The Bareknuckle Groom - Holly Bush Page 0,33
I look?”
“Kirsty! Sweetheart. Tell me what has you all aflutter?”
“Oh, James! Alexander’s college friend. I met him at Elspeth’s party. He took me into dinner. He’s speaking tonight at the College of Medicine. Speaking! Alexander thought we might go to support him.”
“Well, then, we should go,” he said and smiled at her. “What is his name?”
“Albert. His name is Albert.”
“Does he have a last name?”
“Oh yes. His name is Albert Watson. He’s British!”
“Kirsty, you must relax. We’re going to have to take the streetcar. I would have rented a carriage for tonight if I’d known,” James said. “Why didn’t Alexander come for you?”
“I told them I wasn’t going,” she said.
“But we’re going now?”
“Yes, James!” she said, her eyes wide. “I’m not a coward. Please hurry and get your coat.”
Amazingly, they found Elspeth and Alexander outside the doors to the lecture hall. Kirsty clung to her sister while he and Alexander shared a smile. Just as they were going into the building, he heard his sister’s name, and they turned in unison.
“Mrs. Pendergast?”
“Hello! How lovely to see you again,” Elspeth said to Louisa Vermeal, nodding to the man beside her.
“Mr. Pendergast. Mr. Thompson. Miss Thompson. May I present a dear friend of mine, Mr. Renaldo Delgado, recently of Spain. These young people are two of his children, Geoffrey and Susannah.”
“Are you going into the lecture?” Alexander asked.
Mr. Delgado nodded. “Geoffrey is very interested in the subject and is considering a career in medicine or science.”
“How long will you be in Philadelphia?” Elspeth asked.
“Perhaps another month,” Mr. Delgado said and glanced at Lucinda’s aunt.
“Are you enjoying your visit?” Elspeth asked his children.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you for asking,” the young man said to Elspeth, who turned to the daughter.
“I heard your party was a grand success and that your artwork collection is very lovely,” she said quietly.
“Thank you! Why don’t you come visit my husband and I some evening?” Elspeth said as she looked at the group. “Or perhaps you and Miss Vermeal can come for tea in the afternoon and leave the menfolk behind.”
The girl’s eyes lit up, and she looked at Lucinda’s aunt.
“I think we would enjoy that very much, wouldn’t we, Susannah?” Miss Vermeal replied.
“We’d best go in,” Kirsty said. “We don’t want to be late. It was very nice meeting you.”
“MacAvoy?” James hollered up a set of steps in the carriage house behind Elspeth and Alexander’s house. “MacAvoy? Are you here?”
“James? Come up. Come up and see.”
James walked up the flight of steps beyond a ground-floor door surrounded by an arch of roses. He could smell soap as he ascended and heard the chatter of a young child. He stepped into a large room where MacAvoy was painting walls. Various buckets of paint and mops and rags were scattered around the room. A little girl, her long hair plaited, in a paint-stained dress and pinafore, glanced up at him and ran at MacAvoy. He scooped her up in one arm and kissed her forehead.
“Mary, sweetheart, no need to be scared. This is my very best friend. His name is Mr. Thompson.”
The child clung to his neck and peeped out at James.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Mary.” James smiled at the little girl, a miniature of her mother. She shimmied down MacAvoy’s side, picked up a rag doll, and kissed its face. “What are you doing painting in Elspeth’s carriage house?”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” MacAvoy went on excitedly. “Eleanor and Mary and I are going to live here once we’re married. Alexander has been intending for a few years to fix it up for an employee, but he’d never gotten around to it. Elspeth suggested he rent it to us so Eleanor is close to her work. I can easily afford the rent and still save for a house. And there’s a small Catholic church two blocks away with a school. Mary can go there next year and learn her letters.”
MacAvoy led him through the large room, telling him where Eleanor intended to put their table and chairs and how sofas and overstuffed chairs would sit near the fireplace for them to sit together as a family after a long day of work. He showed him the bedrooms, one large and two smaller ones, and the other room where a stove and icebox would go when they arrived. A workman was building cupboards and running pipes for the water in the kitchen and in the bathing room. It would be cozy and perfect for MacAvoy’s small family.
James