Mr Castain gave her a chilly look, puffed out his chest, and told her he’d prefer it if she kept her disparaging comments to herself. Mistress Wythe muttered an excuse, and Mr Castain turned to Jacob. “I’ll teach you two hours a day, give you food and board and a shilling a week.”
Jacob did some quick calculations. “Two shillings, and I have need of a new pair of shoes and breeches.”
“Done,” Mr Castain said with such alacrity that Jacob understood he had sold himself too cheap. But he liked this little man, and from the way he handled the plants, this was a man who knew what he was talking about. Even more, he liked the way this John Castain smelled, of mint and lemon balm and all those other herbs that reminded him far too much of Mama. Besides, Jacob Graham needed a profession, and this could be a starting point. So, half an hour later, he bade his newfound friend farewell and hastened after his new employer, making for the river and the barge that would convey them to the as yet unknown village of Chelsea.
Chapter 13
“Some more?” Alex set a full plate in front of Peter Leslie.
Matthew looked up from his own food, and winked at Alex. If ever a man was to be seduced by good food it was Peter Leslie, who at present lived in a household dominated by tasteless stews. Constance had few – if any – cooking skills, and Ailish was at best a disinterested cook, who ensured all were fed and that was that.
Peter closed his eyes, drew in the smell of pork boiled in ale and topped with a golden piecrust, and exhaled happily. Matthew eyed his wife with amusement. Alex had no intention of ever apologising for what she’d said, but had no compunction whatsoever about winning their neighbour’s heart – nay, stomach – back by serving Peter one succulent dinner after the other now that he was here on a daily basis to help with the stable.
“Not much left to do,” Peter stated once they were back outside, sounding rather regretful. “Your man is quite handy,” he added, indicating Patrick who was balancing barefoot on the roof.
“Aye.” Matthew frowned. They would be short-handed over the spring planting without Angus. And Patrick’s contract expired after the harvest next year, and while he had no wish to replace him with a new bond servant, he knew that he would, because other labour was hard to find unless one went for slaves. Slaves: the thought brought him up short. He hadn’t told Alex about the black man down in Providence.
*
“Where?” Alex’s voice came out as a croak.
“I don’t know, but William said how it was down on the eastern side.”
“Yet another part of the world I won’t be seeing.”
“Nay, that you won’t.” Matthew lifted a leg, let it fall back with a splash into the hot water, and sank even lower in the tub. “He said ‘okay’, and then there was something about how he moved. You could see this was no slave.”
“And now he is.” Alex sighed, reclining against her end.
“Aye, that he is.” Branded on the spot, and his loud, despairing yells had made the men around him laugh.
“There’s nothing we can do, is there?” Alex asked in a small voice.
Matthew shook his head: nothing at all. He took hold of her hand and pulled her towards him through the bathwater. Firmly, he banished any thoughts of the unknown man from his head and concentrated on his wife, how warm and slippery she lay against his chest, how her hair tickled his nose.
“Mmm,” Alex said very much later. They had taken their lovemaking out of the tub to the wide bench that ran the length of the shed. Her legs were splayed wide under him and his cock remained buried deep inside of her, shrinking back in size. She hitched a shoulder and patted him on the bum. “You’re squashing me.”
Matthew grumbled, but shifted to lie half on her, half off her, and propped himself up on his elbow to look at her.
“Esther Hancock is with child.” He nodded at the pitying expression on Alex’s face. They were of an age, Esther and his Alex, and yet another pregnancy must be more of a burden than a joy.
“That’s her seventeenth pregnancy!”
“It is? There are only seven bairns to show for it: six lasses and wee William.” He cupped her breast and squeezed. “Not like you, my fruitful wife, ten pregnancies and nine live bairns…”
“…and there will be no more,” she told him.
“Nay, no more.” He bent his head to kiss her, his mouth lingering a long time. He released her mouth and smiled at how dark her eyes were. He kissed her brow, her nose, the hollow at the base of her throat, her navel…
Matthew slid down her body and alternated between nibbling at the insides of her thighs, and kissing the soft folds of pinkish flesh that always reminded him of a flower, a blushing rose hiding its core from the world. Alex undulated below him, hands resting lightly on his head.
“Your turn,” he said, guiding her down his body.
“Aye…” he added dreamily a bit later, helping her straddle him. How well they matched each other: all of him inside of her, his hands on her hips to hold her there, impaled on him. He tensed his thighs, rose upwards, and she sighed. He did it again, and her breath rasped in and out. He cupped her breasts, holding her upright when he knew that what she wanted to do was to fold forward, fall over him, kiss him. He clenched his buttocks and she gasped, pressing down on him. A surge of bright red heat exploded through his loins, up his cock, and for a brief second he was sure he would die.
“No more babies,” she murmured from where she had collapsed on top of him. “But definitely much more sex.”
He laughed, hugging her close. Oh, aye, much more sex.
*
Betty froze by the privy when the door to the laundry shed opened. Now? In the middle of the night? A cloud of steam escaped from the hot space inside, Matthew appeared in only his shirt, hair still damp, holding a lantern. Alex fell out after him, laughing at something he had just said. Betty had never seen an adult woman look quite so…so…dishevelled? Her shift was undone, leaving one shoulder bare, and the dark hair was a nest of messy curls. Their hands met and braided. Instinctively, he adjusted his stride to hers and they swayed in perfect synchronisation in the direction of the house. Betty was overwhelmed by a wave of jealousy. That should be her, with Jacob, not his old parents! On quick and silent feet, she scampered after them, slid in through the kitchen door, and tiptoed into the room she shared with Agnes.
*
Betty was tired of Agnes’ constant panegyric over her poor, dead brother. From what Betty had managed to find out, it would seem Angus had been a conflicted soul, and then there were all those times when she’d seen Alex more or less supervise Angus the moment he interacted with the younger boys. Betty pulled her brows together into a thoughtful frown. She’d heard of men that abused other men; the Bible was rather explicit when it came to the sins of Sodom, but men lusting after boys? Small boys like David and Samuel? She studied Agnes from the corner of her eye.
“What happened to Angus once you got here?” she asked, interrupting Agnes halfway through yet another description of Angus as a wee lad, already so well versed in his Bible.
Agnes fell silent, her fingers tightening on the feathers of the dead hen in her lap. “He was sold off,” she said in a curt tone. “He spent several years on a tobacco farm down south, and then the master bought his contract and brought him here – where he died in that unfortunate fire.”
Betty gnawed at her lip. She had overheard Alex describe to Thomas Leslie how she’d seen Angus hang himself from one of the roof beams, but, after careful consideration, she concluded this wasn’t something she should tell Agnes. Instead, she went in search of her favourite among Jacob’s brothers, Ian.
*
Ian enjoyed his conversations with Betty, flattered by being singled out as her confidant. To be quite honest, he also enjoyed basking in her admiring looks, but this he preferred not to dwell too much upon. The lass was easy on the eye and sharp of wit, so mostly their conversations were light-hearted things, with him laughing much more with Betty than he had ever done with Jenny.
The thought of his wife made him sigh, and for some moments he stopped listening to Betty, immersed in yet another attempt to comprehend what was gnawing at Jenny.
“…so did he?”
“Hmm?” With an effort, he returned his attention to Betty.
“Angus. Did he…err…?” The lass blushed.
Ian wasn’t sure whether to tell her the truth. Betty Hancock – no, Graham, at least for now – was a bright enough lass, but young, just sixteen. She had hoisted herself up to sit on one of the workbenches, and was swinging her feet back and forth. When she leaned forward to listen to what he was saying, she reminded Ian very much of a squirrel, her reddish brown eyes intent on him. The bridge of her nose was covered with a myriad of small freckles, as was the skin along her sedate neckline. But it was to her tightly braided hair – visible here and there, despite the cap – that his eyes leapt repeatedly. He wondered what she might look like with that head of copper curls undone and floating free round her shoulders. If his inspection disconcerted her, she didn’t show it, shoving her hands in under her thighs.
“Aye,” he finally said, “Angus made untoward approaches to one of my brothers.”
Betty gasped. “But they’re babies, they’re as small as Willie is.”
“Not the wee lads; it was Daniel.” Very briefly, he told her what Matthew had told him.
“How could he?” she said, wrinkling her nose.
Ian shrugged. “I reckon he couldn’t help himself, lass.” He gave her a teasing glance. “Just as you couldn’t, that last night with Jacob.”
That was the wrong thing to say because, just as quickly as she’d come, she was gone, her back very straight as she stalked off in the direction of the woods.
*
For some reason, Ian’s comment had Betty feeling hot and bothered – angry even. She preferred not to talk to Ian about Jacob. She wanted to talk about…Ian, a small voice whispered in her head, or Betty, or maybe Ian and Betty, but she definitely didn’t want to talk about Jacob. Dear Lord, what was the matter with her? She scrubbed at her face and smoothed at her apron in an effort to regain some composure, but it didn’t much help. A brisk walk was what she needed, so she increased her pace, making for the forest.
Some way in, Betty stumbled, slipped on the mossy ground, and tumbled down a small incline to land in an undignified heap. She straightened out her limbs and sat back against the stone behind her. This was a nice, secluded place, and the late October sun was warm on her face and body. She dug into her bodice, pulled out a folded and refolded letter from her mother, and read it once again, hearing between the short lines how much her mother missed her.
Betty folded the letter before returning it to its keeping place, close to her heart. She longed for home and her mother – even her father – more than she longed for Jacob. She scratched at a small scab on her arm and sighed. She had no idea what she wanted anymore, but two years seemed an interminable amount of time. She looked down at her hands: long, thin fingers, each of them crowned with an oval, well-tended fingernail. Very bare hands – nothing to indicate she was a married woman. Betty laughed at herself. She wasn’t sure she was.
The warmth in her protected hollow made her drowsy, and she yawned, pillowing her head on her arms. A little nap…she yawned again, thinking of Jacob, or was it Ian? At some point, she must have fallen asleep, because she woke to the sound of agitated voices very close by, and shrank back against the boulder, fearing that they might be Indians. Betty peeked out from behind the thorny thicket, and, to her surprise, it was Patrick and Jenny. They were arguing, with Patrick holding Jenny’s arm in a way that seemed to hurt her, and she kicking at him.
Betty’s eyes widened when Patrick yanked Jenny close and kissed her. She squeaked a ‘no’, but neither of them heard, and Betty was no longer quite sure what she was seeing. Jenny was still struggling, but her hands were locked round Patrick’s neck as if she was holding him close, and her body leaned into him, rather than away from him. Moments later, they were on the ground, Jenny’s legs bared most indecently when Patrick pushed her skirts out of the way. Jenny moaned loudly.
Betty tried to rush to Jenny’s help, but the thorns tore at her skirts, thereby hampering her progress as she tried to force the thicket. By then, it was too late: she could see that in the way Patrick’s bared buttocks clenched and unclenched, and in how passively Jenny lay beneath him, her arms tight around him. Tight around him? The angry shout died in Betty’s mouth, and halfway through the brambles, she ducked down to hide until Patrick was gone.
“Jenny?” Betty shook her. “Are you alright?”
“Alright?” Jenny raised a face covered in tears and snot to glare at her. “How can I be alright?”
Betty’s face heated at her own idiotic remark. “I saw—”
“Saw? What did you see?” Jenny sounded angry rather than distraught.
“How he…how he made free of you.” Betty avoided looking into Jenny’s pale blue eyes. “We must tell Ian and Father Matthew, and they’ll know what to do.”
Jenny’s hand came down like a clamp on Betty’s arm. “You’ll tell no one!”
“No one?” Betty was very confused.
Jenny stuffed the handkerchief she had used to wipe her face back into her sleeve, brushed down her skirts, and raised her arms to order her hair, hands like lark wings as she rebraided the dark hair that floated free around her face.
“Don’t you see?” Jenny said with her back to Betty. “They’ll blame me.”
“But—”
Jenny interrupted her with a harsh sound. “It’s always the woman’s fault.” She turned to face Betty and placed a hand on her stomach. “I’m with child. I don’t want there to be any doubts cast as to this child’s paternity.”
Betty nodded that she understood, even if she didn’t. The child was already there, so how could what she had just witnessed have any bearing. Unless… Fragmented images thronged her brain, of Jenny’s hand in Patrick’s hair, of how Jenny’s bare calf had come up to rest on Patrick’s leg, of Jenny’s arm round Patrick’s waist, holding him close rather than trying to dislodge him. No, she was misinterpreting things. After all, hadn’t Jenny attempted to tear herself free? She’d even kicked Patrick.
Jenny grabbed hold of Betty’s hands. “Will you promise never to tell unless I ask you otherwise?”
Rather unenthusiastically, Betty promised. “But what will you do?”
“Do?” Jenny laughed hoarsely. “I’ll pretend it never happened, and that is what I want you to do as well.”
*
Jenny took her time walking back to Forest Spring, her brain in overdrive. If the little goose told, Patrick would be forever banished from her life, either thrown out or, even worse, dead, and that was something she couldn’t bear even to think about. She must be a depraved woman, because she wanted Patrick to do what he did to her. She liked it when he was hard and careless, his hands forcing her to do just as he wanted. Not at all the considerate lover her husband was, and yet…
Jenny came to a halt, and took a couple of deep breaths. She had to put an end to all this. If she didn’t, she might find her whole life bursting apart. She placed a protective hand over her womb. After five years of trying, there was a child growing in her, and the sensation was one of utter joy – except for when she was afflicted by the horrible insight that she had no idea who the father was.