The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,33

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