by Holly Bush
“Where’s the boy? Do we have the boy so I can kill this bitch?”
But his men weren’t responding; they were being held on the ground, several dead or dying, as other men swarmed them. He backed up slowly, pulling his gun out of his pocket and putting it against her temple. There was one man walking toward him through the carnage, staring at them, focused and deadly. His face was covered with black polish, and his mouth was bleeding. Elspeth wanted to cry at the sight of him, but she kept still and quiet.
“Stop,” he said. “Stop or I’ll blow her brains out.”
“The boy is coming,” Alexander said. “We’re bringing him here, but you won’t get him if you kill her. Put the gun down.”
“I want to see him!”
MacAvoy walked forward from the back of the room, his arm wrapped around Payden, a knife at the boy’s throat. “Get rid of the woman and follow me. I’ve got men and horses outside. We can get him to the ship, I tell you.”
“Who are you?”
“MacAvoy be my name, and my family died at the hands of the MacTavishes. Leave the woman. We’ll be able to make the tide. Hurry!”
Elspeth’s eyes widened in disbelief, and she struggled as Wallace dragged her around the side of the room toward the door.
“Go,” MacAvoy said. “Go! I’m right behind you!”
Wallace pushed Elspeth away and lurched through the door.
Alexander charged for Elspeth as she landed hard on her side, her body going slack. He picked her up in his arms, leaned back against the wall, and slid down until he touched the floor. He was crying. He couldn’t stop himself and didn’t care who saw him.
“Elspeth. My God, Elspeth,” he whispered against her hair.
She was moaning softly as she regained consciousness, tossing her head back and forth until her eyes opened and she recognized him.
“Alexander.”
Suddenly, she tried to wrench out of his arms and sit up. “Hurry,” she said, her words slurred due to the side of her face and her lips being swollen twice their size. “Hurry! How could MacAvoy do this to us? And James is dead! Hurry! We’ve got to save Payden.”
He shook his head and held her shoulders. “MacAvoy is not a traitor to the MacTavishes. He did it to get him to release you. It was our only chance, with a gun at your temple.”
Tears filled his eyes again just as James knelt before him. He looked quickly away while Elspeth scrambled to her knees and threw herself into her brother’s arms.
“My dearest girl,” James whispered and closed his arms around her. “You’re alive.”
Elspeth sobbed against James. She turned and reached out her hand to Alexander. He took it and kissed her bloody and torn palm, the rope burns above it raw.
“They said you were dead,” she said to James.
“I’m here and alive, and we need to get you to a doctor,” he said. Payden knelt down beside his brother.
Elspeth’s lip, fat and cut, trembled. “Payden,” 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 as she had not been since he carried her inside, refusing that day to relinquish her to James or MacAvoy until he was able to lay her down on her own bed. And then Murdoch shouting orders to Kirsty and Muireall as she stripped Elspeth’s clothes and shooed the men from the room.
He’d been waiting in the hallway since then. What day was it? He’d taken advantage of the bathing room and had Mrs. Emory send him clean clothes. He’d slept little and eaten whatever Kirsty Thompson brought him. He didn’t really care what he ate. His parents came to the Thompson house, but he refused to go downstairs. He told Muireall to tell them that he would be home soon. That Elspeth would awaken, and then he would be able to breathe again.
He opened the door slowly as her sisters and aunt had said she was jumping and crying at any loud noi
se. He forced a smile on his face, wanting to rail instead at her bruised and swollen face.
“Elspeth?” he said softly. “Elspeth. It’s Alexander. I heard you call my name.”
Her chest was rising and falling as she took harsh breaths through her cut lips. Her hands fluttered in her lap, and she picked at the bandages around her wrists. She was staring at him, but he wasn’t sure she was seeing him. Aunt Murdoch had made herself scarce on the other side of the room.
She looked up at him and saw him, he believed. “Alexander?”
He nodded and smiled. “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered and reached out her hand. He took it in both of his, and she stared as he stroked her fingers lightly. “Am I hurting you?”
She shook her head and closed her eyes. “Aunt Murdoch says everyone is fine. They told me they set the house on fire and that James was dead and that . . .”
“Your family is fine.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I didn’t know if you would come for me.”
Alexander sat down on her bed, eliciting a harrumph from Aunt Murdoch that he ignored. “I’ll always come for you. Always.”
“I thought of you,” she whispered and then shuddered. “I thought of you when he put his mouth on me. I thought of you.”
He nodded and forced himself to relax and speak slowly and softly when he wanted to kill someone, even though the man he wanted to kill was already dead—and by her hand, he suspected. He wanted to shout and rant and pound his fists, but it would frighten her, and that would never do. “I’m glad you thought of me. I was so worried about you.”
“I thought . . . I thought they would kill you. There were so many of them.”
“We are all fine. Your brothers, Payden and James. Your sisters. Your aunt. Mrs. McClintok and Robert. Everyone is well.”
She let out a ragged breath. “Yes. Yes. Aunt told me, but it doesn’t always feel true.”
“It’s true,” he said. “Will you trust me?”
She nodded slowly and turned her head to look out the window. She leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes. “I was so afraid.”
“So was I.”
Elspeth was seated at a small table that James had carried into her bedroom. She was eating soup, and Muireall was sitting across from her, glancing in a ledger over the tops of her spectacles. “We’ve got a new customer. One of the vendors you and Kirsty talked to at the Bainbridge Street Market. They’re going to take green beans to start.”
Elspeth dabbed her lips. The cuts on her mouth and inside her cheeks were mostly healed, although dark bruises were still visible on her face from her ear to her nose. Aunt Murdoch would be taking the stitches out of the back of her head in a few days, and her hands were mostly scabbed now and the skin so itchy she’d been wearing gloves to bed so she wouldn’t scratch open the gashes during the night.
“The men at the warehouse where I was held,” she looked at Muireall, “were any of them Cameron Plowman?”
“No. None of the dead or imprisoned have been identified as Plowman.”
“So we are still in danger.”
Muireall nodded and closed her ledger. “We are, but from what James and the Pendergasts’ security man, Graham, have been able to find out, Plowman’s forces here have been decimated. If Plowman intends to continue this, which he will, he must rebuild.”
“Who is tending Dunacres? Has Plowman taken it over?”
“No. It is being overseen by the Crown and still retains many of the staff loyal to our family. Word has been sent to trusted men in London and Edinburgh about this attack. They will tell the authorities what has happened, and I believe it will only strengthen our case.”
“Are we safe, do you think?” Elspeth whispered.
“For the time being, yes, but we always should be on our guard.”
Elspeth folded and unfolded her linen napkin. She straightened the spoon where it lay on the table and moved her glass of cold tea an inch or two. “I will always be on my guard, Muireall,” she whispered. “Always.”
Her sister nodded and looked at her closely. “I imagine so. Are you ready to talk about what happened?”
“I may never be ready.”
“That is fine. Or not. You must decide what you wish to reveal and what will go with you to your grave.” Muireall stood, gathered the ledger, and went to the door of Elspeth’s room.
“He put his mouth on me,” she said.
Muireall stopped, her hand on the doorknob. She did not turn. “Did he?”
Elspeth looked at her sister’s back. “He grabbed my breast and pulled and twisted it,” she said quietly.
“I saw the bruises on you when we tended you.”
“He put my hand on him.” She cleared her throat. “On his crotch. On his member. He called it his cock and said I would learn to like it.”
Muireall’s shoulders rose and fell on a breath. “Bastard.”
“He did not . . . I removed my petticoats in case I had to run. He did not unclothe me . . . or touch my . . .” She calmed herself. She wanted to allay fears. She knew her family was concerned. She believed they both wanted to know and wished to never be told. “I was not raped,” she whispered.
Muireall rested her head against the door. “Thank the Lord. I am glad you told me. None of us has said that word, but we were all worried for you, and for your recovery.”
“My debt is to you, Muireall. I defended myself with the dagger you gave me. I killed a man,” she said, and her sister turned to look at her. “I focused on that blade when I thought all was lost and that I would be . . . abused, if not killed. I thought about what you said. That MacTavish women before me had defended themselves and their families. It gave me strength. The thought of you and Aunt Murdoch and Kirsty and Payden and James, and Robbie and Mrs. McClintok, and MacAvoy too. I thought of Mother and Father. I thought of Mr. Pendergast. I thought of all of you when I stuck that blade home.”
“It is a miracle that you lived, Elspeth. We are all thankful for that above all. The horrors you lived through? I am in awe of you. How very brave you were. Mother and Father would be so proud. Now get some rest, Sister.”
Elspeth watched the door close. She stood slowly, walked to the window, and lifted the sash. The air was close and warm and made her think of picnics long ago when she was young. She could hear a neighbor calling to children and the rattle of a buggy as it made its way down the street. She was alive!
Alexander knocked on the door of the Thompson residence just after noontime on Sunday, imagining the family was long returned from church. He stopped by often but had not seen Elspeth since the day she called out to him. She was keeping to her rooms and had not wanted any visitors for more than two weeks. Only her sisters, aunt, and Mrs. McClintok entered her room. He was missing her desperately as he rubbed his knuckles over his chest, trying to lessen the physical pain he felt with her absence.
“Ah, Mr. Pendergast,” Mrs. McClintok said when she opened the door. “You are just in time for dinner.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
She shook her head, and he followed her down the hallway to the dining room. “Mr. Pendergast is here, Miss Thompson. I told him that dinner was just being served.”
“Come in, Mr. Pendergast,” Muireall said. “We’ll make a place for you.”
“Sit down, Pendergast,” James said when Alexander began to protest. “Mrs. McClintok has roasted chicken for us, and there are her famous dumplings too.”
Alexander sat down and unfolded his napkin. As he did, everyone’s attention turned to the door of the dining room, where Elspeth stood. He, Payden, and James immediately stood.
“Elspeth?” Aunt Murdoch laughed. “Did you hear that there were dumplings for dinner?”
She stood in the door, pale and taking deep breaths. She smiled. “I did hear that, Aunt.”
“I’ve taken your place, Miss Thompson,” he said. “Please sit.”
“That�
�s no problem, Mr. Pendergast. We can easily fit another chair here, between you and her sister,” Mrs. McClintok said and hurried away for a place setting.
James pulled a chair from the side of the room and smiled at her. “Here you are,” he said as he pushed the chair between Alexander and Kirsty.
Alexander waited while she stood at the doorway. Everyone else began talking, he thought perhaps to make her feel that she was not the center of everyone’s focus. He smiled at her and held the back of the chair as she slowly walked toward him. There was some truth to the poet’s saying that time occasionally stopped. It was if the two of them were completely alone and that her arrival at the table had much greater significance than sitting down for a meal.
Alexander seated himself after helping Elspeth with her chair. Mrs. McClintok reached around her and put a plate and silverware in front of her.
“Would you like some wine, Miss Elspeth?” the housekeeper said.
“Ah,” she began and stopped to clear her throat as everyone at the table waited for her to speak. “No. No, thank you. Just some water, please.”
Conversation resumed again, and Alexander leaned close. “May I serve you some chicken? It looks delicious.”
“Mrs. McClintok’s meals are always delicious. She is my cousin, you know,” she said softly.
Muireall glanced at the two of them, but Elspeth didn’t appear to notice. “The green beans are very good too, Elspeth,” she said. “We’ve got several crates of them in the basement, ready to be canned.”
Elspeth’s head came up and she looked at Muireall. “I’ve been remiss. You and Kirsty have had to do my share of the work in the kitchens, haven’t you?”
“No, they haven’t,” Payden barked from the other side of the table. “Robert and I have been doing the extra, but we don’t mind. We got to skip reading Homer!”