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If her answer confused him, he didn’t show it. He looked back at the paper. “Your da was Rian Michael Murray. Your mam was Elizabeth Mary Watson. An Englishwoman from the sound of it.”
“Yes.”
“Sure and your mam was English and your da Irish. Your da is dead now?”
“I have a mother and a sister.” She didn’t want to talk about her father. Not to anyone, and especially not to Callahan Kelly.
If he noticed her evasion, he didn’t press the issue. “Your sister isn’t listed. What’s her name?”
She wanted to tell him it was none of his business, but of course it was. She had made it his business by agreeing to this. “Molly Elizabeth Murray.”
“Older?”
She nodded.
He leaned back. “Does she work for the Crown as well?”
“No.”
“Is she married?”
Bridget blew out a breath. She reminded herself he had to know these things if their marriage was to seem real. “Yes. She’s married to a shop owner in a small town just outside London. They have three boys and two girls.”
“The children’s names?”
“Do you really think you’ll remember?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Try me.”
She rattled off the names of her nieces and nephews as well as that of her brother-in-law.
“Where is your mam?”
She wanted to shoot back with where is yours, but that was her defenses. Instead, she twisted her hands together. “She lives with my sister and her perfect family.” Bridget hadn’t meant to add that last part, but it was too late now.
Only the slight lift of Callahan’s brows told her he’d noticed the bitterness in her voice. “You don’t strike me as the sort of woman who wants a husband and a passel of children.”
“I’m not.” This was true. She loved her work for Baron, and by extension, the Royal Saboteurs. She wouldn’t want to give it up for anything.
“But your mam doesn’t approve.”
And there it was. He’d reached the bottom of the well without even trying. “She does not. She never thought she’d have a spinster daughter, I suppose.”
“Spinster?” Callahan laughed, full and throaty. “You? How old are you? Three and twenty?”
“Six and twenty.”
“Six and twenty.” He rubbed his knuckles over his chin. “She’s right, lass. You’re on the shelf.”
If she had something to throw, she would have done so. As it was, she had only her clipboard, and she wouldn’t throw that no matter how he irked her. He was smiling, so she knew he meant the words in jest, but six and twenty was past a woman’s prime by anyone’s definition.
She snatched the documents back. “Your turn,” she said, glad to have the attention turned away from her. She perused the document. “Your mother was Kathleen Margaret Kelly. Your father isn’t listed.”
“No, he’s not.”
Now she wished she hadn’t turned the attention to him. His smile still held, but it was frozen on his face. If she hadn’t known him, she would have thought him unruffled by the conversation, but she could see the lines of tension about his mouth.
“You didn’t know him.”
