Serpents in the Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

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