Serpents in the Garden by Anna Belfrage Read Free Book Online

grown up without brothers except for sweet little Willie, she watched with fascination when David, Samuel, Adam and Ian’s son, Malcolm, rolled together in wild games that very often resulted in one or the other of them crying. A lot of time Betty spent with Naomi, three years her senior and already showing with her second child. It made Betty jealous to see Naomi and Mark, and she longed for Jacob, for him to hold her hand and help her over stiles like Mark did with his wife. Betty inhaled, held her breath and exhaled, eyes on the sky.
    This was a strange household: the women went about with their heads uncovered – well, not Mrs Parson or Agnes, and not, thank the Lord, when there were visitors – meals consisted to a large extent of raw vegetables, and Betty had been horrified when Alex had told her that bathing in the Graham household meant undressing and getting into the cold water of the river there to wash yourself.
    “Naked?” she had squeaked, watching with apprehension as Agnes, Ruth and Sarah undressed and hurried into the water, apparently enjoying what to Betty seemed a most excessive way of keeping clean.
    “It helps,” Alex informed her before shedding her clothes and leaping in after the girls.
    Betty sat back on the swing and increased her speed, bending and extending her legs until it seemed to her she was flying. If she were to let go at the highest point, she would be sent hurtling into space, and maybe the speed would be enough for her to fly all the way to where Jacob might be. Jacob… She suppressed a little sob. What if the Regina Anne had met with disaster and was now a wreck at the bottom of the sea? How would she ever know?
    She increased the speed even more, and all around her the trees were blurring. At the highest point, she let go. For an instant, she soared, before the earth came rushing towards her, and she landed hard on her knees and hands. Betty Hancock – or was it Graham? – hid her face in her arms and cried.
    *
    From a distance, Alex watched and ached. Pretty bubbly Betty retreated into silences and escaped them as much as she could, her beautiful carnelian eyes mostly shielded by her long reddish lashes, her gorgeous hair braided and hidden from view under a huge lace cap. God damn you, Jacob. How could you do this to her?
    “Do you think he’ll come back to her?” Alex asked Matthew later that evening. To us, she meant, her head filling with images of her Jacob.
    “Oh, he will. He has given the lass his word, and I’ll hold him to it.”
    “You’re forgetting her father.”
    Matthew looked down at her, lying pillowed against his chest. “You think he’ll wed her elsewhere?”
    “Don’t you?” Alex fiddled with his chest hair, tugging at the brindle curls.
    “Aye, probably, and there’s not much I can do to stop him.”
    “I think the main question is if you should.”
    “You think I shouldn’t?”
    “To me, it all seems very rash.” Alex fiddled some more, circling his nipples. “But for her sake, Matthew. Because it would break her heart to be forced into marriage with another.”
    “Aye, she loves him.”
    “Hmm.” In Alex’s opinion, no sixteen-year-old was mature enough to know what they wanted out of life, but then she thought back to Mark and Naomi, contracted at thirteen at Mark’s insistence, betrothed at sixteen, and wed just after he turned eighteen. “They’re all in such a hurry to become adults.”
    His chest vibrated beneath her cheek. “That’s on account of them not knowing what it’s like.”
    Alex propped herself up to look at him. “But with Jacob there’s a real problem, isn’t there? Ian and Mark could marry as young as they did, because they’re already set up – both of them will inherit land. But how is Jacob to support a wife?”
    “I don’t know, but I don’t think William will welcome him back to his practice.”

Chapter 5
    Halfway through the first week of September, Alex decided a visit to Forest Spring was