A Rip in the Veil (The Graham Saga)

by Belfrage, Anna

  *

  Alex liked Joan immediately, sizing her up in silence. Tall and gangly, Joan overtopped Alex by four inches or so, hovering just below the six feet mark. Wide grey eyes, dark hair tucked away under a linen cap, and very neat in a dove coloured skirt and purple bodice that made Alex feel shabby in her brown. She smoothed at the rough homespun of her skirts and looked away.

  Joan laughed and took Alex’s hand. “Quickly sorted. There is plenty of fabric in the chests – I think we have a most becoming green that will make you a right nice bodice, and if I recall correctly there’s a bolt or two of blue broadcloth as well.” She threw Alex a sharp look. “Didn’t Mrs Brodie show you?”

  “No, I suppose it must have slipped her mind.” And anyway, what was she to do with bolts of fabric, sew her own clothes?

  “There’s quite a few yards of good linen as well,” Joan went on, “enough for a couple of shirts for Matthew and a shift or two for you.”

  “Oh.” Shit: she barely knew how to thread a needle.

  “Tomorrow,” Joan said, “we start tomorrow, aye?”

  “I can’t wait.” Alex pasted what she hoped looked like an enthusiastic smile on her face.

  Joan not only set Alex to sewing, she also took one look at the overflowing hampers of soiled linens and decided it was time for a long overdue laundry day – this said with an irritated glance in the direction of Mrs Brodie.

  The chosen day dawned bright and warm, and Alex had her head filled with romanticised images of laundresses, laughing and splashing as they washed their clothes by the river shore, lounging in the shade of an oak for a leisurely lunch.

  The reality was far different; it was bloody hard work, was what it was. Her arms felt about to fall off as she lifted yet another heap of steaming linen from the wash cauldron to the wide basket by her side. The skin of her hands was red and irritated with the lye, and she kept up a long string of colourful Swedish curses as she carried the wicker basket over to the stone trough and kneeled to first scrub, then rinse, the linen clean.

  The whole yard was alive with flapping sheets, but there were still two or three more armloads to go, and right now Alex was thinking that she could definitely do without clean sheets – hell, she could sleep in the hay instead. She poured bucket after bucket of cold water over the scrubbed sheets, stuck her tongue out at the waiting pile.

  “List of the day; washing machine, toothbrush, huge pizza, hot shower, and a TV.” And chocolate, and salt and vinegar crisps and Magnus… She scrubbed at her eyes to stop herself from crying, which only made them sting with lye.

  Joan took one look at her red-rimmed eyes and chapped hands and shoved her away from the cauldron.

  “Why don’t you take a walk? You look greensick.”

  “I’m hot, mainly.” Alex attempted to unstick the linen from her sweating skin. “But yes, I’d like a walk” She smiled gratefully at Joan and strode off towards the woods.

  It was a relief to get away from all of them. She was so tired of always being on her guard, of noting what words she used. The other day she had spoken dreamily of afternoon tea, only to realise that no one in the room had ever heard of that concept before. And she missed Matthew, her time with him restricted to short snatches in bed before he fell asleep, worn out after his long days. She looked for somewhere to sit down, aware of a sudden heaviness in her body. Maybe she had an infection, because for days now she’d been ridiculously tired. She sighed, swamped by a general feeling of irritation.

  She counted days as she walked up the hill, and came to a halt when she realised it was the beginning of October. She counted again, and then plunked down in the grass, not caring that it was wet. No wonder she was feeling so strange! A child…Isaac! She hadn’t thought actively of him for weeks, his existence in that other time a constant chafing in her heart that she preferred to ignore. And now…she splayed her hands across her midriff. A child; a baby conceived in passion, a son – daughter? – she would never resent, never eye askance. Oh God; Isaac, unloved in her womb, hated at the time of his birth and so unwelcome afterwards. Her breath came in loud gulps, her eyes filled with tears that she blinked back into their ducts.

  “Sorry,” she said out loud. “I’m so sorry, Isaac.” As if he could hear her, as if he would care, safe in his future world with John and his Offa. She was only slightly more peripheral now that she was gone, than she had been while she was there, always maintaining an emotional distance to the boy that with every single day more and more resembled his damned father. Shit. Alex hid her face against her knees, sat like that for a very long time.

  *

  She made her way down the hill, and just as she reached the yard she saw Matthew enter the stable. When he climbed up to the hay loft so did she, her single conscious thought being that she had to be with him. The whole loft bathed in the sun streaming in through the loading hatch, and when he heard her he turned, a dark silhouette against all that golden light. He moved towards her, as wordless as she was, and laid her down in the stacks of sweet smelling hay.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said between his kisses.

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do.” He brushed his nose against hers. “It makes me very happy.”

  “Me too,” she said, and the naked joy in his eyes made her realise she meant it.

  To her irritation, Joan just grinned when Alex told her the news, commenting that it had taken her quite some time to realise what had been obvious for weeks. What? So she was surrounded by wannabe gynaecologists? Joan grinned even more at her scowl, tucked a hand in under Alex’s arm and led her off to the parlour, telling her they had mountains of mending to get through. Whoopee.

  “Right,” Joan said, once they were settled. “Now I want to hear it all.”

  “All?” Alex asked.

  “About how you met.”

  Alex looked down at the shirt she was mending for Matthew. She had to her delight discovered that she was good at sewing, her small, even stitches complimented not only by Joan but also, miracle of miracles, by Mrs Brodie.

  “Didn’t Simon tell you?”

  Joan raised her brows in derision. “Had you been the victim of moss-troopers you’d be dead or working in a brothel.” Nice; some things never change. Alex sighed and rubbed her collarbone, wondering how to explain.

  It was obvious her cover story was much better than Matthew’s half-baked attempts, even if Joan still regarded her with some scepticism afterwards. But a freak thunderstorm, a disappeared father, a burnt foot and, for some days, no idea of who she was, was in some aspects almost true.

  “Matthew found me,” she finished. “And, well…”

  Joan uttered a soft grunt. “You bedded with him there, on the moor?”

  It was difficult to deny, so Alex just nodded.

  “And you knew him to be a fugitive? A man who might still hang?” The subtext was very clear, making Alex hide a smile.

  “Well, I didn’t take him for his money,” she said, rather gratified by the red stains that flew up Joan’s face.

  “So why then?”

  Because his hands drove her crazy and his smile warmed her gut. Because of the glint in his eyes and the heat in his mouth. But mostly because with him there were no secrets, no subterfuge.

  “I love him.”

  “Truly?” Joan’s grey eyes were only inches from Alex’s face.

  “Truly,” Alex answered. “But don’t tell him that, it might make him quite unbearable to live with.” Joan burst out laughing and promised she wouldn’t say a word.

  Chapter 22

  Hector nodded a thank you to the serving maid and attacked his stew. Awful; tasteless, full of gristle, and with very little meat. But it was hot, and the bread served with it was edible enough. He downed his beer, signalled for more, and went back to his food, all the while keeping an eye on the men in the small, dank room.

  He’d had no major problems adapting to his new environments. Breeches and
clumsy boots, hats and cloaks he’d worn before, and he was more than adept at using a sword – or a knife. After several weeks in Cumnock he was therefore the proprietor of a heavy pouch, lying snug against his thigh. His victims had mostly escaped unscathed, except for the fool that pulled a dagger on him and so…well; at least he’d died quickly, if somewhat messily.

  Hector shoved the bowl away from him and frowned; a month of keeping eyes and ears open for any gossip that might lead him in the direction of Alexandra Lind and so far nothing. He had no idea, he reminded himself, she might have ended up somewhere else entirely.

  Hector chewed his lip and studied the depressing little inn in which he seemed to spend most of his evenings. In three hundred years or so, the Merkat Cross Inn would no doubt be a quaint little pub, complete with historical interiors and an interesting past, but at present it was dirty, damp, full of far too many smelly men, and with a complement of furry things that darted hastily from one dark nook to the other.

  He knew for a fact there were mice in his mattress, he could hear them rustle through the straw, and only by paying extra had he managed to get a clean set of sheets. Hector scowled. He wasn’t meant for this squalor! No, if nothing came up in a fortnight he’d leave, make for Edinburgh or London, maybe even try to find a ship bound for Spain.

  And then he had his first stroke of luck. The fat little lawyer sitting beside him was conversing with the innkeeper, a casual sharing of this and that, when the innkeeper leaned forward with a gleam of interest in his eyes.

  “Is it true then? That Matthew Graham has wed a foreign lass?”

  “Aye, Swedish,” Simon Melville confirmed.

  “Swedish?” the innkeeper shook his head. “Is she heathen, do you think?”

  “No,” Simon said, “nor does she foam at the mouth or in any way look different from us.”

  “Oh, aye?” an unknown man put in. “She had no hair, did she? All cut off.”

  “Really?” Hector asked.

  Three faces turned like one towards him, three sets of eyes narrowing suspiciously. For all that he’d been drinking here for several weeks, he was definitely a stranger, and strangers did best not to meddle in local matters.

  “What is it to you?” Simon demanded.

  “Nothing. I was just wondering what a woman might look like without her hair.” Hector dragged a hand over his own, still very short, hair.

  “Not that short! More like this.” Simon waved a hand somewhere just below ear level. “Sick,” he said for the benefit of the innkeeper. “Alex had the fever, Matthew said, and so the healer up Lanark way cut her hair off.”

  “Ah,” the innkeeper nodded, seemingly not that interested. “No dowry? No land?”

  “None, but what good would it do Matthew to have a parcel of land in Sweden?”

  Hector had heard enough. A Swedish woman called Alex with short hair, who could it be but the elusive Ms. Lind? He was bursting with questions, but recognised that to ask any more tonight would be to draw undue attention to himself. After yet another beer, he bade the men goodnight and pretended to stumble up the stairs to the bed he paid double rates for to sleep in alone.

  A few discreet inquiries, several beers, and he had a pretty good picture of this Matthew Graham. A stout-hearted Parliamentarian, a man who’d fought for the Commonwealth but then betrayed the cause – even if quite a few of his respondents were doubtful as to how true that was.

  “His brother,” the innkeeper confided, well into his cups. “That Luke Graham set him up. Matthew is no royalist, but now he lingers in gaol, convicted for treason.”

  “He lingers in gaol?” Hector asked, looking up from his pipe in surprise.

  “He should, but he didn’t like it much, and as we hear it he escaped. A fugitive, one could say.”

  “Oh,” Hector nodded.

  The innkeeper gave him a bleary look. “He has been keeping well to the ground. No need to let the local garrison know he’s back.”

  “I won’t tell,” Hector said, “but I dare say his brother will.”

  “Yon Luke is elsewhere at the moment.” The innkeeper glowered in the direction of his kitchen. “He isn’t welcome here, not after nearly burning my place to the ground.”

  *

  “I don’t like it,” Simon said to the innkeeper a couple of days later, following Hector out of the room with his eyes.

  “How so?” the innkeeper yawned.

  “We don’t know him, and for all that he speaks effortless English, he’s definitely not Scots, is he? He may well be a royalist spy.”

  The thought had clearly not struck the innkeeper before, but now that Simon mentioned it…He pursed his mouth into a narrow spout and poured himself and Simon yet another tot of whisky.

  “Aye, he asks a lot of questions.”

  “Far too many,” Simon nodded.

  *

  “Hector? A Hector Olivares you say?” Matthew shook his head. It couldn’t be, could it? Nay, such must be impossible, it had to be an eerie coincidence no more. “No, I can’t say I collect such a man.” He threw a discreet look at Alex; she’d sunk her hands into her skirts, eyes locked on the floor. Matthew stretched. “And he’s been asking questions?” he said in an uninterested voice.

  “Aye; about your wife as well,” Simon replied, scrutinising Alex. Matthew frowned; wee Simon was far too adept a lawyer not to react to her frozen stance.

  “About me?” Alex sounded surprised. “Why would he want to know about me?”

  “I don’t know,” Simon said, “but mayhap it’s because you’re a foreigner.”

  “Well, so is he,” she snapped and Matthew closed his eyes.

  “How would you know?” Simon asked, but nodded all the same.

  Alex shrugged. “His name, not exactly the most Scottish of names.”

  “There are plenty of Hectors up here,” Simon said.

  “But not that many Olivares; that’s a Spanish name.”

  “Spanish, you say?” Simon mulled this over.

  “A spy?” Matthew offered.

  Simon grinned. “That’s what we told the garrison commander, and now Hector Olivares is on his way to Edinburgh. I dare say it won’t help his case when they find out he’s Spanish, and no doubt papist to boot.” Alex visibly relaxed, and when Joan called for her from the kitchen she hurried off.

  Simon studied Matthew for some moments, his eyes very serious.

  “I didn’t like it that he asked around for you, and when I saw yon Hector conversing with Luke, I decided to nip that friendship in the bud.”

  “Ah. So Luke is back, then?”

  “Unfortunately. You know he’ll come here.”

  “That would not be wise.” Matthew injected his voice with menace.

  “Hmm.” Simon threw a look at where Alex had left her shawl. “She knows this Hector Olivares, doesn’t she?”

  “Aye,” Matthew said, “it would seem so. I’ll ask her.”

  *

  “It might not be him,” Matthew said a few hours later, watching his wife pace up and down their bed chamber.

  “No,” Alex said, “but it does seem probable it is.”

  Aye, Matthew sighed, however inexplicable, he’d hazard this man was the same man who’d orchestrated Alex’s abduction. She did another turn; he grabbed her and pulled her down to sit beside him on the bed.

  “I don’t believe this,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “How on earth can he be here? And yet here he is, having somehow left the twenty-first century behind.” She stuck her hands in under her thighs and sat swinging her legs back and forth. Matthew kneeled before her, his hands cupping her face.

  “You’re frightened.”

  She nodded, scuffed at the floor with her toes. “And I don’t understand. How?”

  Matthew half smiled and drew her close enough that he could kiss her brow. “A thunderstorm?”

  Alex shook her head: too improbable.

  “Aye,” Matthew agreed. He sat back on his heels,
regarding her thoughtfully.

  At times it struck him that he didn’t really know her or the world she came from, he had no manner to verify if her story was true – she might be a full-blooded witch who had enthralled him through magic, or something as mundane as a lass fleeing from the long arm of justice. All he truly knew was that he’d found her, concussed and burnt on the moor, and that now that he had, he had no intention of relinquishing her – ever.

  “What?” she said, and Matthew realised he’d been staring at her.

  “He won’t hurt you – I won’t let him.”

  “But what does he want?” Alex said hoarsely. “Why is he here?”

  Chapter 23

  Alex had been at Hillview for more than a month before she met either of them. She sometimes walked in the direction of the isolated cottage, drawn by a curiosity she couldn’t fully explain, and on this October morning she’d sat down under a rowan tree to look at the landscape spread out below when the sound of a breaking twig alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone. She knew who he was immediately and slid up to stand while she studied him.

  Where Matthew was tall and solid, Luke was fluid like water, long hair the deep red of a fox pelt, eyes a vivid, sharp green. With his colouring and strong facial features, he was catwalk material, drop-dead gorgeous. He was also very young, Alex noted with some surprise, before remembering that he was only twenty-three, five years younger than Matthew.

  “Well, well,” Luke said, giving her a bow. “My new sister-in-law, I believe.” His eyes travelled over her with interest, stopping at the too short hair, registering her breasts and hips. He laughed and shook his head, sunlight dancing in his hair.

  “Poor Matthew, he’ll never get over her.” He looked at her again. “Remarkable, absolutely remarkable.”

  “What?” Alex smoothed down her skirts.

  “You could be sisters, twins almost, you and Margaret.” Luke tilted his head and studied her with frank curiosity. “Your hair’s lighter, and you’re not as narrow around the waist as my Margaret, but apart from that…” He laughed again.

  Had Matthew been there Alex would have torn into him on the spot, demanding an explanation. Seeing as he wasn’t, she decided to save that little spurt of anger for later and studied Luke as openly as he had studied her.