The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,41
been for some time, if I’m not mistaken,” Kirsty said.
“Get out!” Muireall said to Alexander and pointed to the door. “You do not belong here. You are not a Thompson.”
He looked at Elspeth and smiled gently. “What do you want me to do? Shall I stay, or shall I go? It’s in your hands.”
Elspeth felt like she was at a precipice, looking down into a deep and vast canyon, into the unknown, but as if her answer might set a course for her entire life—and indeed, it very well might. She stared at Alexander. She was connected to him in some strange and unknown fashion, and there was no denying he calmed her. She looked up at him with red-rimmed, tear-filled eyes. She needed him.
“Please stay.”
He supposed it was at that moment that he knew that he’d fallen in love with her. And what he would say in the next several ticks of the mantel clock would undoubtedly mean that she might never return his feelings. But he had decided to follow his father’s advice. He needed to be truthful with her and with her family, and that included the boxer who was clenching his fists and dancing on his toes. He would be lucky if he made it out of this house with only a broken heart.
“Would you like to sit down, Miss Thompson?” He touched her elbow.
“Yes, Mr. Pendergast,” she whispered.
Alexander guided her to an unoccupied settee and sat down beside her.
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, addressing her family. “I guess that’s all I really have to tell you other than when I got home, I checked all the doors and window locks and told Mrs. McClintok and the boys because I wanted everyone to stay inside until we could all talk.”
“We can’t continue our meeting with him in the room,” the oldest sister, Muireall, said.
Muireall rose to leave, indicating their meeting had ended. The younger brother, Payden, jumped to his feet, and Alexander could see the housekeeper hurrying away when Mrs. Murdoch called for tea and coffee.
“I think you should all wait and hear what I have to say,” Alexander said and took a hard look at James.
“You have nothing to say to us, Mr. Pendergast,” Muireall said.
“Actually, I do, and it concerns the men who followed Miss Thompson.”
Muireall Thompson reseated herself, and Payden dropped down on the arm of his sister’s chair.
“You know them?” James asked.
“Not personally, but I know of them.”
“Start talking, Pendergast.”
He took a deep breath and risked a glance at Elspeth. She was looking worried and unsure, and he had nothing to say to console her—in fact, everything he would say next would do the opposite of consoling her. He would disgust her. “Promise me when we are done here, you will allow me to talk to you and explain things that I worry will not be clear in this telling,” he whispered.
She nodded slowly.
Alexander looked at the Thompson family and plunged into to the story.
“Not long after Miss Thompson and I met the first time, Mr. Schmitt, the city councilman I work for, called me into his office after he’d had a meeting with three men. He asked me to check on a person, on Miss Thompson her siblings.”
“What did you say, boy?” Mrs. Murdoch asked over the gasps from the women in the room.
“I said no, that I would not do it, especially as he would not tell me why. Schmitt,” Alexander said and took a deep breath, “Schmitt also pressured me with a family secret I was unaware of that he threatened to reveal.”
“What secret?” Muireall asked.
“It is not mine to tell,” he said.
“You could be lying. You could be making this all up to insinuate yourself into our family,” Muireall said in a stern, cold voice.
“He is not lying,” Elspeth said at his side. “He told me the day he was told. He was upset, and rightfully so. It was not the thing anyone would want gossiped about. You may think he is lying, but I am sure he is not. And—” Elspeth stopped Muireall from speaking with an outstretched hand. “I believe he was telling me the truth at the time and now as well.”
“When the subject was brought up again by Mr. Schmitt, he threatened to reveal my family’s secret, but I refused.”
“And Schmitt accepted that?” James asked.
“I hinted at what I knew about his son’s dissolute habits and that the woman his son was courting was a close friend of the Pendergasts.”