The Prodigal Son (8 page)

“How far along are you?” he asked as he sank into her.

“Two months.”

“Oh,” he replied, concentrating on how it made him feel to be inside of her. He moved slowly, long flexing movements of his hips.

“Will it be a boy or girl, do you think?” Alex voice sounded very vague, as if the effort of holding even this desultory conversation was too much. When he slipped his hands under her and lifted her closer she made a small sound, holding still when he shifted even deeper inside of her. All the way to his root, and she sighed, crossing her legs round his hips.

“A lad,” Matthew kissed her. “We must hope for a lad. One like Rachel is quite enough.” He felt Alex laugh and smiled in response, thrusting into her. “But there will be time for lasses later, many, many lasses.”

“You’re nuts,” Alex told him. “This is already number four. How many were you planning for?”

Matthew bent his head to her ear and whispered a number, making her shake with laughter.

“Totally nuts, Matthew Graham,” she whispered back, and then she didn’t say very much at all for some time.

She gave him a contented look afterwards, pillowing her head on his chest with a little sigh. He toyed with her hair, drawing out long, long curls that bounced back the moment he released them.

“I’ll ask him to stay away, for now.” Matthew choked on the words, they tore at his gullet.

“Good,” Alex said, sounding relieved. “And when they come and ask you to swear the oath?”

“What oath?”

Alex raised her head. “Don’t give me that; you know exactly what oath.”

Aye, of course he did. He sighed and looked at her. “How can I swear an oath like that?”

Alex locked her eyes into his. “How? You just repeat the words and cross your fingers behind your back.”

“That’s perjury.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s called survival. Sometimes you do things just to keep yourself and your family safe.”

“It will make me a lesser man,” Matthew said.

“Not in the eyes of those that matter – not in mine.”

He smiled crookedly; no, not in hers. “To Sandy it will.”

“Probably. But he knows you have children and he will anyway blame it on my corrupting influence.”

“Corrupting influence? Aye, you could say that.” He looked down to where she’d taken a firm grip of his cock. “Not that I mind.” He raised a hand to brush a curl off her face.

“Of course you don’t.” Her hair tickled his chest, his belly and spread out across his thighs.

“Ah, Jesus,” he said, when her tongue slid over his balls, the length of his cock.

“Now that Sandy would definitely not approve of,” Alex said, before going back to what she was doing.

“Right now I don’t care,” Matthew said, holding her where she was.

Chapter 6

“But why?” Ian asked. “If those giant eagles could fly and fetch them from the mountain, why didn’t they just carry them in? And then Frodo could have dropped the wee ring into Mount Doom much earlier.”

Alex rolled her eyes; what had possessed her to try and tell them the rambling, convoluted story of
The Lord of the Rings
? Apart from the long and rather heated discussions as to whether the elves were like Scottish fairies (not, they decided), if hobbits had perhaps at one time lived on Skye (yes) and did Alex really expect them to believe Aragorn was over ninety years old (It’s a fairy tale!), Alex was now tagged by Ian and Mark who wanted to know more, pestering her with detailed questions before breaking off to argue among themselves as to if it was Aragorn or Frodo who was the real hero.

At least it had proved the battering ram Alex had needed to get through to Ian, and so she replied patiently to his questions, all the while sneaking him quick looks. The pale boy of a month ago had bloomed into an active youngster and when the letter arrived requesting he be allowed to stay on further on account of Luke still doing poorly, he hadn’t seemed too depressed.

“Stop!” she said. “There. Fill your basket, but make sure they’re undamaged.” She pointed at the rosehips in the huge briar bramble beside him.

Ian eyed the thorns and sighed. “The whole basket?”

“To the brim,” Alex said, going round to do her picking on the opposite side.

“Aunt?”

“Hmm?” Alex jerked back from her agreeable daydream of a huge salad, complete with tomatoes and feta cheese.

“What happened to my grandfather?”

Alex was glad he couldn’t see her, but bent down, just in case, to hide her face.

“Your grandfather?”

“Aye, Malcolm Graham.”

“Why do you ask?”

Ian fell silent and as moments became minutes Alex thought that perhaps he’d retreated into one of his customary silences.

“Samuel told me he drowned,” Ian finally said.

“You should really be asking Matthew this, it’s not as if I was here then.”

“I don’t want to. Mayhap it would make him sad.”

Alex smiled at the way he said it. Matthew Graham was working his magic on this young heart.

“It probably would.” She peeked at him through the brambles. “You’re not picking! Get on with you, we’re not going home until your basket is full!”

Ian grumbled but went back to tearing off the bright red fruit.

“Yes, he drowned; in December of 1653. No one really knows what happened, but he was pulled in under the water wheel and… well, he died.”

“Was he murdered?” Ian asked breathlessly.

Yeah; in all probability by your beloved father, Alex thought.

“Well it was all a bit strange. He received a message from the miller to come up because there was a problem, but the miller says he didn’t send any such message. And your grandfather didn’t know how to swim and was scared of water, so why would he have gotten close to the pond in the first place?” Alex wrinkled her brow in concentration. “There was something about a ring…”

“A ring?” His eager voice made her smile.

“Not one of those rings; I told you, the rings of power are just a fairy tale. No, this was a ring that he always carried but that wasn’t found on his person when they pulled him out.”

“Mayhap it slipped off his finger in the millrace,” Ian suggested with valid logic.

“Except that he carried it on a chain around his neck, tucked away under his shirt, and according to Matthew his clothes were mostly undamaged – it was more a matter of…” She broke off. He’d been crushed, poor man, the outside looking seemingly intact while most of his bones had been pulverised. “Anyway, it was his mother’s ring, three strands of gold braided together and decorated with one single blood-red stone the size of a small sea water pearl.”

“A braided ring with a blood-red stone?” Ian squeaked.

“Yes.” Alex peered at him through the brambles. He’d gone very pale, long arms hugging his knees tight. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” He gave her a bright smile.

Alex shrugged. “Hips, young sir. And then if you ask nicely I might tell you some more about the battle of Helm’s Deep.”

Ian and Alex were a stone’s throw from the house when they heard the sound of loud, angry voices floating up towards them. In the middle of the yard stood Matthew, glowering at a rotund dragoon.

“Why? I am a law-abiding man, I have no interest in…”

“Law-abiding? Well if so, Mr Graham, swearing the oath is no major matter, is it?” the soldier said. “Or do you hold convictions that stand in conflict with taking it?”

“Shit,” Alex muttered when Matthew straightened up to his full height. She increased her pace, motioning for Ian to hurry along.

“I don’t hold with these laws prohibiting man to follow his conscience in matters of faith,” Matthew said. “They’re…”

“What? No, no, Mr Graham. It is not for you to choose how things should be ordained, that is for your betters to decide.”

“My betters? And who might they be?” Matthew loomed over the dragoon, who calmly held his ground.

“Your king, Mr Graham. His parliament, his officers. All of those are your betters.”

Matthew scowled and Alex wheeled to face Ian.

“Lie down, pretend you’re hurt. Your foot or something.”

Ian fell to his knees, squealing like a dying pig.

“Not that hurt,” Alex hissed, although it did seem to have the desired effect. Matthew and the officer turned to look up the hillside. She bounded down the last few yards. “Come quick, Ian has hurt himself!”

Matthew gave Alex a sceptical look, but ran off in the direction she was pointing, leaving Alex alone with the little officer.

“Sir,” she curtsied, “may I perhaps offer you some beer? And your men, of course.”

The dragoon cheered up at this generous offer, and by the time Matthew came back after having assured himself Ian would survive his near lethal tumble, the soldiers were far less menacing.

“Monday a week,” the officer said once they were back on their horses. “At the church.”

Matthew nodded and watched the troop ride off before facing her.

“You shouldn’t waste beer on such.”

“And you shouldn’t waste breath arguing with them, it’s not as if it you have much choice, it is?”

Matthew grunted something rude and colourful, among which Alex could make out whoresons and goatsuckers. Goatsuckers? It almost made her laugh.

Matthew spent the rest of the morning astride the barn roof, venting his anger on the new shingles. Now and then, he’d see Alex dart by far below, and once he even saw Joan, a hunched, grey shape that hobbled to the privy and back.

“What’s ailing Joan?” Matthew asked Alex after dinner.

“I’m not sure,” Alex said.

Matthew chewed his lip. Slowly but steadily Joan had been regaining her strength, and when Simon had left a week or so ago she was close to being back to normal. But since then she had begun slipping in the opposite direction, lying pale and unresponsive in her bed in between the feeding of her daughter.

“Simon says she mustn’t try for another child.” Matthew shook his head at the unfairness of it. Good people such as Simon and Joan should be blessed with many bairns, and now all they had was one scrawny little daughter, a wean with her father’s reddish hair and her mother’s wide grey eyes. Even if Simon had tried to make light of it, Matthew had heard the disappointment in his voice.

“I heard,” Alex said. “How will they manage? I suppose they’ll still want to have sex.”

Matthew smiled at her expression; he never had sex with his Alex, he made love to her or bedded her or took her on the stairs – although that was very long ago – or had her in the hayloft. He glanced in her direction and saw she had been following his line of thought. It made his balls tighten pleasantly.

“I’d go crazy,” she said, her blue eyes very intense. “You know, without…”

“Aye, but if it were a question of your life we would find other ways.”

Alex groped him hard, smiling at his muffled exclamation.

“I’m sure we would,” she said, and danced away.

“What’s he doing here?” Alex said a few days later, her eyes shooting darts into the back of Sandy Peden, who disappeared into the house.

“Joan asked for him, so I went and found him.”

“Joan? Why would she want to see him?”

“Mayhap because he’s a man of God?” He wiped a hand over his face. His sister’s apathy had him worried, and if Sandy could rouse her out of it, he’d be eternally grateful. “She blames herself; one bairn, and a lass at that.”

Alex muttered something about living in a man’s world, eyes still stuck on the door.

“He’s not staying.”

“Nay, of course not,” Matthew hastened to say. “He knows that.”

Alex tightened her shawl around her shoulders, turning to sweep their yard, the lane, the surrounding slopes with her eyes.

“Alex,” he sighed, “I’m no fool. I have Gavin sitting at the top of the lane.”

Sandy sat for hours with Joan and when he came out of her room so did she, gripping the minister’s arm as she made her way down the stairs.

“Well done,” Alex said, ushering Sandy in the direction of the kitchen. “It sort of brings to mind the tale of Lazarus.”

Matthew choked on a gust of laughter.

“She wasn’t dead,” Sandy corrected, accepting the food she put in front of him.

“Minor difference, she’s been staring at the wall for days on end – more dead than alive.”

“I heard that,” Joan said with a touch of asperity.

“A miracle, a miracle,” Alex muttered. “Look, she moves, she talks, she even hears.”

Matthew threw her a reproving look, but Alex just snorted and disappeared in the direction of the parlour, where a succession of loud noises indicated wee Rachel was doing something she shouldn’t.

Matthew lifted Jacob to sit in his lap and smiled at his sister. “It is good to see you up.”

“Aye, well, ‘tis good to be up.” She didn’t sound convinced, but smiled when Sarah placed Lucy in her arms. “Will you christen her?” she asked Sandy, handing him the wean.

“He’s not allowed to,” Alex voice cut in. “He’s been formally ejected, and mustn’t perform any sacraments.” She entered the kitchen, frowning at all three of them.

“He’s a minister of my Kirk, and I’ll much rather hide out in the moss to hear Minister Peden preach than go to Cumnock and hear a mealy mouthed representative of the Church of England offer us salvation if we just recognise the authority of the king over the church.” Joan sounded more animated than she’d done for weeks, with two spots of bright red on her cheeks.

“He baptised Jacob,” Matthew said, stroking back the thick, fair hair of his son.

“That was two years ago,” Alex said. “Before it began to get really nasty.”

Sandy smiled down at the child in his arms. “I’ll be glad to baptise the wean,” he said, “and if you want we can do it now.” He threw a challenging look in the direction of Alex, who opened her mouth to say something but clearly thought better of it. Instead she lifted Jacob out of Matthew’s lap and left the room.

“She fears for them, and for me,” Matthew tried to explain, watching Alex cross the yard with all their children and Ian in tow.

“Aye well,” Sandy said, “she’s but a woman – weak of body and of mind.”

Matthew met Joan’s eyes, suppressing a smile at this description of Alex.