“Sometimes. If, for example, a young girl is married off to a man she doesn’t much care for, and then falls in love elsewhere.”
“No.” Matthew shook his head. “It’s wrong. Adultery is a grave sin.”
“Strangely enough, mostly when it’s the woman who commits it. All those men who visit whores, aren’t they in principle adulterers?” She set the pitcher of hot water down on her little table and began unbuttoning her bodice.
“Aye,” Matthew agreed, looking somewhat uncomfortable.
“And so, if we’re to follow God’s law, then they should be put to death – them and the whores, of course.” Alex slid a look at him. “I don’t see that happening much, and if it did, Minister Walker would be one of the first to go up in flames.”
“Alex! How do you know—?” He snapped his mouth shut, flushing at his indirect admittance of Minister Walker’s more sinful side.
“Know what? That he frequents Mrs Malone quite often – as does dear, distinguished Mr Farrell?” She laughed. “You’ve told me, remember? Men are awful gossips.” But no one would dream of telling Mrs Walker, and in Alex’s opinion, the fact that Minister Walker occasionally roamed the fleshpots probably led to him being more humble and understanding in his ministry.
“It isn’t as if he is a regular,” Matthew said. “Aye, he goes often for the beer, to flirt with the lasses, no more. I don’t think he does more than grope and kiss – mayhap but once or twice in all these years.”
“Still, according to good old Moses, he should be put to death.” Alex slashed her finger across her throat.
“It’s on account of the bairns.” Matthew stretched out on his side on the bed while she undressed and did her evening things.
“The bairns?” Alex met his eyes in the looking glass. She’d been round to kiss her children goodnight, all three of them, seeing as Jacob told her he didn’t want her to come and tuck him in, and Ruth was in Providence. Adam and David shared a bed that resembled a battlefield, even now that they had one quilt each, while Sarah lay very alone in her and Ruth’s room. A hollowness came over Alex every time she went into the boys’ room. There still hung Samuel’s extra pair of breeches. There still stood the horses Matthew had carved him for his birthdays – ten of them – but there no longer lay a boy to kiss and cuddle.
She picked up her brush and began to work her way through her hair, hiding her eyes from Matthew. Two months and counting, and every time it rained, every time the autumn winds came flying from the north to make the window glass shiver in its frames, she thought of her Samuel, out there without her. She thought about him much, much more than that, and now she ended every evening with her own little ritual, ignoring Matthew’s worried eyes on her back. First, she prayed silently to God that he take care of her lost son; then she lit a lantern and placed it in the window to burn like a beacon throughout the night – in case he should by some miracle come stumbling home.
*
Matthew watched her rise from the stool and make her way to the window. When she clasped her hands, so did he, silently joining his prayer to hers.
May You care for him and keep him safe, oh Lord; may You help him remember we love him and miss him; may You guide him home, to us, lest we die of broken hearts. But, most of all, dear Lord, comfort him when he weeps, as he must surely do.
Matthew drew in an unsteady breath, held it for a couple of heartbeats before releasing it.
By the window, Alex had lit the lantern, placing it right in the centre of the sill. She seemed to freeze, arms locked hard over her chest, back curving. Matthew rolled out of bed and padded over the room towards her. She was holding her breath, upper teeth sunk into her lower lip.
“Alex? Come to bed, lass.”
She didn’t respond, nose touching the windowpane, and Matthew gripped her by the shoulders, giving her a gentle shake. She exhaled and leaned back against his chest, her eyes still on the dark outside.
“How do you mean, the children?” she asked in a voice that clearly showed the strain of attempting to sound normal.
“The bairns? What bairns?”
“You said how it was all on account of the children.”
“Oh.” Matthew rested his chin on the top of her head and enveloped her in his arms. He had to think back a bit to recall what they had been talking about before she so evidently sank into thoughts of Samuel, dragging him with her. “Adultery is a worse sin for the woman on account of the children.”
“Because the man never knows.” She nodded. “Still, very hypocritical if you ask me,” she said, her voice resuming its normal timbre.
“Hypocritical?” His hands cupped her breasts. “How hypocritical?”
“To turn a blind eye to male infidelity while punishing female indiscretion. Mind you, I would definitely punish male infidelities.”
Matthew laughed against her hair. “You think I don’t know? You’d claw my eyes out.”
“Your eyes? Why on earth would I go for your eyes?” She turned in his arms, one hand delicately cupping his naked genitalia beneath his shirt. “I like your eyes,” she murmured. “So very much do I like your eyes.”
“Oh aye?” He kissed her upturned face, her eyes, her nose, the corner of her mouth, and the mouth itself – a soft kiss, close-lipped and warm. “And you don’t like him, down there?” he whispered as she pushed him down to sit on the bed. In reply, she bent her head and kissed him back before he pulled her down on top of him.
It still amazed him: he knew this woman inside out; there wasn’t an inch on her body he hadn’t touched, kissed at one time or the other. He had held her breasts millions of times in his hands, had taken her in a multitude of ways and places, and yet there were times when it was all startling and new, her reactions a gratifying surprise, from the gurgling laughter when he tickled her with his hair to how she bucked below him, eyes burning into his. Tonight, her hunger for him was whetted by grief and loss, making her more demanding, rougher and louder. He replied in kind, rolling her over to pin her to the mattress with his longer, stronger body, driving into her with increasing force. He closed his eyes when her nails sank a bit too hard into his skin, leaving tracks of stinging pain along his back and flanks.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, half in anger, half in arousal when she bit him, far too hard. “Merciful heaven!” he breathed to the night at large, dipped his head to kiss her, bite her as she had just bitten him. She urged him on with heels and hands, her head whipped back and forth over the pillows, her eyes rolled back, her throat was bared to him, a wordless surrender to his strength and vitality. Afterwards, they lay silent and sweaty, legs still twisted together, his wet mouth pressed to her throat, his hand held hard by hers.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I know.” She raised his hand to her mouth, kissed his inner wrist. “And I love you.”
“Of course you do.” He smiled into her hair. “Who wouldn’t, after that performance?”
“Braggart,” she muttered, and Matthew drew her closer and laughed.
*
Laundry days were days best spent far away from the house, as Alex’s mood tended to deteriorate as the day progressed, no doubt due to a combination of weariness and bodily aches. Today was no exception, with Matthew taking his sons with him to repair the fencing along one side of the meadow while the women assembled in the yard, none of them looking all that enthused. The linen had been set to soak already last night, Mark had piled wood within easy reach of the laundry shed, and when Mrs Parson appeared from the kitchen carrying the lye, Matthew raised his axe in a little wave and set off.
Four hours later, Betty came to find them, still more wet than dry, still with the clout tied tight round her hair, and her fingers reddened with lye.
“Naomi,” she gasped, “the babe.”
Mark dropped the fence pole he was holding and broke into a run, Jacob at his heels.
“How?” Matthew was already moving towards the house with Betty and Ian in tow. Betty shook
her head, inhaled a couple of times.
“It just…” She looked away.
“She shouldn’t have helped with the laundry,” Matthew said.
Betty hitched her shoulders, saying that Alex had kept Naomi well away from the heavy lifting.
Once back home, Matthew was met by Mrs Parson who, with a heavy voice, told him it was too late. The wean was dead, and a small, shrivelled thing it was. “They’re in there,” she said, nodding in the direction of Mark’s cabin. “Alex is with them.”
The cabin was dark and stuffy. It smelled of blood and urine, and Mark was kneeling by the bed, his wife held to his heart.
“I’m sorry.” Naomi was red-eyed from weeping. “I’m so very, very sorry.” She began to cry again, this time with her head hidden against Mark’s shoulder.
“It’s alright,” Mark soothed. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it is,” Naomi whispered, gripping at his shirt. “You see, at first I didn’t want it, not so soon after Lettie.” She snivelled and pressed herself even closer. “I was scared, and just then, at the beginning, I hoped it wouldn’t be… But now I wanted him, God, I swear I did!” She burrowed even deeper against his chest.
Alex placed a hand on Naomi’s head. “That’s bullshit, okay? You miscarried – through no fault of your own.”
Naomi cried all the harder, repeating that this was God’s punishment.
Mark lifted her face to see her eyes. “It’s alright. We’ll have more bairns when you’re ready for it. And surely you don’t think God would end this little life for your convenience?”
“No,” Naomi sobbed after a while. She clung to Mark, and Mark clung back.
“Leave them be,” Matthew murmured in Alex’s ear. “They are better off alone.” Without a word, she followed him out of the little house.
A few hours later, Matthew entered the stables.
“If you curry him much longer, he won’t have any hide left.” His voice made Mark start awake from whatever dream he had been playing in his head. “I’m sorry for your loss, lad.”
“Aye.” Mark nodded, rubbing the horse behind its ears. “I didn’t even know the wean, and still I miss him.”
“Of course you do. He’s a promise unfulfilled.”
“Did he…do you suppose…did it hurt him, the dying, and he all alone?”
“Nay, lad, I think not. As deaths go, it must be right comfortable, there in your mother’s womb, surrounded by her sounds and warmth.”
“And do you think he was scared that he was dying?”
“I don’t know,” Matthew said, “but I’ve seen many men die, and it has always seemed to me that if the dying was easy then there was no fear.” And very rarely did that happen – most of the deaths he’d seen as a young soldier had been frantic fights to stay alive.
Mark’s shoulders relaxed somewhat at his words and, with a last pat on the horse’s neck, he stepped out of the stall. “But now he is with God,” he said.
“Assuredly,” Matthew agreed, “a wee soul called home.” He embraced his son and reflected that Alex was right: it was so much easier to comfort a small child than a grown one.
*
“This is turning into a rather depressing week,” Alex said in an undertone to Matthew a couple of days later.
“Aye.”
Peter Leslie had suffered yet another seizure, and this time he was laid flat on his back, incapable of any kind of speech. And as a buzzard at a kill, Constance Leslie had ridden into the yard of Leslie’s Crossing only hours after, demanding she be given access to her beloved husband and her sons.
“Nathan refused,” Thomas now said, shaking his head at yet another helping of one of Alex’s strange vegetable concoctions. “But she came with her lawyer cousin, as well as with the new minister – you know, the rather big man, Gregor something.”
“Minister Macpherson,” Alex supplied, sounding as if she had her mouth full of worms.
Matthew slid her a look. She was not much taken with this new minister, a feeling that was obviously reciprocated. Plus she insisted he reminded her of Richard Campbell, for all that he was twice the size of that scrawny toad of a minister. Matthew had hummed and hawed when she’d pointed this out, uncomfortable with remembering that long ago summer when he’d brought Richard Campbell home, only to have his marriage more or less collapse as a consequence.
“Yes, that’s him.” Thomas regarded Matthew in silence. “I can’t say I warm much to the man, for all that he is most devout.”
“He’s got a broomstick up his arse,” Alex muttered, “and I guess it leaves him full of splinters and constipated to boot.”
Thomas grinned. Matthew did as well, winking at his friend before turning a serious face to his wife. “You shouldn’t speak of your betters with disrespect.”
“Betters? How is he my better? Bloody narrow-minded man, if you ask me! All that sermon we sat through, with him going on and on about how women must at all times be held in check, lest their natural sinfulness take them over! I bet he doesn’t get laid all that often!” Belatedly, she registered that Matthew was grinning, and with a small snort she shifted to sit closer to Thomas, which in turn made Thomas smile.
“So, now what?” Alex asked, returning to the original subject.
“Well…” Thomas fidgeted back and forth, muttering something about it being mightily cold to sleep outdoors.
“Uh-uh, no way,” Alex said, standing up.
“But what are we to do? And it’s only for a few days.”
“No way do I open my house to that minister!” Alex snapped.
Matthew caught her eyes and raised his brows, stifling a little smile at how she flushed at this silent reminder that such decisions were his, not hers, to take. Not that he had any intention of disagreeing with her on this particular issue, but still.
“Not to him, to Constance,” Thomas said.
“Oh, Jesus,” Alex sighed, glaring at Matthew as if this was his fault.
Matthew made a helpless gesture. What were they to do, given the circumstances? “We will offer them a roof over their head and board,” he said, “but let’s hope they don’t expect a warm welcome.”
Chapter 20
“This is just too much!” Alex shook her head. “Thomas could at least have mentioned that Constance brings Fiona with her as her maid.” This was going to be cosy: Ian and Fiona at close quarters with Betty hovering like the jealous demon from hell.
“It isn’t certain that he knew,” Mrs Parson said. “He didn’t know her very well, did he? And she has changed, no?”
“Immensely, and I’m talking in less than six months.” Alex pursed her mouth and studied Fiona, who was standing in the yard, surveying what had once been her home. The worn, gaunt woman she’d seen down by the fish stalls in Providence was still gaunt, still worn, but much better dressed, her hair pinned up beneath a sedate cap.
*
Ian came to a halt at the sight of Fiona.
“What’s she doing here?” he asked, sounding as if he’d much rather share a bed with a rattlesnake than having Fiona within a stone’s throw.
“I don’t know,” Matthew replied, “but my astute observations lead me to suspect she is here as Constance Leslie’s maid – or chaperone.” He nodded in the direction of the third rider, a man on a flamboyant skewbald in chestnut and white with beautiful feathers on its fetlocks.
“Chaperone?” Ian shaded his eyes against the low November sun. “Is that not her lawyer?”
“Not only, according to your mama,” Matthew replied. “To quote her, she says that last time she saw them together, in Providence, Constance was doing some in-depth probing of that man’s tonsils.”
“Hmm.” Ian nodded. “Tonsils?”
“I don’t know – something in your throat.”
“Ah.”
*
The intervening years had not in any way improved Constance’s disposition. No sooner was she off her horse than she began to complain.
/> “I still don’t understand,” she said to the man beside her. “Not at all do I understand why we were sent off to stay here, rather than in the comforts of Leslie’s Crossing.” She looked with undisguised contempt at the Graham home.
“Oh, by all means, be my guest and ride out into the woods or something. Maybe you could run into a bear.” Alex nodded to Fiona, swept her eyes over Constance, and regarded the stranger. “And you are…?” she finally prompted, interrupting the man’s minute examination of her home.
He went the colour of a beet and swept off his hat before bowing in her direction. “Jefferson,” he introduced himself, “Thomas Jefferson.” Alex almost choked, before reminding herself that Jefferson was as yet not born. “From Virginia,” he added with certain pride.
“Well, aren’t you the lucky one,” Alex said.
“I’m here to support my cousin in any way I can,” he went on, smiling down at Constance who, to Alex’s surprise, smiled back quite sweetly, ducking her head in a way that made all those carefully contrived ringlets dance around her lace-edged cap.
“Constance, Mr Jefferson.” Matthew shook hands and bowed, was as curt as Alex had been in his nod to Fiona, and with a movement of his arm invited them inside.
Constance stood in the doorway and surveyed the parlour, eyes flying from the few armchairs, the game table with the chess set, the desk, the shelves above it, the two pewter candlesticks, the cushions, the knitted throws and the rug before smiling condescendingly. She strolled over the floor, stopped for a moment to run her finger over one of Matthew’s more exotic efforts, a vine that clambered up one of the chairs’ legs to explode in wooden blossom along the backrest, and came to a halt by the bookshelf. One thin white hand caressed the wooden lion that served as a book rest.
“Are these all the books you have?” She laughed, waving a hand at the thirty-odd volumes that stood shelved.
Alex chose not to answer, but was presently entertaining herself by picturing Constance wallowing in the privy pit.
Constance perused the titles, one well-manicured digit travelling down the battered spines, and then went to peer at the single drawing that decorated the wall.
Revenge and Retribution (The Graham Saga) Page 16
