“A nightmare,” Alex agreed and gave him a weak smile.
It was still very disconcerting that this mild, sweet priest should be an exact copy of the future Ángel Muñoz, first-class bastard and father of her son, Isaac, born in 1999. If she looked at Carlos through her lashes, she could see her future tormentor, some years older than the young priest, but essentially the same, slight and fine boned, borderline feminine if it hadn’t been for the square jaw and the dark, well-defined brows. Alex shook her head to clear it of these hallucinations, aware of the priest’s worried eyes on her. She gave him a reassuring smile and sat up in bed, hunting about for her bedjacket.
Carlos averted his eyes while Alex adjusted the soft, knitted garment over her thin shift, smiling instead at the squares of bright coloured light that patterned the floor. Nine panes in the window consisted of stained glass, six red and three green, and on a day like this, the reflections created a very pleasing effect on the scrubbed floorboards.
“Matthew bought them for me,” Alex said, having followed his eyes. “He knows I am overly fond of red.”
“A very nice colour,” Carlos said with a smile.
“I guess you’ll just have to work harder then,” she teased, “so that one day you can flash around in cardinal robes.”
His face darkened, and he ruefully shook his head. “Too late for that. I’m doomed to be an inconspicuous priest far away from the true seat of power.”
“You’re only twenty-six.”
“And very far from Rome.”
“Are you and your cousins much alike?” Alex asked, throwing him by this very abrupt change in subject.
“My cousins? Why do you ask?”
She shrugged, not about to tell him that she sincerely hoped it wasn’t his direct descendant who would hurt her so badly three centuries from now.
“Just curious, I suppose. After all, you’re very like your father.” She smiled at the memory of Don Benito, long dead – and very disgraced – Catholic priest.
Carlos regarded her with the expression of mingled dislike and curiosity he always wore when she mentioned his father. “I hope it’s only superficial. He was a weak man. So weak he broke his holy vows.”
Alex just looked at him. “It burdened him until the day he died. So, your cousins.” She reclined against her pillows and nodded for him to start.
“My uncle and father were brothers,” Carlos began, and smiled at her exasperated eye roll. “I mean they were gemelos, twins, and Raúl María was born when the bells for morning Mass rang, while my father, Ángel Benito, entered into the world just before Vespers. Their mother died of the ordeal, and the boys grew up with a grieving father and an aunt, Doña Isabel. Quite the termagant…” Carlos straightened up. “We come from an old Seville family. We have lived there since well before the Reconquista back in the fifteenth century, and one of our long dead relatives, the saintly Alonso de Hojeda, was instrumental in ridding our land of the nefarious Jews – and other heretics, of course.”
“Not something I would brag about,” Alex muttered.
“What?” Carlos asked.
“Never mind,” Alex said. “Go on.”
Carlos gave her an irritated look and bent down to scratch at his peg leg. “Alonso de Hojeda established the Inquisition in Seville and rooted out more false converts, marranos, than anyone else—”
“By torturing them, by threatening their children! A man confesses to anything if enough pain is applied to him.”
“The Jews killed Jesus. Is it not just that they be punished for this?”
“If we’re going to be quite correct, the Romans executed Jesus,” Alex said, “and no, I don’t think it’s fair, and I suspect God is with me on this.”
“God? Why would He be? It’s His son they killed! They chose – Barabbas before Jesus.”
“But they’re his chosen people,” Alex said.
“Were, Alex, were. They refused to welcome the Messiah.”
Alex snorted, but decided to drop the subject before it all became too infected. Besides, she’d bet Carlos had marrano blood in him – most of the hoity-toity Seville families did, however reluctant to admit it. She waved for him to go on with his story.
“In our family, one son is always given to the Church, in honour of our saintly relative, and my father was sent from an early age to study with the monks, knowing always he was destined to be a priest.”
“Did he want to be?” Alex asked.
Carlos shrugged. “How am I to know? I never met him, did I?”
“I think he did, and he must have been a good priest, a compassionate man.”
“He was a bad priest,” Carlos said with uncharacteristic vehemence. “Surely he burns in hell by now.”
Alex gave him a long, pitying look. Now the bastard son to this disgraced priest was trapped in a web of carnal desires, drawn like a helpless moth to the flame, to Sarah. Most ironic – and very sad.
Carlos dropped his eyes to the rosary beads he was twisting round and round in his hands.
“Sevilla is a beautiful place,” he murmured, his voice heavy with longing.
“I know,” Alex said. “A city stretched out along the Guadalquivir de saliente a poniente, from east to west, and over it all stands la Giralda.”
“You know my city?”
“I used to. I’m sure it has changed since I saw it last.”
He nodded and went back to his rosary. It was probably much changed since he had last seen it too, he said, first all those months in sodden Ireland and now here. “Our family lived close to the royal palace, and my uncle and father ran wild through the courtyards, and as they were impossible to tell apart, it was difficult to punish them. Well, Doña Isabel punished both of them, just in case,” he added with a certain dryness that made Alex laugh.
“I think they loved each other, those two small boys, but then my father was taken to the monastery, and Raúl was set to learn his father’s trade, and when they met the common ground between them had shrunk to childhood memories of hot days in the shade, stolen oranges they shared behind the rosebush, and slowly they grew into two very different men.”
Carlos cast a thoughtful look in her direction. “You say my father was a compassionate man. My uncle, unfortunately, isn’t. He took me in to salvage the family’s reputation, and ever did he look askance at me, this constant reminder of his brother’s fall from grace. I suppose he tried at first, but then his wife gave him a son, a mere year after my arrival, and then two more in as many years. Raúl, Ángel, and Carlos – my namesake. His wife didn’t like me, and especially as I and my cousins were so alike we were always taken for brothers.” He smiled wryly. “So yes, Alex, to answer your original question, my cousins and I look just the same.”
“And do you like them?”
“Like them? I was sent away before I was six, and after that I saw them but once a year at most. I don’t know them, but what little I know of them…” He hitched his shoulders. “It seems they take after their father.” They sat in comfortable silence for a while, and then Carlos stood.
“I suggest you sleep,” he said with a small smile, “or else that dragon you have downstairs may eat us both alive.”
“Huh,” Alex said, “I’d like to see her try.” But she closed her eyes all the same, thinking that a little nap was just what she needed.
*
She woke to the sensation of hands on her body. Big, warm hands that slid down her arms, up her legs, doing a most thorough inspection of her body. Alex opened an eye and smiled.
“Hi,” she said, licking her lips.
“Hi, yourself.” Matthew was lying very close, his eyes that amazing golden green that always made her think of sunlit water. “Feeling better?”
“Much.” She raised her arms to help him pull her shift off, relishing the sensation of his naked skin against hers. His hand travelled down her back, rolling them both so that she ended up on top, her breasts squished against his hairy chest.
�
�Your arm?” she asked, bending to nip her way along his jawline.
“It was nowt but a scratch,” he said, fiddling with her braid. Her hair came undone, falling like a curly curtain round her head. She smiled, moved downwards, trailing her hair over his body. His nipples, his navel, the darker line of hair that travelled towards his groin… She kissed and bit, she licked and teased, and Matthew sighed, his hands lying open and relaxed on her head.
“Well, hello there,” she murmured, dropping a kiss on his penis. It twitched and thickened under her gentle touch. She cupped his balls and took him in her mouth, liking how his thighs tensed beneath her when she did.
“Aaah,” he sighed, his hands no longer quite as relaxed. His fingers sank into her hair, his buttocks rose towards her. “Alex,” he whispered, “my Alex.”
“That’s me,” she said, releasing him. “Kiss me,” she demanded, and he raised his back off the bed, cradled her head with his hands and kissed her until she had to break away and gulp for air.
“More?” he asked, flipping her over so that she was on her back, pressed into the bed by his weight.
Alex licked her lips again and nodded. “Much more.”
“More?” he asked a couple of minutes later, and she wasn’t quite as coherent anymore, because she was out of breath and her blood was boiling through her veins, and his fingers were doing things to her that made it difficult to think straight. So she just nodded, hands clutching at the quilt when he slid down to use that oh, so expert mouth on her sex.
“Matthew,” she groaned some time later, “no more, Matthew.”
“No more?” He laughed, his exhalation a rush of hot air that tickled her.
“No more,” she gasped. “I just want…”
“Me,” he said, flexing his hips against her.
“Yes,” she said, “I want you.”
“Now?”
“God, you’re a horrible tease at times!” She raised her hips towards him. “Please, Matthew…”
At last, he took pity on her, entering her in one swift movement that pinned her to the mattress. The size of him inside of her, the words he murmured in her ear, the way his hands tightened their hold on her. He moved a couple of times. She gripped at his back, his buttocks. So close, so very, very close. Oh, yes, yes, yes…
Matthew held still. “Open your eyes,” he said.
So she did, staring into his as she came.
Chapter 10
Qaachow came by a few days into April, and with him came his two sons.
“Are you staying?” Alex asked Samuel, and Matthew could hear the hope in her voice.
“Nay,” the boy replied, “we’re but stopping by. My father is taking us north for some weeks.”
“Oh.” Alex nodded, and retreated a step or two, pulling wee Adam to stand before her, as if she were using their youngest son as bulwark. Matthew could but sympathise, inundated by an acute sense of loss that washed through him at seeing his son – his, goddamn it! – standing so unreachable for all that he was only a foot or so away. Something shifted in Samuel’s eyes, a dark shadow flashed through the light hazel, the mouth wobbled for an instant, and it tore at Matthew to see his son so confused. Alex has apparently seen it too because she extended her hand to touch the boyish shoulder.
“I thought you’d be here for the spring planting,” she said.
“We’ve said twice a year,” Qaachow interrupted, “and he was here for your winter feasts.”
In reply, Alex walked away, with Samuel running after her. Matthew followed at a slower pace.
“Mama?” Samuel caught up with her by the smoking shed.
She waved a hand at him, averting her wet face. “Just go,” she said, breaking into a half run.
“Mama,” he groaned, made as if to go after her but was stopped by Matthew.
“Leave her be, lad. I’ll talk to her, aye?”
“I don’t want her to hurt,” his son mumbled.
Matthew gave him a sad little smile. “But she does, Samuel. We both do. Do you find that surprising?”
Samuel hitched his shoulders, scuffed at the ground with his worn moccasin. “I thought…” he muttered but then shut his mouth.
“That it would be easy?” Matthew drew him close. Samuel nodded, sighing into Matthew’s shirt, and, for a brief moment, Matthew allowed himself to pretend things were as they should be, with Samuel back where he belonged. The daydream was shattered by Qaachow’s voice, and in his arms Samuel began to fidget. Matthew released him, even managed a little smile.
“Go then, lad, they’re waiting for you.” He gave his son a gentle shove, but couldn’t find it in himself to accompany him back to where Qaachow was waiting. Instead, he went to find his wife.
“I can’t stand it, I just—” Alex used her shawl to wipe at her face. “I want him back, he should be here, with me!”
“Shh.” Matthew kneeled down beside her, gathered her close enough that he could kiss the top of her head. “So do I, lass. Every day I wake, and there is a hollow in my heart, a constant aching for him.” And since that visit to the Indian village back in February, if possible his longing for his son had increased, made all the worse by seeing how easily Samuel had fitted into his new life and family. The lad was his Samuel, not White Bear, not a soon-to-be Indian brave whose face would be permanently marked by tattoos, who’d slip further and further away from them.
“Yes,” Alex said, “it’s awful. And to see him, like today, it tears my heart out.”
“Mine too.” He rested his head against hers.
“Maybe he’ll come back,” Alex said.
“Mayhap,” Matthew agreed with zero conviction.
They sat in silence as the sun rose to its zenith, and around them spring stood green and bright, but Matthew didn’t notice. He saw a lad in breechcloth and moccasins that should have been here, with them.
*
“Do you mind?” Alex threw Sarah a worried look, already regretting her decision to tell her. “He very much wanted him,” Alex continued, now with her nose to the ground where she was seeding bed after bed with vegetables, submerging all the emotions woken by Samuel’s visit the day before by throwing herself into an extended cycle of work.
“How can he?” Sarah said, thrusting garlic cloves into the soil.
“He sees the baby, not the father,” Alex answered, “and maybe he also sees the mother.”
Sarah leapt to her feet and threw her wooden trowel to land in the soft, dark earth. “I’m not a mother, you hear? It doesn’t count when you are forced and…” She whirled, glaring at her mother, her sisters-in-law, her little nieces who were staring at her open-mouthed. “Oh bloody hell!” she said and ran off, clogs and all.
“She does mind,” Mrs Parson said from where she was sitting on the bench.
“No,” Alex said sarcastically, “I would never have guessed.” With a sigh, she sat back on her heels. “Were we wrong? Simon so wanted him, and the boy…well, it isn’t his fault, is it?”
“I think you did right,” Naomi voiced staunchly. “And with time she will think so too.”
Betty shook her head. “She wants to forget him – this whole last year she wishes to erase completely from her head, and how can she do that if the boy still lives on the fringes of her life?”
Alex gave her daughter-in-law an impressed look. “Very eloquent,” she said, making Betty duck her head. “But if you’re right, then we may have done right by the boy, but not by Sarah.”
“It’s done, no?” Mrs Parson pointed out. “So why waste time discussing it? I presume you don’t plan on riding down to Providence and tearing the hapless lad away from Simon, do you?”
“No,” Alex said, “that alternative hasn’t occurred to me.”
Sarah had by now reached the stables, and Alex watched her duck inside.
“She’ll do,” Mrs Parson told her. “Just give her time, aye?”
*
Sarah had expected the stables to be empty – at least of human
s – and was somewhat thrown to find her eldest brother there. Hastily, she rubbed at her face, wiping her nose with her sleeve.
“Why are you here? Shirking, are you?” All the men were out in the fields, as were the oxen and the mules. A cloud passed over Ian’s face, and belatedly Sarah realised what she’d said. “Sorry,” she mumbled, studying him from under her lashes.
Ian made a guttural sound that Sarah translated to mean he heard but didn’t accept her apology. “And you? Aren’t you supposed to be working in the garden?”
Sarah grunted and came over to watch him curry Aaron into a shining bronze. “I can do that,” she offered in an attempt to compensate for her previous blunder.
If anything, her comment made it worse, two angry eyes regarding her across the horse’s broad back. “I’m not entirely useless.”
“Useless? Of course you’re not useless. I’ve seen you, you know. You’ve been out working full days for the last week, from just after dawn ’til dusk. Does Betty know how hard you work out there? Does Da?”
Ian muttered something under his breath along the lines that he didn’t appreciate being spied on.
“I wasn’t spying,” Sarah retorted. “I just happened to be passing.” She’d seen him collapse one day, his hands on his lower back, and she had hesitated between rushing to help him and waiting to see what would happen. In the event, it had not taken long before he was back on his feet, his shirt sticking to his sweating skin. Now, she watched how carefully he moved, each step a conscious effort to overcome pain, and moved towards him.
“You have to rest,” she said.
“I haven’t finished!”
“I don’t care. You’re coming with me this minute or I’ll call Mama down to see you.”
He glared at her but threw the currying comb to clatter on the stamped earth of the stable floor. “Fine,” he said, crossing his arms, “and where are we going?”
“You are going to bed, and I’ll fetch Betty.”
*
“Better?” Betty asked, wiping her hands on her apron. Ian grunted, half asleep on the sun-warmed wooden floor.
Sarah remained by the door, not wanting to intrude as Betty ministered to her husband, but she smiled at how relaxed Ian looked, his dark hair tousled, his face near on buried in the small rug below him.
Whither Thou Goest (The Graham Saga Book 7) Page 8