by Rebecca King
“I want to speak to him,” Al growled to the inn keeper with a nod toward the door Elias had just been dragged through.
“He is upstairs. Course, you can interrupt him if you want to, or you can wait until he has finished,” the inn keeper drawled before offering Al an almost feral grin. “He won’t be all that pleased to be disturbed, though.”
The men in the tavern guffawed and sat smirking at Al and Reuben, but Al knew that Elias wouldn’t put the needs of his flesh above his duty to the Star Elite, or his own safety. There was something wrong.
“We still want to talk to him,” Reuben insisted.
“Why don’t you come and have a drink, eh? It’s on the house. You can wait for him at the bar. He will be down in a bit,” the inn keeper offered. He ambled off before either man could refuse him and left Reuben and Al to share another worried look.
With Elias supposedly upstairs with one of the whores, and Morgan nowhere to be seen, Al and Reuben knew that they were all in deep trouble, and that they were going to have to fight for their lives to get out of the tavern alive.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ruth hovered outside the tavern for a good hour after the front doors had opened. It was disturbing that she couldn’t hear the laughter and joviality of the tavern’s patrons as she would expect to be listening to if the tavern had been full of ordinary people. It was almost eerily quiet directly outside the rear of the building. The silence warned her that something was seriously wrong even before she stepped through the door. The urge to go home and stay there was so strong that she physically turned around, but then Ruth saw two horses tethered to a stable door in the tavern’s yard and knew that she couldn’t just leave the man from the Star Elite to die. She wouldn’t be able to live with her conscience if she didn’t try to keep him alive.
“I can’t fetch the magistrate because the roads are impassable. I don’t have the time to fetch the Star Elite, even if I could find them and I can’t rely on any of the villagers because I don’t know who I can trust.” A few discrete enquiries that afternoon had revealed that the magistrate was searching for the highwaymen in other parts of the county and wouldn’t be likely to return for several days given the state of the roads.
So it is down to me to help him.
“Miss?”
Ruth squeaked in alarm and spun around so swiftly that she almost fell over. It took her a moment to search the darkness and find the owner of that rather timid voice.
“Mark?” she cried, squinting a little as she peered into the gloomy evening.
“What are you doing here?” Mark stepped out of the shadows but didn’t venture close enough for them to talk quietly.
Ruth felt sick. She slid a wary glance at the back door of the tavern but struggled to think of a reasonable excuse for being there that wouldn’t alert his suspicions.
“I could ask you the same question,” she replied somewhat awkwardly for want of anything better to say. She was far beyond being able to pretend that it was perfectly normal for her to be loitering outside of the rear doors of a bawdy house, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“You are here to save him, aren’t you?” It wasn’t really a question. Mark knew that someone like Ruth Felton wouldn’t be anywhere near the tavern unless there was a very good reason.
“I cannot let him die. If I don’t help him, I could face prison for knowing what they were planning to do but not doing anything to help him,” Ruth muttered eventually, but only after realising that she had to trust that he wouldn’t betray her by running inside and telling his friends that she was there. “It’s murder, Mark. I know the highwaymen have killed the travellers in the carriages they stopped but their target this time is one of the Star Elite. It is foolish and reckless to murder one of them just to prove a point. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to protect the highwaymen. I just don’t want an innocent man to die because the highwaymen are playing one-upmanship. This isn’t a shooting competition.”
Mark, who was already looking troubled, paled in the moonlight.
Ruth frowned at him. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be helping Bob?”
“He is in there,” Mark replied with a nod to the tavern door behind her. “He is going to be angry if he finds you out here.”
Ruth tipped her chin up and stared at him. Her heart pounded when she asked: “Are you going to tell him I am here?”
“How do you plan to get him out? He is probably dead already,” Mark announced without answering her question.
“I have to go and see if he is alive still,” Ruth whispered. “If he is, I have to get him out of there somehow. I have to.” But when she tried to think of how she was going to do it, her mind couldn’t focus on anything other than the fear that flowed through her. It chilled her more than the snow she was standing in.
“I can’t fail at this.” Ruth knew that it wasn’t just the Star Elite operative’s life at stake now. Her own was in danger too, especially now that Mark had found her.
As if he had read her mind, Mark said: “You know that they will kill you as well if they catch you, don’t you?”
“What happened to you? How have they managed to get you involved with their schemes?” Ruth hoped that thinking about Mark’s issues would distract her from the terror that clawed at her.
Mark shrugged. “I needed the money,” he muttered, although seemed as unconvinced by that explanation as she was.
“You are going to be of no use to your mother if you are behind bars, Mark. This is not the way to help her,” Ruth warned.
“Mother wants to leave the village,” Mark announced.
“Good. Let’s hope she does, eh? You should go with her. Get away from this. I know I certainly am.” After tonight, Ruth knew that leaving Riddlewood was inevitable now, especially given the highwaymen were using the village as their base, and most of the villagers knew about it and were helping them.
“How are you going to get in there?” Mark nodded to the closed tavern door several feet away. “You can’t do this alone, you know.”
Ruth pointed to the door and lifted her brows when Mark shook her head.
“I am not climbing onto the roof,” she announced flatly.
“I can’t help you,” Mark moaned clearly wishing that he could.
“Then stay out here and hide. Pretend that you haven’t seen me. You can help me by not telling anybody that you have seen me.” Ruth looked impatiently at the door to the tavern. She dreaded going inside but was aware that while she lingered outside the chances of being caught increased. Anybody could open the tavern door and find her talking to Mark.
“How are you going to get him out by yourself?” Mark asked again, mostly to try to get her to think of a way because she clearly had no idea how to get a heavy, fully grown, unconscious male out of the building by herself. He was already starting to suspect he had to help her free him – if the investigator was still alive.
“I have to try somehow,” Ruth whispered vehemently but really had no idea.
“I’ll go in first and make sure that nobody is in the hallway,” Mark offered. “If they find me, they won’t get as angry as they will be if they find you there. As soon as the coast is clear, you can go upstairs. He is upstairs now.”
Ruth blanched and had to suck in a deep fortifying breath. Squaring her shoulders, she turned to face the door as if preparing to do battle. Mark edged around her and slipped silently into the tavern. Ruth knew that this was the moment that she had to trust the young man not to betray her. If the door opened and someone other than Mark was standing in the doorway she was as good as dead.
“I will be as good as dead after tonight anyway if someone sees me doing this,” Ruth whispered. “If anyone sees me dragging an unconscious man back to my house, they are going to spend the rest of their lives gossiping about it.” Ruth jerked when she realised that Mark was waving frantically at her from a narrow gap in the doorway.
“Come on,” he urged impatiently.
Ruth scuttled forward before she could allow second thoughts to change her mind. Once inside the building, though, her fear increased tenfold. She wrinkled her nose up when she was assaulted by a stench that was stomach churning. In other parts of the tavern, men laughed at nonsensical comments they called to each other, but at least they were busy.
Ruth frowned worriedly at the rickety staircase leading to the darkness of the second floor but followed Mark up it.
“What do we do about the woman who is with him?” Mark asked when they had reached the landing.
“Who is it?” Ruth mouthed.
“Carolann.” Mark threw her a dark look that left Ruth in no doubt about how much he disliked the whore.
“She is involved in this murder plot?” Ruth asked, horrified that the young woman had turned to killing the Star Elite. She knew that Carolann had a questionable reputation in the village because she had worked at the bawdy house the last time the establishment had been open. Further, that Carolann came from the rougher side of the village; a disreputable shack she shared with her aged and equally questionable mother. She was impoverished and needed money. But whatever Carolann had done in the past, and whatever her circumstances were, Ruth hadn’t once stopped to think that the woman might kill someone.
“She provides services to the highwaymen,” Mark muttered wrinkling his nose to show Ruth how repulsive he found that.
“How do we get her out of there?” Ruth muttered a prayer when Mark shrugged. Puffing out her cheeks, she looked up and down the darkened corridor and tried to decide what to do.
Mark pointed to a door against the farthest wall. It was barely visible in the gloom. “They must be in there. That’s the only room up here with a light on.”
There was indeed light filtering out from beneath just one of the several doors that lined the hallway. Ruth felt sick as she crept toward it. Before she could decide what to do once she reached the door, Mark appeared at her elbow. When she looked at him, Ruth’s eyes widened when she saw that he was holding a poker out to her.
“I can’t use that.”
“Well, she isn’t going to come out quietly,” Mark muttered, pressing it into her hand.
“How?” Ruth had never clubbed anybody in her life. “What do I do?”
“Lift it up and smack her on the head with it.” Mark tried to pretend that he wasn’t scared witless.
“I know how to club someone, I just have no idea how I am going to get behind her without her knowing,” Ruth snorted, glaring ruefully at him. “She is hardly going to turn around quietly for me, is she?”
Mark grinned and shrugged. His folded arms warned her that she wasn’t going to get any physical help from him. “Why are you doing this?”
“Now is not the time,” Ruth warned darkly.
Mark looked worriedly at the door. “She has probably killed him by now.”
“Is she the one who supposed to kill him?” Ruth was horrified by the thought that anybody could be that heinous.
“One of the others will come up and do it if not, so you had better hurry up,” Mark offered, sliding a wary look at the top of the stairs.
Ruth contemplated what to do but as she stood on the landing dithering about how she was going to go about entering the room and challenging the woman, footsteps approaching the door from within the room warned her that time had already run out.
Ruth and Mark stepped away from the door. Ruth pressed herself against the wall and lifted her makeshift club. She watched the shaft of light spread out across the hallway floor even though Carolann hadn’t left the room yet. Before Ruth could decide what to do, Mark stepped into the shaft of light and peered into the room mostly because he wanted to see if the man was dead. He suspected that Ruth hadn’t seen a dead body before either and didn’t want her collapsing into a fit of the vapours if the man from the Star Elite lay in a pool of blood.
“Have you done it yet?” Mark asked from his position half-way down the corridor.
“What are you doing here? Does Bob know you are here?” Carolann gasped.
“Of course he does,” Mark shrugged. “Is he dead?”
“Not yet,” Carolann muttered, stepping into the doorway. She smirked at Mark and raked him with a snide look. “If you want a go while you are here, show me your money.”
Mark glared at her. “I would rather kiss a stinking mackerel.”
“Why you cheeky-” Carolann stepped forward with her hand raised in preparation to strike him for his insult.
While Carolann was distracted by trying to clout Mark’s ears, Ruth lifted the club and brought it down hard upon Carolann’s head. She scrunched her face up and braced herself and ended up striking the woman with more force than she had intended and watched in horror as the woman sunk lifelessly to the floor without a whimper. For a few seconds, Mark and Ruth looked blankly at each other as if they couldn’t really believe they had done it.
“Now what?” Ruth demanded when she could get the words past her dry lips.
“Tie her up.” Mark snapped out of his daze and immediately set to work.
“How? With what?” Ruth held her hands out, palms upward in a beseeching gesture.
Mark pointed to the doorway behind Ruth. “Hurry up. Help me drag her in there. There should be a cloth in there we can use.”
“Do you think she is badly hurt?” Ruth gasped, hating to think that she had injured even Carolann, despite the whore having been prepared to murder an innocent man.
“You have just hit her on the head with a poker. What do you think?” Mark snorted, grunting a little with the effort it took to carry the unconscious woman.
While young, the whore was buxom, well rounded, and heavier than either Ruth or Mark expected. They were both panting while they shuffled and stumbled awkwardly into the room, pausing only briefly for Mark to close the door behind them. Once inside the room, they immediately looked for a rope or shirt they could use to tie the whore up with.
“There is blood on the floor look,” Ruth whispered, pointing to the faint smear of blood trailing from the doorway.
“Wipe it up. If they see it, they will suspect something is wrong.” Mark hastily picked up two shawls that had been tossed casually over the back of one of the fireside chairs and began to tie Carolann’s feet and hands together. When he had finished, he then set about shoving a gag into Carolann’s mouth, which he then secured closed by wrapping the edges of a man’s shirt around the lower part of her face.
When Ruth had finished mopping up the faint smear of blood, she turned around and stared in amazement at what Mark had managed to do.
“Let’s get her under the bed. We can cover her over with the blankets so nobody can see that she is there,” Mark announced briskly.
Ruth stared worriedly at him but helped him nonetheless. “You do know that you have a criminal mind, don’t you?” she muttered before they rolled Carolann over and over until she was hidden safely beneath the bed. Ruth then re-arranged the blankets on the bed so that anybody who stood in the doorway couldn’t even see the empty space under the bed – or who it contained. Only then did she turn her attention to the man on the bed.
“Is that him?” Ruth breathed, stepping closer. Her heart pounded as she took her first good look at him.
The first thought that struck her was that he was incredibly handsome even asleep. His angular features beneath a mop of curled sandy hair were bronzed, as one would expect of someone who spent a lot of time outside. His lashes were longer than most women’s and grazed his sharpened cheekbones with a tentative fan which made his hardened, masculine features appear almost boyish. There was something almost helpless and vulnerable about him, despite the strength and power that was visible in the rest of him. Ruth’s cheeks flooded with colour when her gaze fell to the rigid plane of the muscle and bone of his broad chest, and heavily muscled arms. She tried to keep her gaze averted from the faint smattering of hair that covered that manly chest and tapered downwards to disappear beneath the
open band of his breeches.
“Good Lord,” Ruth whispered, appalled by what she was witnessing while intrigued at the same time.
“What is it?” Mark whispered, blessedly oblivious to her innermost thoughts, for which Ruth could only be eminently grateful.
“He is alive,” Ruth whispered, studying the steady rise and fall of his chest.
She hated to do it. Touching him seemed so wrong, as if she were crossing boundaries that were going to change her life. But Ruth had to. Tentatively, she placed a gentle hand on the warm, smooth flesh of his shoulder, and forced herself to ignore the jolt of awareness that slammed into her. Warmth shot up her arm and straight through her and came to rest in the centre of her frozen being. It began to create a warmth that coloured her cheeks and thawed something deep within her that she hadn’t realised had been encased in an icy sense of isolation, of neglect. It was an unusual sensation, and as worrying as it was intriguing because it created a certainty that she hadn’t known herself as well as she thought she had.
Whatever this means, this man is as dangerous as he is in danger.
Seeing him like this suddenly made her adventure very real. Until now, she hadn’t really thought of this man, this Star Elite operative, as a real human being. It was difficult to comprehend why because it was the reason she was there. Now that he was before her, though, and vulnerable to not just her but everyone else in the tavern, Ruth was struck by a renewed sense of purpose. It helped her quell any lingering doubts she had and focus on what she needed to do to keep him alive.
“Whatever they have done to him isn’t too bad. He appears to be asleep rather than dying. We have to get him out of here now, though,” she announced, forcing her thoughts away from how she felt and onto the more pressing need of keeping him out of the clutches of the men downstairs. “What do you think they have done to him?” Shaking him gently, she leaned down until she was a few inches away from his ear and whispered: “Hello? Can you hear me?” When she got no response, she looked at Mark.