Revenge and Retribution (The Graham Saga)

by Anna Belfrage

  “Let me go!” She laughed as he brought her down in the snow. “You weigh a ton, you do!”

  He grinned down at her, crumbled a snowball into her face and, once she had given up and kissed the victor on the mouth at least ten times, helped her up.

  “I have snow all the way up my legs,” Alex complained. “It’s freezing my arse off.” She yelped when his cold hand came exploring up her skirts. “What are you doing?”

  “Brushing the snow off you,” he said, wriggling his cold fingers in between her clenched thighs. “And warming my hand.”

  *

  Later, they all sat crammed around the kitchen table, drinking rose hip soup with bread fresh from the oven. The room smelled of damp wool, clouts that needed changing, warm bodies, and, over it all, the fragrant and promising smell of meat pies in the making.

  “Isn’t it about time you give me your secret recipe?” Alex asked Mrs Parson.

  “Why?” Mrs Parson said. “Are you worried I may topple over dead at any moment?”

  Alex gave her a considering look. “Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me if you live to over a hundred.”

  “Me neither,” Mrs Parson replied comfortably. “Don’t forget to remember me in your will, aye?”

  “Oh, I won’t.” Alex grinned.

  The children begged to be let out again, and once the women had finished the laborious process of wrapping them in shawls, putting on extra stockings and tying straw-filled boots and shoes to fit, the kitchen relaxed into almost silence, the adults sitting content in the bright shards of sunlight that cut in through the windows. Naomi and Mark were the first to break up, and then Ian and Betty stood, with Betty muttering something about seeing to Ian’s back. Sarah asked Carlos if he wanted to play chess, they ducked off into the parlour, and Mrs Parson rolled her eyes wickedly at Alex.

  “I reckon it isn’t much of a challenge for the lass.” She grinned. “Him making cow’s eyes at her, incapable of even remembering how the pieces move.”

  “Hmm,” Alex said. After her conversation with Sarah some weeks back, it was obvious to Alex that her daughter had taken several steps back from what had been on the verge of becoming a romantic relationship, but there were moments when she’d catch Sarah regarding Carlos with an avid interest well beyond the limits of casual friendship. He was good-looking, Alex admitted to herself, in fact very good-looking, peg and all… “I think it’s good that he hasn’t been here quite as frequently lately.”

  Mrs Parson made a very amused sound. “Oh aye? And have you never heard of distance making the heart grow fonder? The poor man is besotted with her, however much he struggles against it.” She liked the wee papist, she added, for all that he was soft around the edges and given to self-pity. So much did she like him that she hoped he would see Sarah for what she was: a possible way to salvation in that he could convert to their faith and wed her, thereby performing a good deed by sparing her the shame of birthing a bastard. Not that Mrs Parson supposed Carlos had much chance of achieving a state of grace anyway, given his Catholic past, but at least he wouldn’t be automatically damned to hell as he was right now, poor man.

  Matthew listened to all of this and grunted, conveying just how disturbing he found this whole conversation.

  “He’ll never convert,” Alex said. “His faith is as important to him as yours is to you.”

  “And the lass?” Mrs Parson asked. “Is she not important to him?”

  “Unfortunately for him, yes,” Alex sighed.

  “Mayhap it would be best if I forbade him to come,” Matthew said.

  “Forget it. She needs him, okay? When none of us could reach her, he could.”

  He gave Alex a defeated look, but nodded. She omitted to tell him she also suspected Carlos was slowly but safely acquiring a convert of his own, thinking this was something that would keep – for now.

  The warm, sunlit kitchen buzzed with peace. Matthew sat back and gathered Alex to him. Mrs Parson retired for a nap, and it was only them, the crackling of the fire, and the muted sounds of the children playing in the snow. So many children… If she closed her eyes, she could imagine she was hearing her own brood: the high, childish whoops of Mark and Jacob, Daniel as he angrily charged after Sarah, Ruth, David and Samuel, Adam, a laughing adolescent Ian…and Rachel, her peals of laughter ringing in the air. She rubbed her cheek against Matthew’s chest, and his hand came up to knead her softly behind her ear. She almost purred, arching herself against his touch.

  “I wish we’d been there for Daniel’s wedding,” she said drowsily.

  “Mmm,” he agreed, extending his legs before him.

  Ruth had penned a very detailed description, not only of the wedding but of Boston as such, and Daniel had written as well, a letter that began stiff with the new found formality of husband and minister, but ended in genuine concern for their well-being. Sarah had clutched her own letter from him hard to her chest, and whatever he had written it had made her smile and cry at the same time.

  “The pastor tending his flock,” Alex had murmured at the time, thinking that at present, Sarah had quite a few interested pastors, with both Julian and Ruth writing long, encouraging epistles along the lines that God burdened as he saw fit, but helped the faithful carry. Very supportive…

  “The brother comforting his sister,” Matthew had reprimanded. None of them knew, as that particular letter was never shared with them.

  The kitchen was suddenly full of shades: of long dead Rachel, darting from one corner to the other; of Jacob, his slow smile lighting his eyes, his precious herbal heavy on his knees; and of Samuel, standing to the side in buckskins and feathers. But Samuel wasn’t dead, Alex reminded herself, he was safe and happy – somewhere else. And nor was Sarah. She was still alive, still here.

  “What a terrible year this has been,” Alex said. “Please God that we never have to experience something like this again.”

  Matthew kissed her hair. “Amen to that.” His arm lay heavy round her shoulders, and he reclined against the wall.

  Alex snuggled closer and yawned. Vaguely, she heard Sarah laugh, and smiled in response. “As long as there’s life, there’s hope,” she murmured, pillowing her head over his beating heart.

  “Mmm?” Matthew said.

  “Nothing.” She kissed his throat. “Love you,” she said.

  He glanced down at her and smiled, that long mouth of his softening. “Do you, now?”

  She nodded, her eyes trapped by his.

  “Show me.” He cupped her chin to raise her face towards his. “Show me just how much you love me.”

  Alex rose to her feet, took him by the hand, and led him upstairs.

  Wither Thou Goest

  The Graham Saga continues in book seven

  Uncharacteristically for Maryland, this winter had seen more snow than Alex Graham had ever experienced before. Huge, heavy snowfalls melted into a muddy sludge over a couple of days, and then there was a new blanket of snow, yet more mud.

  Today was one of the muddy days. Alex had to tread carefully as she made her way across the yard to the laundry shed with a small bundle of linens under her arm. There could be no major wash until the weather improved, but a couple of shirts, some shifts and her single flannel petticoat she could hang to dry inside the shed, and, while she was at it, she was planning on submerging herself in a hot tub of water as well.

  It was the second week of February 1686. The shrubs were beginning to show buds, here and there startling greens adorned the wintry ground. Alex lifted her face to the sky and drew in a deep breath. She could feel it shifting. Winter was waning, and soon it would be brisk winds, leaves on the trees, and weeks and weeks of toiling in the fields or the vegetable garden.

  “About time,” she muttered, slipped in the mud, took a hasty step forward, and had her clog sink with a squelch into a particularly soft spot. She stood like a one-legged stork, bending down to yank it loose.

  “Bloody hell!” she said when she overbalanced and fell fo
rward.

  “Aren’t you a wee bit too old to play in the mud?” Matthew grinned at her from some feet away.

  Alex scooped up some mud and sent it to land like a starburst on his worn everyday coat. “Oops.” She smiled, feeling a childlike urge to engage in a full-scale mud fight.

  “Clean that off,” Matthew mock-threatened, taking a few steps towards her.

  “Make me.” She managed to get her clog free, and sprinted like a hare on ice skates towards the laundry shed. Matthew came after, which made her run faster and laugh harder, so that, by the time she’d broken the world record on the fifty-yard mud dash, she was gasping for air, her hair had come undone, and her cheeks were very warm.

  “Got you.” Matthew pinned her against the wall.

  “…” Alex replied, struggling to get some air back down into her lungs. And the stays weren’t exactly helping.

  Matthew released his hold. “Hoyden,” he said, rubbing at a streak of mud on her face. “All of fifty-three, and still incapable of keeping yourself neat and clean.”

  “You, mister, you’re pushing fifty-six, and look at you! Mud all over the place!” She wiped her hands on his breeches.

  Ian walked past leading Aaron, the big bay stallion, and shook his head at them. “You’re old,” he said, his lip twitching. “Very old, aye? Grandparents should act with more dignity.”

  “Huh, as a matter of fact, I was sedately crossing the yard to do some washing when your father here attacked me.”

  “Nay, he didn’t. You fell flat on your face all on your own, Mama. Go and wash,” Ian added before going on his way, clucking to Aaron to come along.

  “Go wash, he said. What does he think we are? In our dotage and in need of a father figure?” Alex stuck her tongue out in the general direction of her stepson and pushed the door to the shed open, smiling when she entered this her almost favourite place.

  Over the years, what had been a hastily constructed lean-to, meant mainly to house the huge kettle, the rinsing trough and all other paraphernalia associated with the tedious and heavy work of ensuring the laundry got done, had developed into a solidly built little house with soaped floors, broad wall benches and, standing in place of pride, the wooden tub – big enough to seat two. The small space was at present agreeably warm thanks to the fire Alex had lit earlier, the air suffused with the scents of lavender and crisp mints.

  Along the back wall, drying herbs hung in bunches. On a small shelf stood stone jars of oils and salves, pots of soap, and an assortment of lanterns. The only thing that was missing, in Alex’s opinion, was a tap from which to turn on running water and huge terrycloth towels. Neither of those had even been invented yet, as she was prone to reminding herself, just as cars and washing machines and phones were still centuries away from materialising.

  “Are you just going to slouch against the wall and look decorative or are you going to help?” she asked Matthew who had followed her inside.

  “Oh, I don’t mind looking decorative,” he said, but came over to help her with the heavy cauldron. She set the few garments to soak with lye in a bucket, forcefully brushed the mud stains off his woollen breeches and coat, and then he helped her do the same with her skirts, stretching the fabric for her.

  “I’ll never get this off,” she grumbled, inspecting the broad kneecaps of mud. “And look at my bodice!” The sleeves were encrusted with mud to halfway up the elbow, and once she had taken that garment off, the chemise beneath was just as dirty. Alex peeled it all off, hung her stays to sway on a hook, dunked the shift and petticoat in with all the other stuff, and found a bristle brush with which to attack the bodice. Matthew sat down on one of the benches and regarded her as she moved around, covered in her shawl and nothing else.

  “It’s impolite to gawk,” Alex said sternly.

  “Aye, but ’tis my right. You’re my wife and I can gawk at you as much as I like.”

  “Glad you like it.” Alex arched her back and winked, making him laugh.

  They talked about this and that while she did her washing, Matthew coming over to help her fill buckets with water when she needed it.

  “It does him good, these long winters,” Alex said.

  “Who?”

  “Ian. No limping, no shuffling.” She smiled, thinking that Ian at present moved with the fluidity and ease one could expect of a man just over thirty. Not that it would last, she sighed, because with the advent of spring and summer, his damaged back, in combination with all the work, would at times leave him white-faced with pain, reduced to hobbling round the yard.

  “Ah.” Matthew sounded tense – but then he always did when they discussed Ian’s injured back, the consequence of a failed ambush by those accursed Burley brothers. Understandably, her man sounded tense whenever the Burleys were mentioned. He bore scars of his own on account of them, as did their youngest daughter, while one of their sons was dead – all because of Philip and Walter Burley.

  Alex concentrated on her scrubbing. They’re gone, she reminded herself, they’re dead by now – or if not dead, almost dead.

  Matthew poured a couple of buckets of ice-cold water over her scrubbed clothes, helped her wring them and hang them to dry.

  “Look at my hands,” she complained, holding them out to him: bright red, itching all over from the lye.

  “Mmm,” Matthew said, eyes glued to one of her breasts, quite visible now that the shawl had slipped. She let the shawl drop entirely, standing very still when his fingers grazed her flesh.

  It shouldn’t be this way, not when she was over fifty and had lived with him for almost thirty years, but it was, it still was. A current that surged between them, a heavy warmth spreading through her, breath that became shallow and rapid, knees that somehow lost in stability, and all because of him, the man who stood fully dressed before her and ate her with his eyes. She fluffed at her hair, met his hazel eyes, and smiled.

  “Da?” Ian’s voice had an edge to it. “Da, are you there?”

  “Aye,” Matthew said, the attention he had been focusing on her wavering.

  “You’d best come out.”

  Matthew threw a rueful look in the direction of Alex. “Stay here,” he suggested, buttoned up his coat, and stepped outside.

  “Stay here,” Alex muttered, shivering in the ice-cold wind that he had let in. From outside came male voices, and from the agitated tone, they weren’t exactly here for a natter and a biscuit. She threw the half-filled tub a longing look and with a grimace slid into stays, skirt and the dirty bodice, wrapping the shawl tight before going to join her husband.

  *

  Their visitors were still in the yard. Alex smiled a greeting at Thomas Leslie, their closest neighbour, before nodding at the Chisholm brothers, also neighbours – a rather strange word to use for people that lived more than an hour’s ride away.

  “Scalped, I’m telling you! Not more than some hundred yards from my home!” Martin Chisholm was visibly upset, his normally placid exterior contorted into a hatchet face, small blue eyes staring like flints at his audience. “The poor bastards must have shrieked their heads off, and we didn’t even hear them.”

  “Oh,” Matthew said, sharing a worried look with Alex.

  “Not Mohawk,” Thomas Leslie hastened to assure them, and Alex’s shoulders dropped an inch or two. Not her son, not his adopted Indian family. Grief rushed through her at the thought of her Samuel. He should be here, with her, not out in the forest with Qaachow and his tribe.

  “Bloody nuisance is what they are,” Martin went on, with Robert, his brother, nodding in agreement. “It would be best to enslave them all, put them to work on a plantation where they could be controlled.”

  “Maybe they don’t want to.” Alex picked some straw out of Adam’s hair, cuddling her youngest son for an instant against her chest. All legs and arms, her not quite ten-year-old scrubbed his head affectionately against her shawl, listening avidly.

  “Want to? What do we care what they want? Heathen is what they are,
and to kill… Oh, my God! My poor nephew!”

  “Your nephew! They scalped a child?” In her ear, Adam’s tame raven, Hugin, cawed, seemingly as upset as she was.

  “No, but he found them.” Martin shifted from foot to foot, sniffing longingly in the direction of the Graham house, and with an internal sigh, Alex asked them all to come inside. On their way across the yard, Thomas leaned towards Matthew and whispered something, and her gut did a slow flip at the expression of shock that flew across Matthew’s face.

  “What?” She grabbed Thomas’ arm.

  “What? Oh, that. A matter between men. Nothing to concern you, my dear.”

  Alex pursed her mouth, unconvinced by Thomas’ strained smile. “Never mind, I’ll ask Matthew, and he’ll tell me the truth if he knows what’s best for him,” she said, before wobbling off on her mud-caked clogs to ensure the guests were adequately fed.

  “Yon men eat like horses,” Mrs Parson said when Alex entered the kitchen. Alex gave the old woman an affectionate look. Mrs Parson was her best friend, an excellent midwife but first and foremost, the closest thing Alex had to a mother, a constant source of comfort and strength when Alex needed it.

  “Lucky we have plenty of soup, then,” Naomi said from where she was stirring the pot. Bean soup, from what Alex could make out. Not her favourite, but her daughter-in-law was partial to it, and it did have the benefit of being quite filling.

  “I hate bean soup,” Mark muttered from behind her.

  Alex turned to flash her eldest son a grin. “Best tell your wife that, not me. She’s the one who keeps on making it.”

  “I heard that,” Naomi said, brandishing the wooden spoon in their direction. “And I’ll have you know my father loves it.”

  “Great, Thomas can have my share as well,” Alex said, laughing at Naomi’s pretend scowl.

  The Chisholms were solid men that took up a lot of room but after some minutes, the household and their guests were settled round the large table, albeit with less elbow room than usual. As always, Matthew sat at the head of the table while Alex had her chair at the other end, within easy reach of the hearth and the workbenches. Whitewashed walls, constant scrubbing of the floor and surfaces, ensured that the kitchen was clean and relatively light, the February sun streaming in through the two windows, both of them with horribly expensive glass panes.