A Newfound Land (The Graham Saga)

by Belfrage, Anna

“I’ll be sure to tell her, but it would probably have better effect if he told her that – instead of kissing her in the woods.”

  “Kissing her? Nej, ni ljuger!”

  “Lie? Why would I lie? Well, seeing as she isn’t here, I’ll just go and look somewhere else, shall I?” Alex inclined her head in a quick greeting at Henry, who appeared from the stables, smiled down at little Johan and set off down the track.

  “If I see her I’ll send her home,” Kristin called after her.

  “Do that!” Alex replied without turning her head. “And if she isn’t home before me, I might actually be tempted to belt her,” she muttered.

  On the way back, Alex slipped off the path to relieve herself behind a bush. As she sat crouched, she heard the unmistakable sounds of a man and woman making love, and a quick peek revealed Fiona and Lars in a compromising situation further in under the trees. Alex ducked back down and made her way back to the trail as quietly as possible. So Lars was betrothed elsewhere, hey? Alex snickered and increased her pace.

  She heard Matthew before she saw him and came to a halt. Why was he standing in the forest telling someone off like that? Then she recognised Ian’s voice, and when she rounded the sycamore that indicated she was now entering Graham land, she found them face to face on the trail, both of them with knotted fists and lowered heads, staring off like rutting bucks.

  “Where have you been?” Matthew barked at the sight of her. “Have I not told you not to venture out on your own in the forest? And—”

  “Later, okay?” Alex held up her hand. “What’s the matter?”

  “What?” Matthew’s voice creaked. “Ask him.”

  “Fine,” Alex said. “I will. What is it, Ian?”

  “What is it?” Matthew interrupted before Ian got a word out. “I’ll tell you what it is. I did as you said and went to speak to my son about Jenny, on account of you not being certain the lad wished to marry the lass, comely though she may be.”

  “And I don’t!” Ian replied. “I told you so.”

  “Aye, you did, blathering on about how you didn’t love her, and how you wanted it to be like it is with us, with Alex and myself.”

  “Is that wrong?” Ian asked. “Don’t you want that for me?”

  “Of course it isn’t wrong, Ian. That’s why your father went to talk to you in the first place, to ensure that you were comfortable with marrying Jenny before he signed anything with Mr Leslie. And now we know: you don’t want to marry Jenny.”

  “Hah!” Matthew snorted. “But that isn’t all. You see, the lad has found the lass he wishes to wed.”

  “He has?” Alex sorted through the very short list of girls Ian’s age in the district and came up with a blank. Unless... She narrowed her eyes at him, recalling several recent incidents when Ian had showed up in some disarray.

  “Aye, I have.” Ian’s chin came up in a defiant expression. “And she loves me.”

  “Well, that’s good.” Alex placed a restraining hand on Matthew’s sleeve. “So, who is it?”

  “Fiona,” Ian mumbled, dropping his eyes to the sun-dappled ground.

  “Fiona?” Alex succeeded in sounding more surprised than she was. She was going to flay that young woman. How dare she seduce a boy of seventeen!

  “And have you known you love her for long?” she asked, maintaining a level tone.

  “Some months.” Ian eyed her warily.

  “Ah,” Alex said. “Have you bedded her?”

  “Alex!” Matthew hissed. “Of course he hasn’t!”

  “He hasn’t?” Alex sank her eyes into Ian. “Have you?”

  Ian squirmed under their combined eyes. “Aye.”

  “When?” Alex tightened her grip on Matthew’s arm to the point that he actually uttered a muted ‘ow’. But at least he understood and held his tongue.

  “When what?” Ian hedged.

  “When was the first time you slept with her?” Alex said.

  Ian was a mortified red, the blush mottling his neck, his face, his ears. “Sometime in April.”

  “And have there been many times since?”

  No, he told her, not more than a couple but it had been enough to know she was the woman for him. He threw her a challenging look, and Alex didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Poor boy...

  “Any time recently?” Alex asked.

  Ian shook his head. “Not since the day Magnus landed in yon thicket.” No, because since then Fiona had been sneaking off towards Forest Spring whenever she could.

  “You can’t marry her,” Alex said. “She’s well over seven years your senior, and has at the most rudimentary education and skills.”

  “I love her!” Ian said. “And you said that you didn’t want us forced into marriage against our will.”

  “No one is going to force you into marriage, not us, and definitely not Fiona.” Alex could see she’d struck a raw nerve. “What has she told you? That she’s pregnant?”

  Ian nodded unhappily. “And it’s my bairn.”

  “It is?” Alex asked. “How do you know?”

  Ian flashed her a green look. “She loves me, only me...”

  Alex sighed, let go of Matthew and placed her hand on Ian’s arm. “I just saw her in the woods – with Lars. And they weren’t talking about the weather.”

  Ian blinked and looked at her in confusion for some seconds, before comprehension dawned on him.

  “No.” He shook his head. “You’re just saying that!”

  “Are you calling your mama a liar?” Matthew said in a dark voice.

  “My mama?” Ian’s voice squeaked up a register. “She’s not my mother; she’s your wife!”

  Alex couldn’t help the sound of absolute hurt that escaped her lips.

  Ian wheeled and ran.

  Chapter 9

  Ian came back very late that night, sneaking into the darkened kitchen. Matthew rose from his chair and, in a voice that brooked no discussion, bid his son to sit. Alex served Ian beer and food, and then they sat in silence while he ate.

  Once Ian was done, Matthew got up, opened the door to the little lean-to where Fiona slept and told her to join them. Fiona came into the kitchen hesitantly, eyes darting from Alex to Matthew to Ian and back to Matthew. She licked her lips, clasped her hands in front of her and stood silent.

  “Ian here has expressed a wish to marry you,” Matthew began in a neutral tone.

  Fiona lowered her eyes, peeking flirtingly at Ian from below her lashes. Alex had to close her hands round the urge to slap her, hussy that she was.

  “Aye well,” Fiona said, “Ian is a fine man.”

  The man in question squirmed, keeping his eyes on his plate.

  “Hmm,” Matthew replied, “man or lad, I don’t know at the moment. We don’t like it. I don’t consider you a suitable wife for my son. You’re far too old.”

  “Only twenty-five or thereabouts,” Fiona protested.

  “Yes, and Ian is seventeen. A boy you’ve known since he was fourteen,” Alex put in with an icy edge.

  “Not a boy.” Fiona smirked. “Most certainly a man.”

  Matthew brought his hand down on the table, making Fiona jump. “You have seduced my lad, and you stand here and laugh my wife in the face?”

  Fiona backed away from his anger, moving crabwise in the direction of Ian, who shifted further away on the bench, keeping his eyes on anything but her.

  “I’m with child.” She rested her hand on her stomach.

  “Aye, Ian told us,” Matthew said. “And he also told us you’re sure he is the father, despite only having bedded with him a couple of times.”

  “It only takes the once,” Fiona said.

  Matthew raised his brows. “You’ve been sleeping with other men as well.”

  “No!” Fiona shook her head. “I’ve only bedded with him, w
ith Ian – I love him.”

  “Ah, yes? And what were you doing off the path to the Waltons today?” Matthew asked.

  “The Waltons?” Fiona blushed. “I was nowhere close to Forest Spring.”

  “Nay, you were swiving the brother in the forest.”

  “Nay!” Fiona twisted her hands together. “That’s not true, Ian, I wasn’t—”

  Matthew held up his hand. “You were seen – by your mistress.”

  Fiona opened her mouth, closed it again. Ian uttered a strangled sound from the corner into which he had retreated.

  “But it isn’t only him, is it?“ Matthew continued. “Do you want me to fetch Jonah?”

  Fiona shook her head, looking from Alex to Matthew with beseeching eyes. “It’s Ian’s child. Your grandchild.”

  “I doubt that,” Alex said. “I don’t think you’re pregnant at all. And if you are, it happened sometime after my father arrived, seeing as you had your courses the first week he was here.”

  Ian’s head snapped up. “She bled?”

  “Definitely,” Alex said, looking askance at Fiona.

  *

  An hour or so later and the kitchen was empty of anyone but her and Matthew. Ian had given Alex a long hug before retiring, a wordless apology for his little outburst earlier, and Alex drifted over to sit in Matthew’s lap. In the hearth, a piece of wood burst into fire, illuminating the large table, the benches, the scrubbed pots and pans that Alex had arranged according to size on the wall closest to the fire. With a hiss the flame collapsed into a glowing red and the enclosed space grew dark, the single source of light the fluttering flame from the tallow candle on the table.

  “What will you do about Fiona?” She yawned and snuggled up against him.

  “I’ll sell her contract. I’ll set out with her on the morrow.” He threw an irritated look in the direction of Fiona’s room. “I don’t have time for this, not now, not during harvest.”

  “We could let her stay; give her one more chance.”

  “Would you be comfortable with that?”

  “No, and I suppose it would be awful for Ian, but she can at least stay until you ride down for the Michaelmas market. It’s only a month.” She nestled closer. “Do you think I could go with you?” She’d only be four months along at the most, so the ride as such should not be a problem.

  “Would you want to?”

  Alex nodded, suppressing a yawn. “It’s ages since I was away from here.”

  “Well, then you come with me and Ian stays behind to mind his siblings and the farm.” He hugged her close, resting his chin on her shoulder. “And your father,” he added in a tone that indicated he was only half joking.

  *

  Next morning, Alex stood arms akimbo and laid down the law to a red-eyed Fiona.

  “...understood?” she finished, rather disliking herself.

  Fiona eyed her with resentment but bobbed her head in assent.

  “And let’s hope you’re not pregnant, shall we?” Alex continued, ignoring Fiona’s sullen face. “It will make it that much harder to place your contract.”

  Fiona paled, making Alex suspect the stupid girl had been negligent on purpose, so certain she’d snared poor Ian.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Magnus said, his eyes following Fiona’s dejected shape as she crossed the yard. “She’s under contract?”

  “Fiona is a bonded servant, which means we’ve bought a number of years of service in return for having reimbursed the captain for her passage. In her case five years, at the end of which she receives a certain amount of money, a set or two of clothes and is free to go.”

  “Like a temporary slave,” Magnus said.

  “More or less. Matthew is responsible for her during her years of service, and that includes her moral and spiritual welfare, so you can imagine he isn’t thrilled at having her sleeping around – particularly not with his eldest son.”

  “As if Ian minded,” Magnus snorted.

  “That isn’t the point. What if she’d gotten pregnant? He’d have to marry her then – which she was probably hoping for.”

  “Yeah,” Magnus muttered, “how terrible; the fallen woman and the precious eldest son.”

  Alex chose not to talk to him for the rest of the day.

  *

  Two days later, Alex was plucking a hen when several horses came down the lane.

  “Jacob? Go and fetch your father,” she said, wondering what Andrew Chisholm and his sons were doing here at this time of the morning. One of the horses had something slung over its back. Alex peered short-sightedly at it as she walked over to greet their neighbours. Was it a girl?

  “Oh my God!” Alex reared back. “She’s dead.”

  “We know.” Andrew Chisholm’s square features compressed into a scowl. “We’ve been looking for her all night; found her a few miles from here.”

  Alex approached the body. Long chestnut hair fell like a curtain towards the ground, baring a narrow little nape. How old could she be? Twelve? Thirteen?

  “She’s my miller’s daughter.” Andrew dismounted with a little groan. His sons followed suit.

  “Soft in the head, she was,” the eldest Chisholm son, Robert, said. “Wandered the woods on her own whenever she could.” He rested his hand on the thin back and sighed, muttering a greeting to Magnus, who came hobbling over from the stables.

  Alex invited them all inside. “We...” She looked at the dead girl. “We can’t leave her like that. It’s irreverent somehow.”

  “I’ll take her.” Magnus lifted the girl gently off the horse, for all the world as if she still were alive.

  “Put her in the work shed,” Alex said.

  “Indians,” Andrew said a while later, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve before serving himself yet another plate of eggs and bread. “Mark my words, this is the work of those accursed savages – no doubt the same band of braves that robbed me and Robert here some months ago.”

  “You think?” Alex produced more ham.

  “Who else?” Robert snorted.

  “As I hear it, they went south,” Matthew said from the doorway, nodding a greeting. “I’m sorry for the lass.”

  “Yes, well, perhaps it’s better she’s dead, poor mite.” Andrew belched, poured himself some more beer and sat back. “Damn heathens.”

  “Indians?” Magnus entered the kitchen. “No, this was no Indian.”

  There was an interruption in the conversation as Magnus was properly introduced, the Chisholm men giving him several curious looks and just as many questions as to how he’d travelled from Sweden to here. Magnus was adequately vague, admitting to having hit his head hard when he fell down the hillside, and so...

  “Why do you say it wasn’t an Indian?” Robert asked.

  “Unless Indians wear belt buckles and hobnailed shoes... Someone has beaten that poor child to her death – and enjoyed it.” Magnus made a disgusted sound. “Pervert.”

  The men trooped off to inspect the body, and when they returned they looked grimmer than before, as if the fact that this was the work of a white man, one of them, somehow made it worse. Not for the girl, Alex sighed. She was as dead as a doornail anyway.

  “Could it be...” She broke off. For some reason an image of Lars flitted through her head. You’re being unfair, she chided herself. He’s weird, that’s all.

  “Who?” Andrew asked.

  “I was just thinking, those four men that I saw abducting the Leslie servants, could it be them?”

  “They carry off lasses to sell them, not kill them,” Matthew said. Well, he had a point there, Alex conceded.

  “Don’t let her mother see her,” Alex said as the Chisholms made ready to leave. She took hold of Robert’s stirrup. “She doesn’t need to see her like this.” The girl was a patchwork of bruises, here and there with
clear imprints of the booted feet that had done this to her.

  “No,” Robert said, “and neither does her father.”

  “Nay.” Matthew came to stand beside Alex. “No parent should see their bairn like that.” He draped an arm over Alex’s shoulders, holding her to him as the sad little caravan rode off.

  “Who would do something like that?” Alex asked.

  “A very sick person,” Magnus said from behind them.

  “Amen to that.” Alex shivered and pressed closer to Matthew. “Is he still around, do you think?”

  “I don’t know, but as of now you’ll not walk about alone.” No discussion, his tone indicated.

  Chapter 10

  Matthew offloaded his numerous family, bowed in the direction of Elizabeth, and offered Alex his arm. Leslie’s Crossing teemed with people, and in a matter of minutes he’d lost sight of his bairns, his daughters rushing off in one direction, his sons wandering over to inspect Peter Leslie’s latest pride and joy, a right fine stallion.

  He looked down at his wife and smiled, thinking she looked quite the picture in her green bodice which was a wee bit too snug over her chest, therefore lifting her breasts in a way that detracted from her overall demureness. Demure? He stifled a chuckle. His Alex had no notion of what that meant. He pressed her hand harder to his side, caught her eyes and winked, liking it how her cheeks and ears went pink.

  Thomas intercepted them on their way to the house, and for a couple of minutes they discussed the terrible events surrounding the miller’s daughter. Thomas looked most concerned, eyes travelling over to where his three lasses were standing in a cluster round their mother.

  “Twelve, you say?” he said.

  “Aye, at most.“ Matthew sighed. “A bairn, Thomas, left ravaged and beaten to a pulp.”

  Thomas shook his head, muttered something about finding some more cider, and hurried off.

  “Here comes Peter.” Alex nodded in the direction of their host.

  “Well, it’s best to get it over with.” Matthew wasn’t looking forward to this conversation and was relieved he’d left Ian at home, not wanting to antagonise more than necessary.

  “Do you want me to come along and hold your hand?” she murmured.