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!”
Everyone at the table laughed, and Alexander thought Payden looked more like a carefree young man today than he did in a filthy alley, his face covered in black grease, just a few weeks ago, giving directions to men older than he and more experienced.
“Dumplings?” she asked him softly.
“Yes, please,” he said, and she spooned two gravy-covered dumplings onto his plate, her hand shaking ever so slightly.
He noticed she had taken very small amounts and ate slowly, taking studious care with every bite. She did look thinner, although she was so beautiful she took his breath away. The bruises on her face were nearly faded, and her hands were healed other than the scars circling her wrists. Those would be a constant reminder of her ordeal.
“It’s a beautiful day out, Miss Thompson,” he said. “Would you like to take a walk after our meal?”
Conversation continued, but every eye around the table was on Elspeth. Perhaps he should have waited for them to be in private before asking her, but he could hardly stop himself. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to ask her. But maybe coming to the dining room for a meal was all she could manage. She was silent so long that he feared she would never answer. And then she did.
“I would enjoy that, Mr. Pendergast.”
He felt like jumping up and down. He felt like shouting from the rooftops. He was the luckiest man on earth.
James looked at him and nodded, and even Muireall smiled at them.
“Take a wrap, Elspeth,” Aunt Murdoch said. “I don’t want you getting a chill.”
“Oh, Aunt. It’s hot outside. She will be fine without a shawl, won’t you?” Kirsty turned to Elspeth. “Eat, Elspeth. You’re thin as a rail, although you have some color today. I can cover what’s left of your bruises with some rice powder, if you’d like.”
James shook his head. “My God, Kirsty. You’re as subtle as Mr. Ervin’s dog in the trash piles.”
Payden and Aunt Murdoch laughed. Alexander grinned and looked at Elspeth, hoping she wasn’t shrinking in her chair, embarrassed or uncomfortable. But he heard a soft laugh from her, and he nearly sobbed with the sound of it.
“Thank you for pointing that out, Kirsty,” she said in a confident voice he hadn’t heard from her in quite a while.
She would be all right, he repeated in his head. She would be alright.
“My goodness, it is warm out here today,” Elspeth said to him after they were finally outside.
Her sisters and brothers had fussed over her leaving the house, saying it was perfectly safe but to be careful, all of them crowded in the small entranceway of the house as Muireall tied the ribbon on her bonnet.
“I don’t want to overtire you,” he said. “Please tell me if you are ready to go back inside.”
“We just walked down the steps, Alexander,” she said with a smile, although she did not turn her head or look at him.
Several neighbors called out a hello, and he measured his pace so she could respond. They’d walked far enough that they could no longer see her house until they were at the small bench where they’d spoken after his argument with his father. It seemed a lifetime ago now. She sat down and turned her face up to the sun. Alexander closed his eyes and listened to the birdsong and the distant sound of a child’s laughter.
“I killed that man. The one in the room they held me in. I stabbed him in the chest and sliced at his neck. I must have hit the vessel because blood shot out . . .”
Alexander looked at her as she spoke. She was taking short breaths and rubbing her wrists but did not look up at him. He thought he should probably remain silent and let her decide to continue with her thoughts or change the subject matter.
“There was blood everywhere. In my hair, on my clothes, and my dagger was slipping from my hand, it was so covered in blood. I was worried that it would slip from my grip if I had to kill another person.”
She glanced up at him.
“You were in the heat of battle, defending yourself.”
“I wasn’t defending myself at that moment,” she said finally.
“Why do you say that?”
She cleared her throat and looked up the street toward her home, away from his face. “He . . . he put his mouth on me and touched me. He touched my breast,” she whispered, voice cracking. “He put my hand on him, down there, and told me that I would learn to like it. Very fortunately, his partner, Wallace, called him away at that moment, but I did not believe I would escape him forever. Wallace told all those men, that . . . that they could have me once Payden was on the ship.” Her voice broke on a sob and a whisper.
“You were defending yourself,” he said as calmly as he could, even as his gut rebelled and he wanted to drag Wallace from his jail cell and cut him to ribbons.
“They brought me out to that big room and asked me who would be helping Payden other than James. I said I didn’t know, and he punched my face. I was passed from man to man, and they pulled at my dress and hair, but I was terrified that they would hurt you when the window broke and you called my name. I thought you were alone, and there were so many of them.”
Alexander dropped down on one knee in front of her and took her hands in his, not caring who saw them or what they might say.
“You were concerned about me?” he whispered.
She nodded and finally turned to look at him. “I was prepared to kill as many as I could to try and save you.”
He looked down at her hands and back to her face. Her lip was trembling, and there were tears in her eyes. “I love you, Elspeth. I will love you for all time, and I am humbled that you were worried for my safety. When you are ready, I want to marry you. I want to live with you and raise children together and love each other for the rest of our days.”
Tears streamed down her face. “Oh, Alexander! I killed a man, and those men, all those men, had their hands all over me.”
He kissed her hands. “None of that matters. It would never matter to me. You are who you are because of your spirit and kindness and bravery, and that is why I love you.”
“I thought of you all the time I was there,” she sobbed. “I acted like such a child at your parents’ ball.”