The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,73

me.” There was something very calming about those words. The clatter in his brain relegated to a background symphony when he allowed himself to dream of a future with Elspeth. He’d not spent hours considering the good reasons and the wrong ones for marrying her, and yet he was completely confident that she was the reason for his very existence on this earth.

“Let’s hope they’ve not . . . hurt her,” MacAvoy whispered as James let out a string of curses. Alexander turned to him.

“It won’t matter to me. Whatever burdens she bears, I’ll carry it for her until she’s ready. I’ll give her my strength as long as she needs.”

“Go, then. Go get her,” Payden said.

Alexander looked each man in the eye and took off at a run to find Graham and his men.

There was something going on in the main room of the warehouse. Elspeth had her ear to the door, listening as men came and went and as the giggly man, Wallace, she knew now, and Jasper, the rough-voiced one, screamed at other men, sometimes in disbelief. She’d taken off two of her heavy petticoats and her shoes, thinking they might hamper her if she had a chance to run, feeling certain that something was about to happen. Wallace mentioned six o’clock many times, and she knew it was very close to that time now as light was filtering around the slats on the window. She heard arguments and someone coming to her door. She backed away quickly and crouched against the wall.

“Get up,” Jasper shouted and dragged her to the outer room. She blinked, trying to focus against the sudden stream of sun shining through a large window.

Wallace strolled over to her. “Your brother Payden will be arriving soon. Your other brother is dead, and we’ve locked everyone in your family in the Locust Street house and set it afire.”

Elspeth said nothing. She would not allow herself to cry in front of them. She would not be hysterical. She would fight with her last breath.

“Who might be working with them, thinking themselves a hero?” Wallace said and giggled, looking around at the men standing there, a few of them chuckling nervously.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

The blow hit the side of her face with such force that her head touched her shoulder as she catapulted away, landing in the hands of one of the men listening to Wallace. They passed her from man to man, pulling at her clothes and her hair. The flesh on the inside of her mouth was bleeding profusely, and she was sputtering blood, trying not to swallow it. A hand was snaking down her bodice when the window behind them broke with a crash of glass.

“Elspeth!” she heard Alexander shout. “Elspeth!”

Before she could form a reply, Jasper pulled her away from the men and dragged her to the room she’d been held in. She let her limbs go weak, making him pull her to him as he walked through the door. She let the rope go from around her hands and moaned as loudly as she could while her hand found the hilt of the dagger and pulled it from its sheath. She heard screaming from the other room, men scurrying to do Wallace’s bidding, and she heard gunfire. Over it all, she heard Alexander’s voice calling to her. He’d come for her, and she could not let him face them all alone. She felt her strength return and a calm settle over her.

Once in the room, Elspeth drove her arm from behind her back with every ounce of strength she had as she twisted to face the man holding her, the dagger sinking deep in Jasper’s stomach. She pulled it out with a twist as his eyes widened in shock and his mouth opened in an O. She slashed at his neck, blood everywhere now, and she did not stop even as the hilt of the knife grew slick. He grabbed the side of his neck and pushed away from her. Wallace was watching from the doorway, his eyes wide.

Elspeth faced him, both arms raised, one holding the jeweled dagger. She bent her knees and charged, barefoot, screaming out a battle cry that she’d heard from James—and maybe others in her memory. Wallace was wide-eyed as she drove forward, straight into him, driving the dagger into his side.

Alexander had thrown the rock through the high window when they heard yelling inside. He and Graham had chased down and scrapped with several