“We’ve got to talk to Muireall,” she said.
Kirsty shook her head. “She’s gone to the Sister’s Orphanage. She’ll be gone all day.”
“James?”
“Out with MacAvoy, watching a bout.”
“Where is Aunt?”
“At the Mingos’. She’s visiting with Mr. Mingo’s mother.”
“Is Mrs. McClintok here? Payden? Robert?”
Kirsty nodded. “All in the kitchen, I think. Mrs. McClintok had the boys peeling potatoes.”
Elspeth pushed herself away from the wall and handed Kirsty her basket. “Here. Take this with you to the kitchen and lock the kitchen door. I’ll be there in a moment, but I am going to check window locks first.”
Elspeth pulled her bonnet from her head and went through the house methodically, looking at every window and entrance, closing and locking it all up tight. Then she made her way to the downstairs kitchens.
“What is going on?” Mrs. McClintok asked. “Kirsty said a man followed you home.”
“He did. Two men followed me from the market. I slipped into the bookstore and out the bakery door, but he must have already known where we live because he was leaning against the tree in front of Mr. Ervin’s, looking at our house.”
“Come on, Robert! Let’s go get him!” Payden jumped from his place at the table, throwing down his paring knife and wiping his hands on his pants.
“Sit down, Payden,” Elspeth said sharply. “Sit down right now. You too, Robert. These men are dangerous. We are going to keep to the house until we can talk to Muireall and James as a family. No one go outside, and keep the doors locked.”
“Yes, miss,” Mrs. McClintok said. “That is exactly what we are going to do, Robert? Payden?”
“Yes, Mum,” Robert said.
Payden looked at Elspeth and dropped to his seat. “We’ll see what James says, Lizzie.”
Elspeth was helping Mrs. McClintok with the produce a few minutes later when she heard the front door slam. She and Kirsty ran up the steps and down the hallway, where Robert stood looking out the window by the door. He looked at them ruefully.
“I couldn’t stop him,” he said.
That’s when she heard Payden shouting.
“Come out now! Come out and fight like a man! I’m warning you to stay away from my sisters!”
Muireall’s face went completely white when Elspeth told her that two men had followed her home. She was seated beside Aunt Murdoch, who was listening attentively, her rheumy eyes darting from Muireall to James, who stood leaning against the fireplace mantel. Kirsty sat in a chair with Payden on the floor at her feet. Elspeth stood as she told everyone what had happened, unable to settle herself into a chair, her back to the parlor door, where Mrs. McClintok stood just outside the room in the hallway. Robert sat on the floor in the hall, holding his knees in front of him and scrambling to his feet as his mother answered a knock at the front door.
Elspeth was trying desperately to hold on to her emotions. She was afraid. She’d admitted it to herself, but she did not want to scare Kirsty and Payden unduly. If they weren’t cautious, though, Payden especially would be bold and perhaps put himself in danger more than just shouting into the wind from the street in front of their home. And it would be her fault.
“Details, Elspeth,” James said. “I want to hear everything that happened. Everything you noticed.”
Elspeth recounted the young boy who’d bumped into her and prompted her to notice the two men. “They were looking straight at me from across the street. One of them was the one that hit Mr. Pendergast the night of the fight. I recognized him right away.
“I slipped into the bookstore, Plymouth’s—you know the one, Muireall. They keep their back door open to the alley. I went through Lattanzio’s Bakery’s kitchen and out their front door. I was running by that point,” Elspeth said and realized her voice had gone high-pitched and breathy. “I was running, bumping into people, and looking over my shoulder, worried I’d see them at the corner of Seventh.”
“Elspeth,” she heard from behind her and turned to see Alexander Pendergast in the doorway to the parlor. “Elspeth. Are you all right?”
James pushed away from the mantel, and Muireall jumped up from her chair, shouting and demanding that he tell them what his business was and why he would barge into their parlor when they were having a family meeting.
“Alexander,” she whispered and felt tears fill her eyes.
Three long strides and he was there, holding her arms gently, gazing into her eyes, and reaching into his coat for a handkerchief. Her brothers and sisters were shouting, but she did not hear them.
“I was so afraid,” she said. He put his arms around her, and it was the first time she’d felt safe that entire day, sobbing into his coat. “I ran. I ran as fast as I could,” she whispered.
He kissed her hair. “Of course you did.”
She leaned back to look at his face. “Then he was across the street, leaning against the tree in front of Mr. Ervin’s house. He knows where we live.”
“Unhand her!” James shouted. “This very minute, if you know what’s good for you Pendergast!”
“Oh, stuff it, James,” Kirsty said with a shrug. “She had a terrible fright, and I don’t see any of you offering her comfort.”
“He is not family!” Muireall shouted, red-faced.
“He will be when he marries her,” Kirsty said, seemingly unfazed by Muireall’s clenched fists and shouts.
“Kirsty!” Elspeth said. “Please!”
“What? Look at him. Just look at him. He’s taken with you and has been for some time, if I’m not mistaken,” Kirsty said.
“Get out!” Muireall said to Alexander and pointed to the door. “You do not belong here. You are not a Thompson.”
He looked at Elspeth and smiled gently. “What do you want me to do? Shall I stay, or shall I go? It’s in your hands.”
Elspeth felt like she was at a precipice, looking down into a deep and vast canyon, into the unknown, but as if her answer might set a course for her entire life—and indeed, it very well might. She stared at Alexander. She was connected to him in some strange and unknown fashion, and there was no denying he calmed her. She looked up at him with red-rimmed, tear-filled eyes. She needed him.
“Please stay.”
He supposed it was at that moment that he knew that he’d fallen in love with her. And what he would say in the next several ticks of the mantel clock would undoubtedly mean that she might never return his feelings. But he had decided to follow his father’s advice. He needed to be truthful with her and with her family, and that included the boxer who was clenching his fists and dancing on his toes. He would be lucky if he made it out of this house with only a broken heart.
“Would you like to sit down, Miss Thompson?” He touched her elbow.
“Yes, Mr. Pendergast,” she whispered.
Alexander guided her to an unoccupied settee and sat down beside her.
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, addressing her family. “I guess that’s all I really have to tell you other than when I got home, I checked all the doors and window locks and told Mrs. McClintok and the boys because I wanted everyone to stay inside until we could all talk.”