you always smelled like a mother – the mother of my bairns.” For some strange reason, that comment made Alex ridiculously happy.
They stood side by side in the night for some time. From the barn spilled light and noise, loud laughter interspersed with the sound of fiddles and stamping feet.
“What is it, lass?” he said, taking her hand.
“I don’t know. I’m just tired, I think, and then all of this… Our oldest boy married, our next son already contracted for marriage, and Jacob on the threshold of leaving us. I guess it makes me feel old, to see them begin to grow away from us.”
“But you have a wean and two wee daughters and a lad just seven. And you have me, and I’ll never grow away from you.”
“No,” she ran her hand down his smooth, well-shaven cheek, “you won’t, will you?
“And then it’s Magnus,” she went on. “I’m not sure I’m going to be good at nursing him as he gets worse. He goes all snappy and I bite his head off when I should be understanding and supporting.”
“He doesn’t want you to be mild and meek; he wants you to be as you are, to treat him as you always have.”
“You think?”
From the barn came a wild round of applause, and Alex recognised Sarah’s high voice, heard her say something and then begin to sing.
“Sarah? Isn’t she in bed?” Matthew cocked his head and turned to look at Alex with an expression somewhere between wild amusement and desperation. “What is she singing?”
“Oh my God,” Alex groaned, “please don’t let this be true.” She wheeled and rushed in the direction of the carrying voice.
“You could have stopped her,” Alex said to Magnus once he’d stopped laughing.
“I could,” he said, and began to laugh again. “Her face, Alex, you should’ve seen her face!”
“Who? Sarah’s?” Alex asked with irritation.
“No, no. She looked the same angel she always does, no matter what dark thoughts might be lurking in her little devious brain, but Elizabeth… For a moment there, I thought she was going to die of an apoplectic attack.”
“It’s a trifle uncommon,” Matthew interjected, looking flustered. “A lass of four singing songs about virgins and fucking…” He shook his head at Alex. “How could you teach her something like that?”
“Me? I didn’t teach her that!” After all, she’d only sung it to Ian and Mark – well, perhaps to Jacob as well.
Chapter 25
Agnes inspected the curd, looking quite pleased.
“See how it has begun to crumble, mistress? This will make good cheese.”
Alex nipped off a piece. “Doesn’t taste much.”
“Not yet, but it will. My mam was a good cheese maker, and I learnt the making from her as a wee lass.” Agnes patted the two tightly packed wooden moulds and wrapped them in cloth. Alex went back to her churning, bringing the wooden plunger up and down, up and down, in a steady rhythmic movement.
“I can do that.” Jenny appeared in the doorway and smiled carefully at Alex.
“Be my guest.” Alex let go off the long wooden stave. Her hands were reddened and a long, narrow blister had formed along the heel of her left hand. “Well, two’s company, three’s a crowd.” She smiled at the two girls before leaving the dairy shed with a relieved sigh.
Jenny and she weren’t comfortable round one another; the daughte
r of the house relegated to being a newbie in a world ruled as firmly – but totally differently – by Alex at Graham’s Garden as Leslie’s Crossing was by Elizabeth.
At times, Alex would catch Jenny staring at her with something like awe in her face; at other times the expression was one of incredulity – like the other day, when Jenny realised that late supper was a meal consisting entirely of vegetables and nothing else. She had eyed the boiled new beets, carrots, potatoes and onions with open disappointment, and had watched with amazement when the Graham children ate platefuls, slathering them with butter and salt.
Thankfully, Jenny and Agnes seemed to get on well, even if Jenny found it strange to see Agnes included so naturally as a member of the household, eating all her meals with the family and generally treated as a relative rather than the servant she was.
“It would be a bit more difficult at your home,” Alex had said when Jenny commented on this. “You’re so many, and you have what? Four serving girls?”
“Five,” Jenny said with some pride. “And six field hands and five slaves.”
“Hmm,” Alex replied, non-committal.
“They’re blacks,” Jenny pointed out.
“Hmm,” Alex had repeated, conveying with precision just what a disgusting practice she thought slavery to be.
Alex was feeling cranky. She was tired after several nights of disrupted sleep thanks to David, her back hurt, her hands ached – a consequence of far too many hours in her garden – and, on top of it all, she had a huge pile of unwashed linen to take care of. Not today, she decided, no, today she’d take it easy for once; maybe throw herself on a bed and browse through a book or two, or why not watch something on the telly. She grinned at her own joke and made for the kitchen.
“No, no,” Magnus was saying when she stepped over the threshold, “don’t put it anywhere near your mouth. It burns like hell.” He looked up and smiled at his daughter. “True, right?” He held up a small, circular pepper, the size of a small plum.
“A chilli,” she said. “Well done, Pappa, you got it to grow!”
A Newfound Land (The Graham Saga) Page 22