“It’s you and I now.”
“You and I,” she echoed. And in her mind she turned her head to look at Isaac, John and Magnus for one last time
Chapter 16
They’d fallen asleep naked and sticky, with shawl, plaid and blankets wrapped around them, and woke to sudden shyness, fumbling with buttons and lacings. Matthew snuck Alex a look, and her ears turned a delicate pink.
“What?” She turned her back on him while fastening her bra thing. He ran a finger down her spine, smiling at the way she shivered under his touch. “What?” she repeated, twisting to see his face.
“We could stay for a few days,” he said, his mouth quirking at the responding flash in her eyes. “We could do with some days of rest.”
“We could,” she smiled. She grew serious. “Would it be safe?”
“Oh, aye; it may even be wise to keep low to the ground for some time.” They’d seen far too many soldiers the last few days, riding in groups of six – no doubt still searching for yon fugitive, after all they were not that far from Lanark. Up here they were relatively safe, difficult to come upon by surprise.
*
He just couldn’t get enough of her; three days on and he ran his hands up and down her body, marvelling at the curve of her hip, how her thigh flowed to meet her knee, how well her round breasts fit into his cupped hands. The smoothness of her, the taste of her skin, the sounds she made when he took her – all of it was wondrous.
He sniffed her, making her laugh when his breath and beard tickled her, he just had to stroke her again, nibble her nape, kiss her ear. And somewhere halfway through, they fell asleep, his leg thrown across hers.
He woke a bit later, only to find her studying him, eyes travelling over every inch of his naked body. It made him uncomfortable, too aware of the scars that decorated him, and he attempted to sit up only to have her push him down. She shifted closer, and his skin seemed to rise from him as she smoothed her fingers down his arms, his chest and legs. Soft lips on his neck, teeth that bit gently on his nipples, a wet mouth that trailed further down, and his breath was loud and ragged, his head filled with pulsating reds.
When her mouth closed round him, Matthew moaned, arching towards her, a small part of his mind wondering where she had learnt to do something so…oh Lord, so…For a brief moment he was insanely jealous of John, for surely she had done with John what she was now doing with him, but then the sensation that filled him swept everything else aside, and he sank his hands into her hair to hold her where she was, with her mouth and her tongue making love to him as no one had ever done before.
“Merciful Father!” he exclaimed, and he didn’t care that he was taking His name in vain – or was he? Alex laughed against his skin, her tongue flicked out to lick his balls, his cock, and there was that mouth again, and with a strangled sound he came, and he came and he came and he came. When she released him, Matthew was a boneless heap of sated happiness, incapable of moving as much as a finger.
“Sweetest Lord,” he croaked.
“Sweetest Alex would be more correct,” she said, curling up against his chest.
“Aye.” He raised his head an inch or so to peer down at her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said and settled herself for an afternoon nap in his arms.
He was almost asleep, registering with half an ear the sounds of insects and birds that surrounded them, when a far more regular, manmade noise startled him wide awake. In an instant, Matthew was up on his feet, knife in hand, while he signalled for Alex to be quiet. He sat in absolute stillness, listening to the huffing sounds of someone making his way up the steep hillside.
“A soldier?” Alex whispered in his ear.
Matthew shook his head. Soldiers rarely went about alone, and whoever it was that was coming their way was limping badly.
“Fucking hell,” someone swore, and Alex clapped a hand to her mouth.
“Get dressed,” Matthew said, jerking his head in the direction of a stand of shrubs. She grabbed at her clothes and darted off, leaving Matthew to glower at a very surprised Sanderson.
“What are you doing here?” Matthew said, waving his knife to show Sanderson he should sit.
“Taking a hike,” Sanderson said. “You know, beautiful weather and all that. What the fuck do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to get away from those jerks that want to hang me!”
“Hang you?” Alex appeared so abruptly Sanderson nearly fell over backwards.
“Oh, you,” he muttered. His eyes travelled over Matthew’s naked body, back to Alex and her messy hair. “Interrupting something, was I?”
“No,” Matthew said, “we were done – for now.”
Matthew retreated a few paces to dress, keeping a vigilant eye on them. Alex stiffened under Sanderson’s cold, scrutinising stare.
“Bitch,” Sanderson said, making Matthew frown. “This whole mess is your damn fault.”
“My fault? How can it be my fault?”
Sanderson fisted his hands and Alex shoved her shoulders forward, legs sinking into a crouch. Sanderson sneered.
“Karate Kid, hey?”
“Black belt. Want me to show you?”
“No,” Sanderson said, dropping his eyes.
My power woman, Matthew grinned, tightened his belt, and re-joined them.
“So, why do they want to hang you?” Alex asked.
Sanderson shrugged. “Apparently, I’m a royalist, kind of ironic given where I come from, huh? And even worse, I’m a fugitive royalist called Matthew Graham, and so…”
“But you’re not,” Alex said.
Matthew’s hand closed over hers, squeezing down in warning. He didn’t want her saying too much, not to this man who was eyeing both of them, but in particular Alex, with dislike.
“Unfortunately, I can’t prove that, can I? And somehow I suspect that telling them I was born in 1959 will just change the mode of death – from hanging to the stake.” Sanderson paled when he said that, and for an instant he shared a look with Alex who’d gone just as white.
“The stake?” she echoed.
“We don’t burn witches,” Matthew told them, striving to sound matter-of-fact. “We hang them.”
“Oh, well that’s a relief,” Alex said. “And anyway, I’m not a witch.”
“Me neither.” Sanderson’s eyes walked up and down Alex, pausing at her chest and her mouth. Matthew leaned forward and raised a brow in warning. To his satisfaction, Sanderson averted his eyes.
“Your mother is Mercedes Gutierrez Sanchez,” Sanderson said.
Alex flinched, cast a glance at Matthew. “Yes, my mother’s name is Mercedes, but if you knew, how come you didn’t tell me last time we met?”
“It sort of slipped my mind, my attention being otherwise occupied.” Sanderson shifted his leg, groaning with the effort. He loosened one of the makeshift bandages and Alex reared back at the resulting stench. Matthew studied what little he could see of the leg; gangrene, he’d hazard.
“Does it hurt?” Alex asked.
“Do you care?” Sanderson said.
“No, not really,” Alex said with a shrug.
“How did you make it up here?” Matthew asked with frank admiration.
“There’s nothing quite as motivating as a waiting gibbet,” Sanderson said, flicking at something that moved up his dirty breeches.
“Nay, it tends to concentrate your mind, like.”
Matthew was intrigued by how tense Alex became at the mention of her mother, and with the pretext of getting more wood he stood and distanced himself the better to see her reactions.
“So; why this interest in Mercedes?” Matthew said, his curiosity further tweaked by how Alex scowled at him.
“Unfinished business,” Sanderson replied. Matthew fed a few branches and twigs into the fire. Sanderson gave Alex a malicious smile before going on, obviously enjoying her discomfort. “My partner, Hector Olivares, has been looking for her for ages – in various different times.”
Matthew felt the hairs on his arms sprout.
“Hector Olivares?” Alex frowned. “What does he want with her?”
“As I said; unfinished business. A permanent weariness, a wish to end this protracted agony called endless life.”
“What?” Alex croaked.
Sanderson ignored her, turned to face Matthew. “Now Mercedes, well she’s a real witch, the type one should burn – at least according to Hector.” He smirked at the look on Alex’s face. “She’s cursed him, and unless Hector destroys her, he will never die.”
“Cursed him?” Matthew repeated, staring at Alex.
“Bullshit, you’re talking absolute crap.” She spat at Sanderson’s feet. “Hector Olivares is a kidnapper and so are you. It was you, wasn’t it, the two of you were in on what happened to me in Italy. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“And so what if we were? That was three years ago, get over it,” he sneered, but cringed when Matthew loomed over him.
“Get over it? You held her against her will!”
Sanderson licked his lips, tried to back away from him. “What were we to do? Hector had to be creative to snare the witch, and what better bait than her daughter?” Sanderson leaned back from Alex’s angry face and raised his makeshift crutch in warning.
“My mother is no witch!”
“You think? So you never noticed anything strange about her?”
“Of course not.” She’d gone a very bright red, and Matthew wasn’t sure it was solely due to anger. For an instant she met his eyes, hastily looked away, and Matthew’s gut clenched. Dear God, this man was telling some sort of truth.
“Alex?” he said. “Is it true?”
“True? Is what true?”
“Is this man telling the truth about your mother?”
“Oh for God’s sake!” She threw her arms up in the air. “How can you —”
“Yes I am,” Sanderson interrupted. “I’m telling you, man; her mother is a dangerous witch, and whenever Hector gets too close she just disappears, dropping into a new time and place. Generally she yanks him with her, poor bastard.”
“You’re so full of shit!” Alex exclaimed, voice breaking with anger. “Don’t listen to him.” She turned to face Matthew. “He’s lying.”
“No I’m not! Mercedes Gutierrez Sanchez is a witch, you hear? A real, badass witch!”
Matthew backed away from the fire, and in his head he recited the Lord’s Prayer over and over again. If the mother was a time travelling witch, what was the daughter? Definitely a time traveller… He snuck a look at Alex’s white face, and then he turned and ran, wanting to put as much distance between her and him as he could – at least for now.
“Matthew!” Alex was on her feet. “Matthew!” She glared down at Sanderson, lifted her foot and kicked Sanderson’s swollen leg – hard. “Son of a bitch,” she said, ignoring his writhing pain. “Get out. Unless you want me to kill you right here and now.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Are you sure?” she said with quiet menace. “After all, why not make you pay for Italy?”
Sanderson tried to shift away. “It wasn’t my idea, it was Hector’s, and —”
“I don’t care,” she cut him off. “I just want you to leave. Now. Can you imagine how much I can make that leg hurt? For how long?” She kicked him again, and Sanderson yelped. “Go.” She pointed down the hill, and Sanderson got to his feet and limped away.
*
Afternoon was shading into dusk by the time Matthew came back. For some time he’d stood watching her as she paced back and forth, and even at the distance of several yards he could see she was crying, one hand wiping at her face. When she saw him she flew at him.
“If you ever do that again, I swear I’ll take off and you’ll never see me again. I had no idea where you were, or if you’d hurt yourself, or if you were ever coming back, and it’s not fair, you hear? You know it frightens me, you know how alone I feel here, you…you…bastard!”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he snapped, cutting through her explosion.
“Tell you what?”
“That your mother is a witch.”
“She is?” her voice squeaked into a high octave. “And how would you know, seeing as I myself have no idea at all? I’ve lived with her for twenty odd years, and guess what? I’ve never seen her spell someone, or walk backwards around the church at midnight, or milk the neighbour’s cat, or have sex with Satan, or do any of those things a witch is supposed to do. Instead, I’ve had a mother who’s cared for me, who loved my father so much it sometimes hurt to watch. So, Mr Knowall, tell me; how do you know she’s a witch?”
“Well, that’s what he said, wasn’t it?”
“And you believe him over me?” she hissed, running a hand through her hair so it stood on end.
Matthew pursed his mouth. “I don’t know, I really don’t know.”
“Fine.” She moved over to pack up her few belongings. In less than a minute the roll was tight against her shoulder, and she stood to face him.
“Give it back,” she said extending her hand to him. “Give me back my ring and my other stuff, because you obviously didn’t mean what you said the other day.” She looked a sight; puffy eyes, tear-stained cheeks and pink ears. For an instant, her lower lip wobbled, the corners of her mouth drooping, and he knew she was making an effort not to weep. It made his heart go out to her, this brave lass who was so utterly alone in the world.
“Alex, please Alex, sit down and we can talk this through.”
“Talk what through? That you think my mother is a witch, and per definition perhaps I’m one too?”
“I haven’t said that, of course I don’t think you’re a witch!”
“My ring, and I swear I’ll never bother you again.” She leaned forward and caught his eyes. “And in the future, don’t say things you don’t mean. ‘It’s you and I now’ you said, and then you just disappear for hours on end without caring how that might make me feel. Who knows, maybe Margaret was smart enough to fall for the right brother, the one who actually cares.”
He hadn’t meant to slap her quite that hard, was shocked when she stumbled and fell. He reached down to help her up, she flapped her hands at him, long hiccupping breaths whistling through her open mouth. She shoved at him, struggling to push him away, tried to rake her nails across his face. Without a word, he wrapped his arms round her, gathered her to his chest, and sat down on a nearby rock to hold her on his lap.
“Better?” he asked much later. She nodded, pressing her ear to his shoulder.
“I promise,” he said. “I’ll not do as I did again, leaving you all alone. And I did mean it, all of it.”
“I’m sorry for saying that stuff about Margaret. That was very underhand.”
He kissed her head. “Forgiven, sweetheart. Will you forgive me for slapping you?”
“This time, but if you do it again, I’ll brain you with something.”
He laughed, and after a couple of moments so did she.
“I’m not sure,” she said, keeping her cheek pillowed against the rough weave of his shirt.
“You’re not sure of what?” Matthew looked up at the night sky. It was dark by now, and he could make out the uneven ‘W’ of Cassiopeia straight above.
“If she’s a witch or not; I didn’t tell you the whole story about Ángel.”
“I noticed; do you want to tell me now?”
“She burnt him to death,” she whispered. “She stepped up to him, wrapped her arms around him, and they went up in flames.”
Matthew didn’t know what to say, his throat working uncomfortably.
“She was a good person, so if she’s a witch, she must be a very light shade of white, right?”
“I’m sure she was,” he said, but behind her back his fingers made the sign against the evil eye.
*
He shook her awake in the grey of the predawn, and put a finger to his lips. Matthew moved like a ghost as he packed together
their camp, ears straining in the direction of the sound of approaching horses. He took her hand and rushed her down the slope, and a few moments later they were sitting huddled in the midst of a thicket, a blanket drawn over their heads.
He heard the creaking first, and then the soft thud of something heavy hitting the ground. From where he was crouched he could only make out the legs; sixteen legs, four horses. The men sitting on them were silent, no talking, almost no shifting in their saddles. Matthew’s hand tightened on Alex’s at the tell-tale scrape of swords being loosened from their scabbards, and it tightened even more when one of the men laughed.
“Got him,” a voice said, and for an instant Matthew was certain it was him they meant, that any moment now he’d feel a sword ram through his back. But then he heard the screaming and sank back. One of the horses stamped and the party moved further downhill. Still too close for comfort, and Matthew glanced at Alex to make sure she understood she had to keep quiet. She nodded that she did.
It was Sanderson, an enraged Sanderson who protested at how he was being treated and demanded to be taken to a senior officer, not a lieutenant barely out of the nursery. The lieutenant in question was not amused.
“And this is?” he asked one of the soldiers.
“Matthew Graham, sir.”
“How many times must I tell you this?” Sanderson exclaimed, wincing as his swollen leg hit the ground. “I’m not Matthew Graham! I’m Diego Sanderson.” He threw the officer a desperate look. “I think I know where Matthew Graham is, he’s up there, in the dell with the spring in it.”
“Good try,” the officer said, “but we came down that way, and there was no one there.” He scratched at his crotch and then looked at Sanderson again.
“What was it he’d done?” he asked, stifling a yawn.
“He’s a royalist sir, an escaped fugitive at that. He’s a horsethief; he’s stolen money and food on his way north. Most dangerous, quite the hothead; spent a fair bit of time in chains or in the hole. Flogged a couple of times, but mostly cudgel work.”
Matthew’s pulse was racing, a loud thudding behind his ears that he was certain had to be audible to anyone within a furlong’s distance. Alex was trembling beside him, and he didn’t dare to turn his head to look at her, he just braided his fingers hard round hers, just as much for his sake as for hers.
A Rip in the Veil (The Graham Saga) Page 17
