A Newfound Land (18 page)

His cock stirred in his breeches, a reaction to the combined effect of the memory of that first time and how she looked today. Something changed in the way she held herself; her back straightened, her head was suddenly at a coy angle, and he knew she’d seen him where he stood among the trees. She sat back, pushed her chest forward, and he smiled that she should still preen for him, want him to like what he saw.

A hand came up to her hair and she shook it free, still without turning in his direction. In her dirt-streaked clothes, loose hair and bare feet, she looked more like an urchin than a wife, and he thought she looked lovely, all of her dipped in gold where the late afternoon sun touched her. He waited until she turned to face him, blew her a kiss and walked off. He laughed at the surprised flash of disappointment in her eyes. That he liked very much.

Chapter 22

Peter Leslie called his daughter into his office, closed the door on his wife, and had Jenny tell him the whole sorry tale – all of it, mind. Matthew would have liked to be anywhere else but there, but Peter insisted he be present, his intelligent eyes wandering from his daughter to Matthew as she told it all. At the end, Peter gave a disappointed shake of his head.

“My daughter,” he sighed, “if your mother finds out it will crush her – and with Jochum no less.” His non-existent chin jutted as well as it could. “That’s what you get; you try to be open-minded and see how you are recompensed. My daughter’s honour besmirched, her maidenhead lost forever...”

Jenny paled, squirming on her stool.

“Is your son willing to take her as she comes?”

“Aye,” Matthew said, “I have the lad with me if you want to ask him.”

“Hmm.” Peter studied his red-eyed daughter. “Wash your face, daughter, nip some colour into your cheeks, and tell your mother you’re engaged to be married to the eldest Graham son.”

Jenny rose and rushed to do his bidding. Peter braced his hands against the desk, stood, and gestured for Matthew to follow him to the kitchen.

“So soon?” Elizabeth looked suspiciously at her husband. “Why the hurry?”

“Jenny is twenty-one come September,” Peter said in an offhand way. “It’s about time she’s wed.”

“Has he been on her?” Elizabeth took a menacing step in the direction of Ian.

“Really, Elizabeth,” Peter said, “do you think Jenny would allow such without a marriage contract under her belt?”

Elizabeth sneaked yet another suspicious look at Ian, glanced at her daughter, looked for a long time at her, her full mouth thinning into a tight gash while Jenny grew successively paler.

With a visible effort Elizabeth turned to smile at Matthew. “And will you have them with you at Graham’s Garden?”

“At first.” He’d already drawn up some hasty plans but chose not to divulge any details. He wanted to talk to Alex first.

“How’s your grandson?” Matthew asked when they prepared to leave, the contracts duly signed and witnessed.

Elizabeth beamed. “A strong, fine boy. So like his father.” She glanced in the direction of the chestnut tree, smiling at the baby basket and the young woman sitting beside it. “And she’s a good, doting mother.” She looked at Ian and then at Matthew. “I dare say there will be grandchildren soon enough in your household too.” She winked and sailed off.

“She winked?” Ian said in an undertone.

“Aye, I believe she did...or mayhap it was just a wee spasm.”

*

“Jointure?” Alex looked from the contract to Matthew, who was jiggling David in his arms.

“Aye, it’s a provision for her upkeep should he predecease her.”

“Oh.” Alex looked at the contract again. “Do I have jointure?”

“Didn’t you read our contract before signing it?” he said, setting David down on the floor.

Alex flapped the document at him. “If I’m going to be quite honest, no. I couldn’t decipher Simon’s handwriting.”

“You didn’t come with much of a portion, and no portion, no jointure.”

She handed back the contract with a frown. “But now there’s a portion, remember? The money Magnus gave you.”

Matthew took her by both arms and gave her a gentle little shake. “There has always been jointure in our contract. I would never leave my wife unprotected.” He kissed her on her nose and smiled down at her, and in the slanting afternoon sun his eyes shimmered a golden green. She rose on her toes to kiss his mouth.

“And dastardly Jochum?” Alex asked once she had disengaged her lips from his.

“Unemployed, I fear.”

“That won’t please his wife.”

“Nor would it have pleased her to find him wedded to another.”

“Can you imagine the hullabaloo?” Alex snickered at the thought. “Poor Jochum would probably not have escaped with his balls still attached.”

“He might still not. Peter Leslie is quite affronted – and rightly so. To lead an innocent girl on like that!”

Alex had serious doubts as to the innocence of Jenny Leslie – the girl was over twenty, for God’s sake. To be quite honest, she wasn’t too thrilled about this match, but since neither the bridegroom-to-be nor his father seemed to share her concerns, she chose to keep a low profile in the matter.

“...so what do you think?” Matthew said, recalling her to the here and now.

“Hmm?”

Matthew sighed. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

“I was thinking.”

“Ah. Well, there’s always a first.”

“Matthew!” She whacked him over the head. He laughed and repeated himself, making Alex stare at him.

“Take them to Providence? But Fiona’s big as a house! She can give birth any day.”

“Oh, I’m sure the prospect of leaving us will serve as enough of an incentive for her to keep her legs firmly closed round that babe.”

Alex chuckled at the resulting image: a red, contorted Fiona twisting her thighs shut. Difficult to do on a horse…

“He needs you.” Matthew bent to pick up David, who was grizzling, and waited until she was comfortably seated before handing her the child. “That way Ian and Jenny can live in the wee cabin, and Jenny will be as much help in the household as Fiona is, don’t you think?”

“Probably more, although that’s not saying much.” For the last four months, Fiona had shirked as much as she could, complaining about one thing after the other. And because Alex felt sorry for her, she’d let her be, turning a blind eye as Fiona did less and less. “How leave us?”

“Jonah is a cobbler by trade, and he’s thinking of setting himself up in Providence – together with Mr Fuller.”

“How? With what money?”

“A loan.”

“With what surety?” Alex counted in her head; there was not all that much left of the original 500 pounds, even now that it was augmented with what remained in Magnus’ pouch, and she had no inclination to spend any of it on Fiona and Jonah.

“Their contracts; if the loan isn’t repaid within three years, I have the right to sell them on for five years. If they pay, I tear the contracts up.” He gave her a reproving look. “Jonah is an honest man.”

“Jonah is a
poor
honest man with a wife and child to support, but I suppose she can find some employment too.”

Fiona was predictably thrilled, and for the last week of her life with the Grahams she bounded about with surprising energy, despite her huge belly. She even offered to help with the laundry but that wasn’t a risk Alex was prepared to take, so she set Fiona on other lighter tasks instead.

Mrs Parson examined Fiona, pursed her lips at the thought of this heavily pregnant woman on a horse, but shrugged and said she supposed there was no major risk.

“If our Lord Jesus’ mother could ride through the Holy Land on a donkey right up to the night of his birth then Fiona will survive as well.”

“The difference being that one was a virgin birth,” Alex said, “while the other definitely isn’t.”

*

After four days of riding – very slowly on account of Fiona – they entered Providence on a surly April day, clouds gusting across a grey sky.

“Will you be alright?” Alex looked at Fiona and Jonah, standing before a narrow three-storey house. Fiona gawked at everything with the wide-eyed fascination of a country bumpkin in a metropolis. Not that three hundred-odd families was much of a city, but Alex supposed that in comparison with Graham’s Garden this must seem a seething melting pot of human flesh. Or not, given the modest attire of the women going about their daily errands.

“Well, take care then,” Alex went on, but for the response she got she could have been speaking to a doorpost. Fiona was too busy staring at her new surroundings with a dazed expression on her face, her hand held tight by Jonah.

Magnus was enchanted by Providence, exclaiming with pleasure over the narrow streets and the quaint little houses. He perused the few shops, ignored Matthew’s warnings and went down to the docks, coming back white-faced after seeing a slaver unloaded.

“And you know the worst of it?” he said, waving his arms around. “It’s that the same men who sit in that meetinghouse on Sunday professing respect for God’s creation will turn around on the Monday and treat their fellow human beings like dirt!”

Alex nodded. “Did you see Farrell down there? A small, rotund man?”

Magnus shook his head. “No, I couldn’t take my eyes off one Dominic Jones, and at one point I was seriously tempted to kick him into the water. I bet he can’t swim, and serve him right.”

“Stay away from Jones,” Matthew said. “He’s a dangerous man.”

“I do have eyes in my head,” Magnus snorted.

One night, Magnus came back to their room very late, so drunk he could barely walk upright and with a huge, satisfied smile on his face.

“I still could,” he slurred. “I could still get it up.”

“Oh, aye? That is good.” Matthew steadied him over to the pallet bed.

“Mrs Malone.” Magnus nodded unsteadily. “What a woman, hey? What a woman...”

“And what if he contracts some unsavoury disease?” Alex asked Matthew once he was back in bed with her.

“He’s dying anyway, and I’m sure Mrs Malone is in good health.”

“Oh, you are, are you? And how would you know, seeing as it’s a year since you last set foot in her establishment.”

“Not as such. I took your father there tonight.”

“What? You took Magnus to a whorehouse?”

“For the beer,” Matthew protested. “I didn’t think he’d be interested in anything else.”

“Huh.” Alex narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t want you going there.”

“Alex,” he groaned, “I go for the beer and the—”

“I don’t care! I don’t like it, okay?”

“Fine,” he said, holding up his hands. But he didn’t promise not to go. Alex turned her back on him, shrugged off his exploring hand and pretended to sleep.

*

Next morning, Alex woke to an empty bed and a vague recollection of being kissed on the cheek by Matthew before he left for his early meeting with the ministers. Magnus was snoring his head off, and it was with an element of relief Alex escaped outside, with David snug as a bug in his carrying shawl. The day was agreeably warm and, armed with a basket, Alex set off to do some serious shopping.

Alex rifled through the buttons; she wanted something special for the new bodice she was sewing, so she took her time, chit-chatting with the other women surrounding the little stall.

“It’s not right, the way he’s flaunting her,” a woman behind Alex muttered. She turned, following the aggrieved looks to see Jones with a young woman definitely not his wife by his side.

“Who’s she?” Alex nodded in greeting at a nice-looking woman she thought might be called Esther Hancock.

“That?” Maybe-Esther made a disgusted sound. “That’s our own Babylon Whore, Mrs Graham.”

“Oh dear,” Alex said with attempted agitation. “And I thought Mrs Malone’s was quite enough to bear.”

“This is worse,” the woman beside Maybe-Esther said. “That woman has him leaving wife and children, running after her like a rutting beast.”

“Poor Mrs Jones,” Alex said with sincerity. The other women nodded and went back to watching the spectacle of a middle-aged man fawning on a chit of a girl young enough to be his daughter.

“He’s set her up in her own household, pays all her expenses,” a third woman said, coming to join them.

“He can afford to,” yet another voice interjected, and suddenly Alex was standing in the centre of a group of upset women.

“Witchcraft,” one of the women hissed, and a murmur of agreement rose from the others.

“Witchcraft?” Alex laughed. “That’s not witchcraft. That’s a man being ruled by his member, not his head.”

“They all are,” an unknown woman put in, and they dissolved into laughter.

*

“...and then they said she was a witch.” She finished recounting the incident to Matthew.

“Mayhap she is.” He folded together the long letter from Simon.

“Matthew,” she said with exasperation, “of course she isn’t.”

“How would you know?” He was sitting on the bed, this being the single piece of furniture in the small room – except for Magnus’ pallet bed and a rickety stool.

“How? I have eyes in my head. She’s a pretty girl who knows how to flutter her lashes.”

“Are you saying that all witches are old crones?” He leered at her, hunched his back together, and gave her a cross-eyed look.

“No. I’m saying there are no witches – at all.”

Matthew relaxed against the headrest, crossed his bare feet at the ankles and gave her a long look.

“Aye, there are – you know that.”

“Mercedes wasn’t a witch,” Alex said through set teeth. “She was a bit strange, but not a witch.”

“Of course she was; mayhap not an evil one, but certainly a witch. Those wee paintings of hers...ungodly, aye, brimming with magic.” He shivered, arms coming up in a defensive little hug.

Alex sat down beside him. She couldn’t argue with him, because he was right: those small swirling squares of greens and blues were nothing but magic, impossible portals through time. She threw him a sidelong look. If she was uncomfortable discussing Mercedes, Matthew preferred to avoid the subject altogether – which was fine with her.

She shifted closer and rested her head against his shoulder. “I can’t help who my mother was.”

His fingers picked at her hair, pulling loose long locks that he twisted and uncurled repeatedly.

“Without her you wouldn’t exist,” he finally replied. “And that would have been a huge loss – to me at least.”

Alex nodded and snuggled closer, scrubbing her face against the rough weave of his shirt. In her head, she heard Mercedes laugh, a dark, sultry sound, and there she was, brushes in hand, cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth, and on the canvas bloomed yet another weird painting.

“Wherever you are, I hope you’re at peace,” she whispered.

“Hmm?” Matthew said above her.

“Nothing,” Alex answered. Mercedes turned to face her, breaking into a radiant smile, and now she was walking through a sea of golden poppy-dotted wheat, her long dark hair streaming behind her. Alex scoffed. She recognised that scene – she’d seen
Gladiator
about a hundred times.