“Get in, girls,” MacAvoy said.
“No. We’re going to split up. Take James on a roundabout route until you know that no one is following you. Mr. Pendergast and Kirsty and I are going to take to the alley in case they follow us. Hurry! I can see one pointing at us!” Elspeth grabbed her sister’s hand. She looked at Alexander. “Hurry. You’re with us!”
“Why are they following us, Elspeth?” Kirsty said as they rounded a carriage house and plunged into the darkness of an alley where the streetlamps didn’t reach.
“I don’t know,” Elspeth answered in a breathy voice. “Wait. Stop here. I think I can hear them. Yes. They’re coming.”
“Follow me,” Kirsty said.
“I can’t see a foot in front of my face,” Pendergast said.
“Take my hand. I’ve got Kirsty’s,” she whispered.
The three of them crept through an open gate and crouched behind a low wall. Alexander was near the end of the wall and watched as the lantern one of the men held swung by. They could hear their low conversation. “They must have ducked in somewheres. In this gloom, we’ll never find them.”
“Shut up and follow me,” the other voice said.
“Come,” Pendergast whispered. “We’re going back the way we came.”
“Good idea,” Kirsty said. “We can go one more street over and up that alley. Then we can cut through Mrs. Mingo’s yard to our own kitchen entrance.”
The three of them crept back into the alleyway to the entrance where it met the street, and they were once again visible in the streetlamps.
“There they are!” they heard from behind.
“Go!” Pendergast shouted to them as he turned back to their pursuers. “Go! Run!”
Elspeth grabbed Kirsty’s hand and ran down the street toward the alley behind Mrs. Mingo’s, but she stopped when she heard gravel crunching under feet, shouted curses, and a dog barking in the distance.
“We can’t leave him,” she said, looking up at Kirsty’s filthy face and disheveled hair. “Go. I can’t leave him. He may need my help.”
Kirsty shook her head and hurried to a pile of trash near the entrance of the alley. She picked up a board and handed it to Elspeth, then picked up one of her own. “Come on!”
Elspeth turned on her heel and ran, skidding to a stop when she saw that Alexander was being held by both arms by one man while the other man punched him relentlessly in the stomach and face. The air in her nostrils was suddenly cold, and the sounds of the night were muted. She would kill him, this behemoth swinging massive arms and fists, connecting with bone and muscle.
She ran at him and swung the plank, connecting solidly with the side of the man’s head. Her momentum carried her to the ground, and she landed hard on her side. She looked up as the man turned, enraged, and bent toward her, holding his ear in one hand and reaching for her with the other.
“You bitch!” he said.
“Stay away from my sister,” Kirsty screamed as she raised the board and brought it crashing down on the back of the man’s head.
The man stumbled and dropped on top of Elspeth. She wriggled and pushed while Kirsty pulled and dragged him off of her. She sat up in time to see Alexander escape the other man’s hold. Alexander landed a hard punch to the man’s chin, and he dropped to his knees. Before she could say anything, he was leaning over her, pulling her to her feet. He held her by the shoulders, blood dripping from his nose and lip, his eye already beginning to close as he searched her face.
“You must do what I tell you to do!” he sputtered.
“Who are you to tell me—”
“I was to keep you and your sister safe. You could have been home by now!”
“I couldn’t leave you,” Elspeth said as she realized she’d begun crying. “He was hitting you, and you couldn’t fight back.”
He put his hands on her cheeks, cold and dirty against her skin. She put her hands over his and looked up at him, searching his face. It seemed as though the two of them were locked in their own world, without noise or sisters or brothers or strangers. Just Elspeth and Alexander, talking softly or not at all, and telling each other unsaid things.
“I was letting them beat me so you had enough time to make your escape,” he whispered and touched his forehead to hers. “They would have tired of hitting me, or I would have had a chance to get away, but not before I knew that you were near safety.”
“I didn’t know,” Elspeth said.
“Perhaps we should get home now before one of these men wakes up or Muireall sends for the police,” Kirsty said from behind them, breaking into their quiet world.
“Yes.” Alexander looked at the men on the ground and took her hand in his. “Hurry now before they’re able to give chase.”
They ran down the alley, past the carriage house, to the kitchen door at the Thompson residence. Lights were blazing on every floor. There would be no quiet entrance for any of them.
“Here they are,” Payden shouted when Elspeth opened the door.
Muireall came running and pulled her sisters into her arms. “Oh my dear Lord, I was so worried when MacAvoy told me you were at the fight!”
“Where is James?” Elspeth asked as she shrugged out of her coat. “How is he?”
“What is he doing here?” Muireall said when she saw Alexander.
“He saved us when some men were chasing us, Muireall,” Elspeth said. “You must say nothing unkind to him. I won’t permit it.”
Muireall glared at her. “What were you doing at that fight anyway?”
“It’s my fault,” Kirsty said and lifted her chin. “I wanted to see James fight, and Elspeth saw me as I was leaving. She followed me to keep me safe. Don’t blame her. I’m to blame.”
“Can we discuss this tomorrow? Mr. Pendergast needs attention, and I want to see James,” Elspeth said.
Muireall stared at her, and Elspeth could feel herself shrinking inward, questioning everything she did or felt, which was often the way it was under Muireall’s scrutiny. But she forced herself to look back at her sister and not look away. Muireall turned and went to the stairs.
“Come,” she said over her shoulder. “We’ve got James in his bed. Bring Mr. Pendergast. Aunt Murdoch is stitching James’s face. She’ll stitch Mr. Pendergast too, if he has anything that needs it. I want to know about these men chasing you, but we’ll discuss it later.”
Kirsty followed Muireall. Elspeth turned to Alexander and held out her hand.
He shook his head and stared into her eyes. “I’ll make my way home. My housekeeper has some experience tending cuts.”
“Come with me.”
“Your sister doesn’t want me here.”
Elspeth stepped close to him. “But I do,” she whispered. “You saved us. Come, let me tend to you.”
Chapter 9
Alexander let himself be led to an upstairs bedroom. He should have insisted on leaving when he first arrived, having gotten the Thompson sisters home safely, but now he was light-headed and short of breath. He would never be able to make it to his home on his own, and truth be told, he was enjoying Elspeth’s attention. He would have kissed her when he pulled her into his arms from where she lay on the ground if his lip wasn’t already swollen and bleeding. It was enough for now, he supposed, that she swayed into his arms, bringing her body flush against his and her face close enough that he could feel her breath on his cheeks when she whispered.