Serpents in the Garden (27 page)

*

“Why are you out here?” Ian kept his voice down, but made Betty jump all the same.

“I…” she wiped her face on her sleeve. “She doesn’t like me.” She patted the cow she’d been talking to and straightened up, stepping into the weak light cast by the lantern she’d hung from a nail.

Ian came to stand very close, his coat unbuttoned over his best shirt. He tweaked at her wild curls, left unbound for once, smiling at how the curl bounced back into shape the moment he released it. Sometimes, he forgot she was very young, a mere child in many aspects.

“Nay, of course she doesn’t like you, but that need not concern you. I don’t think Mama will be inviting her over again in a hurry.”

Betty snorted with laughter, making Ian laugh as well. All evening, Mama had been like a trapped doe, hurrying back and forth across the parlour to avert any potential confrontation between Jenny and Ian, Jenny and Betty.

“It makes Malcolm uncomfortable to have us both there,” Betty said, “so I thought I’d make it easier for him.”

Ian ran a thumb down her nose. “That was nice of you.”

Betty hitched her shoulders. “I like Malcolm.”

It was cold in the stables. Her breath stood like a plume, and she stuck her hands deeper into her armpits, stamping her feet. He took off his coat and wrapped it around her.

“Now you’ll get cold.” She smiled, slipping her arms around his waist.

“Betty,” he murmured, and he was shivering all over, but he didn’t feel cold exactly. She smelled nice: of newly churned butter, of ginger and cinnamon, and something that was always there – an earthy warmth. All of her body he’d explored over the last few months, stolen hours spent tracing the line of her flank, the curve of her hip, the soft down on her belly all the way down to her pubic curls. But he hadn’t taken her, because he’d promised Da he wouldn’t, and promised himself the same. At times, it was driving him insane, like now in the dark and cold stable when all he wanted was to lay her down and love her properly. He laughed unsteadily. Here it was cold and dirty, and this was not the way it was going to be, not that first time.

Betty stood on her toes and kissed him: lips that promised, a tongue that teased.

“I don’t think I can stand this much longer,” she whispered. In brown skirts, a sleeveless bodice of palest yellow, green and brown over her clean chemise, her hair as bright and curly as always, she reminded him of a curious thrush, or an impertinent fox cub. Vixen, he smiled; yes, that suited her. Her crotch pressed against his, small breasts rested so close to his skin, and Ian realised that Betty Hancock knew exactly how to play him.

He buried his nose in her hair. “Stop, please stop, Betty.”

“I’m not sure I want to,” she said and kissed him once again.

Chapter 31

Matthew liked the mornings the best, and, in particular, these long winter mornings when someone else tended to the beasts, and he could dally in bed with his wife for a bit longer than he ever allowed himself in summer.

He rolled out of bed to coax the fire into renewed vigour, lit a candle and set it in the holder he had attached to the headboard, and laid back down to study his wife. She was awake, pretending to sleep, her eyelashes fluttering a bit too much and the corner of her mouth twitching.

“What?” Alex said drowsily. “Am I green all over?”

He laughed and tickled her with his hair. “Nay, not that I can see, but mightily strange all the same.”

“Well, at least I’m not a frog, then,” she replied, her eyes still closed.

He was transported back to a small cave on a Scottish moor, the first night they met. He’d stared at this woman with clothes that showed off every curve, hair so disturbingly short, and eyes that met his with a flare of indignant blue when she challengingly asked him what it was he was gawking at.

“It’s the prince, not the princess, that’s turned into a frog,” he murmured.

“Be my guest,” she laughed. “But I can’t promise I’ll kiss you back into manhood. I’m not too fond of frogs.”

“Ah, no?” He nuzzled her neck, making her squeal like a lassie when he licked the skin just below her ear. She slapped at him, tried to hide under the pillows, but she was laughing, and, as if by chance, she inched her shift up high enough to bare her thighs, her buttocks.

He took hold of her braid and yanked – hard enough that she should know he would not be denied. Not that she had any intention of denying him: he could see that in how she curved her body, in how invitingly she raised her posterior towards him. But she pretended, and for some moments they wrestled in the bed, a heaving silent fight that ended when he grabbed her by the nape and guided her down to his twitching cock. The candlelight gilded her hair; her hands cupped his balls. Teeth closed gently around him. He lay stock-still. Her mouth, her tongue, her teeth – her lips on his balls, his cock.

“Alex, I…” Whatever he had planned to say never got beyond an unformed thought. Instead, he sank his hands into her hair, and she released him, kissing his mouth instead. He didn’t want her kisses, not right now. He took her with one strong thrust. As always, there was that long moment when neither of them moved, both of them savouring the sensation of being this close, joined to each other.

He dipped his head and brushed his nose against hers, thereby freeing them from their immobility. She raised her hips, he pushed into her. In the flaring light of the candle, her eyes shifted from cornflower blue to the deepest black, eyes that stared up at him with absolute trust. Her hands on his cheeks, she lifted herself off the bed sufficiently to kiss him – deeply. He increased his pace, she fell backwards, braced against the headboard and rocked to his rhythm. Every single drop of blood in his body was rushing downwards, filling his member with a throbbing, delicious ache. Her breath came in loud gasps that echoed his own. Almost there. His flesh merging with hers; his body fused to hers. He…she…oh Lord!

*

“It wasn’t much of a success yesterday, was it?” Alex asked later, propped up against the pillows. Matthew had his head in her lap, and, had he been a cat, he would have been purring as her fingers stroked and tugged at his hair.

“I wouldn’t say that. I think all but three enjoyed themselves.”

“Four,” Alex said.

“Five,” he amended with a sigh, thinking it had been a terrible evening. “It was a daft thing to do. Jenny would have gladly plunged a cleaver into Betty’s head had she had one at hand.”

“Why? Because she’s in love with Ian?”

“Nay, because Ian’s in love with her. And then there’s the unfortunate coincidence that it was Betty who saw Jenny with Patrick.”

“It would all have come out anyway.”

“I think not, and nor does Jenny. It would have been a drearier marriage, but a marriage still.”

“An unhappy marriage,” Alex said with an edge.

“Aye, the magic was gone. All those years of childlessness…”

Alex shook her head. “That’s not it. It’s the sudden realisation that something has shifted in the other. It’s difficult to dissimulate if you’re regularly having sex with someone else.”

“Oh?” Matthew sat up. “And you would know?”

Alex looked somewhat discomfited. “It’s not as if we were married or anything, and we both saw other people. But I…well, I didn’t much feel like…err, you know, bedding with others, while John, he would at times come back to me, and I could see in his eyes that he’d been sleeping with Diane – again.” She squirmed. She rarely talked about her previous life in the future, and even less did she talk about that future man, John, or her best friend, Diane.

“Bastard!” Matthew hated the fact that John had been the first man in her life, and even more that the wee idiot had hurt her.

“That was ages ago.” Alex burrowed back under her quilts.

“Nay, it isn’t, it hasn’t even happened yet.” He looked at her. “You haven’t happened yet, and still, here you are.”

“Very creepy,” Alex agreed and yawned. In a matter of moments, she was asleep and Matthew relaxed into drowsiness.

Christmas Day and the house lay silent around them, a warm peaceful silence. Today, he would, as always, read them the gospel according to Luke, and, as always, there would break out an amicable squabble between Ruth, himself and Mrs Parson as to the timing of the Flight to Egypt and the Slaying of the Innocents. And later, after a dinner of ham and roasted potatoes and mustard, Alex would bring out the Christmas cake, and the whole family would sit around the kitchen table. The whole family less two – no, three: Jacob and Daniel and wee Rachel, dead since many years back. He sent up a prayer that his lads be safe, smiled at the image of his wild Rachel decorously sitting on a cloud way up high, and rolled towards his wife for a nap.

*

“Sarah Graham!” Alex scowled. “Who let the dog into my kitchen?”

“He was cold.” Sarah hugged the new addition to the canine Grahams.

“And now he’s very, very stuffed seeing as he’s eaten our Christmas ham,” Alex told her.

The dog stretched its dark lips into what looked like a grin and collapsed onto its back, all four legs in the air.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think he’d touch it.” Sarah scratched Viggo on his belly. “It isn’t his fault,” she protested when Alex opened the door and pointed the dog outside.

“Out! If you want to cuddle him then out you go as well. Once you’ve scrubbed the kitchen floor, of course.”

“Scrub the floor?” Sarah looked down at the wooden planks. “It looks clean.”

“He’s eaten ham all over it, and there are some odd bits and pieces left dribbled all over the place. And, while you’re at it, you can think up something else for Christmas dinner – and cook it.” Alex grabbed at her cloak and banged the door behind her, choosing to turn a blind eye to the fact that Sarah stuck her tongue out at her.

“Nope,” she said to Viggo, “you’re not coming with me.”

The dog ignored her, gambolling in the thin layer of snow. He was a very cute dog, Alex had to admit, laughing when he buried his snout in the snow and sneezed. Big and long-haired, Viggo looked like a cross between an Afghan hound and a wolf, although Matthew assured her that wasn’t the case. Now, the huge dog ran circles around her, tongue hanging out like a pink tie against its dark grey coat.

Alex stepped over the low fencing that surrounded the little graveyard, brushed Magnus’ headstone free of snow and cut a frozen rosebud from the bush in the corner to place on top.

“
Lilla Pappa
,” she said, letting her fingers trace his name. No dates, just the name and the careful engraving of a bluebell that had taken Matthew hours and hours of patient chipping. Alex scrubbed at a patch of hairy moss and exhaled softly. None of the people who had known Magnus alive knew where he lay buried, and, even if they did, there’d be nothing left of the headstone in their time: it would just be an overgrown, cracked piece of stone.

“
Jag skall vandra, ensam utan spår
,” she murmured, and the Swedish hung heavy in her mouth. She rarely spoke it anymore – for the obvious reason that she had no one to speak it to. “Well, that’s the way it is,” she said to Viggo. “We’re born, we live briefly, and then we die, and nothing is left of us, nothing at all…”

The dog sneezed again, not too interested.

“It’s easier for you. You’re too stupid to even comprehend your own mortality.” She smiled down at her father’s name. One of his more recurring gripes against God had been that He’d been cruel enough to make us all too aware of our own insignificant lifespan.

Around her, snow began to fall, small drifting flakes that quickly became an impenetrable curtain of white. Alex shivered inside her cloak, walked back down, and was crossing the yard when something furry and grey scurried away at her approach. She made a mental note to tell Matthew it was time to do some serious raccoon culling – preferably exterminate the entire family before they worked out how to get into their storage sheds, little bandits that they were.

The smoking shed was barely visible in all the snow, and Alex decided she might just as well get her family something else to eat now that the dog had devoured the ham. She extended her stride, with Viggo a hopeful shadow, one ear flopping forward, the other standing straight up.

“No way,” she said to the dog, “you stay outside. I’m not going to risk you with all my meat.” She lifted off the heavy bar and stepped inside to lift down a leg of lamb. She was back outside, shoving the door closed, when the dog growled. Alex turned and then screamed.

*

“I told you,” Alex gabbled to Matthew, “he’s part wolf. Perhaps only a small part, but still. Or maybe he’s one of those Russian wolf-hunting dogs, or is it bears they hunt? No, wolves; they bite them in the ears to hold them still and…” She was talking and talking, trying to stop her knees from shaking, and she looked Matthew firmly in the eye because she didn’t dare to look at her right arm.

Two wolves, not raccoons, but wolves! Hell, she loved raccoons, they were almost like pets, but these huge beasts with yellow eyes that seemed to freeze her into immobility…okay, okay, she was exaggerating. Yes, they were big, but perhaps not that big, and Viggo had thrown himself at them, and they’d thrown themselves at her, or rather at the leg of lamb she was holding. She had whacked one of them in the head and the other had bit her. Bit her! Did wolves carry rabies? If they did, she was as good as dead. She sneaked a look at her mangled biceps and decided she might very well die anyway.

“Look at me.” Matthew took hold of her unharmed arm. “Don’t look at the bite.” He anchored her trembling legs between his own and nodded to Ian, who sat down behind Alex and slipped his arms round her waist.

“I have to clean it,” Mrs Parson said, “and it will hurt.”

Alex nodded, her eyes never leaving Matthew.

“Talk to me,” she said hoarsely, concentrating on the colour of his eyes. Green, gold, the odd dash of brown, but mostly a murky green, like when you dived into the river pool back at Hillview and opened your eyes to stare upwards at the sun-dappled surface. He brushed her nose with his own.

“Why in God’s name didn’t you just throw them the leg of lamb?”

“It’s mine,” Alex replied with far more bravado than she actually felt. “They can bloody well hunt something else. A huge big moose or a zebra or something.”

“Zebra?” Ian laughed from behind her. “They live in Africa, Mama.”

“Then they can emigrate.” Alex wanted to cry or throw up or perhaps both. Agnes came over to the table from where she’d been busy at the hearth, and the kitchen filled with the scents of garlic and bee balm. Alex knew it was going to hurt like hell, and she didn’t want it to.

“Bloody, fucking hell!” Alex gasped for breath, her chest heaving. “Shit, shit, shit.” Her arm was on fire; she could smell the iron in her blood as it flowed down her arm to puddle on Sarah’s recently scrubbed floor. Giving birth was a piece of cake compared to this!

Another burst of pain, and Alex couldn’t help it: her hand closed like a vice round Matthew’s fingers. More hot water, and Alex swore and cursed and cried, snot running from her nose. She could hear Agnes crying from somewhere behind her, and wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up, because as far as she knew it wasn’t Agnes that was being cut, was it?

“How you go on,” Mrs Parson sighed in a matter-of-fact tone that did a very bad job of disguising how upset she was.

Alex turned to glare at her.

“I must sew it. You know I have to, lass.”

Alex nodded and peeked at the cleaned, gaping cuts.

“They were deep.” Mrs Parson held her curved needle aloft.

“Bed,” Matthew said once the arm had been sewn together and bandaged. He helped Alex to stand. She was wet all through with sweat, blood and spilled water.

“I stink,” she whispered. “I don’t want to stink.”

“I’ll wash you. Betty will bring me some hot water, won’t you, lass, and then I’ll wash you and put you to bed.”

“I’m not very brave, am I?” she said as he supported her out of the kitchen.

“Brave enough to wallop a wolf with a leg of lamb.”

Alex laughed against his shoulder. “That wasn’t brave; that was just sheer stupidity.”

*

He sat beside her afterwards and watched her sleep. Thank heavens for the thick cloak or there would have been no arm left; thank heavens for the dog or God knows what might have happened; and thank the Lord that he’d heard her scream and come running with his musket.

She’d looked right wild, blood streaming down her arm, the leg of lamb held high, and one wolf limping off while Viggo grappled the other one. Now, there was one dead wolf in his yard and an injured woman in his bed. He scrubbed his hands through his hair.

*

Alex woke in time for supper and, after a heated discussion with Matthew, she triumphantly left her bed to sit with her family at the table. Her younger sons were very impressed by their wolf-fighting Mama, and Alex told them about Tarzan, who lived in Africa and wrestled with crocodiles and lions and the like.