Like Chaff in the Wind (27 page)

Sir William gave her a condescending little smile. “I must disagree with you, my dear.”

“That, of course, is your prerogative.” She stood up, bracing back against her hands, and looked down at the seated governor.

“I hear you bought Suffolk Rose. At a bargain price, including all indentured servants on the rolls. What did you do? Blackmail Jones?”

A business transaction, Sir William explained with his beet-red face averted, an opportunity that he couldn’t leave unexploited, and the colony was better off now that Jones was gone, did she not agree?

Alex raised her brows. “I hope you treat your workers as men, not dogs,” she said, making her way to the door. She swept him a curtsey and left. She doubted she’d see him again – in fact, she didn’t very much want to.

Chapter 34

“Not on New Year’s Eve!” Alex shook her head, placing both hands on her distended belly. “You stay in there until tomorrow, I have things to do, places to see, okay?”

The little person inside did not seem to care, and Alex watched as her stomach shaped itself into a pyramid, stone hard under her hands.

“Fine,” she grumbled, once the contraction had passed. “But I do intend to take a bath first.”

The house was empty, and Matthew had placed the hipbath close to the kitchen hearth, promising he would help her once he was back from his clandestine service. Ten severe Presbyterians in one room, Alex sighed, how fun could that be? Mrs Parson had agreed to go to church with her husband, although she confided to Alex that in her opinion the Anglican Church was far too popish, with too much attention paid to ritual and too little on content.

“Hmm,” Alex had replied, not daring to voice an opinion one way or the other.

By the time Matthew got back, Alex was clean but stark naked, having retreated back to their room as the contractions increased in intensity.

“Oh, good,” she panted when she saw Matthew. “I think the baby’s on its way.” He made as if to turn and run for Mrs Parson, but she stopped him.

“No, stay here with me and hold my hand. She’ll be back in time anyway.”

It was obvious Matthew was rather frightened, eyes flying every other minute to the door as if he hoped Mrs Parson would materialise there. But he was also clearly entranced, and when Alex had him sit spread-legged behind her in bed, his hands settled on her stomach, two pools of reassuring warmth on her skin.

“You almost fall asleep,” he said to her, jiggling his shoulder under her.

“Yes,” she replied drowsily. “It’s all so…peaceful.” Not during the contractions, it wasn’t, with her breathing like a train engine under duress, but as soon as they faded away she relaxed against him, taking gulping breaths of air. “I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered, letting one hand drift up to stroke his cheek.

Half an hour later, it was all far more intense. Alex insisted on getting up, walking round the room and bracing herself hard against Matthew with each contraction.

“They’re getting very close,” she gasped, laughing at the look of sheer panic in Matthew’s eyes. Once again he made as if to leave her, to run for help, but she hung on to him, shaking her head. “Water, there’s boiled water in the kitchen. And towels or something. But don’t leave me, not now.” He promised he wouldn’t, and dashed down, returning to find her leaning against the window, her legs shaking.

“What are they doing?” she moaned. “Celebrating Christmas, New Year and Easter and everything else rolled into one?” Shit; what if things went wrong? If the umbilical cord got stuck or something?

Matthew jumped when the waters broke, cascading down her legs. Alex felt a jolt as the head screwed itself even further down the birthing channel, and now the contractions grew from the small of her back and forward, strong, long and terrifying. She remained where she was, refusing to let go of that new mainstay in her life, the windowsill.

“But you can’t stay there,” Matthew tried.

“Watch me,” she said, groaning as yet another and another and another contraction swept through her. She felt an increased weight between her thighs, and her knees wobbled like mad.

“Help me! The bed.”

Matthew almost carried her there.

“Nnnnngh!” she exclaimed through gritted teeth. She panted heavily. “Can you see something?” She definitely couldn’t, there was a huge belly in the way.

Matthew peeked between her legs. “Aye, oh God, Alex, it’s huge.”

“Tell me about it,” she hissed back, and then began to laugh – for like five seconds. “Right,” she said, after hyperventilating through yet another contraction. “Next time I push. You just be there, catch it or something.”

*

Matthew felt totally useless. He sat between his wife’s legs, hands on her splayed thighs, and talked soothingly to her, watching as the miracle of his child’s birth unfolded before his eyes. The head, pushing out and slipping back in. And then the head was out and the shoulders – oh Lord, how were they to come out? Having seen both calves and foals into the world, Matthew placed his hands on that wee body and twisted, and suddenly his arms were full of warm life. His wife was laughing and crying, and all of him was bloodied and wet, but in his arms lay that perfect little creature, his child, and its eyes were open, deep dark wells of knowledge and calm. Matthew cradled it to his chest and wept.

Matthew greeted Mrs Parson with a huge grin. Alex was already nursing the wean, the umbilical cord neatly cut.

“And the afterbirth?”

Matthew made a face. He had near on died of fright when that blob of dark red had expulsed itself from inside of Alex.

“She says it’s whole.”

Aye, Mrs Parson nodded after inspecting it. “So what is it?”

“What is what?”

“Lad or lass,” Mrs Parson elucidated.

“Ah.” Matthew couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “A wee lassie.”

“Let me see her,” Mrs Parson said, “Make sure she’s fine, aye?” She was, squishing up her face in protest at the cold air that touched her skin. Mrs Parson cooed at her and wrapped her up, giving her back to Alex. “Wee you said? Nine pounds at least, I’d reckon. You make big, bonny weans you and your wife.”

“Tell me about it,” Alex muttered, shifting in the bed.

“And her name?” Mrs Parson said.

“Matthew won the bet, so he gets to name her,” Alex yawned.

Mrs Parson laughed. “Our Matthew will name all his bairns, lass. That’s the kind of man he is. I’m right, no?” she said, turning to face Matthew.

“Aye,” he said with a little smile. “The naming is mine to do.”

“Hey,” Alex protested, “I might have some ideas as well, you know.”

“I do the naming, lass. That’s the way it is.”

“But—”

“No buts.” He placed a finger on his daughter’s nose. “Rachel, after my Mam.”

“Rachel?” Alex drew her nose over the soft fuzzy crown and smiled up at him. “Rachel.”

“Right,” Mrs Parson interrupted. “I have work to do here, and I’ll not have you in here while I examine your wife’s privates.” She shooed Matthew in the direction of the door. “Find some food,” she suggested, “and Alex could do with some beer as well.”

*

Much later, Matthew woke when Alex ran her fingers through his hair, making him turn towards her, Rachel held in his arms.

“You look good together,” Alex said, tucking a loose corner of the wean’s shawl tighter. She rubbed her hands together briskly, muttering something about it being bloody cold out in the yard.

“The yard?” Matthew sat up. “What were you doing in the yard?” He frowned at her; and in only shift and shawl as well. What was she thinking of, and she a recently delivered mother?

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” Alex said. “I had to toast Magnus.”

“Ah.” He nodded, deciding there was no purpose to remonstrating.

Rachel began fidgeting, face shifting from its previous pink to a more irritated red, and Alex sat down against the pillows, undoing her shift. The wee body relaxed as soon as Rachel found the teat, and for some minutes the only sounds were the soft noises of a feeding child. When Alex shifted the wean to the other side, Matthew slid over to rest his head on her lap. For the first time since the January day he’d set off for Edinburgh, almost two years ago, he felt content, even safe.

“I love you,” he said.

Alex’s hand rested on the back of his head. “I know, even if you only tell me once a year.”

He laughed, muffling the sound against her. “You don’t say it too often either.”

“No, only about twenty times every time we make love,” Alex snorted, slapping him playfully.

“That doesn’t count. You’re wild with it then, you’d say anything to make me do as you want.” He could feel her thighs shift under him, and burrowed even closer, drawing in her scent. She still smelled like she used to; a lingering fragrance of winter apples, of green wood, but now overlaid with the heavy sweetness of milk and the warm, irony smell of womanhood. Alex stroked his bristled cheek and traced the shape of his ear.

“I love you, Matthew Graham. And I think I did from the day you promised you wouldn’t leave me alone on the moor.”

“Aye well; I knew you for a weak and defenceless woman from the first moment I saw you,” he said with attempted seriousness, protesting loudly when she pinched his ear.

Chapter 35

The first ship that sailed into Jamestown bore the proud name of
Regina Anne
, and Alex didn’t know whether to cry or laugh when Captain Miles strode onto the small wooden wharf. If he was surprised by her enthusiastic welcome, he didn’t show it, and at her question told her that of course they had berths with him, she and her husband both. And Mrs Gordon as well, he added quickly.

“Well…” Alex glanced at him. “I don’t think she’ll be coming along. Besides, she’s Mrs Parson now.” Captain Miles looked crestfallen but perked up when his cargo came ashore.

“No women?” Alex said, quite pleased that he should have stopped with such business.

“No,” Captain Miles replied before turning away.

Not quite the truth, as Alex gleaned from her conversations with the crew, and mainly with Smith. Instead, the captain had planned things better this time, offloading a shipment of wide-eyed girls in Barbados, filling his hold with barrel after barrel of cane liquor, and setting off for Jamestown as soon as the weather permitted. Here the captain hoped to sell off some of his cargo, fill the space with tobacco, and arrive back in England before anyone else with these two very marketable commodities.

“Made quite the profit last year,” Smith confided, tapping his nose.

“Ah,” Alex nodded, before moving over to introduce the captain to Matthew.

Captain Miles shook hands with Matthew, gawking at him. It made Matthew frown, and Captain Miles muttered an apology.

“Safe and sound, aye?” the captain said.

“Now,” Matthew said, “not a year ago.”

“No, I imagine not; you have a remarkable wife, Mr Graham, somewhat opinionated and stubborn to a fault, but loyal – most loyal.”

“Stubborn? Me?” Alex raised her brows, took in identical expressions of amusement on both their faces.

“Biblical almost,” Matthew agreed, “comes with the name, I reckon – Alexandra Ruth, my Ruth, companion through life and death.” His eyes softened into a mossy green, and Alex felt her face turn a deep pink. But inside she clutched his words to her heart and disco danced with joy.

By late March, the
Regina Anne
was ready to go, and Alex and Matthew spent their last evening in Virginia with the Parsons, a long evening of reminiscences as Alex and Mrs Parson relived out loud these last two years. Slowly their voices drifted to a stop, and Alex leaned forward to clutch Mrs Parson’s hand.

“I’m going to miss you,” she said.

“And I you, lass.”

Alex nodded; come tomorrow they would no longer be together, and how on earth was she going to survive that? She converted a sob into a coughing fit and with that as a pretext escaped to the little kitchen.

For a long time she stood staring through the small window at the darkened back yard, crying in silence. An arm came round her waist, a voice on the verge of breaking told her to shush, aye, it was not like her lass to weep, was it?

“I…” Alex gulped. “Oh God; I’m not sure how I’m going to cope.”

“You’ll do fine, lass,” Mrs Parson said, smoothing back her hair.

Alex shook her head. “You don’t understand. It feels…well, it feels as if I’m leaving my mother.” She wiped at her eyes, her nose, she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes but it didn’t help; tears kept on flowing down her cheeks.

“You’re a daughter of my heart, Alex Graham.” Mrs Parson stood on her toes and kissed Alex on the brow. “My lass, aye? And wherever you are, I’ll be there with you.” That only made Alex cry all the harder, hiding her face against Mrs Parson’s shoulder.

“I really, really hate this,” she said after a while, dabbing at her swollen eyes.

“It’s life,” Mrs Parson replied with a faint smile. “And we both know that you must go with him, no?” She gave Alex a little shake. “It’s the price you pay for loving, that it tears at you to say farewell. But the love remains; no matter how far apart we’ll still love each other.” And that was no comfort whatsoever, at least not now.

Next morning Alex was dumbstruck, incapable of doing anything more but hug Mrs Parson.

“I…” she began, but couldn’t continue.

“I know,” Mrs Parson replied, eyes shiny with unshed tears. “I know, lass.” She disengaged herself from Alex’s clinging hands, pressed her lips to Alex’s brow and stepped away. “Go with God, Alex Graham.”

“And you,” Alex managed to say before her voice broke. One more hug, a whispered ‘I love you’, and Alex stepped into the longboat to join Matthew, who sat waiting, Rachel in his arms.

Once on deck, she moved over to stand by the railing, trailed by Matthew.

“I’ll never see her again,” she said, looking towards the point where Mrs Parson was already dwindling into an anonymous dark dot.

“Probably not,” he agreed, sounding very sad.

Captain Miles popped up beside them and patted Alex on her shoulder. “Look to the east, lass; towards your home and your son.” He turned her so that her back was towards the receding Jamestown and pointed at the river estuary. “First the river, then the bay and then the sea…and on the other side lies Scotland.”

Alex gave him a grateful smile. Thinking of Mark did help. Matthew’s arm came round her shoulders, and she stood silent with her eyes on the heavy eastern cloudbanks, dark and full of rain. Below her, the tidal waters of the James swirled brown with silt, behind her the overwhelming greenery of Virginia was quickly dropping out of sight, and before her, flat like a modern day skating rink and as grey in colour, lay the waters of the Chesapeake.

“Happy Birthday,” she said to Matthew, receiving a surprised look in return. “It’s the last day of March. You’re thirty-three today, and according to my father that is one of the best ages of man. Three, thirty-three and sixty-six – the magical years in a man’s life. Don’t ask me why,” she added, seeing the leaping questions in his eyes. “I suppose it has to do with perfect childhood, perfect manhood and wise old age.”

Matthew snorted with amusement. “And have you planned a celebration?” His hand slid down to caress her backside.

“Forget it, the berths are the size of rabbit hutches, and on top of that I get seasick. Very seasick.” Already the swells were getting to her. “But I think I have a gift – of a sort,” she said, meeting his eyes. Not a gift she really wanted to give him, not so soon, but Mrs Parson had agreed with her own diagnosis, muttering something about the consequences of not being able to keep their hands off each other.

“Are you sure?” Matthew asked when she took his hand and placed it on her stomach.

“It’s very early days yet, but yes, I think I am.” She smiled at him before pressing her face into his shirt to hide the confused emotions this made her feel.

“It’s too soon,” Matthew said, but his tone and the way his arms tightened around her, stood in clear contradiction to his words. Between them Rachel squirmed and whimpered, a protest that soon grew into an indignant holler, making them let each other go.

*

After spending most of the initial days in their cabin, Alex finally made it out on deck; unsteady and pale, but determined not to spend any more time indoors.

“Perfect combination,” she muttered to herself, clinging to the railings. “Seasick and pregnant. Whoopee.” She turned in irritation towards Matthew. “How can I be seasick? Look, the sea’s perfectly flat.” More or less; now that she actually looked, the whole horizon was heaving, tilting this way and that. “Oh shit,” Alex groaned.

Matthew gave her a worried look and hefted Rachel higher on his shoulder. “Should you go back inside?”

Alex shook her head and adjusted the heavy cloak closer round her shoulders. “It stinks in there. And it’s much better to be outdoors, plus once I get my sea legs, it will all pass anyway.”

“Sea legs?” Captain Miles appeared by their side. “You’ll never get sea legs, Mrs Graham.” He peered at her. “Feeling better? You look less green today, if I may say so, more of a normal pink.”

“Why thank you; let’s just hope we don’t run into any bloody storms.”

Captain Miles laughed and shook his head. “You don’t like the sea, do you, Mrs Graham? Not one whit of sailor in you.”

“Well thank heavens being a sea captain isn’t top on my career list,” Alex said, turning her back on him.

“But you, Mr Graham, you’re a born sailor,” Captain Miles went on, sounding very amused.

“Aye,” Matthew said in a rather more cautious tone. “It would seem the sea agrees with me.”

“It would seem the sea agrees with me,” Alex mouthed to herself, sticking her tongue out. She straightened up. “I’m taking a walk, and you, Mr Sailor, keep an eye on the baby, alright?”

Alex nearly fell over one long extended leg and righted herself to glare in the direction of its owner, only to find herself face to face with yet another acquaintance.

“Iggy! How nice to see you again!” She extended her arms to give him a hug, but let them drop at the warning look in his eyes. Turning, she found Matthew looming over her, his eyes glued to poor Iggy with undisguised dislike. Matthew gripped Alex by her arm and propelled her forward towards the bow.

“What are you doing? Iggy is a friend, okay?”

“You will not greet other men with such familiarity, and…” Matthew inhaled a couple of times. “Don’t you see it?”

Alex looked in the direction of Iggy; redheaded and light-eyed. Of course Matthew had been reminded of Luke, just as she’d been the first time she met him.

“Not anymore,” she said, “but I definitely did the first time I saw him.”

Matthew threw Iggy yet another ice cold look. “I wish it were Luke,” he said through gritted teeth. “Then I would just lift the bastard into the air and throw him into the sea.” He unslung Rachel’s carrying shawl and handed her to Alex. “Take her, I just can’t. I must…” and with that he hurried over to the opposite side of the ship.

Alex watched him go, saw him stop to steady himself, and knew he was swimming in a sea of anger and pain and that there was nothing she could do but wait for him to come back to her. Even from across the deck, she could see how his hands fisted, and she wondered what particular part of his own personal hell he was reliving. Months at the beck and call of Jones, months in which his dignity was torn off him to leave nothing but a silent obedient slave. Humanity is a thin veneer, Alex reflected, a protective coat that is so easily ripped from us and so very difficult to patch back up. In Matthew’s case, he had lost the capacity to forgive; as long as he lived, one part of his soul would be given over to nurturing the hatred he felt for his brother, and that, in Alex’s opinion, was by far the severest damage done to him.

*

It was an uneventful journey, one day following upon the previous one with no change in scenery or weather. With every league closer to home, Matthew’s restlessness grew. He glared at the empty sails, scanning the horizon for anything indicating that soon there would be winds to hasten their way, and then dropped back down to sit beside Alex on the deck. Early May, more than a month at sea, and when asked, Captain Miles shrugged and said it would be two, perhaps three weeks before they moored in Edinburgh.

“The planting will all be done by now,” Matthew said, “and the lambing as well.” Alex patted his hand as well as she could with a nursing wean at her breast.

“You’ll be back for the harvest. And you’ve done your share of planting haven’t you?” She went a bright pink, making him smile. He lifted Rachel out of her arms.

“She’s asleep,” he said unnecessarily, eyes lingering on Alex’s chest.

“Yeah, food tends to have that effect on her.” She met his eyes, and in his loins warmth surged, a coursing heat that rushed through his veins, pooled in his balls and rose like molten iron through his cock. “Maybe we should all take a nap,” she suggested, getting to her feet.

Matthew’s eyes didn’t leave her face. She blushed again, delicious waves of pink rising up her neck and all the way to her ears. Her pupils dilated, and he knew it was because of him and the wordless promise that all of him was giving her. He let her precede him to their cabin, stifling a smile at the way she was walking, a new-born foal on ice.

He took her on the floor, she on hands and knees and he rising behind her, his hands holding her still. In one of the berths Rachel slept peacefully, and on the floor he just had to…again, and now Alex was naked and so was he, and it was almost as it had been that first time, except that here they lay in a cramped space that enclosed them in dark wood, and the only sky they could see was the glimpse of grey through the small porthole cut into the door, not the miles of empty blue of a summer sky in Scotland. Not that he cared; he was lost to the world, aware only of his warm and wonderful wife.