“I’m no dream,” he whispered back, “nor am I a ghost. I’m here, now, and so are you. It’s the others that don’t exist, Alex. It is them that are the dream.”
“A nightmare,” she said against his chest, “not a dream, never a dream. A black hole of loneliness. An absolute freezing emptiness.”
“Ah, lass.” Matthew kissed the top of her head and gathered her to him. Alex needed him even closer, pulling at his shirt, his breeches in a frenzied attempt to get at his skin, his warmth. Yes, oh yes, he was real, and Alex sighed when he laid her back naked against the pillows.
Her skin sizzled under his hands. A long, strong finger followed the curve of her hip, and she imagined she could see the blisters popping up in its wake as searing heat flew like a shadow behind his digit. Beneath her skin, blood called to blood, and when his fingers manacled her wrist, she was entirely taken over by his beat. Strong it flowed into her, demanding it drove her pulse before it, and Alex no longer knew where she ended and he began.
The candle on the chest gasped, shrinking down to a weak blue glow before it flared back into life, this time a long, dancing flame that backlit them against the wainscoting that adorned the walls. At a remove, she could feel the stubble on his unshaven cheek against the tender skin of her thighs, her belly. He dragged his face across her, and she arched herself against him, because he was hers and she was his and she was very much alive. The soft warmth of his lips; his hot breath in her ear, down her neck, on her chest; his hands with those long, dexterous fingers… Her breasts in his grip, and when he slid down to kiss her, she sank her fingers into his hair and called his name.
“Matthew,” she said to the night air. “My Matthew.” Of course she would die if she were dragged back in time – how could she survive with half of her yanked out? And he, she saw in his eyes, he would dwindle and die as well. Bit by bit, the fire in him would falter and go out, and he would float away like top soil in a drought.
He cupped her buttocks and lifted her closer to his mouth, and she no longer thought, she simply was, awash with colours and sensations that flowed from her curled toes to the tip of her ears.
“Oh God,” she groaned, and her hands gripped at his head, his hair. “Ah!” she said, and Matthew’s muffled laughter ran like a vibration up her spine.
He raised himself up, used his knees to widen her thighs, and leaned forward to kiss her as he thrust himself into her. “Mine,” he said into her ear. “Only and forever mine.”
She clenched herself around him in response, her legs coming up to hold him in place. He kissed her again, and she tasted herself on his lips and the skin round his mouth. She clung to him, refusing to release him. Glued from hip to chest bone they lay, scarcely moving, and in the wavering candlelight, his eyes were black as they stared down at her. She made a demanding movement with her hips. With tantalising slowness, he moved, and she groaned out loud.
“I burn,” she said hoarsely. “All of me is burning.” And she was, consumed alive by a fire that he expertly stoked and throttled, fed, banked and finally let go, riding her until she cried his name out loud and sank her teeth into his shoulder.
They lay face to face, knees against knees, and noses almost touching. Matthew smoothed back the hair that lay stuck to her damp cheek and tugged gently at her bared ear.
“Alright then?”
Alex nodded. God, she was tired – in a way she hadn’t been since well before the incidents down at the meeting house. For the first time in days, her brain was free of any images but those of him, the pictures and people of a long gone future receding grumbling to slither down her brainstem and pop into non-existence.
“Hold me,” she whispered, and he rolled her over to fit against him. His hand came round to cup her breast, and Alex relaxed in his warmth. She yawned, wide enough to crack her jaws, and with a little grunt closed her eyes.
“I love you,” she said through yet another yawn. She covered his hand with her own, one finger on his wrist to feel his reassuring pulse.
“I adore you,” he replied.
Alex didn’t hear. She was already drifting into sleep. But she knew all the same.
Chapter 28
It was a long final act to a death that had been three, four years in the making. Matthew brushed back Joan’s hair from her brow, adjusted her cap, and kissed a face so without flesh it was already a skull.
“You must eat,” he chided, lifting a bowl of soup in her direction.
“To what purpose?” she replied dully. “What is there for me to live for?” She shifted restlessly in her bed.
Matthew took her hand in his and sat in silence, running a thumb back and forth over skin that was already loosened from the bone, the muscle beneath vanishing at a horrifying pace.
“I don’t mind to die,” she said, breaking the quiet, turning so that she could see him. “I do mind the dying, though. So slow, Matthew, so very, very slow.”
He nodded, thinking that her heart was too strong, protesting that it had years of wear left, and her lungs continued to draw in air, oxygenating blood that ran through a body so lightweight he suspected he could lift her with one arm. As fragile as a dandelion gone to seed – one strong gust of air, and the white puff head disintegrated to spread itself in the wind. Matthew groaned, cradling her as gently as he could to his chest, and ironically it was her comforting him, not the other way around.
“Shush, aye?” Joan tugged at his hair. “You know I don’t mind, not really. For years, I’ve waited to stand before my Maker and hope His grace extends to me.”
“It should. You’re a good person, devout and strong in faith.”
Joan sighed against his shoulder and he helped her to lie back against the pillows.
“Some days, I don’t care one way or the other. All I want is for this to be over.” Joan fiddled with the coverlet, peeked at him. “He shouldn’t have done what he did.”
“No,” Matthew said, and something in his tone must have alerted her to the fact that broaching the subject of wee Simon’s betrayal was far too premature. He clenched his jaws, overwhelmed by a rush of rage – and grief, for the friendship he had lost.
“How is she?” Joan asked a while later.
“Better, I think. Tired, aye? She hasn’t slept well for almost a week, but last night she did, and this morning when I left her, she was still sleeping.” Supervised by Julian, who had offered to sit and read in a corner of their room while Matthew hurried off to see his sister. That made him frown, but he trusted Julian, and Alex had been sleeping dreamlessly when he left.
“She was nearly dragged back.” Joan met his eyes. “We had no idea. I swear, Simon wouldn’t have put Alex at risk, not knowingly.”
“But he did. The painting aside, he insinuated she was conversant with magic. And that is a hard suspicion to lay to rest once it has been woken – even more difficult after he screamed to the world that she’s a time traveller.”
It hadn’t helped that she had been so affected by the painting, but Julian and Minister Walker had overruled Minister Macpherson’s opinion that this in itself was a sign, and Mr Farrell had declared that he was so seasick, so unbalanced by the little canvas, that if Alex Graham was a witch then he must surely be one as well.
“I’m so sorry,” Joan whispered.
Matthew just nodded. His Alex was safe for now, and he’d ensure she attended service a number of times before they rode back home.
“Will she…?” Joan swallowed. “Do you think she’ll come to see me?”
Matthew stroked her face. “Alex never holds grudges so aye, I think she will.”
“I would like that, very much would I like to see her.”
“I’m sorry about Lucy,” Matthew said as he was leaving.
“Nay, you’re not. You think she was justly punished.”
“She wasn’t punished, but aye, I think it was just she should be swallowed as those she tricked were.”
Joan’s dark grey eyes looked at him for a long t
ime. “She was all I had,” she said in a voice cut to shreds with pain. “God help me, but something I did very wrong.” She turned her head into the pillow, waving at him to leave.
*
Alex was having something of a strained morning, waking to find Julian by her bed, light eyes alight with enthusiasm as he explained just how they would go about dousing the rumours of witchery that Simon’s insinuations had woken.
“And I assume that being raised a Protestant, you’re familiar with the concept,” Julian said. “After all, regular catechising is part of that Church as well.”
“I‘m a woman fully grown,” Alex said through gritted teeth. “I have no intention of having my faith tested by a panel of black-clad men who consider themselves my betters.”
“They are your betters, and it will serve its purpose. To once and for all squash these slanderous accusations about your general character.”
Alex gave him a look so full of dislike Julian reared back. “Just because a man carries the title of minister it doesn’t automatically make him my better. In this particular case, I have no intention of being goaded by that toad Minister Macpherson.”
“But why does this concern you so? You’re well versed in the Bible and catechism. You lead a life in accordance with the laws laid down in scripture—”
“Oh, come off it! You know as well as I do that when I get carried away, I throw myself into arguments that a narrow-minded person easily can construe as evidence of heresy.”
“But not of witchery, and that’s the issue at stake here.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ll be there, and you’ll do very well.”
“I’m coming too,” Matthew insisted once he’d been appraised of Julian’s little plan. His face shifted into a nasty red at Julian’s shake of the head.
“She does this alone. Your presence will be taken as an admission on her part that she doesn’t wish to face this.”
“Of course she doesn’t want to!” Matthew yelled at Julian. “Would you want to see yourself so humiliated, and all on account of the groundless accusations of a whoring lawyer?”
“Your brother-in-law,” Julian reminded him.
“Not for long – and then I’ll never as much as bid him good day.”
“Forgiveness is a Christian virtue,” Julian told him – rather primly, in Alex’s opinion.
*
“What will they ask me?” Alex asked Matthew as he accompanied her to the meeting house later that same day. “It’s not as if I know the whole bloody Bible by heart, is it?”
“It will help if you don’t refer to the Holy Writ as the ‘bloody Bible’,” he said drily. “They’ll ask you from the catechism, and you know most of it.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t always agree with it.”
“That you must keep to yourself. Concentrate on the questions and on replying to them, not on voicing your opinions as to how Lot treated his daughters, or how unfair some of the laws are to women.”
“Hmm.” Alex wiped her hand surreptitiously against her skirts.
All in all, it wasn’t too bad, Alex thought afterwards, curtseying to one after another of the ministers. Despite being barraged by questions from Minister Macpherson, she had acquitted herself well enough to earn herself a wink from Minister Walker.
There had been a long, uncomfortable part where she had been submitted to very many questions regarding the paintings, and how she had come upon that first one, and why it was that she’d seen fit to burn it – was it perhaps because she had seen it at work? Alex had repeated she had not, and kept to a censored version of the truth: the painting she had bought in Cumnock, entranced by its suggestive beauty, but once she had studied it closely, she had become convinced that somehow it wasn’t right.
“It made all of me heave,” she said. “It forced my eyes to lock themselves on a distant point, and all along my body, I broke out in sweat. I only broke away from it by reciting the Lord’s Prayer,” she lied, “and so I knew it had to be evil.”
Minister Walker almost patted her on the head at that point. But this time, Minister Macpherson insisted, it had seemed as if the painting was calling out to her, bidding her to obey – a master calling its creature to heel.
“It was awful,” Alex said. “I couldn’t hear myself think, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find a point on which to concentrate. But I fought it, didn’t I? You saw, didn’t you, how I struggled against it.” Well yes, even Minister Macpherson had seen that, and all of them could testify to the look of absolute terror on her face.
“And what of your brother-in-law’s accusation that you’re a…err…time traveller?” Minister Macpherson asked just at the end.
Alex had expected this to come up, had practised for hours before the little looking glass in the attic room, and now she turned a calm face in the minister’s direction. “Simon is a desperate man: his daughter accused of sorcery, his wife on her deathbed. Excuses must be made, the poor man is drowning, and so…” She hitched her shoulders and smiled sadly.
“It’s a strange accusation to make,” Minister Walker said, eyes very sharp.
“Very,” Alex agreed. “I’ve never even heard of such – I’m not even sure what it means. Do you think it possible: to travel through time?”
Minister Walker’s bushy, grey brows pulled together, giving the man a surprisingly ferocious look. “One never knows. Sorcery is a great – but powerful – evil.”
“Amen to that.” Alex didn’t have to pretend she trembled, a shiver running up her spine as she relived her recent tussle with the painting. So close, so goddamn close. She knotted her hands and took a couple of steadying breaths. “I don’t know why Simon said what he did, but I can only repeat that I have never done anything wrong. I am no witch, no time traveller.” She raised her face, met their eyes one by one.
“So there is no truth in this?” Minister Macpherson pushed.
“No,” she said.
“Prove it,” he said.
“Prove it? How can I prove it?” She looked entreatingly at Minister Walker. “This is unbearable. I stand accused and am asked to prove my innocence. Where is the proof that I am guilty?”
“This is a serious matter, daughter,” Minister Walker said, “and your brother-in-law was most adamant, was he not?”
“Lies, even Joan said as much, didn’t she? But if you feel it necessary, let’s go and ask her. We go thirty years back, she and I.”
“No, no,” Minister Walker said, “that won’t be necessary. Poor Mrs Melville has enough to handle as it is.”
“Yes, I would think she does,” Alex said.
Julian rose to his feet. “Mrs Graham insists she is innocent. Apart from Mr Melville’s somewhat emotional outburst, we have not found one shred of evidence proving differently. She came here today voluntarily, and she has twice sworn on the Holy Writ that she is no witch. What would you have us do? Should we duck her and see if she floats?”
Alex nearly choked. What?
“Maybe we should,” Minister Macpherson said, a rather eager look in his eyes.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Minister Walker glared at him. “To do so would be to make public an accusation we have nothing to substantiate with. Besides, what would it do to Mrs Graham’s reputation? And what do you think Matthew Graham would do? He’d have our guts for doing such!”
“We are within our rights,” Minister Macpherson sniffed.
“No, we’re not,” Mr Farrell put in. “No one has ever levied such accusations towards Mrs Graham before. One man’s word – and the word of a desperate man at that – is not enough.” Not that Alex was overly fond of Mr Farrell, self-important slaver that he was, but then and there she’d gladly have kissed him.
“We vote,” Minister Macpherson insisted. Alex’s knees dipped, but she succeeded in remaining on her feet.
“Vote? Very well. I say nay.” Minister Walker sat back.
“Nay,” said Mr Farrell.
“Nay,” said Julian.
“Nay? How nay? You proposed it,” Minister Macpherson blustered.
“I did not. I was merely making the point that there was no evidence.”
Huh, Alex felt prone to agree with Minister Macpherson. Besides, she didn’t quite like the assessing look in Julian’s eyes when he regarded her, as if he were, in fact, not entirely convinced of her innocence. Fancies, she decided. Julian smiled at her. Definitely fancies. Alex’s shoulders sagged with relief.
Matthew was waiting for her by the meeting house door, and after bowing at the departing ministers, tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and walked off in the direction of the sea.
“Where are we going?”
“No particular place.” He smiled down at her. “But a walk would do you some good, and today is a fine day for it.”
She looked about and agreed that it was. A chilly December sun gilded the Chesapeake, the winter bare trees stood in stark outline against a sky that was so clear it could have been made of glass, and the storms of the last few days had subsided, leaving fresh salty air in their wake.
“I want to go home.” Not quite three weeks to Christmas, and they had already been away twelve days. Their family must be worried that something had happened to them.
“I can’t leave, not now,” Matthew told her.
“So this is it, then?”
Matthew broke off a drying head of yarrow and nodded morosely. “She wants you to come,” he said, halfway between a question and a demand.
“I will, first thing tomorrow. And Simon?”
“I won’t talk of him,” Matthew replied frostily.
“To me you will.” Alex looked about for a stone she could sit on and perched herself on it, tucking her billowing skirts under her thighs. “He’s the closest thing you have to a brother, a lifelong friend, a man who knows you almost as well as you know yourself. People like that don’t grow on trees.”
“He betrayed us. When he was cornered, he threw you to the wolves in the hope of deflecting attention from that daughter of his.” Matthew spat into the drying grass and came to sit beside her, his back to her side.
Revenge and Retribution (The Graham Saga) Page 23
