The Bachelor's Bride (The Thompsons of Locust Street #1) - Holly Bush Page 0,75

she cried. “I thought they had you. Thought MacAvoy had betrayed us.”

MacAvoy stood behind Payden. “Never, Elspeth. Never. But we had to have a bit of drama to get you away. And who was the berserker that came out of that room like a mad woman?” He laughed softly.

“She’s the biddable one, don’t you know,” James said.

“My dagger.” She glanced at the doorway to the room she’d come out of. “Get my dagger! And the pearls! They’re MacTavish pearls.”

James stood and picked the dagger up from the floor, glancing in the open door of the room and then going inside. He came out clutching the pearls and wiping the blade on his shirttail. “Who’s the man in there? Do you know, Elspeth?” he asked quietly.

She leaned back into Alexander’s arms and buried her head in his chest. He kissed her hair. “Tell us later, sweetheart, or don’t ever tell us.”

Alexander watched as Graham, MacAvoy, and Payden went into the room and came back out grim-faced.

Chapter 19

Elspeth woke slowly as sunlight filtered through curtains. Her eyes fluttered, and she wondered why her head was pounding and her throat was so dry. She touched her lip with her tongue and realized it was swollen and sore. She tasted blood. She closed her eyes, and there was a man shouting in her face, threatening her, telling her that James was dead. She opened her eyes wide and shouted and struggled with the heavy blankets over her, trying to sit up, to get away, to find Payden and the rest of her family.

“Shhh,” a reedy voice said and pushed her slowly back to the pillow. “Everything is fine now. You are here at home. Shhh.”

Elspeth lay back against the pillow and looked up. “Aunt Murdoch,” she mumbled and started to cry. “They told me they set fire to the house and that you were all dead.”

“No, dear,” Aunt Murdoch said and shook her head. She was smiling. “No, we’re all here and well. Let me put some salve on your lips.”

She stared into the rheumy eyes of her aunt as she dabbed cream on Elspeth’s cut and throbbing lip with a shaking hand. Aunt Murdoch wiped her fingers on her apron and pushed them through Elspeth’s hair. “Can you sit up a bit for me? I’ve got your hair almost brushed out.”

Aunt helped her sit up and propped pillows behind her neck and back. It felt good to be nearly upright, although it made her light-headed at first. She took a sip of water from the glass held to the side of her mouth that was not swollen. She looked at her hands then, cut and open and raw but with some scabs forming, her nails broken, her knuckles skinless on her right hand. She winced trying to spread her fingers. Aunt busied herself touching the cuts with salve.

“I’ll file your nails even when some of these cuts heal,” Aunt Murdoch said. She hummed a song that Elspeth had heard a thousand times as a young child. “There’s someone whose been sitting outside this door for two days now.”

Elspeth’s mind was just beginning clear, she realized. She knew she was at her home on Locust Street. She flinched thinking about her time in the warehouse, about that man, about his mouth on hers and . . . she shuddered. She looked up at her aunt, who was now patiently brushing her hair.

“Who is waiting outside the door?”

“Mr. Pendergast. He has been sitting on the floor or leaning against the wall except for the few hours he naps in the spare room.”

She swallowed. “Why is he there? What is he waiting for?”

Aunt straightened her white nightgown. “A glimpse of you, that’s what he’s waiting for.”

She blinked back tears. “He can’t really want to see me. He can’t.”

“Why ever not? He came for you, didn’t he? Do you remember?”

“Some of it.” She took a few short breaths and pulled helplessly at the quilt. She could hear her aunt telling her to calm herself as if she were far away, in another room or another time. Panic rose in her throat, and she saw her dagger in her hand, covered in blood. She was breathing hard and felt as if she were drowning or flying or not connected to her real self. Her heart was pounding.

“Alexander!” she whispered and then said his name again louder. “Alexander!”

He heard her call his name and pulled himself up off the floor. She was awake, and he hoped she was conscious