A Rip in the Veil (27 page)

“Aye,” he grunted.

“But why haven’t you told me before?”

Matthew shrugged. “I forgot.” He took her hand and tugged her back into motion. “I don’t want you to spend time with her.”

“Well I don’t want to either, so that’s alright then, isn’t it?”

“And Luke?” she asked a bit later. “Is he here as well?”

“Not if he knows what’s best for him.” Matthew spat to clear his mouth of the bitter taste his brother’s name always brought in its wake.

Chapter 21

Minister Crombie rode his small hill pony down the lane one early Tuesday morning, a somewhat harried expression on his face.

“I’m telling you,” he said to Matthew a few minutes later. “It is restless times we’re living in.”

“Oh aye; have been for all my life.”

Minister Crombie nodded, looking very dour. “But now it has all taken a turn for the worse. The Protector dead and gone, and yon Charles Stuart inching his clever way closer and closer to the throne. Anyway, I didn’t ride all the way out here merely for a political discussion. I came to warn you.”

“Ah.”

“They found the body of the man they hanged,” Minister Crombie said. “Some well-meaning soul had cut him down and buried him. So now they know.”

“Who knows what?”

“The local garrison,” Minister Crombie said. “They know that the dead man wasn’t you.”

“They do? Who told them?”

“They had the remains carted in.” Minister Crombie looked rather sick at the thought. “And several people stepped forward to swear it wasn’t you.” He threw Matthew a worried look. “Luke’s friends, most of them.” He sighed and shook his head. “Stay away from Cumnock and go canny. It is but a matter of time before they come looking.”

Minister Crombie refused Matthew’s invitation to dinner, repeated his admonishment to be careful and sat up on his horse, muttering something about needing to make haste back to Cumnock.

Matthew walked him up the lane, shook hands and trudged back down, deep in thought. It took some time for him to react to hearing his name called, and even more to recognise the voice, but once he did he broke into a huge grin, and after helping her dismount, he swept Joan into a wild hug.

“Let go,” she protested, half laughing, half crying. Matthew complied, steadying her at the last moment to avoid her falling to her knees. They stood face to face and the exuberance drained away, leaving them grave and sad.

“Three years…” Joan lifted a gloved hand to his face. “What happened?” She ran a finger over the scar that bisected his brow and continued as a shallow groove below the hollow of his eye.

“Whip.” He jerked his head out of reach. “Mam? Was it bad for her in the end?”

“It was awful. And then there was you and Luke – she never spoke to him after your trial. Margaret tried; several times she came by, but Mam refused to see her.”

Matthew looked at her in surprise. “Margaret? She did?”

Joan nodded. “I think she was ashamed. She swore she’d had no idea what Luke was planning, but I’m not sure I believe her – always a glib liar, our Margaret.” She patted his arm. “I’m sorry, that there was no alternative than for her to stay.”

Matthew hitched his shoulders. He was uncomfortable with Margaret living this close, even more because it reasonably meant Luke was skulking round as well, but it had been his decision, not hers, to offer Margaret somewhere to live when his good for nothing brother couldn’t.

At times he wondered what kind of man Luke would have been, had Da not thrown him out all those years ago. It had warped him somehow, and the impetuous, fiery lad hardened into a bitter young man with a grudge, simmering with anger that at times he just couldn’t control. His jaw clenched; Luke deserved no understanding.

“Have they wed?” he said, motioning for Gavin to take Joan’s mare.

“Do you care?”

“No,” he lied, “for the lad, aye, but for them, no.”

Joan fell into step with him, and he clasped his hands behind his back, strolling towards the house. She looked at him again, stopped him and ran her hand down his face. He laughed, embarrassed, and twisted away from her touch.

“I’m no ghost, Joan.”

“So,” he repeated. “Are they wed?”

“Aye.”

It was strange that it should hurt so much. He didn’t want her back, but there was an element of injustice in it all that made him rage; God should have struck them down, not blessed their adulterous union.

Joan came to a stop when Alex appeared in the door. She gaped, blinked and wheeled to frown at Matthew.

“Does she know?”

“Know what?”

She snorted. “Does yon woman know that she’s a spitting image of your first wife?”

“No she isn’t,” Matthew said with an edge. “Her hair is lighter and her chin is square where Margaret’s is pointed, and —”

“So you have been making comparisons,” Joan interrupted him.

He looked away. “Aye, I have. But I cared for her long before I saw the likeness, and now I care for her despite the likeness, not because of it.”

“Will she believe that, you think? Because someday she’ll meet Margaret, and unless she’s blind she’ll see it too. And she won’t like it, what woman would?” She stopped and grabbed him by the arm. “You have to tell her.”

Matthew made despairing gesture. “But how do I do that?”

“I don’t know, but do it soon.”

*

Alex liked Joan immediately, sizing her up in silence. Tall and gangly, Joan overtopped Alex by four inches or so, hovering just below the six feet mark. Wide grey eyes, dark hair tucked away under a linen cap, and very neat in a dove coloured skirt and purple bodice that made Alex feel shabby in her brown. She smoothed at the rough homespun of her skirts and looked away.

Joan laughed and took Alex’s hand. “Quickly sorted. There is plenty of fabric in the chests – I think we have a most becoming green that will make you a right nice bodice, and if I recall correctly there’s a bolt or two of blue broadcloth as well.” She threw Alex a sharp look. “Didn’t Mrs Brodie show you?”

“No, I suppose it must have slipped her mind.” And anyway, what was she to do with bolts of fabric, sew her own clothes?

“There’s quite a few yards of good linen as well,” Joan went on, “enough for a couple of shirts for Matthew and a shift or two for you.”

“Oh.” Shit: she barely knew how to thread a needle.

“Tomorrow,” Joan said, “we start tomorrow, aye?”

“I can’t wait.” Alex pasted what she hoped looked like an enthusiastic smile on her face.

Joan not only set Alex to sewing, she also took one look at the overflowing hampers of soiled linens and decided it was time for a long overdue laundry day – this said with an irritated glance in the direction of Mrs Brodie.

The chosen day dawned bright and warm, and Alex had her head filled with romanticised images of laundresses, laughing and splashing as they washed their clothes by the river shore, lounging in the shade of an oak for a leisurely lunch.

The reality was far different; it was bloody hard work, was what it was. Her arms felt about to fall off as she lifted yet another heap of steaming linen from the wash cauldron to the wide basket by her side. The skin of her hands was red and irritated with the lye, and she kept up a long string of colourful Swedish curses as she carried the wicker basket over to the stone trough and kneeled to first scrub, then rinse, the linen clean.

The whole yard was alive with flapping sheets, but there were still two or three more armloads to go, and right now Alex was thinking that she could definitely do without clean sheets – hell, she could sleep in the hay instead. She poured bucket after bucket of cold water over the scrubbed sheets, stuck her tongue out at the waiting pile.

“List of the day; washing machine, toothbrush, huge pizza, hot shower, and a TV.” And chocolate, and salt and vinegar crisps and Magnus… She scrubbed at her eyes to stop herself from crying, which only made them sting with lye.

Joan took one look at her red-rimmed eyes and chapped hands and shoved her away from the cauldron.

“Why don’t you take a walk? You look greensick.”

“I’m hot, mainly.” Alex attempted to unstick the linen from her sweating skin. “But yes, I’d like a walk” She smiled gratefully at Joan and strode off towards the woods.

It was a relief to get away from all of them. She was so tired of always being on her guard, of noting what words she used. The other day she had spoken dreamily of afternoon tea, only to realise that no one in the room had ever heard of that concept before. And she missed Matthew, her time with him restricted to short snatches in bed before he fell asleep, worn out after his long days. She looked for somewhere to sit down, aware of a sudden heaviness in her body. Maybe she had an infection, because for days now she’d been ridiculously tired. She sighed, swamped by a general feeling of irritation.

She counted days as she walked up the hill, and came to a halt when she realised it was the beginning of October. She counted again, and then plunked down in the grass, not caring that it was wet. No wonder she was feeling so strange! A child…Isaac! She hadn’t thought actively of him for weeks, his existence in that other time a constant chafing in her heart that she preferred to ignore. And now…she splayed her hands across her midriff. A child; a baby conceived in passion, a son – daughter? – she would never resent, never eye askance. Oh God; Isaac, unloved in her womb, hated at the time of his birth and so unwelcome afterwards. Her breath came in loud gulps, her eyes filled with tears that she blinked back into their ducts.

“Sorry,” she said out loud. “I’m so sorry, Isaac.” As if he could hear her, as if he would care, safe in his future world with John and his Offa. She was only slightly more peripheral now that she was gone, than she had been while she was there, always maintaining an emotional distance to the boy that with every single day more and more resembled his damned father. Shit. Alex hid her face against her knees, sat like that for a very long time.

*

She made her way down the hill, and just as she reached the yard she saw Matthew enter the stable. When he climbed up to the hay loft so did she, her single conscious thought being that she had to be with him. The whole loft bathed in the sun streaming in through the loading hatch, and when he heard her he turned, a dark silhouette against all that golden light. He moved towards her, as wordless as she was, and laid her down in the stacks of sweet smelling hay.

“I’m pregnant,” she said between his kisses.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do.” He brushed his nose against hers. “It makes me very happy.”

“Me too,” she said, and the naked joy in his eyes made her realise she meant it.

To her irritation, Joan just grinned when Alex told her the news, commenting that it had taken her quite some time to realise what had been obvious for weeks. What? So she was surrounded by wannabe gynaecologists? Joan grinned even more at her scowl, tucked a hand in under Alex’s arm and led her off to the parlour, telling her they had mountains of mending to get through. Whoopee.

“Right,” Joan said, once they were settled. “Now I want to hear it all.”

“All?” Alex asked.

“About how you met.”

Alex looked down at the shirt she was mending for Matthew. She had to her delight discovered that she was good at sewing, her small, even stitches complimented not only by Joan but also, miracle of miracles, by Mrs Brodie.

“Didn’t Simon tell you?”

Joan raised her brows in derision. “Had you been the victim of moss-troopers you’d be dead or working in a brothel.” Nice; some things never change. Alex sighed and rubbed her collarbone, wondering how to explain.

It was obvious her cover story was much better than Matthew’s half-baked attempts, even if Joan still regarded her with some scepticism afterwards. But a freak thunderstorm, a disappeared father, a burnt foot and, for some days, no idea of who she was, was in some aspects almost true.

“Matthew found me,” she finished. “And, well…”

Joan uttered a soft grunt. “You bedded with him there, on the moor?”

It was difficult to deny, so Alex just nodded.

“And you knew him to be a fugitive? A man who might still hang?” The subtext was very clear, making Alex hide a smile.

“Well, I didn’t take him for his money,” she said, rather gratified by the red stains that flew up Joan’s face.

“So why then?”

Because his hands drove her crazy and his smile warmed her gut. Because of the glint in his eyes and the heat in his mouth. But mostly because with him there were no secrets, no subterfuge.

“I love him.”

“Truly?” Joan’s grey eyes were only inches from Alex’s face.

“Truly,” Alex answered. “But don’t tell him that, it might make him quite unbearable to live with.” Joan burst out laughing and promised she wouldn’t say a word.

Chapter 22

Hector nodded a thank you to the serving maid and attacked his stew. Awful; tasteless, full of gristle, and with very little meat. But it was hot, and the bread served with it was edible enough. He downed his beer, signalled for more, and went back to his food, all the while keeping an eye on the men in the small, dank room.

He’d had no major problems adapting to his new environments. Breeches and clumsy boots, hats and cloaks he’d worn before, and he was more than adept at using a sword – or a knife. After several weeks in Cumnock he was therefore the proprietor of a heavy pouch, lying snug against his thigh. His victims had mostly escaped unscathed, except for the fool that pulled a dagger on him and so…well; at least he’d died quickly, if somewhat messily.

Hector shoved the bowl away from him and frowned; a month of keeping eyes and ears open for any gossip that might lead him in the direction of Alexandra Lind and so far nothing. He had no idea, he reminded himself, she might have ended up somewhere else entirely.

Hector chewed his lip and studied the depressing little inn in which he seemed to spend most of his evenings. In three hundred years or so, the Merkat Cross Inn would no doubt be a quaint little pub, complete with historical interiors and an interesting past, but at present it was dirty, damp, full of far too many smelly men, and with a complement of furry things that darted hastily from one dark nook to the other.