Serpents in the Garden (3 page)

Matthew did as he always did when he saw his house: he stopped and let his eyes run over it, puffed with pride. Alex smiled and sneaked her hand into his. It was a fine home he’d built them, a house that would stand for generations. She rested her head against his shoulder, and they remained like that for a long time, content just to stand like this, close together.

The peace and quiet was disrupted by their boys. Matthew winked at her, disengaged his hand and rushed at them, sending his sons squealing in pretend fear when he chased after them.

“Mama?” Ruth appeared by Alex’s side.

“Yes?” Alex turned to face her, still laughing at the antics of her man who was now pretending to be a lion.

“Look.” Ruth pointed in the direction of the lane.

William Hancock? What was he doing here? And why was Betty with him, looking as if she’d seen a ghost? Alex uttered a strangled sound.

“Alex?” Matthew hurried over to her.

“Jacob, oh God, Matthew, something has happened to Jacob!” And then she was off, running towards the horses.

Chapter 3

William Hancock dismounted stiffly and nodded in the direction of Matthew. He turned to bow to Alex, and for an instant, his eyes widened, his mouth falling open before he regained control over his features. Matthew glanced at his wife, noting just how visible her body was through the sheer cloth of the linen chemise she wore with neither stays nor bodice. Her uncovered hair hung in damp curls well down her back, and beneath her skirts peeked her bare toes – no doubt in themselves something of an affront to a man as strict as William.

“Jacob?” Alex sounded hoarse. “Is he dead?”

William averted his face from her and shook his head, lips pressed together.

“Then what—” Alex began.

“Get dressed,” Matthew interrupted in an undertone, handing her the discarded bodice from her basket. She went a most becoming shade of pink, and with a mumbled apology disappeared inside the house, calling for Agnes, the maid, to serve their guests something to drink.

She reappeared in less than five minutes, the dark hair now pinned up below a cap and her curves constrained by stays and bodice. Much better, Matthew decided, even if he saw William’s eyes lock on her feet – still bare, if now in her sandals. Well, he wasn’t about to force his wife into stockings on a day as hot as this.

He offered William some more beer. Alex’s eyes drifted over to Betty, a thoughtful expression appearing on her face when she studied Betty’s careful movements. Aye, it would seem the lass had paid dearly for helping Jacob abscond.

A wave of hot anger tinged with shame rose up Matthew’s gullet. By rights, it should be Jacob, not wee Betty, who wandered the world with a striped and sore arse.

“Jacob?” Alex said.

“He isn’t injured, Alex, not even seriously ill.”

Her shoulders dropped; she unclasped her hands and sat down beside him. “So what is it?”

“He has chosen to leave,” William said. “It seems your son has a yearning for the adventures of the high seas.”

“Jacob?” Alex sounded so surprised William smiled.

“Apparently. Aboard the
Regina Anne
.”

“I’m going to have a wee word or two with Captain Miles next time I see him. To take on our lad without our consent!”

Alex gave Matthew a long look. “Captain Miles wouldn’t do that.”

Nay, Matthew agreed silently. Damned Jacob! Not only had he decided to do some travelling, but he had also chosen to go as a stowaway.

“Well, at least we know where Jacob will end up. Captain Miles will take him back home to Edinburgh and turn him over to Simon.” Alex sounded relieved, a feeling Matthew fully reciprocated. His brother-in-law would take good care of their lad.

“His uncle Simon will give him quite the warm welcome, no?” Mrs Parson put in, shaking her head. “The lad deserves to be whipped.” She set a heaped platter before William: hot griddle cakes dripping with butter and honey that had the children converging like hopeful flies around them. With a grunt, Mrs Parson sat down beside Alex. The old woman was a formidable housekeeper, but first and foremost she was a family member, no matter that she was no blood relation to either Matthew or Alex.

“I’m afraid there’s a further complication.” William nodded in the direction of Betty. He licked some honey off his finger and wiped at the crumbs stuck in the corner of his mouth.

“You want to annul the betrothal,” Matthew said.

“Oh yes! If only it were that simple.” William wrinkled his long nose into an expression of disgust. “You have a devious son, and a son rudimentarily versed in the law as well. It would seem he has convinced my daughter to consent to marriage and seal that verbal vow by consummating it.”

Matthew bit back on a curse, tightening his hold on the earthenware mug to the point he feared it might break. How could Jacob shame him so?

“But…” Alex shook her head. “They’re children!”

“Not anymore. Now they’re married adults.” William pulled at his lip, deep in thought. “We can handle this together. Once we’ve ensured she isn’t with child, we can annul the contracts, and I’ll find her another husband. I have contacts both in Boston and Jamestown, and a lost maidenhead can be compensated in other ways.” He grimaced.

“Or we let the marriage stand,” Matthew said, making Mrs Parson nod in agreement.

Alex gave him an exasperated look. “They’re kids. And, as such, they’ve sworn to love each other forever and slept with each other without comprehending what it is they’ve committed themselves to.”

“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 his 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.