Serpents in the Garden (The Graham Saga)

by Anna Belfrage

  “I stink,” she whispered. “I don’t want to stink.”

  “I’ll wash you. Betty will bring me some hot water, won’t you, lass, and then I’ll wash you and put you to bed.”

  “I’m not very brave, am I?” she said as he supported her out of the kitchen.

  “Brave enough to wallop a wolf with a leg of lamb.”

  Alex laughed against his shoulder. “That wasn’t brave; that was just sheer stupidity.”

  *

  He sat beside her afterwards and watched her sleep. Thank heavens for the thick cloak or there would have been no arm left; thank heavens for the dog or God knows what might have happened; and thank the Lord that he’d heard her scream and come running with his musket.

  She’d looked right wild, blood streaming down her arm, the leg of lamb held high, and one wolf limping off while Viggo grappled the other one. Now, there was one dead wolf in his yard and an injured woman in his bed. He scrubbed his hands through his hair.

  *

  Alex woke in time for supper and, after a heated discussion with Matthew, she triumphantly left her bed to sit with her family at the table. Her younger sons were very impressed by their wolf-fighting Mama, and Alex told them about Tarzan, who lived in Africa and wrestled with crocodiles and lions and the like.

  “Alone?” Sarah asked. “All alone?”

  “He grew up with some monkeys, I think. Gorillas.”

  “But he can’t live with them,” Ruth said. “A wean live with wild animals…”

  “Well, he did, and then he grew up and met this girl named Jane and they lived happily ever after.”

  “Jane?” Naomi laughed. “And she’d grown up there as well?”

  “No. She came on a boat.”

  “Ah, that clarifies things.” Naomi helped Tom to stand in her lap and bounced him up and down. “Who changed his clouts?”

  “I suppose he didn’t have any,” Alex replied, although in all Tarzan movies she’d seen he was always most modestly covered.

  “Could he talk?” Mark asked.

  Alex sighed. “It’s a story, right? All about this tragic shipwreck, and how the baby survives because some monkeys take care of him, and then one day he meets a girl and realises he isn’t a monkey – although I suspect he’s figured that one out before – and then he returns to civilisation, doesn’t like it, and goes back to his monkeys. With Jane.” She eyed them, all of them, from Adam sitting so that he could rest his head against her, to Ian with Maggie in his lap, and her chest tightened uncomfortably. “It wouldn’t work, of course; the baby would have died. Human babies need human families.” And then she was crying, because it had been so close, so goddamn close, and had the wolf bitten her higher up…

  Once she calmed down, she cheered them all up by telling them the story of the Count of Monte Cristo. No gorillas, no woman called Jane, only a man whose life was torn apart by love and treachery. As Alex had forgotten most of the book, she concentrated on the betrayal and subsequent revenge, even if both Ruth and Naomi were disappointed to hear that Edmond never married Mercedes, and David loudly voiced that, if it were him, he would have run that nefarious Fernand through with a sword.

  “Or shot him,” Sarah said, glancing at the loaded musket that stood by the door.

  As if on cue came the mournful sound of a wolf howl, and Alex shrank against Matthew.

  “He mourns his mate,” Matthew whispered, and tightened his hold on her shoulders.

  Chapter 32

  Charlotte Foster looked down at the small posy in her hand and dropped it into the gutter with a fleeting smile. A posy, and a hand-picked one at that… She took a hasty step to the right, shook her fist at Mrs Arnold, who smirked down at her with the upended chamber pot in her hand, and ducked into the storefront of Foster & Collin.

  The small shop was full of people, and Charlotte curtsied repeatedly to the assembled goldsmiths. As a newly elected officer of the guild, Richard had become quite unbearable of late, a sizeable portion of his day given over to guild matters. She threw him a cautious look. Richard Collin was a solid man, as broad as he was tall, some would say, and quick with his hands when he wanted to be. She guessed him to be twenty years her senior, which left him fifteen years her departed mother’s junior. How could he possibly have enjoyed bedding her, Charlotte mused, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

  “Charlotte!” He’d seen her, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  She opened her eyes wide and smiled. Richard smiled back, and Charlotte ducked her head before he should see the amusement in her eyes. Hetty was right: men were at times most gullible. That brought Jacob back to mind, the way his hand was so warm and big round hers, and how he had blushed when he handed her that sad little arrangement of flowers. Flowers! A girl like her required trinkets, a ring, perhaps an ivory comb, not some bluebells and a scattering of butterbur that he shyly told her he had picked for her. But he was a handsome lad, and the way his eyes rested on her made Charlotte Foster preen even more than usual.

  She hurried into the room she lived in on her own now that all three of her sisters were married, and after hanging up her cloak on a peg went over to sit by her looking glass, staring dreamily into her own blue eyes while fingering her swollen lips. Jacob was a good kisser, and should she want to, she had no doubts she could coax him into bedding her as well. But she didn’t. She pulled out the drawer and studied the bunches of dried herbs he’d given her over the last few months, believing her story of debauchery and repeated rape.

  Charlotte let her hand rustle through the dried heads of tansy and rue, and smiled. The day Richard Collin tried to bed her by force was the day he’d find himself without his balls. Her smile faltered somewhat. Richard was becoming quite insistent that they should wed, that she should sign her name to the marriage contracts so meticulously drawn up, and she was realist enough to understand he wasn’t about to accept no for an answer. She could do worse, Hetty reminded her: Richard had all his hair and most of his teeth, and was a vigorous man with no legitimate children of his own. Charlotte felt a twinge of pity for Hetty, third wife to a man with seven children from his previous marriages. No wonder Hetty had no intention of giving him more, gratefully receiving the herbal supplies Charlotte procured through Jacob.

  Charlotte rested her chin in her hand and frowned at her mirrored image. Now that the novelty of their secret meetings had worn off, Jacob Graham appeared as what he was: a poor apprentice with nothing to his name but some items of clothing and two books. His shoes were scuffed, his stockings were mended, as was his shirt, and no matter how often he washed, nor how much pumice he used, his fingers retained a greenish hue after hours working in that garden that he spoke so much about.

  Charlotte yawned. She had no longing for the country, and his hesitant suggestion that mayhap she could one day walk with him to Chelsea had been met by two very raised brows. Walk? That far? But she was considering walking to Whitehall with him, fascinated by this uncle he spoke so warmly about. A rich man, she’d gathered, even a very rich man.

  Charlotte studied her surroundings with pleasure. The bed in dark wood was hung with bed curtains of deep green; the floor was covered by a magnificent Turkish carpet Richard had bought off a Jew; and by the window stood the armchair he had commissioned for her fifteenth birthday, its leather upholstery decorated by golden fleur-de-lis. In the iron-bound chest that stood opposite to the window were most of her clothes – lace from Holland, rich velvets, and even a bodice in brocade – and in the pear wood desk at which she was sitting, lay her little hoard of jewellery. One string of pearls, some rings, a bracelet set with garnets, and the brooch her father had made to celebrate her birth. She picked at the brooch. This item in itself was worth more than all of Jacob Graham. She closed her eyes, and she could feel his lips on her cheek, her neck, hear his voice hitch when he whispered her name.

  *

  “I love her,” Jacob said to Charles, sinking the mattock into the ground. The late April sun was boiling t
he back of his neck and bare shoulders, and an hour of work had covered his upper half in sweat.

  Charles, a worldly-wise soon fifteen, made a derisive sound. “She’ll never marry you.”

  “I know,” Jacob said. “She’ll never be allowed to, no matter how much she wants to.”

  “Perhaps you could run off together.”

  “Run off?” Jacob stopped mid-stroke and regarded his younger cousin. Every now and then, he considered that idea, but whenever he did, it struck him as incongruous – pretty, fragile Charlotte in Providence, so far from the bustle of London. Jacob went back to his digging, and Charles sat and watched, telling him this and that about his day at school.

  “And then…” Whatever else Charlie had planned on telling Jacob was put on hold when Mr Castain showed up, waving three letters over his head.

  “From home,” he said, dropping the squares of thick, rustling paper on Jacob’s discarded shirt.

  Jacob wiped his hands on his breeches and picked up the letters, turning them over to study the unbroken seals. Mama’s he could wait with, and there was one from Da, and one from Betty. Betty? Why would she write him again? Had she perhaps had a change of heart? He’d been remiss in posting his letters back in autumn, and so they would at best just be making it into Providence, which meant that, to all intents, he was still a married man. A married man with a permanent cock-stand for a girl he could never have, he sighed, his head invaded by that sweet smile he was sure Charlotte reserved only for him.

  It shocked him. He read the letter once, he read it twice, he read Ian’s long postscript three times, and then he plunked down to stare at absolutely nothing. Ian and Betty? But Betty was his! A wall of something he recognised as rage rose inside him and just as quickly collapsed, leaving him with a sensation of total abandonment.

  “Jacob?” Charles shook his shoulder. “Jacob, what is it? Has someone died?”

  “No,” Jacob said in a breathless voice before surprising himself and Charlie by bursting into tears.

  Charles decided Jacob’s reaction merited a discussion with his father, and so it was that, an hour later, Jacob was seated in his uncle’s study.

  “At least he asked you first,” Luke said, folding the letter along its creases.

  “Aye,” Jacob replied, confused by all these conflicting emotions that coursed through him.

  “And you don’t want her.”

  Jacob regarded Luke cautiously, belatedly recalling that Da had married a lass his uncle was very much in love with. “No.”

  Luke threw him the letter and wandered over to stand by the window, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “I could have killed him for it, for taking what was mine and making it his.”

  “But she didn’t say no, did she?”

  “How could she? Alone with them, with my accursed father and my brother, and thinking me gone, perhaps even dead?”

  “Hmm,” Jacob replied. It did sound a terrible thing to do, to coerce a young girl into marriage after having thrown out her one true love. Somehow he couldn’t quite see Da acting in such a way.

  “But he paid,” Luke said very softly. “By God, did he pay…”

  *

  Luke could still recall it perfectly: how he’d ridden home to Hillview, and out to greet him came Mam, his sister and his brother, the latter with his arm around Margaret’s waist. He had fought down the urge to draw his sword then and there to make an end of Matthew Graham, and instead pulled back his lips into a stiff smile. Margaret’s blue eyes had leapt to his, and that was all it took to reassure him that she still loved him, only him. With that little flame of hope burning inside his heart, he had dismounted and greeted his family after far too many years away from home.

  At first, Margaret had tried to tell him no, not because she wanted to, but because she was wed and owed her obedience to Matthew. Luke had wheedled; he had begged. He had cornered her in the barn and in the dairy shed, followed her up the hillsides, and there, below a denuded rowan tree, she had finally kissed him one day, crying as she did.

  From there, it was a quick return to their old habits: secret encounters on the moss; silent, needy embraces in the hayloft; hours spent in the woods. Afternoons when he would slip in like a silent ghost through the kitchen door and make his way upstairs to wait for her in bed, mornings when he’d hear Matthew hurry down the stairs and, moments later, Margaret would enter his room. For well over a year, this had gone on, until that afternoon when they froze at the unexpected sound of Matthew’s voice below, and then his footsteps came up the stairs and the door was thrown open.

  Luke closed his eyes at the memory of the devastated expression on his brother’s face when he saw them. But he had rejoiced in it at the time, laughing at Matthew. Luke rested his forehead against the glass. He was no longer aware of his nephew or his son. He was drowning in reminiscences of his beloved Margaret, and the far more uncomfortable recollections of how badly he had treated his brother, falsely accusing him of treason, raging when the sentence was commuted from hanging to imprisonment.

  Three years later, Matthew returned home with a new wife, a wife that was a paler copy of his own Margaret. Luke didn’t much like remembering what he had done to Alex. It was beyond doubt the single most cruel thing he had ever done, and to a woman who had never done him any harm. No wonder Matthew sliced off his nose, he thought, fingering the silver replacement he so rarely thought about any more. But it was all Matthew’s fault, he reminded himself. Had Matthew not touched Margaret to begin with, none of this would have happened.

  Luke made a huge effort to pull himself together, clearing his throat repeatedly. “It would seem your brother is wiser than mine was, and now it’s only a matter of how you choose to reply.”

  “Choose to reply? I have no rights to her!” Jacob sounded angry.

  “You didn’t read it very thoroughly, did you? It says that unless you approve, your da won’t allow them to wed.”

  “It does?” For a couple of heartbeats, Jacob was silent, brows pulled together in concentration. “Well then,” he shrugged, “I shall give them my blessing.” He looked about for paper and ink. “It must irk Ian,” he grinned, “that his wee brother should have a say in who he weds.”

  Aye, Luke agreed, and felt a sudden longing for a lad he had last seen as a thirteen-year-old. Margaret had never truly forgiven him for giving up Ian. She had never understood how painted into a corner he had been by Matthew and their wily brother-in-law, Simon Melville. This last name made him smile. It would seem the tables were somewhat turned, and where once Matthew and Simon had threatened him with exposure as a murderer, now he could do the same to wee Simon. Most interesting, that last correspondence he had received from Edinburgh, very interesting indeed. Conjecture, of course, no real proof, but gossip is a dangerous thing.

  “So, what other news?” Luke asked.

  “Lucy’s getting married,” Jacob said once he’d finished reading. “To Henry Jones, no less, and Mama says that’s a relief as it definitely kills any hare-brained ideas that Ruth be wed to him.” He laughed softly. “I don’t think it much pleases Da to be called hare-brained.”

  “No, I imagine not. I wouldn’t like it if my wife did it.” Luke intercepted a sly glance between the boys and stifled a sigh. Luke Graham had no intention of marrying again, no matter the number of attractive widows his two procurers trotted up before him.

  *

  Very late that night, Luke added his own letter to the two Jacob had left on his desk for hasty delivery down to the docks. But Luke’s letter was far shorter – and unsigned. He carefully inked Simon Melville’s name and sat back with a satisfied smile. A little threat, enough to rock Simon Melville’s boat, and even more by being anonymous. For now, that was enough, Luke reflected as he used his fingers to put out the candle – maybe it would always be enough.

  Chapter 33

  “He can,” Adam repeated stubbornly. “He says my name.”

  “Really?” Alex said. �
��Not so that I can hear it.”

  “He whispers it.” Adam caressed Hugin over his bright, black plumage.

  “Ah.” Alex smiled at her five-year-old and handed him a spade. “All that row, okay?”

  Adam gave her a resigned look but started turning the long bed.

  Alex sat back on her heels. Her youngest was no longer a baby, but a sturdy boy that pulled his own weight in the household. Hugin flew over to sit on Adam’s shoulder, and Alex smiled at the two of them. She had serious doubts about the bird’s vocal abilities, but none whatsoever about its relative intelligence.

  “Up there with the pigs,” she’d said to Matthew, making him laugh. Actually, Hugin spent a lot of time with the pigs, and so, in consequence, did Adam, the sow flapping her ears at him in warning when he got too close to her new babies, but otherwise tolerating him.

  “I suspect she considers him one of her own,” Alex also said to Matthew, and he had nodded and said that, yes, given the normal state of Adam’s clothes and hands, that was probably a fair supposition.

  It was the first week of April, a fine, bright day. This year, spring had taken a very long time coming before literally exploding, leaving all of them short-tempered in the unseasonal heat. Matthew and his elder sons were working themselves silly now that the fields were no longer waterlogged, and the rest of the household was coping with the chores they left undone, resulting in very long days. Alex massaged her back: three days of digging had left her muscles very sore.

  Two loud voices drifted out from the dairy shed, and Alex didn’t even have to check to know it was Ruth and Sarah, locked in their constant bickering. Those two were really getting on her nerves. Just the other day, Alex had surprised all – and, in particular, herself – by slapping the girls and telling them to leave the room. Since then, the continuous war was fought at a lower decibel, but was just as deadly, with the girls quarrelling over every ribbon, every garter, every single piece of clothing that wasn’t clearly labelled with one or the other’s name – which in practice meant every garment they collectively owned.