The Bachelor’s Bride: The Thompsons of Locust Street

by Holly Bush

  “We were supposed to make our escape, Elspeth and I, while Mr. Pendergast let them hold him and punch him and break his ribs, but Elspeth couldn’t leave him, and so we went back and clobbered one of them with some boards we found in the alley,” Kirsty said.

  Alexander was smiling as much as his mouth would allow, looking at Elspeth. She was smiling back at him, her eyes laughing with him, but then she looked around the room at the others watching them and blushed and lowered her head.

  “Well,” his mother said. “I’m so grateful that you . . . clobbered them in Alex’s defense.”

  “MacAvoy? Go see Mr. Witherspoon on Monday. He is always looking for smart young men to move up in the company. He may not have anything right away for you, but introduce yourself anyway. I’ll tell him you’re coming,” his father said and turned to Alexander. “Now let’s see about getting you in the carriage.”

  Chapter 10

  “I don’t understand you,” Elspeth said.

  Muireall did not take her eyes from the long column of figures before her on the desk, her pencil ticking away as she added. “Concerning what matter, Elspeth? You’ll need to be more specific.”

  “Why did you send a note to his parents? I believe Mr. Pendergast was embarrassed.”

  “There was nothing to be embarrassed about. He was injured and needed to go home. He certainly didn’t want to stay here any longer.”

  “He would have sent a message to one of his servants. He has his own carriage and his own residence. Why did you send for his parents?”

  Muireall laid down her pencil and looked up at Elspeth. “I wanted to look them in the eye. I wanted to see who they are. I like to know who my enemies are.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Elspeth said.

  “You were chased down an alley by two men intent on harming you, maybe killing or kidnapping you. I am not being ridiculous.”

  “It had nothing to do with Mr. Pendergast. He helped us get home and helped get James out of that warehouse.”

  “You are certain it had nothing to do with him, Elspeth? Are you willing to put your sisters’ or brothers’ lives in danger? Are you that certain?”

  “Of course not! I would never do anything to put our family in danger. I am just trying to understand you,” she said and slumped down into the chair in the small office they were in. She shook her head and covered her face with her hands, listening to the sounds coming from the street through the open window behind her.

  She had a sudden and unpleasant vision of she and Muireall sitting in the same chairs, having the same arguments, when they were twenty years older, when they were thirty or even forty years older. Was her life meant to be exactly as it was at this moment? Neither the leader like Muireall, nor the beautiful and personable young woman that Kirsty was. They would all pass her by in some way, and she would be left to can vegetables, be browbeaten by an older sibling, and care for all the future nieces and nephews that James, Kirsty, and even Payden would eventually produce.

  “There are reasons we must be careful, Elspeth,” Muireall whispered.

  Elspeth looked up at her sister and noticed, not for the first time, that Muireall looked unhappy and worried. That her face was drawn and fine wrinkles marred her eyes.

  “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you, Muireall,” she said. “You carry all the burdens and don’t share much with Aunt any longer. You’re alone so much—even when we are here surrounding you, you’re alone.”

  Elspeth stared at the painting hanging on the wall across from where she sat. It was a landscape she recognized from her childhood, although it could have been anywhere in Scotland. Bleak and green and rocky and manicured and everything opposite of each other. It made her think of her parents and her home there, and the blowing wind and the bleating sheep and how lucky Mr. Pendergast was to have both parents still with him.

  “We have money, Lizzie,” Muireall said barely above a whisper.

  She turned her head. “I know we are not poor. I just wonder how.”

  “We have money,” her sister repeated.

  “But the canning business just started a few years ago. How did we buy this house? How have we paid Mrs. McClintok all these years?”

  “We came here with money, Lizzie. Sewn into my clothes and into Aunt’s and James’s, as well as a small trunk of it. And money in an account at a bank. Father gave me the papers to access it before he died.”

  “We are wealthy?”

  “We have invested carefully over the years and have not been spendthrifts. The monies have doubled and more.”

  Elspeth sat quietly and digested that information. She looked at her sister. “But you have gone to great pains to make sure that no one knows that we are wealthy, even as far as to keep it from your siblings. Does James know?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “There is a reason, though, that you have kept it a secret.”

  Muireall picked up her pencil and looked down at her papers. “Please check on Payden. He’s not been keeping up with his studies as of late.”

  At least one of her questions had been answered, even though that knowledge created several more. But she was not going to plague Muireall. She must have some faith that her sister was doing the right thing for all of them, and she doubted Muireall would say more anyway. Maybe at some time in the future, but not today.

  Alexander was in the file room with Kleinfeld, digging through crates, looking for a file on a long-ago fired employee of Schmitt’s. The man’s widow wanted her husband’s pension money, even though that employee had been let go for theft. Extortion was typical in politics, Alexander had come to understand. Normally, he would have given the woman some cash or a gold piece and sent her on her way, but this woman claimed to have papers signed by Schmitt that stated her deceased husband or his heirs would be entitled to one thousand dollars. A fortune to a low-level employee at the Gas Trust. Alexander wanted to see what paperwork, if any, had been kept by Schmitt.

  He was kneeling on the floor beside the wall between the room he was in and Schmitt’s office, shuffling through papers wrapped in string, when he heard Schmitt’s voice and the sound of a door closing through the vent where the warm air from the boiler in the basement heated the building in the winter. He could not hear every word, but he leaned closer when he heard Elspeth’s name. He could not tell who Schmitt was talking to or what they were saying. He thought the person must have been standing near the door of Schmitt’s office. Alexander imagined Schmitt was pouring himself a whiskey at the hutch beside the heating vent and knew he was right when he heard the faint clink of glassware.

  “Not their name?” Schmitt said as Alexander bent closer. “. . . changed at Ellis?”

  “Twenty thousand dollars, if it’s that important to you,” Schmitt said.

  A loud thump shook the wall beside him.

  “What was that?” Kleinfeld asked.

  Alexander put his finger to his mouth for quiet. He leaned close to the vent, heard another bang, and then Schmitt moaned and cursed and another voice spoke. The man must have been standing near the wall that separated them as Alexander could hear nearly every word.

  “You’re a very small piece of this operation, Schmitt. Very small and not particularly useful. The men who want this information are dangerous. Do you understand? You’re in no position to ask for anything. Get the name, Schmitt.”

  Not much later, Schmitt bellowed Alexander’s name. “Get in here,” he shouted.

  Alexander straightened his clothes and swiped off the dust from the file room. “What can I do for you, Mr. Schmitt?” he said after entering the office and scanning the room. He saw a glass on its side, its contents spilled on the hutch, and Schmitt looking grim and gray faced.

  “I need the woman’s name before they came here, Pendergast,” he said. “The Thompson woman. Who were they in Scotland?”

  Alexander shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “You need to find out.”


  “I told you I’m not going to do any of this unless I know what is going on.”

  Schmitt stood, unsteady on his feet, and leaned forward on his desk. “I said I need to know about this Thompson girl and her family, and I need to know it now.”

  Alexander stared at him until Schmitt looked away.

  “We don’t have a choice, Pendergast. We don’t have a choice.”

  Alexander did not know how he was going to protect Elspeth and her loved ones, but he would. And he didn’t know how he would keep his job if the threat to Schmitt had been real. What was to keep these men, whoever they were, away from his own family? How would he keep them all safe? Whatever the answer, he needed time to think and plan.

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” he said.

  Schmitt let out a held breath and dropped into the chair behind him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  For the first time, Alexander felt a frisson of fear rumble down his spine. Anyone or anything that frightened Henry Schmitt must be taken seriously. The fact that Schmitt had actually given him his thanks made Alexander’s concerns even more sobering.

  Alexander pushed through the crowd at the Continental Hotel’s bar until he saw his father seated at a corner booth. Alexander pulled off his hat, sat down, and ordered a scotch whiskey from a busy young man carrying drinks to the loud and jocular crowd.

  “Thank you for meeting me.”

  His father nodded in reply, a grim look on his face.

  Alexander was caught off guard. His always confident father was hesitant. Unsure. “Is everything all right?”

  “I don’t know, Alexander. The last time we spoke was when we came for you at the Thompson’s house and you were surrounded by women. This is the first time you and I have spoken privately since we spoke about . . . about your brother.”

  “How did Schmitt find out about this woman. Mrs. McMillan. This affair?”

  “We didn’t advertise our estrangement, your mother and I, but still people knew and there was talk. I set up payments for her for Jonathon’s care, so the bank employees knew. I was a well-known face around Philadelphia married for a few years and living at a hotel. People knew. If Schmitt dug around a little, he would find out.”

  “I was furious and maybe still am to some degree,” he said, looking down at the drink that had just been delivered and then up into the cautious eyes of his father. “But I spoke to a friend. They lost their parents, both of them at the same time, and that person reminded me that I am incredibly lucky to have you still on this earth. They are right. I am lucky. But I’m not quite sure why Mother didn’t kill you at the time.”

  His father shrugged and looked away. “It was a close thing done. The time we were separated was the longest and worst month of my life. I wasn’t sure that she would ever forgive me.”

  “But she did.”

  His father nodded and took a drink. “She did. I am eternally grateful to her for that and still at a loss as to what I was thinking at the time.” He looked up at Alexander. “We are all bound for mistakes in our lives, but we sometimes fool ourselves and think that we would never do something that would put ourselves in so much jeopardy. But I did put my family in jeopardy and gambled with the respect of my parents and siblings and with the good opinion—and love—of my wife. I was arrogant and foolish. Who could ever compete with the beauty and brains and style of your mother? No one. No one could, although Annabelle is close.”

  “Mother is all that and more.”

  His father looked him in the eye then. “But more than any of that, more than all of it, I’m in love with her, and I love her, and have from nearly the first minute I met her.”

  “How did you know? How did you know you loved her?”

  Andrew Pendergast smiled slowly. “I couldn’t breathe when I was around her. I couldn’t think of anything but making her mine. I counted the minutes I was away from her.”

  Alexander tapped his thumb on the table and thought about his sleepless nights wondering what Elspeth had done during her day and reliving his foolish words when she was at his parents’ home for the luncheon with Annabelle. “I don’t know how she feels,” he said and looked up suddenly. He hadn’t meant to speak out.

  “Your mother said she thinks you are partial to the Thompson girl. Elspeth?”

  He thought about shrugging it off. He thought about acting as if he didn’t care. He hesitated to admit, even to his father, that he’d been brought low and confused by a young woman. If he was the sophisticated man about town that he pictured of himself, then why was he feeling so unsure and out of sorts over her since nearly the first moment he met her on the steps of a bawdy house, of all places.

  “I think about her all the time. Even when I’ve sworn to myself that I will not think of her.”

  “Maybe you’re more than partial,” his father said and took a sip of his drink.

  “Maybe. She is actually the reason I wanted to talk to you.” He then told his father about Schmitt’s requests and then his demands. “I’m concerned for her safety, especially after those two men followed her and her sister after the boxing match. But I’m also concerned for our family, for you, for Mother and Annabelle.”

  “Why?”

  “I think Schmitt . . . I know Schmitt told those men that I know her. What if they wanted to force me to find out something about her? I told Schmitt I’d try and find out their family name before they came here, but I was just trying to buy time. I’d never seen him in such a state. He was panicked. He must know these people will not take no for an answer. I don’t want to worry you unnecessarily but—”

  “I trust your judgment,” his father interrupted. “I’ll talk to my security people and have them add staff, maybe visible staff, until this is resolved. What will you do about the Thompsons? They are the most at risk, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’m going to talk to Elspeth right away. I don’t know if she’ll want me to talk to the eldest sister and brother or maybe her aunt. The night of the boxing match, her brother could barely speak, but he grabbed me by the throat and insisted I tell him who the men were who followed us. As if I knew. There is something going on that I don’t understand.”

  “I hope Miss Thompson understands your hesitancy to tell her earlier,” his father said as he swirled the chipped ice in his glass. He looked up at Alexander. “If she is the one, you must say things you may be reluctant to admit. You’ll have to be honest.”

  “That is frightening in and of itself, Father,” he said, thinking of what he must be about when he spoke to her, sitting quietly but companionably with the man he considered his closest friend.

  “Be careful, Alexander. Do you have anyone at your town house? Do you want me to have Graham send someone?”

  Alexander shook his head. “I’ll be careful.”

  Elspeth stepped out of the grocer, the basket on her arm filled with spinach and collards for the evening’s meal. The weather was warm as she strolled through the crowds gathered to shop at the markets in her neighborhood. She’d gladly volunteered to make the trip for Mrs. McClintok, away from family and alone with her thoughts, although the housekeeper had been nearly insistent that she take Robert with her. But she wanted some time by herself, and it was broad daylight. Surely she’d be safe enough. She was in a troublesome spot, she thought, and needed some time to reflect on it.

  She liked Alexander Pendergast more, much more, than she had ever planned or anticipated, even though they’d spent little time together. Her stomach turned over whenever she saw him, and she could not stop herself from remembering that horribly embarrassing moment when he’d shown up at his family home when she was there with Kirsty and his sister.

  She did not believe she’d ever been so humiliated or distressed as she was when she jumped from her chair and he’d been so rude and asked her why she was there. She’d done her best to concentrate on smiling and involving herself in the conversation at the table afterward, but she’
d been sick to her stomach. So sick it was all she could do to swallow even one more bite of her meal.

  But she did not believe that Mr. Pendergast had been more at ease than she. She thought he may have been just as embarrassed as she was. She had no idea why she felt that way, especially so strongly, but she did. She was convinced she set him on edge much like he set her there as well. Hmmm.

  She stopped briefly and looked in the watchmaker’s window. There was a beautiful watch pin that she’d been looking at for weeks. She stared at it, thinking of how it would look on her pleated white blouse and how it would match so nicely with the plaid skirt she often wore to church. She was staring through the glass, wondering if she should buy it for herself, when a person bumped her so hard she stumbled back two steps and nearly fell to the ground, only catching herself on the brick sill under the watchmaker’s window and tearing her glove where she caught herself.

  “Oomph!” she said and looked over her shoulder to see the young culprit clutching his wooden scooter and looking back at her.

  “Sorry, miss,” he said and ran off.

  Elspeth laughed, thinking he reminded her of Payden just a few short years ago, and looked up, her gaze going across the busy street. There were two men there staring at her. A cold chill went down her back as one nodded in her direction to the other. He was one of the men who’d punched Alexander in the alley the night of the boxing match.

  She faced forward, hurrying her steps, gripping the handle of her basket and trying desperately to not look over her shoulder to see if they were following her. She made her way quickly down the busy walkway and glanced to her left to see if the men were still there. They were and they were staring at her, moving along at her pace or faster, she thought, and looking to cross through the busy traffic to her side of the street. She noticed a trolley coming down between them, and just as the horses passed her and the trolley itself blocked the view of them, she slipped into the bookstore she and Kirsty frequented. She exited through the back door and crossed a narrow alley to the open back door of a bakery. She was through and out the front door of the bakery onto the next street, hurrying and turning the corner onto Locust Street, and finally running, nearly losing her hat, and hearing the pounding of her own feet. She didn’t risk a glance back until she was on her own stoop.