by Rebecca King
“The gun, Maud. Quickly,” Ruth ordered.
Seconds later, before the man could turn away, Ruth took the gun off her aunt.
“You are not going to shoot him, are you?” Maud muttered.
Ruth lifted her hand to the window, but barely had the time to open it before the man hurried off. One look at the gun she held had warned him that she hadn’t been bluffing and really did have a loaded weapon in the house.
“Keep that, my dear,” Maud warned. “I have a horrible feeling that we are going to need it before the night is over.”
Ruth’s murmur was unintelligible beneath her breath as she slammed the shutter closed. On shaking knees, she returned to the kitchen and slumped into a chair beside the fireplace. She was beyond exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep but her mind wouldn’t stop racing. Now, her thoughts were focused solely on Elias, not just the highwaymen, the Star Elite, Mark, or the injured man lying in the spare room. Despite the evening’s events, she was more shaken by Elias’s almost kiss. It had barely happened, but her lips still tingled from where his had touched them. The warmth that being in his arms had created within her still lingered. If she was honest, she struggled believe that it had happened. She wished it hadn’t, but confusingly also wanted it to happen again. She wanted to know what it really felt like to be properly kissed by him. What happened next? Yes, the feel of his lips against hers had been tempting, but it had also been wrong. She knew that. Deep in her heart, Ruth knew that she shouldn’t allow him to take such liberties, mostly because he was so very wrong for her in every way, but she was intrigued by him.
He is one of the Star Elite. They live dangerous lives. Even if he was interested in someone as ordinary as me, he lives an exciting life. I, on the other hand, am rather boring.
“Well?”
Ruth jerked because she hadn’t realised that she was no longer alone. She watched Maud enter the kitchen, quietly close the door, and sit in the chair opposite. Several minutes passed before she said: “Well, you did want a life of adventure.”
“Not like this,” Ruth rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t willingly bring the highwaymen to the door.”
“I know,” Maud sighed. “But I am ever so glad that you did.”
Ruth blinked at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Life here has been rather quiet, hasn’t it? I realise that now.”
“Well, yes. We both agreed the other night that we needed a change.”
“Do you still think we should move?” Maud asked.
Ruth studied the fire. “I never thought that the village could harbour dangerous criminals, but the highwaymen are just a few miles away at the Rointon estate. Even if we moved to Mivverford, we aren’t going to be any safer.”
Ruth told her aunt about Morgan’s fiancé, Lucy, and what had happened to her parents. “Even so, I still want to move. What do you think? Do you think there is any benefit in moving?”
“I think you need to consider what you really want out of life before you decide what to do. We are embroiled in the Star Elite’s investigation whether we want to be or not, but it won’t last forever. Do you really want a life of adventure? Would you be relieved or sorry if our lives returned to normal tomorrow?”
Ruth’s instinct was to say: “I don’t want life to return to normal, but I hadn’t expected to be plunged into this situation either. I mean, we aren’t prepared to deal with this. This isn’t an adventure. This is fighting for our lives, isn’t it?”
“What compelled you to go and rescue that man? Was it your need for adventure?”
“No. I couldn’t let an innocent man die,” Ruth protested. “God, do you really think I would be so desperate to bring a little excitement into my life that I would willingly go into a bawdy house to save someone?”
“No, I suppose not,” Maud murmured. “I just think the timing is a little odd, that’s all. I know you wouldn’t willingly put our lives in danger.”
Ruth leaned forward. “I couldn’t let him die. They were going to kill him. I could have gone for the magistrate, but then heard that he is several miles away. There wasn’t the time to do anything else. I couldn’t think about anything other than stopping an innocent man from being murdered just so Rointon could boast about his criminal prowess and threaten the Star Elite.”
“But a life of adventure is what you have experienced tonight, and it isn’t what you want either.”
“A life of adventure isn’t why I want to move,” Ruth protested. When Maud looked at her, Ruth knew that her aunt was struggling to understand. “I need life to change. I get up in a morning and go into the village to fetch provisions. I end up running errands for the villagers. I do chores, prepare food, run around after ungrateful locals, and then do my own chores before I go to bed only to get up in the morning and do exactly the same thing again. Life is mundane. I am wasting it doing things for people who don’t appreciate what I do for them, or even notice that I do it half the time. They only notice, and criticise me, when I don’t do it, or don’t drop my life to run around after them whenever they demand it. I may as well be their servant for all the freedom I have. I can’t stand it anymore because I am not a servant.”
“Do you know what has struck me tonight?” Maud began a few minutes later. When Ruth looked at her, she continued: “Nobody has come out to see if we need help. Nobody has noticed that we have had a prowler walking around the house. If we screamed, I doubt any of our dear neighbours would bother to get up to see what was happening. We are having to deal with this situation by ourselves. There is nobody we can call upon for help when we get stuck. It is time that changed.”
“We have to rely on the Star Elite now, though, because we are all fighting the highwaymen,” Ruth argued. “We don’t know which villagers are helping them.”
“I know. That man outside could be just an ordinary prowler, but even so, nobody is around to help us,” Maud said. “It is time that we started to look after ourselves first and foremost and let the neighbours do the same. Like you have said, neither of us are their servants, and if they are taking advantage of us to the point that it is making us both miserable then it is time that changed.”
“We move.”
“Yes, we move,” Maud announced firmly. “Like we have already agreed, we have to be somewhere more central and preferably somewhere where people are willing to help us if we have a problem.”
“I am sorry for bringing so much trouble to the door,” Ruth whispered.
“Tonight, you did what you felt was right, and it was right,” Maud replied firmly. “Nobody asked you to save them, but you did without expecting any kind of reward. You can walk away from this now if you want to. The Star Elite could sneak their colleague out and pretend they were never here, and we can lie to anybody who comes here looking for them. If the highwaymen do call by here, they can search this house and there will be no trace of the Star Elite having ever been here. They will then leave us alone.”
“Do you want to tell them to leave?” Ruth hated to have to watch Elias walk out of her life even though she barely knew him.
Maud hesitated. “That man in the bed chamber has had a very lucky escape. He has lost a lot of blood. I wouldn’t recommend that he goes anywhere for the time being. He needs looking after.”
Ruth frowned. “I am confused. Do you want them to go or not?”
“What I am trying to say is that you willingly helped them tonight because you knew it was the right thing to do. That is wonderful because it saved two men’s lives. Now, we are both going to have to do what we know is the right thing to do for someone else again. On this occasion, though, we need to ensure that the men you rescued stay alive. That is our choice, but it is one that we must make together. Nobody can force us into it, not even the Star Elite. I am sure that Elias would go and fetch their colleagues if we told him to, right here and now.”
“But I don’t want them to go,” Ruth whispered without thinking.
“If I am hon
est with you, I don’t either,” Maud admitted wryly. “The Star Elite aren’t taking advantage of us or expect us to do things that they are capable of doing themselves like the locals have. On this occasion, the Star Elite do need us to keep them safe. We wanted adventure; the both of us. So, let’s use this time to do what we can to help the Star Elite while we experience a little adventure of our own. When they have gone home, or back to their base or wherever they came from, we can decide whether we still want to move. I like this village, but I don’t like being everyone’s property. Everyone seems to think that they can have a piece of us whenever they want and forget that it is not all about them. This is about us too because without us those selfish villagers would have to go about their own business and get their own chores done. We are just making it easier for them to take advantage by keeping quiet about how much trouble it puts us to, or how upset we are about the burden they put on us. It has to stop but we shouldn’t have to move to a new house just to make it stop.”
“Do you think we might get embroiled in the adventure with the Star Elite, and not want it to stop?”
Maud was shaking her head before Ruth finished. “No. I think a couple of nights of this is enough for anybody. I think that when this little adventure is over, we must decide whether we still need to move or want to stay but stand up for ourselves for once and live our lives for us.”
“We have to stand up to the neighbours and tell them that we aren’t doing it anymore,” Ruth whispered, her voice husky with her adamance.
“You stood up to a tavern full of highwaymen.” Maud grinned suddenly. “I am sure that Mr Arnold and Mrs Howell are far less dangerous, don’t you think?”
Ruth grinned.
“Let me ask you this. If you could go back to last winter, and begin helping Mrs Howell again if you knew then how demanding she was going to be of your time now, would you do things differently?”
“God, yes. I wouldn’t start to help her if I had the choice again. I regret that I did,” Ruth whispered.
“If you could go back to this evening, and make the decision about whether you would go to the tavern to rescue Elias again, would you?”
Ruth looked her aunt in the eyes and said: “Without hesitation.”
“There you have it. You were obligated to save a man’s life. You are not obligated to run errands for lazy people,” Maud announced.
The problem was that Ruth suspected that if she spent too much time with Elias, she was going to have feelings for him and that was the last thing she wanted. He was so completely opposite to her in every way that she couldn’t possibly contemplate a union forming between them. She suspected that he was attracted to her, as she was to him. The almost-kiss they had shared had confirmed that. She didn’t doubt that the more time they spent together increased the chances of another kiss happening, a proper one next time. It wasn’t lost on her that if they asked the Star Elite to move on in the morning, or as soon as Morgan was well enough, it would stop any chance of her ever finding out what a proper kiss felt like.
But I am then going to spend my life wondering what is happening with their investigation. If Morgan has recovered. If Elias is safe. Where he is. What he is doing. What Elias’s kiss feels like.
“I would have been disappointed in you if you hadn’t helped the Star Elite. You did the right thing, Ruth. Don’t you ever doubt that standing up to men like Lucius Rointon and his ilk is the right thing to do,” Maud murmured before pushing to her feet and making her way to the door.
“So long as you don’t take any more unnecessary risks there is no reason why your lives would be in any more danger than they are right now,” Elias assured them both. It was evident that he had been listening to every word. “I am sorry. The cottage is wonderful, but it isn’t very big.” He turned to Ruth. “It isn’t you the highwaymen are looking for. Nobody knew that you were in the tavern, Ruth, I am sure of it. There is no reason why they have to know that you were there. The man asked for Mark, didn’t he? He is the one who is really in danger.”
“I don’t think anybody saw me,” Ruth edged but couldn’t be sure.
Elias smiled gently at her. “I know that the highwaymen don’t have any idea that it was you who rescued us, or it would have been Rointon at your door. I think the randomness of the man’s route through the countryside hints that he is looking for Mark. He caused fresh tracks. He didn’t follow ours. I think that opening the window to shout at him was a perfectly normal thing to do and probably bought us some time because he wouldn’t suspect anything was odd about it. He might have thought something was wrong had he seen the light on, but nobody appeared in the window.” Elias smiled reassuringly at Maud. “Whatever happens, Morgan and I won’t allow anything to happen to either of you.”
“We are going to head out,” Maud announced, opening a shutter a little so she could peer out at the early morning gloom. “It is a good four-mile walk. By the time we are ready to leave it should be light enough for us to see where we are going. I don’t think I can sleep now.”
“What do we tell people if they ask where we are going?” Ruth asked, pushing to her feet.
Maud tipped her chin up. “We are going to tell them that we are going to Mivverford to fetch some food. I dare anybody to call me a liar. It really is none of their business anyway.” She looked at her niece. “I assume that by ‘people’ you mean highwaymen.”
Ruth nodded but hesitated. “If any of the locals stop us, and we tell people that we are going shopping, we will end up shopping for half the village.”
“We go at first light before anybody is up,” Maud announced firmly before piercing her with a militant glare. “And learn to say ‘no’ to them.”
Ruth didn’t argue. There wasn’t much she could say. Besides, what she intended to say next disappeared the second that Elias smiled at her. The intensity in his stare was unnerving. She realised what he was thinking when his gaze fell tellingly to her lips. Hers parted. A gasp escaped her. Her cheeks flooded with colour when she watched his gaze slide slowly back up until he was looking her straight in the eyes. Slowly, gently, his lips curved upward again. This time, there was a knowing twinkle in his eyes, as if he were aware of how much she had just spent the last few minutes staring at him and how much he affected her. Ruth’s guilty gaze fell to the floor only to be drawn back up to him as if pulled by an invisible thread. To her disappointment, she found herself alone in the room.
“He has to stay here with his friend and protect him while we have gone. So does Mark,” Maud whispered, making Ruth jerk because she had forgotten that her aunt was still in the room. “Let’s just hope the highwaymen don’t see us leave and destroy our house while we have gone, eh?”
Ruth sighed because she wasn’t sure if it would be a bad thing or not because it would at least force everything that was wrong in their lives to change.
CHAPTER NINE
“God, it’s freezing,” Ruth moaned into her muffler. She tugged her cloak tighter about her shoulders and ducked her head against the stiff wind. Beside her, Maud was also bundled up against the weather, and looked about as miserable as Ruth felt.
“Good morning, ladies. It is rather early for you two to be up and about, isn’t it?”
“What of it?” Ruth struggled not to slide a worried look at her aunt. Despite her fear, Ruth raked Lucius Rointon with a scornful look. She studied the handful of riders who were riding behind him along a small track around the perimeter of the woodland bracketing two thirds of the village.
Maud tucked her hand in Ruth’s elbow and tugged her into motion again. “Excuse us,” she bit out.
Neither of them spoke as they made their way through the village and up the large hill that would lead them to Mivverford. Ruth could feel Maud’s tension. It matched her own.
“I say, ladies, you wouldn’t happen to have seen two gentlemen around these parts, would you?”
“No,” Ruth was breathless from the long climb up the hill. “Now leave us alone.�
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“Now that is no way to be friendly, is it?” Rointon called, nudging his horse into a faster walk to catch up with them.
Neither Ruth nor Maud stopped to answer him. It was their first mistake. Rointon disliked being ignored and kicked his horse into a trot so he could pass them and block their route with his horse. Maud and Ruth merely walked around him.
“Why won’t you stop and talk to me?”
“We have nothing to say to the likes of you, Rointon,” Maud muttered loud enough for Rointon to hear.
“The likes of me?” Rointon’s tone hardened. “Now what do you mean by that?”
“Don’t anger him,” Ruth whispered.
“You are a wealthy aristocrat, aren’t you?” Maud drawled somewhat mockingly. “We are nothing more than impoverished women going about our business. Now go on your way and leave us be. We don’t have anything for you.”
Ruth mentally began to pray that they would reach Mivverford. These highwaymen murdered people and could kill her and Maud if they chose to because they were still travellers even on foot. Because it was too dangerous to stay out in the fields, Maud and Ruth changed direction and began to walk down a narrow road which would take them back down to the village.
“Keep walking,” Maud breathed.
“Where are we going?”
“Mivverford.”
“I am frozen,” Ruth moaned as she contemplated the miles of snow-laden fields before them that they had to walk to get there. “My feet are like ice.”
“We have to keep going,” Maud muttered.
“Now, ladies-” Rointon began.
Both Maud and Ruth slammed to a stop. Neither woman had been aware that Rointon had dismounted his horse and was following them and had probably overheard every word they had just said. Still, it had been nothing more than ordinary conversation. Ruth was glad that they hadn’t been discussing Mark, or their true destination.
“Look, we are just going into town to fetch some emergency supplies, all right? There is nothing for you to be concerned about. We haven’t seen anybody and aren’t likely to. In this weather, finding them can’t be all that hard, can it?” Maud pointed to the trail they had made through the snow. “Go and look for footprints in the snow and leave us alone. We have nothing to tell you or give you.”