The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,64

evening was not turning out like he’d planned.

He'd been hoping to have time to speak to her privately, to dance, to discuss inconsequential things or politics or philosophy—he didn’t care which. He wanted to get to know her better, even though his heart said he already knew her well. For the first time in his life, he was contemplating marriage, a commitment to the woman he would spend his life with, who would bear his children. He was terrified and fascinated by his own thoughts all at the same time. Was this love?

But then she’d walked in looking as if she were a queen from long ago with that long, graceful neck and pearls draped over her bosom, where he longed to touch. He wanted her all. Her everything. He wanted her heart and her body and . . . her, he just wanted her.

Alexander shook his head. He would not be rambunctious or impatient or guided by his sexual needs. Not when planning to spend the rest of his life, his every living day, with the same female. He wanted her beyond words, but would he always, a little voice whispered in his ear. He would take his time and be certain. He didn’t want to make the same mistakes his father had.

“Sir? Mr. Pendergast? Did you hear what I said?”

Alexander shook his head, just noticing that Graham was red in the face and breathing hard. “I didn’t. I’m sorry. What is it?”

“A man in the alley at the end of your street. He was loitering, and one of my men approached him and told him to get going and got hit in the head for his trouble. He just got back to the property, sir. The description of the man could match one of the men who chased you after that bare-knuckle match.”

Alexander followed Graham, looking over his shoulder one last time to see Muireall approaching her sister on the arm of that gasbag, Nils Witherspoon. Elspeth was there between James and Payden, watching her approach. She’d be safe.

They found the agent in the kitchen, holding a towel full of ice to his head.

“What can you remember, Jeffers?”

“I think he was hiding something when I saw him. He stood up quickly, but he was kneeling when I first saw him, facing the side of an outbuilding at the back of a neighbor’s property. He walked toward me, all friendly like, saying he was searching for his dog. He pointed to where I’d seen him kneeling, and, like an amateur, I looked where he wanted. Then I woke up, and he was gone.”

“I want to see where he was kneeling, Graham. Get a lantern,” Alexander said and turned back to Jeffers. “Tell me exactly where you saw him.”

“Lock the door behind us,” Graham said. “Don’t open it unless I give you the signal. We should be no longer than ten minutes.”

The two men walked through the gardens and past the stable and the carriage house, into the alleyway. Alexander turned right and pointed. “I think he was kneeling there, behind that shed. That is what Jeffers was describing.”

The walked hurriedly and looked through the high weeds against the small building. Graham found the door and shook his head. “They couldn’t have been inside. The lock and the latch are rusted shut. If they left something, it would have been there.”

Alexander shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. What would they be doing at this property? Hiding weapons? The grasses and weeds aren’t even bent over.”

“It makes sense if they wanted to get you or I out of the house, though,” Graham said.

Alexander looked at him, his face distorted and grim from the lantern’s shadows. “Well, they’ve succeeded if that was what they set out to do, then, haven’t they?”

“Let’s go!” Graham started to run down the alleyway, back to the Pendergast mansion, the lamp swinging wildly in his hand.

Alexander hurried to follow him, running down the alleyway and turning through the gates of his mother’s elaborate gardens, close to the heels of the man in front of him. Graham skidded to a stop and pounded three times on the door, waited, and pounded twice more. The door swung open, and they went inside just as all the gas lights and sconces sputtered off. They were plunged into darkness.

“Shut the door and lock it!” Graham shouted and held up his lantern.

“The gas line!” Alexander shouted. “Careful with that lantern, Graham.”

Alexander could hear shouting and a rumble of feet running on