Not that he would ever admit it, but by the time the bell rang for supper next day, Matthew’s leg was numb with tension. It took considerable effort to walk across the yard without gritting his teeth at every step, but he managed well enough, he reckoned, sinking down to sit in his chair with relief.
“Massage?” Alex murmured while serving him beer. “You look as if you need it.”
“I do?” He shrugged. “Not really, but mayhap it helps in the healing.”
Alex grinned. “Sometimes you’re as transparent as a fishbowl, Mr Graham.”
No sooner had he finished eating but she led him off to their bedroom. Matthew stretched out on the bed; she kneeled beside him.
“I actually think the sow understands me,” Alex said, rubbing her oiled hands together. “So I’m somewhat circumspect in what I say around her, because it might hurt her feelings to know I only see her babies as hams on trotters.”
Matthew laughed, grunting when her hands became a wee bit too hard.
“It’s scary at times, how she stands on her hind legs and crosses her front legs. It makes her look horribly human.” She frowned at the pink bubbly scar tissue and prodded at his thigh muscle.
“Do you mind?” He made an effort to sound relaxed.
“Mind?” Alex raised her eyes to his face. “Do I mind you have a scar the size of a normal kitchen knife decorating your thigh?” She bent her head and kissed his exposed skin. “I’m glad you’re still here, so, no, I don’t mind.” She rested her cheek against his leg and moved so that her ear lay closer to his groin. Her hair tickled him. “My favourite sound in the world, the sound of your pulse.”
He stroked her dark, soft hair. Alex made a contented sound, no more. Matthew continued playing with her hair, ran his fingers down her cheek in a soft caress. Her breathing deepened, and he lifted his head to squint down at her. He smiled. She was fast asleep.
Chapter 43
Mrs Parson uttered a colourful curse, rubbed at her buttocks and hobbled over to the fire.
“Yon animal has a spine like a razor.” She cast a baleful look at the rangy gelding she was sharing with Jacob. Alex agreed, but wasn’t about to switch places from where she rode perched behind Matthew.
Alex stretched. The June night was balmy, a soft darkness that had her thinking of moonlit beaches and midnight swims. No such luck – at least not here. Instead, she busied herself with the food, produced a stone flask of beer and sat down.
“I plan on selling him when we get to Providence,” Matthew said, tearing off a chunk of bread to go with the thick slice of cheese. “He’s not much use on a farm anyway.”
“Oh aye?” Mrs Parson lowered herself to sit. “Am I to walk back then?”
“You can ride on the mule,” Matthew said, “and the new bondsman will have to walk.”
“That’s a long walk.” Alex reclined back on her arms.
“Aye, and yet we did it. Five bairns and you breeding, and we set out with nothing but two mules and a horse, and they were fully loaded.” Matthew smiled over to where Jacob was sitting. “Do you remember, lad? You were only four and yet you walked most of the way.”
“As I recall, it rained,” Jacob said.
“Rained?” Alex laughed. “It poured! The skies opened and drenched us to the bone, and there was no dry wood, and what food we had we had to eat cold, and it was absolutely horrible.”
“You didn’t say it at the time,” Matthew said.
“What would have been the point?” She leaned forward and touched his cheek. “You were desolate,” she said in a voice meant for his ears only. “The boys didn’t know what to think, Ruth was bawling her head off with the damp and all the flies... How would it have helped if I started whining? It wasn’t as if there was anything you could do about it, was there?”
She’d never seen him as helpless as he had been those months after leaving Hillview. It was as if some mainstay in him had been sliced in half, and he had stared out at this new world where the one single constant in his life – his home – was permanently lost to him with fear leaping in his eyes. Never had he been so vulnerable, never had he depended so completely on her... Her eyes met his, and she could see her own thoughts mirrored in his face.
“That was a difficult time,” he said.
She took his hand. They’d been lucky. Thomas Leslie had come to Providence to meet them, and so they’d had someone to guide them through a landscape that was frightening in its majestic wilderness. And as to Matthew, it had all changed the moment he had set foot on the land that was now his, a rectangular oblong bisected by the river, bordering the Leslie land to the south-east and the Chisholm land to the east.
“It helped once you saw Graham’s Garden,” she said.
“Aye, strength flowed back in me.” From the soles of his feet it had risen, he told her: an assurance that here, on this virgin land, he would carve out a new home for his family.
“And you have,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder.
“We have,” he corrected her.
*
By the time they reached Providence, Mrs Parson was complaining about piles and other nasty afflictions caused by the thin nag she’d been forced to ride, and no sooner did she touch ground but she took off, making for the Apothecary.
“I wonder how one cures piles,” Alex murmured. As far as she knew one cut them off, and no way did she intend to help with any such surgical effort.
“Prunes, a lot of prunes.” Matthew helped her unload, led the horses over to the inn’s stable, and told her over his shoulder to make haste as he wanted to be at the Hancocks’ within the hour.
“You arrive most auspiciously,” William Hancock said in greeting, ushering Matthew into his home. “There have been developments.” He bowed in the direction of Alex, ruffled Jacob’s hair and suggested they all repair to the kitchen where his wife was baking.
“Betty!” William raised his voice, and swift feet came rushing across the landing upstairs and down the stairs. “Help Jacob carry his belongings to his room, and then you might wish to show him round.”
Betty curtsied to Matthew and Alex, grabbed Jacob by the hand and rushed off as quickly as she had appeared, her bare feet drumming on the floorboards. Alex had the impression of a sparkling exuberance, of glittering red brown eyes and hair that stood in a burnished halo. She smiled when she heard the girl begin to talk, a bubbling stream of words that wound themselves around Jacob’s long replies.
“Auspicious how?” Alex asked once the children were out of earshot.
William gave her a blank look, before directing himself to Matthew. “I suggest we speak of this in my study,” he said, extending a hand in the general direction of his office. Matthew winked at Alex and followed his host.
“Some cider?” Esther placed a hand on Alex’s arm and guided her in the direction of the table. “I’m almost done, and then we’ll settle ourselves in the parlour.”
It was a small but neat home, the ground floor given over to William’s office, a kitchen and the small parlour that obviously was Esther’s territory. Two wooden armchairs, one with a soft shawl thrown over it, several baskets filled with ubiquitous mending and, in one corner, a baby basket.
“Six months.” Esther smiled at her son. Alex made adequate congratulatory sounds.
“I pray,” Esther said. “Every day I kneel and pray to our Lord that this time we be allowed to keep him a bit longer than his brothers.”
“He looks very healthy,” Alex said, studying the rosy baby. And relatively clean, as was the whole home, the floors scrubbed, the table top in the kitchen looking as if it was regularly attacked with lye and brush, the few cooking utensils as clean as she kept her own. “What’s his name?”
“William,” Esther replied with a weak smile. “After his father – like all his brothers.”
*
A few hours later, they bid William and Esther farewell and left. It was like chopping off a hand. Okay, so that was an exaggeration, but Alex had to bite down on her lip not to cry when they left Jacob behind.
“He’s too young,” she moaned to Matthew as they walked through the late evening in the general direction of their inn. “What if he hates it there?”
“He’ll be fine. The wee lass is quite taken with him, and he with her.”
“Huh, and that’s all part of your elegantly laid plans, right?”
“He’s not yet twelve, so we shall see.” He lifted her hand to rest in the crook of his arm and smiled down at her. “You’ll see him tomorrow – and for a few days more.”
Once at the inn, Alex went in search of water, balancing the heavy pitcher up the rickety stairs to their little room, uncomfortably hot in the summer heat. She filled the basin to the brim, stripped down to her shift and spent a few lovely minutes cooling herself with the cold water. As a final touch, she dipped her face, did it again, and decided not to bother with the towel. It was refreshing to feel the water on her skin. She braided her hair and came over to join him by the small window.
“So what was so auspicious?” Alex shook her head at his proffered pewter flask. Matthew swigged a couple of times, corked the flask and turned to look at the dark alley below.
“The captain of the
Henriette Marie
was arrested in Jamestown. A Providence elder was there when the ship sailed in with its latest load of slaves, and at his insistence the captain was seized and sent here to answer on the count of several disappearances. He didn’t survive long. A rabble of citizens broke in to where he was being held and battered him to death.”
“Oh dear,” Alex said, “what a loss to humanity.”
“And how fortunate for a certain Mr Jones, because had the captain decided to talk, well then...” He faced her and smiled in a way that made her suppress an urge to recoil. “However, there’s a witness to their perfidy. A man you know.”
“That I know? How would I know—?”
“Think, Alex. A seafaring man we both know.” Well, that was an extremely short list, topped by the captain who’d carried her thrice over the Atlantic. The first time when she set off in search of Matthew, back in 1661; the second time when he transported them back home to Scotland in 1663; and the third time when he carried the Graham family from Scotland to here, in 1668.
“Captain Miles?”
Matthew shook his head. “Nay, Alex. A cook, a man who served for some time on the
Henriette Marie
but chose to abscond without pay at what he saw.”
“Iggy? But he was on the
Regina Anne
when we came over.”
“And he’s back there now,” Matthew said. “They’re here, Captain Miles and Iggy. We will see them on the morrow.”
*
Yet another scorcher of a day, still not a swimming pool or a bikini in sight. Alex hurried towards the port area, her hand held in Matthew’s, Mrs Parson at their heels.
“I haven’t seen the captain in nigh on a decade,” Mrs Parson had said over breakfast. “Best I take this opportunity; neither of us are getting any younger.”
“Ah, so you’re going after him?” Alex had teased.
“Go after him? How go after him?” Mrs Parson had looked quite affronted.
William was waiting for them by the waterfront. Matthew pointed at the ship, anchored a fair bit off the harbour proper.
“Just seeing her makes me queasy,” Alex said.
“Aye, well, a sailor you’re not.” Matthew chuckled, handing her down into the longboat that was to take them out to the
Regina Anne
.
“Seasick?” William said.
“Very,” Alex sighed.
“Me too, I voided my guts for most of the journey over.” William gripped the side of the boat. “The sea is best when seen from land.”
“Yeah, it makes a nice backdrop.” Alex dipped her hand and kept her eyes on the receding shoreline.
Not much later, she was safely aboard, and at the sight of Captain Miles she grinned and hugged him, ignoring Matthew’s black look at this excessive familiarity. She stood back to allow Captain Miles to greet Mrs Parson and was rather amused, in a tender sort of way, by how flustered both of them were. It was obvious the captain still thought Mrs Parson to be utterly delectable, eyes drawn like by magnets to that most ample bosom, as always modestly covered. The captain cleared his throat, greeted Matthew and William, and led them off to his cabin, calling for Iggy to join them.
Iggy gave Alex a cautious smile, no more. She smiled back, thinking he looked much the same as last time she’d seen him, nearly seven years ago. Tall, with red hair that was tied back from his face, and light green eyes, he bore a passing resemblance to Luke – except that where Luke was broad over chest and shoulders, Iggy was narrow like a girl, bony shoulder blades visible like folded wings under his worn shirt.
“It wasn’t a voluntary employment.” Iggy wiped his hands on his apron before shaking Matthew’s hand. “It was a matter of being in the wrong place.” He threw a look at Captain Miles, who nodded for him to go on. “Their cook was taken ill and they needed to replace him. I saw how they threw him overboard.”
“Overboard?” Alex said.
“Smallpox,” Captain Miles explained, “and they didn’t want to be quarantined.”
“Oh.” Alex nodded. “Was he dead when they threw him in?”
Iggy shook his head. “Not then, no, but right soon after. He didn’t know how to swim.” He fidgeted on his feet. They had cornered him just off the old customs house in Jamestown, given him the choice of dying or coming with them, and so he had found himself aboard the
Henriette Marie
.
“I didn’t much like the company, and I didn’t like it at all when I found the lads.” With a minimum of detail, Iggy explained how seven small boys had been kept under lock and key in one of the cabins, and how he had come upon them by chance, hearing one of them cry for his mother. He shuddered. “Poor lads, all alone in the world, not understanding what had happened or where they were going.
“I didn’t dare to do anything, but once we anchored off Cadiz I jumped ship.” Iggy gave them a weak smile. “I can swim.” Since then, the memory of those abducted boys had hung over him, and after finding his way back to Captain Miles, they had together decided it was best to advise the authorities.
“And how does all this tie in with Jones?” Alex said.
“He was on board the ship in Jamestown – difficult to miss him, what with him being the size of a carthorse.” Iggy licked his lips. “I think I saw him enter the lads’ cabin, but I couldn’t swear to it.”
“It’s his ship,” Captain Miles said. “From what I’ve gathered, they’ve been at it for years.”
“Still...” Alex said. Circumstantial evidence, no more, and knowing Jones he’d wiggle out of this little trap as elegantly as always.
William nodded. “We need more than this.”
“Oh aye, we do.” Matthew smiled wolfishly. “And I know exactly where to find it.”