“Thank you for hearing me out today,” he said and looked at James. “I wanted to make sure that you knew how dire the threat was.”
James stood and shook Alexander’s hand.
“Holy Mother of Jesus,” Kirsty whispered. “James is shaking his hand.”
“I think he should stay,” Aunt Murdoch said.
James glanced at her and back at Alexander. “He should stay, Muireall.”
“I run this family. I have run this family for thirteen years. I have no intention of allowing an outsider to hear personal family matters. The subject is too large, too dangerous to have just anyone off the street privy to information they could use against us.”
“We know you run the family,” James said. “Rightfully so. But you are not thinking clearly. He has guarded the girls and has come here and told us about Schmitt and the men after him, knowing it may jeopardize his personal wishes.”
“Can you not see?” Aunt Murdoch said. “Kirsty is right. He is fond of Elspeth, maybe more than fond. I don’t believe he would put her at risk.”
“What happens when he moves on to the next pretty young girl in his orbit? What happens then? Would he bandy about the Thompson story over a tumbler of brandy?”
Alexander looked at Muireall. “You may dislike me for whatever reason you wish, but it is not fair for you to label me unworthy and without character. If something is told to me in confidence, then in confidence it will stay. I do appreciate that you’ll want to discuss this family matter privately, though. I’ll be on my way. Miss Thompson? Will you walk me to the door?”
Elspeth led him down the hallway and handed him his hat and coat. “Thank you for telling us what you know.”
He nodded and then put a finger under her chin to bring her eyes to his. “I never told him anything. I’m only slightly acquainted with your family and really didn’t have anything to say, but even still, I wouldn’t have done it.”
“What if Mr. Schmitt had told you why? You said ‘especially as he would not tell me why.’ What if he had told you everything, Mr. Pendergast? What if he had?”
He shook his head. “I would never put you in danger. I couldn’t.”
“But why? We barely know each other. Our families could not be more different.” She looked away. “And that day at the market. You hurried away from me as if the hounds of hell were on your heels. Maybe you were embarrassed by my cart full of canned goods.”
Alexander laced his fingers with hers and brought their hands up between them. “No. That was never it. I . . . I was worried that if I got to know you better, you would tell me something that I would be tempted to tell Schmitt if he threatened my family. I thought it best to remove the temptation.”
“But you have changed your mind? Won’t the temptation be too great?”
“No,” he whispered and touched her cheek with his hand. “I can’t think of anything that would make me put you in any danger.”
Alexander was staring at her mouth and moved his thumb to touch her lower lip. Her insides were racing, her heart pounding, and her breaths coming quickly. He leaned his face closer and closer until their noses touched, their lips barely apart. She looked into his eyes, and he was looking back at her, his blue eyes open and focused.
And then he leaned the last inch or so until his lips met hers. She sighed, the long wait finally over to touch him in an intimate way. How soft his lips were, his breath minty and clean, and his breathing as erratic as hers. She had found him, found the person that some never found, that she believed she would never find, the one who fit her, the one who was her mate.
A throat was cleared near the parlor door, and Alexander stepped back. She smiled at him and felt suddenly shy. He was a handsome, independent man from a well-to-do family, wealthy beyond anything she was accustomed to. He had kissed her, and she nearly swooned with the rightness and the tension and the romance of it all. Goodness, she was acting like a ninny. She could feel a blush climb her cheeks.
“Miss Thompson, may I call on you later this week?” he said with a smile and a glance down the hallway.
“Yes, yes, you may,” she said, barely hearing her own words.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.
A throat cleared again.
Alexander nodded and left through the front door. Elspeth stood still, very still, touching her lips and thinking about Alexander’s blue eyes and the kiss that may have just changed her life.
“Elspeth!” Kirsty said. “Get in here. We’re all waiting, and everyone knows you were out here kissing Mr. Pendergast.”
Elspeth hurried down the hall, checking her hair as she went. Surely no one would know that she’d been kissed and her world had been turned upside down. She hurried to the settee, not looking at anyone else in the room.
Aunt Murdoch turned to Muireall. “It’s time. Rory and Cullodena couldn’t have meant forever. A destiny can’t be a secret, you know. A destiny is a pronouncement all on its own. They knew that this family would fight for its rightful place and that someday the battle lines would be drawn. That day has arrived, Muireall. Take up the charge, girl. Take up the charge and let your soldiers know what they fight for. Your father would expect no less of you, of any of you,” Aunt said and looked around the room at each of them.
“Mrs. McClintok? Come into the room and bring Robbie too,” Muireall said. “You are our cousin, after all.”
“Cousin?” the housekeeper said.
“Your mother was sister to Rory, their father, although there was an argument of some kind, and your mother and father moved far away as soon as they were married,” Aunt said. “Rory kept track of his siblings, and that included your mother, even though they did not communicate for twenty years. When he found it necessary to move his family to America, he discovered you, his niece, had come here with your husband and son and that your husband had been killed in a coal mine not long after you arrived. He contacted the minister where you were living and asked him to recommend that you apply as a housekeeper for the newly arrived Thompson family.”
Everyone in the room was silent, all staring at Mrs. McClintok as she held her hand to her chest, her face pale. “Yes. The reverend came to my home and told me that a family from Scotland would be arriving and would need a housekeeper. We are Thompsons, then? Robbie and I?”
“You are MacTavishes. From your mother’s side. She was the next child after Rory in his family. Did she ever tell you her maiden name?”
“She said it was Daniels. She said her surname was Daniels.”
“That was her and Rory’s father’s middle name.”
“Sit down, Mrs. McClintok, please. You are white as a ghost,” Kirsty said. “Robert, Payden, get some brandy for Mrs. McClintok and carry in the tea tray.”
“We are cousins, then? Robbie and I?” Payden asked as he went to the door. “Excellent!”
Elspeth sat quietly, as did James and Kirsty. Mrs. McClintok was asking Aunt some particulars about relatives, but Elspeth was not listening. Her stomach was roiling now, and she knew with some certainty that her world would shift in the next hour or so. Would it shift so much that Mr. Pendergast, Alexander, would continue to be part of it? She hoped. She certainly hoped so.