Serpents in the Garden (4 page)

“I love you.” He held still and she groaned out loud. “Don’t you love me?” he asked, and she could hear the laughter in his voice.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she panted. “You know I do, you stupid man! Now will you please… ah!” There, at last! He drove into her with exquisite force until all she could think of was him, him, him.

“Definitely not too old,” she stated some minutes later. Her pulse had reverted to a more normal pace, but her body was covered in sweat.

He smoothed at her hair. “I don’t think I’ll ever be – not for this.”

“I sincerely hope not,” she said.

Chapter 4

“Not again,” Alex muttered, throwing an irritated glance up the lane.

“Long time since the last one.” Mrs Parson shrugged before bustling off to prepare something to drink and eat for their unbidden guests.

Alex made a face. Mrs Parson was right: the impromptu visits from militia troops were, thank heavens, becoming rarer now that some kind of peace had been re-established between colonists and Indians. In Alex’s opinion, the men who still rode in militia companies were the scavengers of this world, more out to feather their own nests than to uphold any kind of peace, but the rules of common courtesy prevailed, and so Alex stepped into her yard to welcome the dozen or so men who were riding down their lane.

It was years since Alex had laid eyes on Philip Burley, but she knew him immediately. Older, gaunter, but still with that lock of hair that fell forward over his face, giving him an air of mischievousness belied by the coldness of his light grey eyes. He bowed, his mouth curling into an amused smile at what she assumed to be her aghast expression. With an effort, she closed her mouth.

“Did you hope I had died?” he asked, dismounting.

“Yes, but at least I wished you a quick and painless death – you know, falling off your horse and breaking your neck or something.”

Philip Burley laughed, eyes doing a quick up and down before returning to her face. “Alas, here I am.”

“But looking quite worn round the edges.” Alex took in his threadbare coat, his downtrodden boots.

“I don’t dress up for riding through the woods.”

“No, none of you have, have you?” Alex nodded to the man who seemed to be in charge, swept her hand towards the bench under the oak. “Beer?”

“And food,” the older man said, patting at his rumbling stomach.

“I’ll get you some bread, and then there’s some leftover stew from yesterday,” Alex said.

Philip Burley sniffed the air. “What? No chicken?”

“No, they’re meant for our dinner. Besides, they’re not done.”

“But we can wait.” Philip smirked.

No way! She’d rather have a cobra at her feet than him in her yard. “Stew and bread. Take it or leave it.” Alex directed herself to the leader.

“We take it,” the man said, “however ungraciously offered.”

“That’s because of him.” Alex pointed at Philip. “For some reason, he gives me severe indigestion – it must be the general look of him. Quite repulsive.” Not entirely true, as the man exuded some sort of animal magnetism, as graceful and dangerous as a starving panther.

Some of Burley’s companions broke out in laughter, quickly quenched when he glared at them.

Alex and Mrs Parson served the men, helped by Agnes. For all that they looked dishevelled and stank like hell, the men were relatively polite, taking the time to thank them before falling on their food. Alex retreated indoors, keeping a worried look not only on their guests but also on the barn and the path beyond.

“He’s over on the other side of the river,” Mrs Parson said, no doubt to calm her. “He won’t be coming in for dinner – you know that. Besides, it’s not as if that Burley can do anything at present, is it? However unkempt and wild, I doubt his companions will help him do Matthew harm.”

Alex relaxed at the irrefutable logic in this. “At least it’s only him. I wonder where his brothers are.”

“We know where one of them is: in hell, there to burn in eternal agony.” Mrs Parson replenished her pitcher and stepped outside to serve the men some more to drink.

“Yeah, thanks to Matthew.”

“Good riddance,” Mrs Parson said over her shoulder. “And we both know why, no?”

Alex nodded. Will Burley had died while attempting to kill her Matthew, and for that the remaining Burley brothers intended to make Matthew Graham pay. Alex swallowed, smoothed down her skirts, ensured not one single lock of hair peeped from under her cap, and grabbed the bread basket.

“So many children,” the officer, who by now had introduced himself as Elijah Carey, said. “All yours?”

“No, but most of them are.” She was made nervous by the way Philip Burley kept on staring at her girls, in particular at Sarah.

“Not that young anymore,” Philip said. “Soon old enough to bed.”

“Absolutely not!” Alex bristled.

Philip laughed, tilting his head at her daughters. “I don’t agree, Mrs Graham, but then I like them young.”

“Burley…” Carey warned with a little sigh. The younger man raised those strange, almost colourless irises in his direction and just stared, nailing his eyes into the officer until Carey muttered something about needing the privy and, with a hasty nod in Alex’s direction, disappeared.

“My, my, what have you done to him? Sneaked up on him at night and kicked him in the back? That’s how you do it, isn’t it? Under cover of the dark—” In a movement so swift Alex had no time to back away, Philip was on her, crowding her against the oak.

“You don’t take me seriously, do you, Mrs Graham?” he said, in a voice so low only she could hear him. “Most women – and men for that matter – know better than to taunt me.”

“You don’t scare me.” Her knees shivered with her lie.

He looked at her for a long time. “Oh yes, I do, Mrs Graham. Only a fool wouldn’t be frightened of me, and that you are not.”

Alex shoved at him, creating some space between them.

“I suppose I must take that as a compliment,” she said, mentally patting herself on her back for how casual she succeeded in keeping her tone.

Philip Burley laughed, an admiring look in his eyes. “Take it as you will, Mrs Graham. But never commit the mistake of thinking we have forgotten the blood debt your husband owes us. However long it takes, we will have revenge for what he did to our Will.”

Alex tried to say something, but her tongue had glued itself to the roof of her mouth, and to her shame she could hear her breathing become ragged, a slight whistling accompanying each inhalation.

“I was right: I do scare you.” With an ironic little bow, Philip Burley walked off, and Alex wasn’t quite sure how she made it from the tree to her kitchen door.

*

By the time Matthew came in for supper, the militia company was long gone. In silence, he listened to Alex’s brief recap of her meeting with Philip Burley, and once she was done, he shoved the plate away – most of the food uneaten.

“Damn!” Matthew drove his fist hard into the wall, cursed again, and sucked at his broken knuckles. “Where were they headed?”

“To Virginia,” Mrs Parson said. “At least, that’s what they said. Up for disbandment, they reckoned.”

“And his brothers?” Alex was as always amazed by how much information Mrs Parson was able to gather in a matter of minutes.

“Ah, his brothers… Well, that Walter fell foul of his commanding officer some months back, and is kicking his heels down in Jamestown, while Stephen, he was wounded, struck down by an arrow.”

“Serve him right,” Alex said. “I hope it leaves him permanently incapacitated.”

“It near killed him,” Mrs Parson said with a shrug. “They won’t be back this way.”

“For now,” Matthew corrected. “We all know that, sooner or later, they will be.”

“Three Burleys are no match for us, Da,” Ian said.

“You think?” Matthew shook his head. “They’re lethal, Ian.”

“We’re all good shots,” Mark protested. “They won’t make it down the lane.”

“They won’t come down the lane,” Matthew said. “They’ll come at night, from the direction we least expect them to.”

Blood rushed so quickly out of her head, Alex felt faint, no matter she was sitting down.

Matthew leaned forward to clasp her hand. “I’ll think of something, lass.”

“Of course you will,” she replied with a false smile.

*

It took Alex several days to regain some kind of equilibrium, but when one day after the other passed without any incidents, she managed to shove the Burley bogeymen into a dark and rarely visited corner of her brain, submerging herself in the demanding day to day instead. Foremost on her mind was Daniel’s imminent departure for Boston, and when she saw her son making for the river, she called for him to wait and hurried over to join him.

“Are you nervous?” Alex fell into step with Daniel, extending her stride to match his. At thirteen, Daniel already overtopped her, and now he smiled at her and shortened his steps.

“Aye, but not in a bad way.” He stared off across the harvested fields, shifting his shoulders.

Alex patted him on his cheek. Thirteen and already on his way out into the world… For the last year, he’d been living down in Providence, with Minister Walker, and Alex was secretly very impressed by how much he had learnt in such a short period of time. She liked Walker, and had tried to imprint in Daniel that there was a minister to emulate, a man that combined a deep knowledge and love of the Bible with huge quantities of compassion and humility.

Matthew had howled with laughter when she’d shared this view of Minister Walker with him, saying that, aye, the minister was a right godly man in many ways, but he was no paragon of human virtues – what with his frequent and regular visits to Mrs Malone’s little establishment. That had stumped Alex. She’d forgotten about the minister’s visits to the brothel. Should they really have Daniel staying with him in that case? Matthew had laughed yet again, assuring her he had no fears whatsoever on that count – the minister partook of beer, no more, and Mrs Walker would ensure their son was kept well away from the seedier parts of Providence.

“I suppose it’s a comfort for you that the Walkers will be in Boston the first few months.” It was a huge relief for Alex, making it much easier for her to relinquish him, and he’d be living with Harriet Leslie and her husband, which was almost like family. Almost… Neither she nor Matthew had ever met Naomi’s elder sister.

“Aye.”

She threw Daniel a look. One more year of school, and next year he’d begin to study divinities. She took a deep breath. Matthew wouldn’t like her for asking him, but she had to. “Do you want to become a minister?”

He turned blue eyes her way, and it tugged at her heart to see the uncertainty in them. “Da wants me to.” He gnawed at his lip, muttered something about not wanting to disappoint Da, not now with Jacob— He interrupted himself abruptly.

“It’s your life, and if you don’t want it, I’ll talk to him, okay?” But she could see he wasn’t about to take issue with his father’s decision – at least, not yet.

“Will you come and visit, do you think?” Daniel asked.

“No, I don’t think so – we simply can’t afford it. But you’ll be coming down once a year to visit us.”

Daniel nodded, his whole face brightening. She smiled at him, patted his cheek, and detoured to their little graveyard, with Daniel following.

Alex brushed off some dry leaves from her father’s headstone and placed a freshly cut rose on the stone. Stupid man, she thought as she traced his name, to decide to go time-travelling with a brain tumour.

She’d never forget the total surprise – no, that went no way to describe her feelings – the utter, terrified shock, when she found him hanging in a thorn thicket after his fall from their time to this time.

For the first year or so he’d been fine, but then the brain cancer had come back, and so he’d died, centuries before he was born. She swallowed, her insides churning – they always did when she thought about the stranger aspects of her life, and this definitely included the reappearance of her father in her life, just as it included her own free fall through time and her strange time-travelling mother. Nope, don’t go there.

“You never talk of your mother,” Daniel said from behind her. What was he: some sort of mind-reader?

“I don’t?” Alex turned to face him with a strained smile. “That’s probably on account of her being Catholic and long dead.” And a witch – a reluctant witch, to be sure, cursed with the ability of painting portals through time, small squares of whirling blues and greens that somehow trapped your eyes and sent you flying from one age to another.

Poor Mercedes: she’d had no true control over the magical powers that lived in her fingers, and so she’d been flung out of her age, desperately trying to paint her way home with zero success. As a consequence, she’d littered the world with these goddamn dangerous scraps of art.

“A Catholic?” Daniel’s voice quavered. Alex gave him an irritated look.

“I’ve been raised a Protestant,” she said, even if that was a huge lie. Until she met Matthew, she’d been at best agnostic, at times an atheist, and every now and then she wondered if perhaps God looked down at her and laughed His head off. She could live with that, because after all she owed Him big time, didn’t she? Without divine intervention, she would never have met Matthew, of that she was sure.

“So you are of the faith,” Daniel said, sounding relieved.

“Faith? I would argue Catholics are of the faith as well, as are Anglicans and Protestants, and to some extent even Muslims and Jews.”

Daniel gaped at her.

Alex watched him with some amusement, but with substantially more exasperation.

“You know this, don’t you? The People of the Book, that’s all of us who believe in the single God. Muslims do, Jews definitely do – they’ve been doing it for far longer than anyone else – and all Christians do.”

“You can’t say such, Mama. Muslims and Jews don’t go to heaven, and nor do any but those of the faith. And then only if you’re accorded grace and have lived a life of virtue.”

“Oh, really? And what’s a life of virtue?”

“For you, it’s being a dutiful wife to Da, a good mother to your bairns. A righteous woman is man’s foremost helpmeet, bending to his stronger will and better sense.”

He sounded so prim she nearly laughed him in the face: her thirteen-year-old son telling her she was subservient to her husband – unfortunately an opinion he shared with most men, and a large majority of the women, living in the here and now.

Alex gave him a long look. “Tell me, would you say Ruth or yourself is better at ciphering?”

“Ruth,” Daniel mumbled.

“And who would you say is best read – you or Ruth?”

“Ruth,” he repeated, colouring slightly.

“And if one day you were to marry a woman as smart as Ruth is, would you bend her to your stronger will, or would you take decisions together with her?”