Serpents in the Garden (The Graham Saga)

by Anna Belfrage

  “How do you know? And seeing as it’s a match we have already considered as being a good one, why call it off?”

  “Because I have no wish to wed my daughter to an absconding apprentice,” William said coldly. “My daughter will wed a man that can support her decently, not a man who roams the seven seas, only occasionally putting in at port.”

  Matthew regarded both of them in silence and finally shook his head. “In Scotland, such a marriage as they’ve made is legal, and I won’t be party to unravelling it.”

  “It isn’t legal here,” William snapped.

  Matthew raised a brow: that wasn’t true. The church frowned on clandestine marriages but generally accepted them after the fact. “Mayhap not, but I suspect you don’t wish to have your daughter branded a harlot, do you? Besides, my lad has bedded your lass, and he’ll stand by her. Had I caught them at it, I would’ve belted the wee idiot to an inch of his life, and then it would have been directly to the minister with both of them.” He bowed stiffly in the direction of William. “My son has dishonoured you, Brother William, and I can but offer my deepest regrets for that. But the lass is now my daughter-in-law, and I’ll see her cared for, that I promise you.”

  For all that William was a lawyer, he was not very good at disguising his thoughts. Clear as a day Matthew could read them: how hurt he was by Jacob’s defection, how worried he was for his daughter, and how humiliated he was by this whole matter.

  William did some more lip pulling and inclined his head in grudging assent. “I would leave her with you for some months – until we know if she’s with child or not.”

  “Of course,” Matthew replied. “We will gladly have the care of her. But you’ll stay the night with us at least.”

  “No,” William said. “I must be starting back as soon as possible.”

  It was a stilted and formal farewell, William standing before Betty, who kept her eyes firmly on the ground. The lass was punishing her father as best she could, and Matthew felt quite sorry for William, who tried repeatedly to catch his daughter’s eyes.

  William attempted a hug, Betty stood stiff in his arms, and with a sigh William let go of her. “I will convey your regards to your mother.” He sat up on his horse. For an instant, Betty’s eyes flashed into his.

  “I have no regards to convey to her,” Betty said in a heartbroken voice. She curtsied and sidled over to stand beside Matthew, a silent disowning of her father that cut William to the quick, at least to judge from how his mouth settled into a thin line. Without a further word, he wheeled his horse and set off up the lane, his servant at his back.

  “Come, lass,” Matthew said once William had dropped out of sight. “Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping.”

  *

  “He’s whipped her!” Alex said later that evening. “The poor girl can barely sit, and it hasn’t exactly helped to spend days in a saddle.”

  “He was within his rights,” Matthew said. “The lass forced his hand.”

  “Would you do that?” She looked straight at him. “Would you lash your girl to the bedpost and whip her until you drew blood?”

  Matthew ducked his head to hide his face from her. Not perhaps quite as savagely as that but, aye, he might, had one of his daughters dishonoured him so.

  “Right now it’s Jacob I wish to lay my hands on,” he sidestepped. “Not only has he shamed me by absconding from his master, but to that he has added the effrontery of bedding a lass and leaving her to face the consequences alone.”

  “How could he? And what possessed him to leave in the first place?”

  In response, Matthew handed Alex the letter their son had written them, and waited while she read it.

  “Adventure?” Alex folded the letter together. “He takes off in search of adventure?”

  From her customary position by the kitchen hearth, Mrs Parson snorted. “That lad has been dreaming of seeing the world for as long as I’ve known him, and it hasn’t helped to have his head filled with pictures of foreign places, has it? It’s you, Alex, telling him of the wonders of London, of how Venice is built on pillars of stone in an endless marsh, of Rome and the ruins of the old empire, that have woken all that in him.” She went back to her knitting, ignoring Alex’s irritated look.

  “How was I to know he was going to do something like this?” Alex protested.

  “You should know,” Mrs Parson said. “He’s your son, no?”

  “And mine, so the blame is ours to share.” Matthew exhaled, looking down at his hands. What had they done wrong for Jacob to behave as he had done? His fingers tightened around each other. May you be safe, laddie, for all that I want to stripe your back. May you be alright and come back to us, safe and sound.

  *

  “Rue, tansy and pennyroyal.” Mrs Parson placed the herbs in a linen sachet.

  Alex frowned. “You think? Pennyroyal is—”

  “No more than a pinch,” Mrs Parson said, “just in case.”

  Alex considered this for some seconds before nodding. After some consultation, Mrs Parson and Alex had decided that Betty was too young to become a mother, and so they’d spent most of the morning amicably arguing over what to give her to ensure this potential pregnancy ended before it became anything more than potential.

  “Do we tell her why?” Alex asked Mrs Parson, receiving a pitying look in return.

  “The lass bedded Jacob to commit herself to him for life. A wean would, in her present state of mind, just strengthen the bond, no?”

  “So then why are we asking her to drink this?” Alex grimaced at the bitter scent.

  “For her broken skin. We’ll make poultices as well.”

  “I’ll have to tell Matthew.”

  Mrs Parson shrugged, muttering that in her opinion men were best left out of women’s problems, but after having had Matthew present at Alex’s last three birthings, she’d given up when it came to him. “He might not approve.”

  “Of course he won’t,” Alex said, “but I have to tell him all the same.”

  “Is it dangerous?” Matthew asked once he had heard her out.

  “Mrs Parson knows her business. She’s been a midwife for fifty years or so by now. Old like the hills, she is.” Alex smiled: she loved that old woman like a mother.

  Matthew looked down at her with a deep crease between his brows. “You know she helped Jenny when she was dallying with yon Jochum.”

  “And it seems to have worked, right?” She suppressed a grin at his scowl. Matthew had issues with Jenny’s amorous adventures prior to marrying Ian.

  “Perhaps it worked too well.”

  Alex laughed. “Seriously! If Jenny drank rue tea for some weeks seven years ago, how can it possibly have an effect on her fertility now?”

  His frown deepened. “You never know, do you?” He thought about it and then acquiesced. “The lass is too young to face motherhood alone.” He kissed her on the brow, called for his three eldest sons and his servants, and told her they’d be late getting back – he wanted to harvest the last of his fields while the weather still held.

  *

  A tired Matthew returned well after dusk, trailed by his sons.

  “All of it.” Daniel yawned, blinked and yawned again. “We’ve done all of the wheat and most of the barley.”

  Alex gave him a quick hug, served them all a gigantic late supper, and sent them off to bed. She closed down the house, banked the fire, whispered a goodnight to Mrs Parson, and went upstairs to their room.

  Matthew was already in bed, clothes left in a heap on the floor. Well, at least he’d washed, a wet and dirty linen towel left beside the basin.

  “The day I get hold of Jacob Graham I’m going to chew his ear off,” Alex said as she went about the room, hanging up his clothes. “What was he thinking of?” She was still upset after applying poultices on Betty’s inflamed skin, cursing both William and Jacob to hell.

  “You mean thinking with, and you know the answer to that as well as I do.” Matthew cupped hi
s privates and winked, making her laugh.

  “Do you really think that’s all it was?” She sat down in front of her little looking glass to undo her hair.

  Matthew stretched out on the bed and propped himself up on one arm. “He’s not yet sixteen and, aye, he’s a lad of much heart – we both know that – but he’s also of an age when your member is beginning to itch, when at times there’s no blood left in your head on account of it all being down below your waist.” He fondled himself, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror. “Jacob has known for several months that he and Betty were to wed eventually, and there’s a fondness between them. He wouldn’t have done it unless he cared for her. Unfortunately, he didn’t care enough for her not to.”

  “Or he was too young to understand that.”

  “Aye, not quite sixteen is a wee bit too young.” He caught her eye in the mirror. “Forty-nine, however, is not too young.”

  “Not too old either, I can see.” She smiled and set the brush down. Fluidly, she stood, drew the shift over her head, and came over to the bed.

  She basked in the glow of his admiring eyes. She loved the warmth of his hands, the words he murmured in her ear. Even more, she loved how he groaned at her touch, how his thighs tensed, how the muscles of his abdomen hardened. His hot exhalations tickled her skin, his kisses left trails of searing heat on her body. She kissed him back; she slid her hands over his shoulders, down his belly to his groin. Matthew quivered and closed his eyes, his buttocks bunching.

  “No more, Alex.” He lifted his head off the pillow to throw her a burning look, gripped her shoulders, and lifted her upwards. “I don’t want your hands, I want—” Whatever he wanted, she drowned in a kiss.

  With a grunt, he rolled her over. He filled her, and she widened her legs to accommodate him. He rose on his arms, she clung to his hips, relishing the size of him, the sensation of being possessed by her man.

  “I love you.” He held still and she groaned out loud. “Don’t you love me?” he asked, and she could hear the laughter in his voice.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” she panted. “You know I do, you stupid man! Now will you please… ah!” There, at last! He drove into her with exquisite force until all she could think of was him, him, him.

  “Definitely not too old,” she stated some minutes later. Her pulse had reverted to a more normal pace, but her body was covered in sweat.

  He smoothed at her hair. “I don’t think I’ll ever be – not for this.”

  “I sincerely hope not,” she said.

  Chapter 4

  “Not again,” Alex muttered, throwing an irritated glance up the lane.

  “Long time since the last one.” Mrs Parson shrugged before bustling off to prepare something to drink and eat for their unbidden guests.

  Alex made a face. Mrs Parson was right: the impromptu visits from militia troops were, thank heavens, becoming rarer now that some kind of peace had been re-established between colonists and Indians. In Alex’s opinion, the men who still rode in militia companies were the scavengers of this world, more out to feather their own nests than to uphold any kind of peace, but the rules of common courtesy prevailed, and so Alex stepped into her yard to welcome the dozen or so men who were riding down their lane.

  It was years since Alex had laid eyes on Philip Burley, but she knew him immediately. Older, gaunter, but still with that lock of hair that fell forward over his face, giving him an air of mischievousness belied by the coldness of his light grey eyes. He bowed, his mouth curling into an amused smile at what she assumed to be her aghast expression. With an effort, she closed her mouth.

  “Did you hope I had died?” he asked, dismounting.

  “Yes, but at least I wished you a quick and painless death – you know, falling off your horse and breaking your neck or something.”

  Philip Burley laughed, eyes doing a quick up and down before returning to her face. “Alas, here I am.”

  “But looking quite worn round the edges.” Alex took in his threadbare coat, his downtrodden boots.

  “I don’t dress up for riding through the woods.”

  “No, none of you have, have you?” Alex nodded to the man who seemed to be in charge, swept her hand towards the bench under the oak. “Beer?”

  “And food,” the older man said, patting at his rumbling stomach.

  “I’ll get you some bread, and then there’s some leftover stew from yesterday,” Alex said.

  Philip Burley sniffed the air. “What? No chicken?”

  “No, they’re meant for our dinner. Besides, they’re not done.”

  “But we can wait.” Philip smirked.

  No way! She’d rather have a cobra at her feet than him in her yard. “Stew and bread. Take it or leave it.” Alex directed herself to the leader.

  “We take it,” the man said, “however ungraciously offered.”

  “That’s because of him.” Alex pointed at Philip. “For some reason, he gives me severe indigestion – it must be the general look of him. Quite repulsive.” Not entirely true, as the man exuded some sort of animal magnetism, as graceful and dangerous as a starving panther.

  Some of Burley’s companions broke out in laughter, quickly quenched when he glared at them.

  Alex and Mrs Parson served the men, helped by Agnes. For all that they looked dishevelled and stank like hell, the men were relatively polite, taking the time to thank them before falling on their food. Alex retreated indoors, keeping a worried look not only on their guests but also on the barn and the path beyond.

  “He’s over on the other side of the river,” Mrs Parson said, no doubt to calm her. “He won’t be coming in for dinner – you know that. Besides, it’s not as if that Burley can do anything at present, is it? However unkempt and wild, I doubt his companions will help him do Matthew harm.”

  Alex relaxed at the irrefutable logic in this. “At least it’s only him. I wonder where his brothers are.”

  “We know where one of them is: in hell, there to burn in eternal agony.” Mrs Parson replenished her pitcher and stepped outside to serve the men some more to drink.

  “Yeah, thanks to Matthew.”

  “Good riddance,” Mrs Parson said over her shoulder. “And we both know why, no?”

  Alex nodded. Will Burley had died while attempting to kill her Matthew, and for that the remaining Burley brothers intended to make Matthew Graham pay. Alex swallowed, smoothed down her skirts, ensured not one single lock of hair peeped from under her cap, and grabbed the bread basket.

  “So many children,” the officer, who by now had introduced himself as Elijah Carey, said. “All yours?”

  “No, but most of them are.” She was made nervous by the way Philip Burley kept on staring at her girls, in particular at Sarah.

  “Not that young anymore,” Philip said. “Soon old enough to bed.”

  “Absolutely not!” Alex bristled.

  Philip laughed, tilting his head at her daughters. “I don’t agree, Mrs Graham, but then I like them young.”

  “Burley…” Carey warned with a little sigh. The younger man raised those strange, almost colourless irises in his direction and just stared, nailing his eyes into the officer until Carey muttered something about needing the privy and, with a hasty nod in Alex’s direction, disappeared.

  “My, my, what have you done to him? Sneaked up on him at night and kicked him in the back? That’s how you do it, isn’t it? Under cover of the dark—” In a movement so swift Alex had no time to back away, Philip was on her, crowding her against the oak.

  “You don’t take me seriously, do you, Mrs Graham?” he said, in a voice so low only she could hear him. “Most women – and men for that matter – know better than to taunt me.”

  “You don’t scare me.” Her knees shivered with her lie.

  He looked at her for a long time. “Oh yes, I do, Mrs Graham. Only a fool wouldn’t be frightened of me, and that you are not.”

  Alex shoved at him, creating some space between them.

&n
bsp; “I suppose I must take that as a compliment,” she said, mentally patting herself on her back for how casual she succeeded in keeping her tone.

  Philip Burley laughed, an admiring look in his eyes. “Take it as you will, Mrs Graham. But never commit the mistake of thinking we have forgotten the blood debt your husband owes us. However long it takes, we will have revenge for what he did to our Will.”

  Alex tried to say something, but her tongue had glued itself to the roof of her mouth, and to her shame she could hear her breathing become ragged, a slight whistling accompanying each inhalation.

  “I was right: I do scare you.” With an ironic little bow, Philip Burley walked off, and Alex wasn’t quite sure how she made it from the tree to her kitchen door.

  *

  By the time Matthew came in for supper, the militia company was long gone. In silence, he listened to Alex’s brief recap of her meeting with Philip Burley, and once she was done, he shoved the plate away – most of the food uneaten.

  “Damn!” Matthew drove his fist hard into the wall, cursed again, and sucked at his broken knuckles. “Where were they headed?”

  “To Virginia,” Mrs Parson said. “At least, that’s what they said. Up for disbandment, they reckoned.”

  “And his brothers?” Alex was as always amazed by how much information Mrs Parson was able to gather in a matter of minutes.

  “Ah, his brothers… Well, that Walter fell foul of his commanding officer some months back, and is kicking his heels down in Jamestown, while Stephen, he was wounded, struck down by an arrow.”

  “Serve him right,” Alex said. “I hope it leaves him permanently incapacitated.”

  “It near killed him,” Mrs Parson said with a shrug. “They won’t be back this way.”

  “For now,” Matthew corrected. “We all know that, sooner or later, they will be.”

  “Three Burleys are no match for us, Da,” Ian said.

  “You think?” Matthew shook his head. “They’re lethal, Ian.”

  “We’re all good shots,” Mark protested. “They won’t make it down the lane.”

  “They won’t come down the lane,” Matthew said. “They’ll come at night, from the direction we least expect them to.”