This Side of Heaven Read online

  In the distance an animal howled again. From behind the house where he was still tied, Raleigh joined in in mournful reply. Caroline shivered, suddenly cold. Or had the shiver been prompted by something else entirely?

  Matt made a sound under his breath. “I must loose the dog.” His gaze slid to her face. “Come with me. If you are to make your home with us, you and Raleigh must needs be friends.”

  “No, I thank you.” Caroline was suddenly eager to be safely back inside the four walls of the house. When she rushed outside, she had scarcely noticed the encroaching gloom of the forest in her upset. Now it loomed close and forbidding, more sinister in the dark than it had been even by day. The howling continued in eerie chorus as more and more of the baying creatures joined in. Caroline wrapped her arms about herself and looked nervously around.

  “What is that?” Despite her best efforts, she could not quite conceal her apprehension. Matt reached for her, the gesture one of automatic reassurance as his hand curled around her arm just above her elbow. Starting toward the house, he pulled her along with him. Caroline felt the heat of his palm, the hard strength of his fingers, even through the silk of her sleeve, and tried to fight what she knew was coming. But for all her determination to overcome it the distaste arose like bile, clouding her thoughts, making her want to thrust his hand away. His touch was more unnerving than the pagan chorus reverberating around her. Unable to stop herself, she jerked her arm free. To her relief, he seemed scarcely to notice.

  “That?” His voice was casual. “Wolves. Not close.”

  “Wolves!” That got her attention. Her eyes darted fearfully along the shadowy perimeter of the woods. More afraid of the wolves now than she was leery of him, she moved closer to the solid warmth of his body. Still she did not touch him, merely walked at his side, but it was comforting to have him near. Though if wolves attacked, she wouldn’t wager her life that he wouldn’t abandon her to them. He seemed to have almost as little use for women as she had for men.

  “Aye. But don’t worry. They stay away from the settled areas, for the most part. Even when hunger drives them in, they don’t usually devour young women. Jacob is more to their liking, which is why he’s locked in the barn at night.

  “Jacob?”

  “The bull. Surely you remember Jacob from the Holy Writ? He was a most prolific sire, and that’s what we hope for from his namesake.” Amusement crept into his words as he cast her a sidelong look. Caroline knew that he was remembering her mortifying introduction to the animal. If she hadn’t been so afraid of whatever might lurk within the woods, she would have stalked away from him in righteous indignation. As it was, she contented herself with giving him a darkling look.

  “I hope the wolves get your blasted Jacob. And I am going in.”

  They had rounded the corner of the house, and were now near enough to the door that she felt safe in doing so. Sighting them, Raleigh left off his howling to bark excitedly, leaping about on the end of his rope. Instinctively Caroline stepped behind Matt, who shook his head.

  “Afraid of dogs, bulls, and wolves. At least we may count ourselves fortunate that you’re not afraid of men.”

  His words followed her as she left him before he could loose the dog and hurried toward the safety of the house. Then he said something that for a brace of seconds stopped her in her tracks.

  “Or are you?” she thought he muttered, but when she turned back to stare at him, he had his back to her and was untying that moose of a dog.

  Knowing the creature would be free at any second, she picked up her skirts and ran for the house. But the half-heard words haunted her. Had he really uttered them—or had it been only the wind?

  “Down, Raleigh!” As Matt untied the rope, the ecstatic dog almost knocked him over. Straightening, he suffered a couple of doggy licks to the cheek despite his attempts to fend off the animal. As Raleigh jumped around and on him, he caught the dog’s paws and pushed him away. Which was fine with Raleigh, who seemed to think everything that occurred was a wonderful new game. Barking madly, the dog tore off around the yard to race in scrabbling, concentric circles, loudly expressing his joy in being free again.

  A half-smile played about Matt’s mouth as he watched the animal’s antics. As a watchdog, the purpose for which he had been intended, Raleigh was a dubious success. Although his sheer size was intimidating, the dog had never been known to harm so much as the cheekiest squirrel. But the boys loved him, his brothers treated the dog as the veriest pet, and he was passing fond of the huge pest himself. It needed only for the newest member of their household to discover that what she considered to be the monster in their midst was, in actuality, almost all bark and no bite, and Raleigh would find himself a universal favorite.

  At the thought, Matt shifted his eyes to the rear door, through which he had watched Caroline vanish just moments before. Reminded of the events of the day, he grimaced. It was very possible that he’d made another colossal mistake. Caroline Wetherby was no demure Puritan miss but a gambler’s daughter, a Royalist, a thief, a liar, and God alone knew what else. Yet he had agreed to let her stay, had moreover asked her to provide female nurturing to his boys. Why? Demmed if he knew.

  Which wasn’t entirely true, of course. He knew very well. He’d always been easy prey for a beautiful woman down on her luck. That was how he had acquired his late, unlamented wife, whom he would classify as the worst mistake of his life had it not been for the sons she had given him.

  Like Elizabeth, her half sister was a looker, although in a very different style. Caroline was tall for a woman, and much too thin, which he supposed was the result of the recent hard times it was clear she had experienced. Elizabeth had been shorter, and well rounded, voluptuous almost, although the word carried with it a connotation that he preferred not to think about. Some memories were so unpleasant that they were best forgotten.

  Where Caroline’s hair was as black as a crow’s wing, as black as his own, in fact, Elizabeth’s had been auburn, and curly where Caroline’s was straight. Elizabeth had been as round of face as she was of body, with a peaches-and-cream complexion that had, in later years, turned ruddy. Caroline’s face was fine-boned, with small, delicate features and skin so white and smooth that his fingers itched to touch it, just once, to see if it felt as velvety as it looked. Although of course he would do no such thing. He was no longer a foolish boy, but a man, well tempered by the fires of life. Never again would he succumb to lust unleavened by love. The destruction such folly wrought was well-nigh unmendable.

  Although he, and his boys, were mending.

  Now it lacked only to teach them that not all women were as their mother had been. And that, he supposed, was what had, ultimately, persuaded him to let Caroline stay. The scars left from his marriage were more physical than mental; his boys, he feared, would be scarred in their minds unless steps were taken. Their mother had been no mother to them, but instead a source of embarrassment and dread. They needed to learn that all women were not like Elizabeth. He had been remiss not to consider that before. But then, he had had his own hurtful memories to contend with. Caroline, as he had told her, might well be considered a godsend.

  So his decision to permit Elizabeth’s sister to become a member of their household had been prompted by paternal concern. It had not been influenced one whit by black-lashed, provocatively slanted, tawny gold eyes that spoke to him of things better left unrecognized, nor a wide, full-lipped mouth that promised more of sensuality than had the curves of Elizabeth’s entire body.

  At least, not much. It occurred to him to wonder if she were promiscuous. He remembered how she had shrunk from his touch, and his brow cleared. Whatever Caroline Wetherby’s faults, and he was sure they were many and varied, they did not include that.

  The realization carried with it a sense of profound relief. He did not think he could face dealing with such again.

  A flicker of light caught his attention in the woods off to his right. Not one, but two or three flickers deep
in the woods. Near the spring.

  Raleigh’s joyous barks changed in character as he, too, spied the lights. For a decidedly nonferocious dog, he was sounding almost menacing. Apparently the possessors of the lights thought so, because the flickering gleams abruptly vanished.

  Lanterns, he thought, blown out.

  They were at it again, the shadowy disciples of Satan who haunted the woods, damn them to bloody hell. They practiced their evil witches’ rites in the forest at night with none but themselves the wiser as to their identities, although Matt knew, or had known, the name of at least one: Elizabeth Mathieson.

  Wicca was their religion, she had told him once as she told him everything, hurling the information at him furiously at the height of a bitter argument. They used the power of the earth to summon spirits and cast spells. Over their sulphurous campfires—they chose a different site each time to escape detection, marking the spot with an incantation scribbled in their own ancient language so that the coven would know where to gather when the moon was right—she had seen the Devil himself, writhing in the smoke.

  Elizabeth’s descent into madness had begun when she had started fancying herself a witch. When he discovered her nocturnal ramblings and their purpose, he was horrified, revolted, and yes, if he was honest with himself, even a little frightened. He had forbidden her excursions, of course, and when she refused to heed him he took the extreme course of locking her in her bedchamber at night. When she discovered that he would not be swayed from his determination to keep her from the woods, she cursed him, a true witch’s curse, in full hearing of his brothers and a neighboring farmer who happened to be visiting. Ranting in sometimes unintelligible syllables, her unbrushed hair hanging over her shoulders and down her back, clad in no more than a nightgown, she had hung out her bedroom window and shrieked to Satan to exact vengeance on him. It was after that that the rumors that she was a witch began. When confronted, as only one or two of the villagers were bold enough to do, he responded with laughter and scorn. But until the very day of her death he had lived in fear that one day she would be arrested, tried, and convicted of witchcraft. The penalty for that was death, by hanging or burning at the stake as they had done in neighboring colonies. As much as he had grown to despise his wife, he could not wish such an end on her. While for his boys, such a denouement would be a horror that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Which was why, though it might say much about the lack of God’s grace in his heart, when she drowned he had not inquired too closely into the circumstances, nor felt anything but profound relief. If, as he suspected, a group of townspeople had taken it upon themselves to test the truthfulness of the witch rumor by subjecting Elizabeth to a water trial, and the dunking had ended in her death, nothing he could do would restore her to life. He had seen to it that she was given a Christian burial, but other than that he had let the matter rest.

  But the followers of the serpent still haunted the forest, and their very existence was an abomination to all God-fearing folk. It was just that he had more reason than most to hate and fear them.

  A coven of witches would likely not be dispatched by a volley of shot, but Matt snatched up the musket always kept by the back door and fired in the direction in which the lights had vanished anyway. The yellow flash and sharp report made him feel better, as did the jarring of the musket into his shoulder and the acrid smell of gunpowder. No matter how futile his effort, at least he’d done something.

  He stood for a moment, staring into the darkness, but saw nothing more. After a moment Raleigh bounded up to him, tongue lolling as he begged in doggy fashion for a game. For Raleigh the incident was apparently over.

  And for himself too. With Elizabeth gone, there was no reason for him to become involved with the dark doings in the forest. As long as no member of his household was involved, it was none of his concern.

  Cradling the musket in his arm, Matt turned and went into the house.

  10

  The crowing of a raucous pair of roosters announced the coming of dawn. Caroline would have slept through it, heedless, had it not been for the tremendous booming sound that arose to fill the house at the same time. After an astounded moment, during which her eyes opened blearily to peer through the graying darkness with disbelief, she realized that the hideous noise was actually a man singing at the top of his lungs. Another moment passed. Still groggy with sleep, Caroline imagined that she was abed in one of the hedge taverns in which she and her father had passed so many nights. Then her head cleared. She remembered where she was, and ascertained that the singer was Matt. His voice was tuneless in the extreme, and he was punctuating his songs with crashes of some metal implement against the walls and doors of the house so that the din was earsplitting. Millicent, who’d been curled on Caroline’s pillow, jumped up, fur bristling as she listened to the noise. Then she leaped for the floor and disappeared beneath the bed. Caroline only wished that she could disappear so readily.

  “All people that on Earth do dwell!” Bang!

  “Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice!” Bang!

  “Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell!” Bang!

  “Come ye before Him and rejoice!” Bang!

  A chorus of groans and shouts for the singer to be silent arose, but the bellowed hymn showed no signs of abating. Caroline moaned, covering her ears with a pillow as she sought to drown out the noise. By the time all her work had been done the night before, she’d been dead on her feet with fatigue. Now the tiniest fingers of light were just beginning to streak the sky, and already she was being forced awake! It wasn’t fair!

  “For the Lord’s sake, Matt, do you have to be so blamed loud?” The first intelligible grumble belonged to either Thomas or Robert, Caroline couldn’t be sure which.

  “ ’Tis time to rise, slacker. I’ll tolerate no idleness in this house. All people that on Earth do dwell!” Bang!

  “Oh, Pa, do we have to get up right now?” That was John, groaning.

  “You know you do. Davey, out of that bed. ‘Twill not do to be late to school. Sing to the Lord with cheerful voicer” Bang!

  “Can’t we stay home today, Pa? Most of the boys are helping out with the planting. You said we were a big help yesterday.”

  “You had a holiday yesterday because the schoolmaster was wed. He’ll be back today, and so will you. School’s important, John, as you well know. Your uncles and I can manage the planting well enough without you, big help or not. I’d rather you learn to read and write and cipher whilst you have the chance. Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell!” Bang!

  “All right, we’re up, we’re up! Your caterwauling’s enough to rouse the dead!” That was Daniel, she thought.

  “Good. Come ye before Him and rejoice!” Bang!

  This time whatever it was that was causing the bang slammed into the outside of Caroline’s door. She jumped, her head emerging from beneath the pillow as she glowered at the still-closed door. Maybe, if she ignored him, the sadistic beast would give up and go away.

  “Up, Madam Slugabed!” The shout reverbated through the door. “The Royalist fashion of lying abed till all hours will not do around here! ’Tis breakfast time!”

  Caroline considered yelling back the suggestion that he journey to a far warmer region than could be found on this earth, then thought better of it. After all, Matt had been kind enough to give up his bed to her the night before (although he’d stipulated that he would sleep with Daniel only until other arrangements for Caroline’s accommodations could be made), and generous enough to offer her a home in the first place (self-interested though the offer might have been). But those considerations were only a small part of what prompted her to hold her tongue. The real silencer was her conviction that if she shouted back at him, he would be through that door in a trice to personally tip her out of bed.

  The object crashed into her door again.

  “I’m up, I’m up!” she cried.

  “And about time too!”

  His footsteps
retreated to the accompaniment of more out-of-tune verses and earsplitting bangs. Caroline sighed and rolled out of bed.

  A quarter of an hour later she was semidressed and in the kitchen preparing porridge. Her hair she had twisted up any which way, and wayward strands had already worked free to straggle around her ears and down her back. In her haste in doing up the back of her gown she had misfastened a pair of hooks, so that the bodice was twisted in an awkward fashion beneath her breasts. Her too-long skirts kept tripping her, and she longed for a moment to pin them up. But a moment was what she didn’t have. The household was abustle, and Matt had informed her that she had somewhere in the neighborhood of half an hour to get breakfast prepared and the boys off to school.

  Inside the house it was still as dark as night. A pair of sputtering candles provided most of the illumination for her cooking. Daniel had been dispatched to the spring for butter and milk, and the children were outside at the pump. Matt, Thomas, and Robert vied with one another for glimpses into the one small mirror as they tried, all at the same time, to shave, Steaming water now rose from the battered wash tin that Matt had used to effect the unvocal portion of his morning concert, and it was this water that the men used for shaving. The kettle, Caroline discovered when it turned up missing, had been emptied and abandoned by the wash tin. As she fetched it, trying not to look at or touch the half-clad men—which was quite a feat, because the keeping room was both tiny and crowded —she felt a pair of eyes lingering on her averted cheek. Glancing up instinctively, she was surprised to meet Matt’s intent gaze. For a single unwary moment before he lowered his lids, deliberately breaking contact, she could read purely masculine appreciation for a desirable female in the cobalt depths. The spell that held her motionless shattered, and she turned away. She felt shaky, and her heart pounded as she refilled the kettle and restored it to its crane over the fire. It took some few minutes before she was able to calm down. Not even to herself would she admit how that brief exchange of glances had affected her. Spine ramrod stiff with silent rejection, Caroline resolutely kept her back to the adjoining room. However, it was impossible to remain totally oblivious to so much naked male flesh. All three of them were bare to the waist and seemed completely unconcerned about the close proximity of a strange female. But then excessive modesty, as she had already learned, was not a male affliction.