“Thank you, sir.” Nicholas slipped out of his waistcoat, removed his shirt, unbuttoned his new breeches. “Would you be so kind as to wrap these?”
The old man gaped at him from beneath his powdered wig. “You’re not going to wear them, sir?”
Nicholas chuckled. The tailor was clearly astonished that Nicholas was willing to show himself again clad in leather breeches and linsey-woolsey. “Oh, certainly, I’m going to wear them. But not just yet.”
He didn’t want to give Bethie a shock. She’d already endured enough. When he took off his trapper attire and again clad himself as a gentlemen, he would do it before her eyes, so that she would know him and not think him a stranger.
***
By the time Madame Moreau had finished with her and packed her things, and gone, Bethie felt that she, too, needed a nap. But Belle had awoken, and Bethie had just finished nursing her, when yet another knock came at the door.
Bethie laid Belle in the center of the big bed, hurried to answer it.
It was the innkeeper again. “You have guests, madam.”
“Guests?”
“Matilda, we’re not guests. We’re family.” A tall, handsome gentleman with blond hair and green eyes pushed past the startled innkeeper, bowed, lifted Bethie’s hand to his lips. “I am Jamie Blakewell, Nicholas’s uncle. And you, my dear, are a picture of loveliness. You have no idea how happy I am to make your acquaintance.”
Another man stepped forward. “As am I.”
Bethie felt the breath leave her lungs, felt her knees go coggly.
There before her stood an older version of Nicholas. Tall, with bright blue eyes, his raven-dark hair shot through with silver, he could be no one but Nicholas’s father.
“You’re... you’re...” But it was hard to breathe, and she felt dizzy.
Two sets of strong arms shot out to steady her, help her into a chair.
“See now! In your impatience you’ve frightened the poor girl!” The innkeeper sounded vexed. “If you had waited until your son returned—”
“I—I’m fine—just a wee bit surprised.” Bethie didn’t want to cause a scene.
The man who’d called himself Jamie smiled at her. “See, Matilda? She’s just a wee bit surprised.”
Nicholas’s father gazed at her through eyes so like his son’s that Bethie could not help feeling affection for him. He touched a hand to her cheek. “Matilda, would you be so kind as to bring us some tea?”
“As you wish, sir.” The innkeeper turned and left them alone.
“I’m sorry we startled you, my dear. My name is Alec Kenleigh. As you’ve no doubt guessed, I’m your husband’s father.” He sat in a chair beside her.
Bethie swallowed, prepared to tell them the truth, prayed they wouldn’t be too angry with her. “I—I’m Elspeth—Elspeth Stewart. But I am no’ your son’s wife, and this is no’ his baby.”
Alec’s brow knitted in puzzlement, and he exchanged glances with Jamie, who looked likewise confused. “When you feel up to it, Elspeth, why don’t you tell us how you came to know my son, and why, if you’re not his wife, he has claimed you as such.”
Bethie snuggled Belle on her lap, told them how Nicholas, gravely wounded, had come upon her cabin in the forest, held a pistol to her head, forced her to help him. She told them how he’d helped her through Belle’s birth and how she’d come to trust him. She told them of Mattootuk and the fire and their flight to Fort Pitt. She told them of Nicholas’s heroism during the siege and of their journey to Philadelphia.
Of Richard and Malcolm Sorley and events in Paxton, she said nothing. Nor did she reveal that she and Nicholas had shared a bed.
They listened, asked the occasional question, treating her with nothing but kindness.
“I didna know who your son really was until yesterday when we arrived here. I thought he was a trapper and a soldier. If I had known...”
Alec watched a dark shadow pass over the sweet face of the young woman his son loved, felt a surge of fierce protectiveness. He knew from Captain Écuyer’s letter some of what she had suffered during her young life, much more than she had revealed, and he was glad that Nicholas had put a bullet through her bastard stepbrother’s heart. “If you had known—what then?”
She looked at him through pleading eyes. “I wouldna have let him pretend to be my husband. ’Tis no’ fair to him. I know you dinnae want him to marry a woman like me, a woman of no family. You dinnae need to hide your thoughts for my sake.”
And in that moment Alec knew without a doubt that she loved Nicholas, too. “My dear, I want Nicholas to marry the woman he loves, a woman who loves him. From where I’m sitting, that appears to be you.”
