by Holly Bush
Everyone at the table laughed, and Alexander thought Payden looked more like a carefree young man today than he did in a filthy alley, his face covered in black grease, just a few weeks ago, giving directions to men older than he and more experienced.
“Dumplings?” she asked him softly.
“Yes, please,” he said, and she spooned two gravy-covered dumplings onto his plate, her hand shaking ever so slightly.
He noticed she had taken very small amounts and ate slowly, taking studious care with every bite. She did look thinner, although she was so beautiful she took his breath away. The bruises on her face were nearly faded, and her hands were healed other than the scars circling her wrists. Those would be a constant reminder of her ordeal.
“It’s a beautiful day out, Miss Thompson,” he said. “Would you like to take a walk after our meal?”
Conversation continued, but every eye around the table was on Elspeth. Perhaps he should have waited for them to be in private before asking her, but he could hardly stop himself. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to ask her. But maybe coming to the dining room for a meal was all she could manage. She was silent so long that he feared she would never answer. And then she did.
“I would enjoy that, Mr. Pendergast.”
He felt like jumping up and down. He felt like shouting from the rooftops. He was the luckiest man on earth.
James looked at him and nodded, and even Muireall smiled at them.
“Take a wrap, Elspeth,” Aunt Murdoch said. “I don’t want you getting a chill.”
“Oh, Aunt. It’s hot outside. She will be fine without a shawl, won’t you?” Kirsty turned to Elspeth. “Eat, Elspeth. You’re thin as a rail, although you have some color today. I can cover what’s left of your bruises with some rice powder, if you’d like.”
James shook his head. “My God, Kirsty. You’re as subtle as Mr. Ervin’s dog in the trash piles.”
Payden and Aunt Murdoch laughed. Alexander grinned and looked at Elspeth, hoping she wasn’t shrinking in her chair, embarrassed or uncomfortable. But he heard a soft laugh from her, and he nearly sobbed with the sound of it.
“Thank you for pointing that out, Kirsty,” she said in a confident voice he hadn’t heard from her in quite a while.
She would be all right, he repeated in his head. She would be alright.
“My goodness, it is warm out here today,” Elspeth said to him after they were finally outside.
Her sisters and brothers had fussed over her leaving the house, saying it was perfectly safe but to be careful, all of them crowded in the small entranceway of the house as Muireall tied the ribbon on her bonnet.
“I don’t want to overtire you,” he said. “Please tell me if you are ready to go back inside.”
“We just walked down the steps, Alexander,” she said with a smile, although she did not turn her head or look at him.
Several neighbors called out a hello, and he measured his pace so she could respond. They’d walked far enough that they could no longer see her house until they were at the small bench where they’d spoken after his argument with his father. It seemed a lifetime ago now. She sat down and turned her face up to the sun. Alexander closed his eyes and listened to the birdsong and the distant sound of a child’s laughter.
“I killed that man. The one in the room they held me in. I stabbed him in the chest and sliced at his neck. I must have hit the vessel because blood shot out . . .”
Alexander looked at her as she spoke. She was taking short breaths and rubbing her wrists but did not look up at him. He thought he should probably remain silent and let her decide to continue with her thoughts or change the subject matter.
“There was blood everywhere. In my hair, on my clothes, and my dagger was slipping from my hand, it was so covered in blood. I was worried that it would slip from my grip if I had to kill another person.”
She glanced up at him.
“You were in the heat of battle, defending yourself.”
“I wasn’t defending myself at that moment,” she said finally.
“Why do you say that?”
She cleared her throat and looked up the street toward her home, away from his face. “He . . . he put his mouth on me and touched me. He touched my breast,” she whispered, voice cracking. “He put my hand on him, down there, and told me that I would learn to like it. Very fortunately, his partner, Wallace, called him away at that moment, but I did not believe I would escape him forever. Wallace told all those men, that . . . that they could have me once Payden was on the ship.” Her voice broke on a sob and a whisper.
“You were defending yourself,” he said as calmly as he could, even as his gut rebelled and he wanted to drag Wallace from his jail cell and cut him to ribbons.
“They brought me out to that big room and asked me who would be helping Payden other than James. I said I didn’t know, and he punched my face. I was passed from man to man, and they pulled at my dress and hair, but I was terrified that they would hurt you when the window broke and you called my name. I thought you were alone, and there were so many of them.”
Alexander dropped down on one knee in front of her and took her hands in his, not caring who saw them or what they might say.
“You were concerned about me?” he whispered.
She nodded and finally turned to look at him. “I was prepared to kill as many as I could to try and save you.”
He looked down at her hands and back to her face. Her lip was trembling, and there were tears in her eyes. “I love you, Elspeth. I will love you for all time, and I am humbled that you were worried for my safety. When you are ready, I want to marry you. I want to live with you and raise children together and love each other for the rest of our days.”
Tears streamed down her face. “Oh, Alexander! I killed a man, and those men, all those men, had their hands all over me.”
He kissed her hands. “None of that matters. It would never matter to me. You are who you are because of your spirit and kindness and bravery, and that is why I love you.”
“I thought of you all the time I was there,” she sobbed. “I acted like such a child at your parents’ ball.”
“Hush,” he said softly. “None of that matters.”
“I could bring shame to my family and to yours. What if there is a trial?”
“You do know that the police will never bring charges against you? That was all settled. The dead man was attacking you.”
“No one told me that,” she said and took a shuddering breath.
“It is over.”
“It is not over for our family, and I will tell you about that very soon, but for now, I am feeling tired. Would you take me home?”
“Of course. This is was a long outing for your first venture.” He helped her to her feet and held her hands in his. “Please know, Elspeth, that I am honored that you told me what happened, but it will never matter to me. Tell me more or never mention it again. Whatever is best for you. Would you like to take a walk like this tomorrow?”
She nodded as they turned to walk toward her home. “I would like that very much,” she said and smiled a wobbly smile.
He kissed her hands. “I am glad. Very glad.”
Chapter 20
“Are you sure you’re up to this, Elspeth?” Muireall asked as Kirsty pulled her hair up into a fashionable chignon and Aunt Murdoch clucked her tongue from where she was seated on the bed.
“I think I am, but Alexander has told me several times that he will be more than willing to bring me home anytime I want, if I grow tired or for any reason, really,” she said and studied herself in the mirror.
She was going to tell Alexander yes, she would marry him, that very night. She was both excited and nervous. The two of them had been taking walks together, she had visited his home with Kirsty and Aunt Murdoch. They had attended the theater together and had taken a beautiful ride to the outskirts of the city. He had kissed her several times, and once very passionately. It made her
heart flutter and her cheeks pinken to think about it. He had been panicked that he might have scared her. But he had not. She’d been awoken instead. There was a womanly need for him she was just discovering, and it made her feel as though she’d at long last arrived at maturity.
But she had not told her family yet, and it weighed on her. Something she must right immediately. She asked Muireall to call Payden and James to her room. Her sister looked at her strangely.
“What is it, princess?” James said as he walked into her room. “You’re looking especially lovely, Lizzie.”
Payden followed him. “It smells in here.”
“That’s the rose water she just dabbed on her wrists,” Kirsty said.
Elspeth smiled at the exchange, and her heart broke for a moment, thinking that she would not be part of this family banter for much longer, but it would not change what she was about to do.
“I wanted to talk to you all together. I love you all very much and always will. I love this family.” She looked at each of them and smiled softly. “But tonight I am going to tell Mr. Pendergast, Alexander, that I will marry him. He’s asked several times.”
“I knew it!” Kirsty said.
“This is no surprise, Lizzie.” James laughed. “The poor man’s at his wit’s end being patient.”
Aunt Murdoch stood slowly from the bed and held Elspeth’s face in her hands, kissing both of her cheeks. “A good match for you, dear.”
“Will I have to wear a suit to the wedding?” Payden asked.
Kirsty laughed. “Of course you will, you silly boy.”
Elspeth laughed too and glanced at the only person who had said nothing to her announcement. Muireall was white-faced and holding her hands tightly in her lap.
“Oh, Muireall,” she said and felt her lip trembling. “Are you disappointed in me or in my choice? I love him. I haven’t told him that yet, but I do. I wouldn’t leave this house for any less of a reason.”
Muireall stood and smiled tightly. “Congratulations, Elspeth.”
They all watched her walk from the room, her shoulders slumping.
Elspeth closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry on what was to be such a happy day for her. She heard Payden and James leave her room.
“I’ll go to her in a bit,” Aunt Murdoch said. “Kirsty, stay and finish her hair.”
“Why is she angry?” Kirsty asked.
“She’s not angry. But she does see her family changing, and her life’s work has been to hold the MacTavishes together. She’s not allowed herself to find any joy or anything for herself all these years. She’s been weighed down by your mother and father’s words to her.”
“But we’re grown now,” Kirsty said. “You said that Mother and Father didn’t intend to stay here. They would have wanted us to have lives and loves of our own, don’t you think?”
“Of course they would,” Aunt Murdoch said and patted Kirsty’s shoulder as she went by.
Elspeth looked up at Kirsty. “I never in a hundred years thought that she would be sad.”
“I know, but you must remember you can’t make her or anyone else happy. You can only be happy yourself, and I believe you are going to be very happy with Mr. Pendergast,” Kirsty said. “I think I heard a knock at the door, Elspeth. Come. He must be here.”
He watched Elspeth come down the staircase of the Thompson home and held his breath. He released it before he fainted dead away in front of his love and her family. She was stunningly beautiful in pale yellow that brought out the red in her upswept hair. Her skirts were trimmed in brown velvet, and she held a matching bag in her hands. She had lost the haunted look she’d worn for so many weeks, her face full and her cheeks rosy, and was now staring at him as she came slowly down the steps, one brown silk shoe nosing out from under her skirts at a time.
He held his hand out to her as she came down the last steps. Her family, all but the oldest sister, were standing in the hallway watching them.
“You are looking particularly lovely, Elspeth,” he said.
“Thank you.” She smiled up at him. “What time is the dinner?”
“Seven. We have plenty of time.”
“Let’s take the long way to your parents’ home, past the park. It is still warm, but a buggy ride might just be the thing for a breeze in our face.”
James winked at him and pulled Payden down the hallway. Kirsty and Aunt Murdoch stood together with linked arms watching them.
“Have a wonderful time,” Kirsty said with a smile. Aunt Murdoch nodded to him.
He held her arm as they went outside and helped her into the buggy. He climbed up beside her and hawed the horse forward. He couldn’t remember ever being so happy in his entire life. She reached her arm through his, and he glanced at her. She seemed different this evening, smiling in the way a woman could when she was holding a secret dear to her.
“Can we stop somewhere for just a few minutes? I want to talk to you and don’t want you to be concentrating on the horse,” she said with a raised a brow.
He laughed. “Trust me. I’m not thinking about the horse right now.” Alexander turned into the park near his parents’ home, veered off the wide trail, and set the brake. He turned to her, bringing her hand to his lips. “Now tell me what you would like to talk about.”
“I must tell you about our family. About Payden and our parents. It is not right keeping it all from you.”
“Tell me anything or nothing or everything about the Thompsons, Elspeth. It will not change my feelings for you.”
“Actually, we’re not the Thompsons. We’re the MacTavishes.”
“So I’m hoping to marry Elspeth MacTavish?” He smiled. “Is she as lovely as Elspeth Thompson?”
She smiled and leaned against him and then turned to stare out into the trees near the buggy, absently watching a young boy with a stick batting at stones and grass as he walked. “You see, Alexander . . .” she began.
She told him the whole story, starting in Scotland, the illegitimate man, Plowman, at the core of the violence, her parents’ murder, New York harbor, and a Philadelphia destination under the cover of night. Her brother was part of the Scottish aristocracy, he knew from James’s confession, but he hadn’t known that James was a cousin. Payden MacTavish was a wealthy young man, an aristocrat, who would be admitted to the most exclusive society in England and Scotland. And Elspeth was the sister of an earl.
“I wanted to tell you everything. I wanted you to know everything about our family. There may be troubles in the future for us, and I don’t really know what that means other than Payden will assume his properties, and his official title, at some point, and I may be involved in some way. I will never desert them if I am needed.”
He picked up her hand and held it between his two, rubbing lightly. “Why are you telling me this? I admit I was curious, but these family secrets are yours; they are your family’s. I would never press you for an explanation or expect you to abandon your family.”
“I thought you should know.” She looked up at him shyly from under her lashes. “I thought you should know before I said yes.”
His heart thumped wildly in his chest, and he could barely speak. “Said yes? As in, yes to my proposal?”
She nodded. “If you still want to marry me after hearing all of this family tragedy, then my answer is yes,” she whispered.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly, even as another carriage rolled by.
“I have a ring at home. I’d like to go there first and get it. I’d like you to wear it when we go to my mother and father’s for dinner. I want everyone there to know that you are mine.”
“I would like that very much,” she said and tilted her head, resting her cheek on his shoulder.
Chapter 21
Elspeth turned in the open carriage to wave at her family after the wedding and the wedding breakfast that had been held at the Penn’s View Hotel on Front Street. There had been nearly seventy guests for the reception, which was quite enou
gh for her, although she’d offered repeatedly to have something larger to accommodate his family’s association with prominent businesspeople and government acquaintances. But he had told her that just his family and hers and some close friends and neighbors would be exactly what he’d hoped for.
She’d changed for the last time in her old room with Kirsty’s help, out of her beaded cream-colored silk wedding dress, and dressed in her smart new traveling outfit of lilac-colored linen with white collar and cuffs and covered buttons down the front. She’d pinned on her matching linen hat with a broad brim and a dyed feather that hung attractively down the back of her neck. They were on their way to the train station to travel to New Jersey, where the Pendergast family had a seaside home in the town of Cape May. They were to stay there and honeymoon for two weeks.
She was so excited she could hardly sit still, but there was her family on the steps and in the doorway of her home at 75 Locust Street. They were waving and smiling and throwing kisses, and Aunt Murdoch was dabbing her eyes. The only one not there was Muireall. But she would not shed any tears on this, the most exciting and romantic day of her life, even if it hurt just a wee bit to not see her eldest sister there with the rest of the family, even if Muireall had held her in a long wordless embrace before she left the house. She was married. She loved her husband, and she would be his wife in more than name only before the day was out.
They would arrive at a station in New Jersey three hours, then less than an hour by carriage to the sea, and staff would be there to transport them and their luggage. She’d not been out of the city of Philadelphia since she arrived there from New York City at the age of nine.
Alexander was terrified. Completely petrified and nearly immobile with fear. Would she be frightened of him when the time came for their wedding night? He didn’t know. She certainly acted much like the young woman he’d known before her kidnapping, but who was to say how a woman would feel after suffering under the hands of those men, those monsters? He’d gone to great lengths to make their arrival at the ocean house joyful and relaxed, allowing the servants to fuss over them, as the day had been long, although both of them had napped in the privacy of their train car, Elspeth with her head laying his shoulder and her hand wrapped tightly around his upper arm.
