by Rebecca King
“You joined the army,” Ruth murmured.
“Only for a few years. I served, travelled, and learnt self-discipline amongst other things. Sir Hugo then arranged for my transfer and I joined the Star Elite but stayed in London to undergo further training. I have been with the Star Elite ever since. This is a lifestyle, a choice, a calling if you will. This kind of life isn’t for everyone, but it is what I am used to. I don’t think I can ever do anything else now. Fighting men like Rointon has to be done by someone and the magistrates can’t always do it because their jurisdiction covers many miles. They rarely venture outside of their jurisdiction or can protect all of it properly. Thieves know that, especially men like the highwaymen.”
“Is that why they have targeted carriages up and down the Great North Road?”
“The twenty-five mile stretch of road that the highwaymen have staged their attacks on is protected two different magistrates who are already busy dealing with the county’s criminal fraternity,” Elias replied. “The magistrates are used to dealing with thieves, the occasional murderer, and minor domestic crimes. The Star Elite deal with gangs and hardened criminals whose network of violent criminals are lawless societies of their own making. They work together because they think it makes them stronger, that they can lie to protect each other, and that their network can smuggle people and victims and try to hide their criminal ways. It doesn’t work like that. A gang is far harder to hide than just one person. A gang is far harder to shut up than just one person. A gang is far harder to prove innocent when they are all up to their necks in criminal activity like Rointon and his gang of thieves.”
When Elias stopped talking, he was aware a stunned silence in the room behind him. He glanced over Ruth’s shoulder and winced when he realised that everyone in the tavern had been listening raptly to what he had just said. There was a mixture of shock, awe, and respect in their faces as they looked back at him that made Elias wish that he had kept his mouth closed. Without saying anything else, he turned his attention back to the group of riders outside. He watched Rointon, still hunched over his saddle, turn to leave. As he did so he looked directly at Elias as if he had known all along that he was watching him.
Elias immediately stepped to one side but didn’t move the shutter. When he looked again, he squatted down and expected to hear shattering glass as Rointon fired at him. It was a little disconcerting to look outside again and see not just Rointon but his gang all leaving the village.
“Where are they going?” Ruth asked, peering over his shoulder.
Elias looked up at her. “They are probably going to find more help.”
“That isn’t going to be easy seeing as most of them are dead now,” Ruth muttered. At least fifteen of the highwaymen’s gang had been killed or maimed since last night’s events in the tavern. Ruth wondered how many more had to die before the Star Elite managed to put the highwaymen out of action once and for all.
Elias doubted that Ruth knew how the way she looked at him betrayed her affection for him. He was stunned at what he saw, but inwardly as thrilled as much as he was worried by it.
“How do we get out of here?” she asked quietly.
Despite the presence of the tavern’s occupants behind them, Elias slid a possessive arm around her waist and took one last look at the properties lining the street before he closed the shutter. “We are going to leave, but you will have to ride your own horse. My horse can get back to Mivverford with relative ease but can’t carry us both.”
“We have a horse you can borrow,” the inn keeper offered. “If you are sure you can get to Mivverford without that lot coming after you.”
“We have to try,” Elias replied simply. “We cannot stay here. My colleagues will send out a search party if we don’t return, and they could end up running into Rointon and his gang in the woods. It is far too dangerous because Rointon has plenty of men who are familiar with the area. We must make good use of Rointon needing to go and tend to his injuries and try to reach the safe house while he has gone.”
“How long will it be before you can take him down?” one of the patrons asked looking awestruck. This was the closest he had ever been to meeting one of the legendary Star Elite and he was dumbfounded and delighted that the man was there. It was clear to everyone why he was one of the Star Elite. The man was tall, powerful, and had an air of command about him, of smooth yet slightly arrogant control tinged with a hint of danger that was almost sinister but strangely reassuring at the same time. They all recognised that the man was capable, and authoritative, and it calmed everyone’s fears even though everyone was still worried about what was going to happen. He knew that the visit from the Star Elite was going to be talked about for many weeks, if not months to come – especially once the highwaymen had been killed or put behind bars.
“Good luck to you, lad,” another man mumbled around a gulp of ale.
“We are waiting for help to arrive from London and other counties. They are on their way, but it takes time to get them here because the men who are coming to help us capture the highwaymen have been busy with their own investigations. Those who can leave everything for a few days will journey to us. Once they arrive, we will muster at the safe house and then go after Rointon and his gang together. We will arrest them all at the same time if we can. The gaoler’s cart will literally just rumble through each village, stop, and the prisoners will all be loaded into it until the cart is full. We will arrest as many of Rointon’s men as we can before we target Rointon himself. If Rointon fights us, or manages to escape, he will have nobody to turn to for help. He will be far easier to bring to justice and may surrender. He may even be willing to die because his empire, all his carefully laid plans and his entire criminal life, will be over. He won’t want to suffer the indignity of spending the rest of his life behind bars with the criminals he made so many promises to and failed.”
“Aye, well you just make sure that the blackguard can’t get back out when you do get him behind bars. That sort shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets,” one patron called and was supported by a chorus of ‘here heres” which rippled around the room.
Elias nodded. He then looked at Ruth. “We need to get moving again.” He turned to the inn keeper. “Can we take one of your weapons? I can then have two guns, and Ruth can take one of my pistols. We will also borrow one of your faster horses.”
“What do we do to help?” one of the patrons called.
“Stay here for another hour and then make your way home. Don’t stop for anything. If you see the highwaymen, do everything possible to avoid them. If anybody asks where you have been, tell them anything but don’t admit to being here with us. Pretend that you know nothing and have seen nothing. They aren’t interested in ordinary villagers. They are after carriage occupants, coachmen, and the Star Elite, but it won’t hurt to protect yourselves by lying.”
While the patrons murmured excitedly amongst themselves, Elias studied Ruth. He was struck by how tired she looked. She now had dark circles beneath her eyes that he knew hadn’t been there when they had left the cottage this morning. It had been only a few short hours ago but felt like a lifetime had passed since they had left her home. She must be exhausted.
“When was the last time you ate anything?” Elias asked.
Ruth opened her mouth to answer only to close it again when she realised that she couldn’t remember.
Elias looked at the inn keeper who immediately set to work rapping out a series of orders to his staff. Elias guided Ruth over to a small table in the farthest corner of the tap room. Once seated, he leaned across the table and placed a comforting hand over hers.
“God, you feel cold too,” he growled. He tugged his cloak off and draped its woollen warmth over her shoulders. Elias then shoved the table closer to the roaring fireplace before holding out a hand to her and beckoning her closer. Ruth resettled herself closer to the wonderful fire and huddled deeper into the material that smelt so much like Elias that she almost closed her
eyes to savour the tempting scent of him enveloping her. She wished they were alone. That they could spend a little time together, just him and her.
When she opened her eyes, Ruth saw Elias staring intently at her as if he had just read her every thought. She flinched guiltily and looked away.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she murmured awkwardly.
“Hide from it. Hide from me.”
“It?” Ruth’s heart began to pound.
“This. What we have. What you know we have both felt since that evening at the tavern when you rescued me. You saved my life, Ruth,” Elias murmured.
“It is important that you don’t read more into your affection for me then,” Ruth warned.
“Rubbish. I am of sound mind. I am a fully grown male who knows when he is attracted to a woman, Ruth. God, you are gorgeous. You are strong, capable, clever, determined. You are more adventurous than you realise. You remind me so much of Morgan’s Lucy that I wonder if you two are related. I know that you are going to get on very well with her.” He smiled gently.
In the back of his mind, he was already deciding how long he could leave it until he moved her to the Star Elite’s alternate safe house a few miles away from Mivverford. If she lived there, he could spend more time with her whenever he was able to step briefly away from the investigation and his colleagues. He could then court her properly. He had to because he knew already that he had a special connection with her that went soul deep.
She is my soul.
He couldn’t tell her that, though. It wasn’t just too early in their acquaintance, but he wanted to discuss their future with her when the highwaymen had been vanquished.
“Do you regret it?” Elias asked.
“What?”
“Saving me.”
“No. I had to save you. It is a matter of conscience more than anything. I didn’t know you back then, but I couldn’t just allow you to die,” Ruth announced simply. “Now, I would have no qualms about wading in there, although I still don’t think I could have managed it if it weren’t for Mark. You owe him your life, you know. He was the one who got us out of there.”
Elias grinned. “He is going to make a fine investigator one day.”
Ruth’s brows shot up. “What makes you think that he is going to join you?”
“He is too wilful not to. Besides, when he was pushed into a corner, Mark erred on the side of justice and honour when he could have so easily followed the male populace and become a criminal like all the rest. Whatever his home life is like, he is a good lad with a very promising future.”
“He forced me to go through with it. I was a jabbering wreck and struggled to complete even the simplest of tasks because I was so scared,” Ruth admitted.
“I know that I am going to sound biased, but you did the right thing,” Elias assured her. “But I am not going to condone you going into a tavern to rescue anybody else, mind you. I am just grateful that you chose to rescue me.”
Ruth squinted suspiciously at him. “What makes you think that you are in a position to condone anything I choose to do in life? You are Star Elite. While you are protecting me, it doesn’t give you any rights over the rest of my life.”
“It will when we are married.” Elias sat back in his seat so the maid could slide two steaming plates of food onto the table. He saw her blink in astonishment and look at Ruth with renewed respect before she scuttled off to tell the rest of the staff in the kitchen that the woman with the investigator from the Star Elite was his fiancé.
Ruth’s heart flipped. “Married? What makes you think that I intend to marry?”
“Because you were wasting away in that village, Ruth. We both know it. You recognised it before I turned up. Don’t deny it,” Elias mused. “I recognised it the second I saw where you lived.”
Ruth scowled. “But that doesn’t mean that I want to marry.”
“Isn’t that what every woman wants; to settle down, find a husband, and marry?”
“But you are not every man, are you? You are a member of the Star Elite.”
Elias blinked at her. “Does that mean I am not allowed happiness?”
“Well, no. I mean, yes. You are allowed to be happy. But your work takes you to places that I don’t even know exist. You are travelling constantly, and being shot at practically all the time. You challenge murderers as if it is a normal part of everyday life.”
“That doesn’t mean I am any less of a human being.”
“I am not saying that it does,” Ruth retorted. “But do you really think that you could finish an investigation and just go home to your wife and spend your evenings bouncing your baby on your knee? Do you think that you could spend some of your life having to deal with domestic issues like wood piles, and house repairs, and tending to the garden in the summertime? Your life is a life of adventure, Elias. You live on the fringes of society doing things, experiencing things, that few people ever get to understand much less engage in. Do you really think you can just suddenly stop everything for a few days at home so you can play at being a husband, a father, a protector?”
“I know I can,” Elias breathed. “I know I will. With a wife – someone like you – at home waiting for me, I have a reason to come home. With you and our baby at home, I have a house to call a home, a proper home, not just somewhere warm and dry to stay between investigations. With you by my side, I can be whatever I choose to be as long as we are together.”
Ruth wanted nothing more than to launch herself across the table at him and kiss the living daylights out of him because he had just handed her every dream and hope she had ever had since, well, since as long as she could remember.
“This is all so new,” she breathed, still stubbornly reluctant to believe in such a wondrous future.
“But you don’t deny it is possible – at some point in the future.” Elias struggled to remember if he even breathed while he was waiting for her to reply.
Ruth didn’t hesitate to say: “No, I am not going to deny it is possible.”
Elias’s breath left him in a whoosh of relief. His lips curved upward as his eyes softened. “Then let’s see where this attraction between us takes us. If you agree to stay in the safe house that I have in mind for you, we can spend time together. I can come and see you whenever I am nearby and will spend any free time that I have with you so we can have a proper courtship and get to know each other. I just can’t be with you all the time.”
“Nobody is together all the time during a proper courtship, though, are they? It is an unreasonable expectation to place upon any man to expect him to be with me all the time. Besides, there has been so much upheaval with our moving and everything I think I need a few weeks to settle into a new life and try to put everything behind me.”
“I don’t think you will be able to put it all behind you until this investigation is over, and you know that Rointon can’t hurt anybody anymore. That is normally when all the men in the Star Elite head home to spend time with their loved ones. We also need to get our thoughts together, and enjoy some good food, proper sleep, and mull over what has happened. When we have all rested, we will move onto our new investigation together as men who are certain of their world, who are strong, capable fighters with the skills to tackle their enemies. Do you think you will be all right living in our home by yourself for days, possibly weeks at a time while your husband is away fighting criminals?”
“I have never lived completely alone before,” Ruth admitted. “I was five when my parents died of influenza and I moved in with my aunt. I have lived with her ever since.”
“But you could run a house by yourself.”
“If I had to.”
“You would have a housekeeper, and a maid, if you wanted,” Elias offered, prepared to give her the world if it made her happy, but Ruth was already shaking her head.
“A housekeeper maybe, but if Maud were with me there wouldn’t be any problem with the chores. We could run a house together.”
&nb
sp; Elias liked Maud’s down-to-earth practical nature and immediately agreed. “I cannot conceive of Maud living anywhere else. What I will say is that neither of you can stay in Riddlewood.”
“I know.”
“Then you are happy to relocate, and maybe accept the adventure of a new life? A new future? A new challenge – with me?”
Ruth smiled. “I can think of nothing I should like more,” she breathed.
“Then trust me. I have a house in mind where you can live and will be safe. While you are there, I would like to formally court you.”
Elias making a formal offer like that in such an informal setting was slightly surreal for Ruth. She smiled, though, and agreed because she really couldn’t bear the thought of Elias riding out of her life.
“Now let’s eat,” Elias suggested softly before contenting himself with pressing a loving kiss to the back of her hand.
They both then turned their attention to their meals.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dusk was starting to fall by the time they eventually left the tavern. Elias promised the inn keeper that one of the Star Elite would return the horse and the weapon tomorrow before taking his leave of the tavern’s curious patrons.
“Are you sure you should be leaving this late?” the inn keeper worried as he watched Elias help Ruth onto a horse. “It will be dark soon.”
“That is why we have to go now.” Elias smiled despite his concern. “My colleagues will be looking for us.” He turned his attention to Ruth and handed her the reins. “Don’t look down. If you do you will topple sideways, especially when you are moving. The ground passing by will make you dizzy. You must sit upright, keep your back straight, and look directly between the horse’s ears, preferably at the ground. You need to look for holes or dips in the path up ahead because the horse can’t see directly between his eyes. Guide him around any holes to stop him falling into them and breaking a leg. You will be fine.”