Whither Thou Goest (The Graham Saga Book 7) Page 7

  Philip couldn’t believe his luck when the kitchen door to the big house opened and Sarah Graham stepped out on the stoop, her hair still in its thick night braid. She stood in the morning sun, raised her arms to her head and undid her hair, shaking it out to lie heavy and unbound. Philip’s hand knotted itself around air, a bodily recollection of how it had felt to sink his fingers into that thick glistening hair, how he had used it to rein her back, force her into obedient stillness while he…

  The girl stretched, stepped off the stoop, and strode off straight towards him. Philip shrank back into the bushes, but realised she was making for the kitchen garden, and watched her avidly as she walked up the gentle slope. He wondered if she remembered him as he remembered her and snickered. Of course she did, and if he were to appear before her she wouldn’t even try to run. He had taught her just how much it hurt to attempt to flee.

  Philip returned his attention to the waking farm: women making for the stables and the lowing cows, men appearing at the doors of the cabin, dressed for a day of heavy work in the fields. Three men, Philip counted, and his teeth ground together as he waited and waited but no Matthew Graham appeared. He scowled, twisted his head a fraction of an inch, and there was Sarah, now halfway up the hill, and he decided he wouldn’t wait – he’d destroy what was here and come back later to finish Graham off.

  “We can share her,” Joseph suggested, eyeing the young woman lasciviously.

  Philip’s fist struck him full on the mouth. Mine, Philip thought, mine and if you touch her you’re dead, nephew or not. He adjusted his breeches and stalked off towards the girl.

  *

  Michael had been on the point of mounting his horse when the girl had stepped outside, and once he’d seen her, it was inconceivable that he should ride away and leave her to her fate – not that he had any idea how to wrest this creature from his uncle. He moved stealthily through the fringe of the woods, his eyes never leaving the girl. She was light on her feet, the general shape of her legs discernible through the cloth of her skirts, and when she turned to the side, he saw a well-shaped ear, the line of neck and shoulder, and a nicely rounded bosom.

  The tip of his tongue slid out to wet his lip, and like an eel Michael wiggled into the protective depths of a blackberry bramble. She stopped at the entrance to the kitchen garden, and when she raised her hand to her hair it trembled wildly, a soft sound escaping through her nose. One hand disappeared into the side slit of her skirts, reappearing holding a dagger. A dagger? The other hand clutched at her skirts, and she frowned as she threw repeated looks down the hill. Well, she didn’t see him, hidden as he was in a cloud of spiny greens and browns, but he pressed himself even closer to the damp ground and tried to find what she was looking for.

  Michael swallowed when he finally did, and his grip on the smooth ivory butt of his pistol slipped. He had to get out of here, find his brother and warn him that this was a trap, but before him the girl – Sarah, he recalled her name was – took a step out into the full sunlight, and he just couldn’t move, transfixed by the sun in her hair, the vivid blue of her eyes.

  *

  “Da!” Ian yanked at Matthew’s sleeve, nodding his head to where Philip was climbing the slope. “Sarah, he’s going after Sarah!”

  “As planned,” Matthew replied, deeply ashamed for putting his daughter so at risk, no matter that he’d given her his best dirk. But with only an hour or so in which to plan his defences, this had seemed the best strategy: to lure Philip away from his men by presenting him with the enticing picture of Sarah, barefoot and with her hair undone.

  “Now then?” Ian said, musket already resting against his shoulder.

  “Now,” Matthew said, and with a ringing yell he leapt out into the open, pistol in one hand, sword in the other.

  For all that they were taken by surprise, the ruffians regrouped at impressive speed. Matthew staggered back when someone butted him full in the gut, went down on one knee, and was suddenly fighting for his life against three men. Philip – where was Philip? With a roar, Matthew regained his feet, threw the discharged pistol to the side and pulled his dirk instead. A man toppled down the slope, hatless, with thick, dark chestnut hair. His son? Merciful Lord, was he dead?

  “Mark!” He parried a blow to his head, tried to locate his son.

  “Here, Da.” Mark was bleeding and limping but he was alive, and hale enough to snatch a sword from a wounded man and charge up the slope again.

  Matthew followed him. Philip – he couldn’t see the bastard. Was he mayhap hiding? Or had he run, spineless coward that he was at heart? But no – well to the top of the slope, Philip was standing, and even at this distance, Matthew could see every movement he made. Burley pulled a knife, mimed a slashed throat, and turned towards the kitchen garden.

  “No!” Matthew gasped. “No, goddamn it, not her, not Sarah!” He redoubled his efforts to fight his way up the slope, but there were too many men between him and his daughter, too many raised swords, swinging muskets and expertly wielded knives.

  “Ah!” A short blade slashed at his arm. Matthew forced his attention back to his opponent, but in his head all he could hear and see was Sarah, oh God, his wee lass! The man before him bore more than a passing resemblance to Philip Burley – the same messy dark hair, the same general good looks, the same build – and with a surge of black rage, Matthew lunged, sword at the ready.

  “Get out of my way,” he hissed, but the man just shook his head.

  “It’s you,” he panted. “It’s you that’s Matthew Graham, and I’ll have the pleasure of killing you myself, in revenge for my uncles.”

  “I think not.” Matthew blocked a well-directed thrust, wheeled, rose on his toes and with a tearing sound his blade sank deep into the younger man’s right shoulder, neatly slicing off his arm.

  He ran. Like a stag in flight, he bounded up the hill, and his amputated toe shrieked in agony, his exhausted body pleaded with him to slow down, but Matthew pushed on, driven by the image of his daughter bleeding out on the ground.

  “Sarah!” He gasped, had to struggle to fill his lungs. “Sarah! Run, lass, run!” Too late, his warning came too late. He could see Philip entering the garden, the sun glinting on his knife, on the silver buckle of his hat. “Oh God, oh God,” Matthew moaned. What was he to tell Alex, how was he to live with himself, and Sweetest Lord, please hold Your hand over Sarah now, please protect her today, because damn You, God, You didn’t help her last time, did You?

  The last fifty yards were the worst. He could see her now, his daughter screeching in terror as she backed away from Philip. Matthew tried to call her name, assure her he was coming, but his mouth had gone dry, his vocal chords had frozen in an ‘aaaah’, like the bleating of a desperate ram.

  Sarah went for Philip with the dirk. At first, Philip staggered back, but where Sarah should have taken the opportunity to flee, she screeched and flew at him again. This time, Philip blocked her thrust, wrenched the weapon from her hand and threw it to the side. She kicked at him. Philip got hold of her and twisted his hand into her hair, forcing her down to the ground. Sarah collapsed, kneeling like a supplicant at Philip’s feet.

  Oh God, what had he done? How could he have been foolish enough to believe Sarah would be capable of defending herself against Burley? How could he have thought she’d be fuelled by righteous rage when in fact she was incapacitated by fear?

  Sarah grovelled on the ground. Philip Burley walked around her. He set his hands on Sarah’s hips, he kneeled behind her, and his daughter was trembling uncontrollably, but she didn’t move away.

  “No!” It came out as a croak. Matthew watched mesmerised as Philip Burley pressed his groin against his daughter’s posterior, grabbed hold of Sarah’s hair, and held her still. The knife. It flashed in the light. Philip Burley laughed – no, he cackled. The knife came down. Slowly, Philip lowered it so that it rested almost at Sarah’s throat. Matthew fell to his knees. There was nothing he could do. Any moment now, his daughter wo
uld be dead, and all because of him.

  Sarah’s hand closed on a stone. Matthew stumbled to his feet and ran, praying as he had never prayed before, begging the good Lord for a miracle, a bolt of divine intervention that would guide Sarah’s hand. He could see Sarah tense, fingers whitening on the stone. There was a shot. Philip Burley grunted, the knife fell unhanded, and with a gurgling sound Philip collapsed on top of Sarah.

  She screamed. “Da!” she shrieked. “Help me, Da!”

  Matthew was already hurtling towards her, covering the remaining yards as fast as he could. The man on top of her jerked. For an instant, Matthew thought Burley might be still alive, and his hand closed on the hilt of his dirk in anticipation of slicing the man’s throat from ear to ear. But no, Burley was dead as a rock, his large frame pinning a frantic, screaming Sarah to the ground. Matthew heaved Burley to the side and collected Sarah to his chest.

  “You’re alright, Sarah,” he crooned, holding his distraught daughter as gently as if she were a cracking egg. “You did right well, lassie. You were very brave.” Sarah scrabbled even closer to him. He overbalanced and sat down heavily in the cabbage patch, still holding her, and all the time he murmured her name, smoothed her hair, assuring her she was alright.

  “Mama,” Sarah whispered against him. “I want Mama.”

  Matthew tightened his hold. So did he, now that the anxiety that had been surging through him for the last thirty hours was quickly waning.

  “She’ll be here by tonight,” he said, throwing a look in the direction of the lane. He got to his feet and helped her to stand. “You must dare to look at him, or else he will live forever in your nightmares.”

  “He already does,” she answered bitterly.

  “Aye, in mine as well,” Matthew replied, and between them flew a look of total understanding. “But it will help, to see him truly dead. It will for me, at least.”

  She slipped her hand into his and took an unsteady gulp of air.

  *

  “A well-sprung trap,” Robert Chisholm commented later, rubbing his hands together. Matthew grunted, surveying the men before them. Seven were dead, and of the remaining six, two were badly wounded. And then there was Philip, dead in the kitchen garden. Over his heart bloomed a circle of blood – a perfect shot that must have killed the man immediately. Too easy a death, the bastard should have been roasted slowly to death. “And quite the catch,” Robert went on, his eyes glued to the captive blacks.

  “Aye,” Matthew said.

  “I counted one more.” Ian studied the men. “The one on that distinctive horse, the piebald.”

  Matthew narrowed his eyes at the horses. No piebald – not anymore. “Aye, I think you’re right.”

  Robert walked over to one of the captive men and questioned him in a low threatening voice, returning with his brow heavily creased. “A man named Connor, Michael Connor, and he isn’t here – nor is his horse.”

  “If he knows what’s good for him, he will be halfway back to Virginia by now,” Matthew said, but he didn’t like it, not at all. He stood staring out towards the west for a couple of minutes, debating with himself whether to set off after the man or not. Irrelevant, he decided, a mercenary, no more.

  “Doesn’t it feel hypocritical?” Matthew asked, watching Carlos close the eyes of the man he had just administered confession and last rites to.

  “Hypocritical?” Carlos cast him an edgy look.

  “Well, aye, you have just absolved a self-confessed murderer and rapist of his sins, and tomorrow he’ll stand before the gates of heaven. That is what you believe, right?”

  “Not quite as simple,” Robert put in. “He’ll spend many lifetimes in purgatory first.”

  “And yet, one day, his victims may find themselves face to face with him in heaven.” Matthew shook his head at the notion. “Won’t they be upset?”

  “They will have learnt to forgive,” Carlos said, “and if God can forgive him, then how can we simple humans not?”

  Matthew spat. “Right easy, and I won’t forgive Burley or his brothers, ever, for what they did to me and mine.”

  “And so they may pass into the magnificence of heaven while you remain outside,” Carlos said.

  “According to you,” Matthew said.

  “According to the Holy Church,” Carlos corrected.

  Matthew hitched his shoulders. “On account of him being Virginian, I reckon he was an Anglican.” He jerked his head towards the dead man in the kitchen garden.

  “He died unshriven in any case,” Carlos said, “and unrepentant, I suspect.”

  “So he goes to hell,” Matthew stated with satisfaction.

  “To hell.” Robert and Carlos nodded in chorus.

  Chapter 9

  It was well into the afternoon by the time Matthew rode into Leslie’s Crossing.

  “Alex?” he said as he leapt off his horse. “How is she?”

  “Asleep.” Thomas had to trot to keep up with Matthew’s long strides. “Still feverish, but somewhat better.” He led Matthew through the kitchen and up the narrow stairs and took a step back to allow Matthew to enter the little room first.

  “She’s uncommonly fond of you,” Thomas said, coming to stand beside Matthew, who was looking down at his sleeping wife. “I can’t begin to count the times she’s said your name.”

  “That’s good.” Matthew stooped to brush a long, curling tendril off Alex’s face. “A wife should be devoted to her husband.”

  “Devoted?” Thomas said. “That’s not what you have, and you know it. It’s a rare thing to see, such as what grows between Alex and yourself.”

  Matthew was acutely embarrassed by this comment – as was Thomas – and after a further moment or so, Thomas left Matthew alone with his wife.

  Her mouth curved into a smile. “A rare thing indeed,” she murmured and opened an eye, “and he doesn’t know the half of it.” They shared a low laugh, and he sat down on the edge of her bed. “You smell of blood, but I suppose it isn’t yours.”

  Matthew hadn’t thought to wash properly, changing only his shirt, and now that she mentioned it, he could see dark stains on his breeches.

  “Some of it is, but most of it isn’t.” He flexed his bandaged arm. A gash, no more, according to Mrs Parson.

  “Oh,” Alex replied and shifted closer to him. “Tell me everything.”

  So he did, describing how he had ridden like the wind for the Chisholms and how, anyway, he’d have been too late if it hadn’t been for the Burley band running into the luckless Maroons.

  “Maroons?” Alex opened both eyes. “Leon?”

  “I come to that,” he said, and waited until she settled back into the pillow before continuing with his story, telling her how he and their Chisholm neighbours had set a trap for the would-be pillagers.

  He had known she wouldn’t like it, but quailed all the same at the look in her eyes when he described how he’d used Sarah as a decoy. And because he had no choice, he had to tell her just how close a thing it had been, with their daughter immobilised by fear and that accursed Philip… He choked, wiping clammy hands up and down his breeches, and somehow his despair softened her face, and he found the courage to tell her the rest: how the knife had come down, and… He frowned.

  “He just dropped dead, shot through the heart.” Who had fired that shot? Certainly not him, nor any of his comrades. He knuckled himself in the eyes and blinked. God, he was tired. The men with Burley had been easily defeated, he told her, and now nine of them were dead – ten if you counted that damned Burley – while four remained healthy enough to be taken south to hang. The Chisholms had already set off towards Providence, taking the five Maroons along as well.

  “You just let the Chisholms take them?” Alex said.

  “Of course not. I slipped yon Leon a knife to cut himself and his friends loose come night, and I told him I forgave him for the mule.” He yawned so widely his jaws cracked. He had actually done a wee bit more than that, insisting even slaves had a rig
ht to food and rest as well as clothes.

  “Oh,” Alex said, clearly not all that impressed.

  “What was I to do? Fight Robert and Martin over them?” He pinched himself over the bridge of his nose and yawned again.

  “No, I suppose not,” she sighed. “I hope they make it.”

  Matthew just nodded, too tired to talk anymore, and when she moved over and patted the bed beside her, he gratefully fell into it.

  *

  “I told you,” Alex said through her teeth. “I’m fine. I’ve been fine since yesterday.” Not that either Matthew or Mrs Parson had believed her, bundling her off to bed the moment she was off the horse.

  “You’ll stay in bed one more day,” Mrs Parson said, “and then we’ll see.”

  “See? I’m old enough to decide myself!” She tried to stare Mrs Parson down, but that was like trying to make an elephant levitate, and with a loud, protesting grumble, Alex sank back against the feather mattress. She sulkily accepted the mug of herbal tea Mrs Parson extended her way.

  “I’m hungry,” she whined, and her stomach loudly agreed.

  “Tonight,” Mrs Parson promised, “but not before.” She waited until Alex had finished her tea and with a quick pat left the room.

  “Cow,” Alex said to the closing door.

  “I heard that,” Mrs Parson shot back, “and it takes one to know one, no?”

  Alex decided to stay on the safe side and just stuck out her tongue.

  She woke some hours later with a start to find Carlos sitting beside her. In her fuzzy, still half asleep state, she uttered a gasp of fear and threw herself away from him, a pillow clutched to her chest.

  “Alex?” Carlos leaned towards her. “¿Qué pasa? ¿Una pesadilla?”