by Rebecca King
“Come on,” Joe demanded, grabbing her with one hand while he shot at one of the gunmen with his other hand. “Get out of the gates and turn to the right at the road. If anything happens to me keep running and don’t stop until you can be sure that you are completely on your own. Understand? Whatever you do, don’t trust anybody. Go to the War Office. Tell Sir Hugo that Joe, and Ben, have been hurt. He will know what to do.”
“The War Office?” she repeated dully.
Did he mean it? Did he work for the government? She almost wept with relief.
“What are you going to do?” she demanded suddenly, unsure whether it was safe to leave him.
“Stay with you, hopefully.” Joe grunted when he stumbled over a headstone on the floor he hadn’t seen. Once he had regained his footing, he pushed her through the gate. Together, they then turned to face the street.
“Damn it all to Hell,” he swore when another man, also dressed from head to foot in black, appeared in the middle of the street several feet away.
Behind him was a large, black, and awfully familiar carriage, clearly waiting for their arrival.
“It appears your boyfriend is waiting,” Joe murmured.
“He is not my boyfriend,” Marguerite protested.
Joe half expected her to turn on him then. For her to drop her pretence and claim that she was Sayers’ doxy. He wished he hadn’t opened his mouth and given her so much detail a moment ago as he had, but it was too late to go back now.
When Marguerite didn’t do anything but merely stood staring at the carriage in horror, Joe looked at her.
“You are not with him are you?” he murmured, convinced that he was right.
“Of course not,” she huffed. “I have told you that about a dozen or so times.”
“Thank God for that,” Joe replied fervently. Before he could say anything else, a man appeared in the graveyard’s entrance behind them, his gun drawn. Joe cocked his pistol and took aim. Before he could shoot Joe in the back, Marguerite lifted her gun, she pulled the trigger but, to her horror, nothing happened.
Joe’s gun was reloaded, though. His bullet hit the man in the head, and he fell to the ground with a heavy thump. Fortunately, the loud boom of the gun exploding made the horses pulling the carriage dance about nervously. They drew the coachman’s attention for several moments when he had to soothe them to stop them from running away. Joe took advantage of that momentary distraction.
“When I say, run,” Joe whispered, his gaze locked on the man in the middle of the street.
He had one shot left. As long as the coachman wasn’t armed they still stood a fighting chance of getting out of the area alive, but they had to be quick before the men in the graveyard caught up with them.
“Which way?” Marguerite demanded.
“To the small alley behind the house to your left,” Joe murmured quietly. “Whatever happens, don’t stop for anything. I will be right behind you but there will be gunfire.”
“Do you have any more bullets for this gun?” she asked. She had no idea if she could it again but would feel so much safer now knowing she was armed.
“No. We don’t have the time to reload them. We will be set upon before we do. I have one shot left and we need to save it.”
Joe looked at her. He looked deeply into her eyes, assessing her for panic or distress, but all he saw was steady calmness he could only describe as impressive.
“Ready?”
Marguerite nodded. She didn’t have to think twice about it. “Ready.”
“Now,” Joe murmured when the horses began to jostle in protest at the tight hold the coachman had on them.
Marguerite didn’t hesitate. She raced to the narrow alley to the left of them as Joe had told her to. She didn’t need to look behind her to know he was there. The heavy pounding of his boots on the cobbles was wonderfully reassuring.
As he had predicted, gunfire shattered the silence behind them. Shoving the now useless gun into her pocket, she lifted her skirts clear of her knees and ran. Her long legs ate up the distance to the narrow alley with ground eating strides. The wall of the house exploded in front of her as it was hit by bullets but she didn’t stop. She didn’t care what happened to the wall as long as she got out of sight.
Her pace didn’t slow, even when she was three streets away. She kept running until her legs ached, her knees began to tremble, and her lungs threatened to burst. Still, she didn’t slow her pace. She daren’t. To do so would mean certain death she just knew it. After the horror of what had happened in the graveyard, she had a burning need to put as much distance between them as possible and wasted no time in doing so.
As soon as he was able, Joe moved to run alongside her.
“There is a path on the left up ahead. Go through the metal gates. The carriage can’t get through it,” he gasped, his lungs burning.
He knew where they were now. They were close to the safe house, and would soon be able to call upon the Star Elite’s many reinforcements.
“I have to stop,” Marguerite gasped suddenly. She slammed to a stop and bent over at the waist while she tried to regain her breath. The world was starting to swirl around her. She was going to fall over if she kept pushing. She couldn’t quite remember when she had last eaten, and it had left her weakened and drained of energy.
“Let’s go over to the bandstand,” Joe suggested as he studied the area. “We can stop there for a moment. We don’t have long to go now.”
If he had been on his own, he would have kept going and rested once he was safe but with Marguerite, who was more used to parlour teas and ballrooms, he couldn’t push her for much longer. They were lucky they had managed to cover as much distance as they had.
Marguerite felt vulnerable where they were. She was still panting but struggled to stand still long enough to get proper rest.
“I want to leave here,” she whispered.
“If you are sure you can manage,” Joe replied with a sigh of relief. “If we go to the right at the end of the park, we will be on the main road. We can catch a carriage from there as long as we are careful. If I am honest, I don’t feel comfortable staying here any longer than we absolutely had to.”
He was relatively certain they had avoided being followed but had thought that before when he had been carefully guided toward the cemetery. He wasn’t about to make that same mistake again. While he would have preferred to get to the proper safe house, whatever was nearest would have to do. With that in mind, he altered course slightly and escorted her out of the park.
A tense and watchful silence settled between them as they made their way to their new destination and didn’t ease until Joe carefully closed the door to the hired carriage and settled back against the seat.
Joe wiped a weary hand down his face as he contemplated just how close they had come to total disaster. They had passed through the cemetery by more luck than judgement. To outrun Sayers’ men was a miracle, especially with Marguerite by his side. Deep inside he wondered if they were being set up again but couldn’t see how given that they had left the crook and his cohorts several miles away. For now, he had to assume they were safe.
Marguerite studied him. There could be no doubt he had saved her life. However, there could also be no doubt that by thwarting Sayers as they had, the crook was likely to be even more determined to get his hands on her. Heaven only knew where her father was. It was obvious to her now that the only man she could rely on to stay alive was Joe. It was an awkward situation, not aided by the fact that she was drawn to him in a way that was entirely feminine and personal.
“Where are we going?” she asked quietly.
“To a safe house,” Joe replied. “Do you have the small gun?”
Marguerite handed it to him.
“Where is that?” she persisted, not liking how evasive he was being. “The safe house, I mean.”
“Across town, well away from Sayers’ patch,” Joe replied.
“Do you think my father is with Sayers?�
�� she asked quietly. Inside, she was dreading his answer.
Joe sighed. He had to be honest with her, even though his answer might upset her.
“Until we have proof to the contrary, I think it is safe to assume he has.” He hated to say until they had found a dead body but knew she read it on his face when she immediately blanched.
Joe leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs in a casual pose that hid the tension thrumming through him.
“What I want to know is why Sayers is so desperate to get his hands on you. I mean, if he does have your father for some reason, why does he then need you? He seems awfully determined, especially if you had only just met last night as you claimed.”
Marguerite squinted at him. “You still doubt me?”
“I have to,” he replied. “It is wise to doubt everybody right now.”
“Including me.” It wasn’t a question.
He nodded. “Including you.”
“So why have you kissed me then?” she challenged.
Joe shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
She waited for him to expand. Her disappointment was rife when he didn’t.
“I trust you,” she murmured.
“Good.” It helped Joe enormously if she didn’t question everything he asked her to do.
“But you don’t trust me,” she whispered, needing him to say the words aloud.
“No.”
Marguerite was piqued at that. She trusted him implicitly after what had happened in the cemetery. She couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t do the same, especially when she had shot two of Sayers’ men in cold blood.
“Just tell me something, Marguerite,” he said quietly. “Why were you kissing the Count?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Marguerite opened her mouth to reply but was prevented from doing so by their arrival at the safe house.
Joe closed the front door behind him with a loud bang and waited. It didn’t take long for Jacob to appear in the kitchen doorway.
“What’s up?” he asked as he stuffed the last of his bread into his mouth and sauntered into the hallway. When he noticed Marguerite, he slammed to a halt and looked at Joe with brows lifted.
“Sayers has Marcus,” Joe said coldly. “Has Ben turned up yet?”
“Ben?” Jacob went still. “No, why?” Once again, his gaze flew to Marguerite.
“This is Marguerite. She was at the Carmichael’s recital last night and saw Sayers as well.”
“You saw Sayers?” Jacob asked.
Joe nodded grimly. “So did Marguerite. Unfortunately, our man Sayers has taken quite a liking to her, and desperately wants her to go back to his lair.”
The untold story in his tone warned Jacob he wasn’t going to like the details. Jacob waved them into the kitchen, his curious gaze studying Marguerite closely as she passed. He didn’t press for more details. He knew Joe would tell them all everything in his own good time.
Marguerite followed Joe into the kitchen and stopped suddenly when she saw the men seated around the table. They all stood upon her entrance but their attention was focused on Joe.
“Marguerite, this is Brandon, Kerrigan, Reg, and this here is Jacob. Gentlemen, this is Marguerite.”
Joe waved her to a seat. Once she was sitting the men resumed their seats. A deathly silence fell over everyone while they waited to hear Joe’s news.
“We can eat while I tell them what’s happened,” Joe murmured to her.
Minutes later, he frowned when he handed her a drink and she took it with a hand that shook alarmingly. When he slid a plate of food toward her, he waited for her to start to eat before he helped himself to a plate of his own and took a seat opposite her. Joe then quietly explained everything that had happened, both at the recital, and the events leading up to their arrival in the safe house.
“Where are they now?” Jacob asked quietly. “Did Ben say where he was going?”
“To the surgeon, I hope,” Joe replied. “He said he was going to go to Sir Hugo as well, so he may have gone there first. I had hoped that one of you had seen him.”
They all murmured that they hadn’t.
“Well, Marcus has been taken by Sayers, but we don’t know where yet. There is also Eustace, Marguerite’s father. He is also missing. We don’t know where he has gone yet either.”
“Is Mainton’s body still in the house?” Reg asked.
Joe nodded.
“I will go and move it,” he said.
“No, Ben will get Sir Hugo to go. He may be there already so I shouldn’t bother,” Joe replied casually.
Joe felt his temper boil. In spite of himself, he knew now that he strongly suspected who the Star Elite’s traitor was. Although the men had seriously considered him to be a possibility, Joe hadn’t truly believed it until now. After the events in the graveyard, though, he now believed the presumed culprit was the traitor and struggled to contain his emotions.
Marguerite felt the tension in the room and struggled to eat. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was until she had smelled the food. Now that she had eaten some of it, she wished she hadn’t because it sat like a lead weight in her stomach and made her feel slightly sick. There were distinct undercurrents flowing between the men. It was as though some of them were having a silent conversation she wasn’t privy to and she couldn’t quite make out if that was a good thing or not. A part of her didn’t want to know what they were up to. She had faced enough horrors for one night.
When he had finished his meal, Joe sipped his ale and watched Marguerite struggle with hers. She had hardly touched a thing, and that concerned him, not least because their battle wasn’t over yet. There was a long, hard road ahead that would be fraught with difficulties. If she didn’t get rest when she could, and ate whatever was available then she would get sick, and not have the strength to fight if she needed to.
“Tell me something, Marguerite, if I may call you that?” Brandon began.
“Yes, of course.”
“Has your father been behaving oddly of late?”
Marguerite shook her head. “Since the Count-Sayers-mentioned it, I have thought and thought about his behaviour over the last few weeks, but I cannot say that I have noticed anything unusual. He has been quiet, but he usually is. It is his trade, you see. It doesn’t require much interaction with people. In fact, he prefers it as quiet as possible because some of his work is quite fine.”
“He needs a steady hand,” Jacob added with a nod.
The workings of clocks were indeed fine and would require a keen eye for detail. Someone like Eustace would be absent minded when working, so he could understand, and had no reason to doubt her.
“What about his clock making?” Reg asked.
“What about it?”
“Are there any angry customers?” Joe leaned back in his chair to study her.
“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “My father stopped making clocks for a while when my mother died. He seemed to lose interest in the business although kept it but allowed his associate to run it. Eventually, he gravitated back to it. I think he got rather bored and started to tinker to keep his mind occupied. Bit by bit, he was drawn back to it completely but, rather than make his usual clocks, he decided to make bespoke, more ornate timepieces. You know, fob watches and that kind of thing, together with specially commissioned clocks. He calls them his ‘pets’. They take him several months to make and are usually made to order. I don’t know much more about the business apart from that, and I cannot tell you anything about his customers. I don’t know who they are.”
She sighed when she realised just how little she knew about her father’s business. It made her wonder what else he was involved in that she wasn’t aware of.
“Has he been ill of late, or showing a tendency to be sharp with people?” Joe knew these were all the warning signs of someone with a secret to hide, or they were under pressure by unseen forces.
“I can’t really say that he h
as. Although-” she frowned while she contemplated what she was about to say. She considered it from all angles as she tried to understand if she was wrong, and there was another clear, logical explanation.
“Although?” Kerrigan prompted when she lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Her gaze met his. “He has been withdrawn of late, even more so than usual, and he has been forgetting things.”
“Like what?” Joe prompted.
“Well, just odd things, really. You know, like going outside without his cloak when it is clearly sunny and warm. He once went to have dinner with friends in his smoking jacket. He had completely forgotten to swap it for his dinner jacket. Often, he goes into rooms and forgets what he wants when he gets there. He just stands and stares into space.”
“Was that recently?” Kerrigan asked.
“Just last week,” she sighed, wondering if she was making something out of nothing.
“Go on,” Joe prodded when he had given her enough time to mull over what was bothering her.
“He has been a little different, but not so as you would notice. To most people, he would be the same.”
“You are not most people, though, Marguerite. You share the house with the man. If you have picked up there is a difference to his character then there is. What is it?” He tried not to sound sharp with her but there was a sharpness in his voice that made her look at him curiously.
At first, he thought she was going to dismiss it all and return to her meal. In the end, she sighed and leaned back in her seat.
“It is just little things, really. He has almost withdrawn into himself. He isn’t noisy but has been gone from the house sometimes without even saying goodbye. My father is a stickler for manners if nothing else. It is almost as though he hasn’t wanted me to know he has gone. When my mother was alive, she refused to allow his clocks anywhere near the house. She said it was like being under attack whenever they all went off. She allowed only the grandfather clock, the first my father ever made, into the house. It is still there. It is the only clock we have in the house now. He has gotten rid of all the rest.”