by Rebecca King
She checked her old room, only to sigh when she found it empty. Making her way downstairs, she searched the downstairs rooms and finally came to a stop in the kitchen. The half-open scullery door warned her that wherever Marcus was, Ben was probably not far behind.
“Just what are you two up to?” she whispered with a shiver. If she was honest, she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know. What she could be sure of was that if Ben was with Marcus, he would be perfectly safe.
Quickly helping herself to a drink, she began to make her way back to her bedroom.
Her muted scream was loud in the night-time silence when she turned into the darkened corridor and heard a chilling voice coming from within the shadows.
“Well, well, well, the house is alive tonight,” Mr Gillespie drawled from the doorway of his bedroom.
“Oh, Mr Gillespie, I didn’t realise you were awake,” she gasped, willing her racing heart to settle.
“I am awake,” he mused wryly. “And so are you.”
He was indeed fully dressed, but there was something about him that was odd. Jess just couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She studied him. His eyes were cold and unwelcoming.
Her thoughts immediately turned to what had happened in the lane yesterday. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if it was him she had seen, but she didn’t want him to realise how scared she had been.
“I am sorry if I disturbed you. I just wanted something to drink,” Jess whispered. “Are you on your way out somewhere?”
She nodded to his clothing and watched Mr Gillespie looked down at himself.
“No, we are not,” he replied.
At that moment, Mr Ball and Mr Brammall appeared in the doorways of their rooms.
Suddenly, Jess knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that these men were sinister. Her gaze flew to Mr Gillespie, silently seeking reassurance, but the unrelenting hardness of his stare worried her.
You are in danger. Walk slowly toward the stairs and get out of here, she thought desperately.
“What have you done with Marcus?”
“We haven’t seen him. I thought you were accommodating him tonight,” Mr Gillespie drawled with a sneer.
He ran his gaze down the length of her meaningfully, very much like Lloyd had done the other week. Like last time, Jess shuddered with revulsion.
“Where is he now?” Ball demanded having lost all trace of his previous shyness still.
“Who?” Jess was starting to suspect who ‘he’ was already, and it wasn’t Ben.
“Your lover. Where is Mr Cauldwell now?”
Mr Gillespie stepped into a shaft of moonlight and revealed the wicked looking gun he had aimed at her.
Jess’ gaze fell to it. She instinctively took a step back from it but then froze when he immediately cocked it.
“I will shoot you before you even reach the top step,” he promised in a voice full of evil menace.
“I don’t know where he is,” Jess said. “I have just been looking for him.”
“Ah, so he took advantage of you and then scarpered, did he? That doesn’t surprise me,” Ball snorted derisively.
Jess didn’t deign to answer and contented herself with throwing him a withering look.
“I think I know where he has gone,” Gillespie murmured suddenly.
Rather than explain, he nodded toward Mr Brammall, who immediately hurried down the stairs and slammed his way out of the front door without a backward look.
“Who are you?” Jess whispered, not altogether sure she wanted him to confirm he was the Sayers man Marcus was after.
“I am someone whose instructions you are going to follow. Don’t speak until you are told to; don’t ask questions because I won’t answer them, and don’t do anything foolish. If you behave, you may just live to see the dawn,” Mr Gillespie promised.
“Ladies first.” Mr Ball stepped forward and waved toward the stairs.
Jess swallowed, and did as she instructed. As she descended the stairs, she studied the distance between the bottom step and the door. She wished she had enough strength to at least try to get there. Unfortunately, her knees were shaking too badly and threatened to buckle beneath her as it was. There was no possibility of her attempting to run to try to get out of the house.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. Her throat was too choked for her words to be possibl with any volume, but Gillespie heard.
“He has something we want. Now, we have something he wants. I know all about your willingness to share his bed. He has a vested interest in you now. You will serve your purposes.”
“I am not serving you anything,” Jess snapped.
“I know. You do your best, I suppose, but this house is a joke. When I took a room here, I knew it would be dire, but it served our purposes. You have helped me with my work so effectively; I cannot ever thank you,” Gillespie mused.
“We want our goods back,” Ball snarled.
Jess stared him. “What could Marcus possibly have of yours?”
“Him, and those colleagues of his have been a barnacle in my side for a very long time,” Gillespie explained. “They will, however, be summarily dealt with now that we know who they are, and what they look like. It was a foolish mistake of ours to take lodgings with a relation of one of them, but we can correct that mistake.”
Jess opened her mouth to correct his misunderstanding but then closed it again with a snap. She could see no reason to give the man information about anything, especially Ben and Marcus.
Gillespie waved his gun toward the dining room.
She entered the room and dutifully sat on the chair Ball shoved out for her. No sooner had her bottom touched the hard wood than Jess’ arms were yanked behind her back and secured at the wrist.
“That hurts,” she whined. She winced as the coarse rope dug painfully into the tender flesh of her wrists.
“It isn’t supposed to be pleasant. It is tight enough to make sure you cannot get free,” Ball snapped.
“Be quiet,” Mr Gillespie warned.
To her surprise, Gillespie swung another chair around and sat directly in front of her. Thankfully, he put the gun on the table, but that didn’t help relax her because it was still within arms’ reach.
“Now, tell me everything you know about him. He isn’t your fiancé, is he?”
“He is my fiancé. He comes from a family as impoverished as mine, so if it is a ransom you are after you aren’t going to get it,” Jess declared firmly. “He doesn’t have much in the way of family either to pay a ransom for him, and neither do I.”
She felt proud of herself for having thwarted that particular scheme.
“Thank you for that, my dear. It is a relief to know that if we have to dispense with your services we can do so without fear that your lover will do something rash in the name of revenge.”
Jess gulped. The callousness in Gillespie’s eyes was nothing short of contemptuous. It was something she had never seen directed at herself before. She realised then that there was a very real possibility that she might not live until the morning.
“I am not the liar,” she whispered, “You are. You led me to believe you were a nice man, a reputable human being. You, sir, are nothing but a scoundrel and a wastrel. You should be behind bars.”
“You don’t know who we are,” Ball interrupted.
Gillespie lifted his hand to warn the man to shut up, and threw him a warning look.
“He won’t stay around here, you know,” Gillespie drawled. “I have seen plenty of men like him over the course of time. You are a pretty young woman, desirable even, to a certain kind of man. It is inevitable that a jack-the-lad, man about town like him would find you appealing, and seduce you. You, poor creature that you are, most probably soaked up the compliments and allowed him to bed you thinking he would offer for you. Once he is bored, though, he will move on. Men like him don’t offer marriage; especially to someone like you. He will take advantage of you - all in the name of his work, you understand
? But, he will move on.”
“What happens between my fiancé and me is nothing to do with you,” she replied coldly. “It is clear that you know nothing about who Marcus is to be able to judge him in such a way. You should know how foolish it is to make assumptions based on how anybody looks. I mean look at me. I believed you were a reputable gentleman.”
Gillespie nodded his acknowledgement of his deception as to why he was in Smothey in the first place.
“Your man is from London. He will undoubtedly go there when he has finished with you. He won’t allow himself to get stuck in a backward place like this. It is nice, I suppose if you are a certain kind of person. To someone like him, it is far too quiet here. Why, he is four and thirty, if he is a day. It is odd that a man reaches his age without marrying, do you not think? Does he have a wife stashed away somewhere?” Mr Gillespie snorted with laughter and leaned toward her. “You had better hope not. If he isn’t at the house across the village, sticking his nose into things that don’t concern him, then he will be back at home with his wife by now. But he will be back here, just after dawn. Before you get up, of course, so he can be in his room where he is supposed to be, and turn up in time for breakfast just like everyone else does.”
“Just like the rest of you liars,” Jess snapped.
She saw Gillespie’s eyes harden and suspected that most of his comments were designed to upset her. They had no basis in truth. He was just trying to turn her against Marcus. But she knew the man whose bed she had shared for several nights now. Well, she knew him better than she had a few weeks ago. There were still things she needed to learn about him, but she knew, from personal experience, that he was a kind, protective, loving man who worked to rid the world of men like Gillespie, and his gang.
Because of how much help Marcus had given her while he had been in the house, she was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Gillespie was the liar; the charlatan. Marcus was, without a doubt, exactly what he claimed to be; a man of the law who worked for the War Office.
“I think all of you had better pack your bags and get out of this house. I don’t care what is going on between you and Marcus, but my brother and I are innocent in all of it. It is unfair to involve us. Marcus can go too; I shall tell him when he returns. I don’t know what is going on. I don’t care what is going on, but it is not going to go on in this house. Do you hear me?”
She knew that by the time she had finished talking she was shouting at him but didn’t care. Her wrists strained against the bindings as she tried to lean forward, but she couldn’t get them to loosen enough for her to slip her hand out. She had to sit there until Ben, or Marcus, walked right into the trap the men were setting about her as she spoke.
“We are going - in time. But, for the time being, Mr Ball here will be holding you for collateral. If your lover doesn’t give us our goods back then, I am afraid we are going to have to show him just what we do with people who defy us.”
“I have no idea what you are babbling on about, you silly man,” Jess snapped. “He isn’t here. I suggest that instead of sitting here threatening an innocent woman, you go out there and find him.”
She could only hope Marcus would be many, many miles away by now, with absolutely no intention of returning; for his safety, if nothing else. But she knew he wasn’t. He was out, most probably meeting with his colleague, trying to find out the true extent of Gillespie’s crimes.
Unfortunately, from her position in the room she couldn’t see the pathway to the front door. She had no way of seeing who was approaching the house to be able to warn Marcus before he entered. Ben, she knew, would enter through the back door, and would be vulnerable to attack as soon as he crossed the threshold.
“So, what do you plan to do now? You have me tied up better than a goose at Christmas. I cannot get away, and have no money to give you. Ben is out with his girlfriend in Retterton, and won’t be back before dawn. Marcus, whoever he is and whatever he has of yours that you want back, isn’t here. He is not likely to return either seeing as he has run off in the middle of the night and his things have gone.”
Gillespie went still and stared at her. He nodded to Ball, who quickly left the room.
Jess knew, from the sound of the booted footsteps on the stairs, that he had gone to check the room Marcus had used. Minutes later he appeared in the doorway.
“Gone.”
“Damn it,” Gillespie swore and pushed out of his chair.
Jess snorted disparagingly.
“God, what kind of idiots are you?” she demanded scathingly. “You have just caught yourself a victim, but don’t have anybody around to give a damn. You have just lost the person you most probably should have kept instead.”
“Shut up,” Gillespie snarled.
He spun on his heel and stormed toward her. She suspected he intended to hit her and braced herself as best she could. Thankfully, when he was about half-way across the room, he seemed to have second thoughts. Instead, he threw a furious glare at Ball.
“Let’s go. Leave her here. We will come back for her later,” Gillespie ordered as he stalked toward the door.
“Wait!” Jess protested. “You cannot leave me here.”
Both men ignored her as they left the house. Jess listened to the slam of the door and found herself encased in silence. She didn’t know which was worse; being held captive by someone, or being ignored by everybody.
“Help!” she shouted. “Ben? Marcus? Help!”
When nobody appeared, Jess knew she was in for a long wait and allowed her tears to fall.
Marcus watched Gillespie and Ball, for want of better and more accurate names he could call them, slam their way out of the house. It was clear that they had searched the property and found it to be empty. He just had to wonder where Jess was.
“What do we do now?”
Marcus sighed. Asking questions was all Ben seemed to do whenever they were out together. But at least the lad was asking and not just ploughing his way into any dangerous situation they came across.
“Don’t make any sudden moves. These men are ruthless.”
Ben nodded, but Marcus had already started to move forward. He had no sooner taken two steps than a faint cry broke the silence. He froze and listened carefully for several moments, but didn’t hear it again.
“It must be woodland creatures,” Marcus murmured to Ben. “Come on.”
Several moments later, at the back of Mr Grant’s house, a loud bang echoed through the trees. The branch directly above Ben’s head exploded, covering his head and shoulders with splinters.
“Get down,” Marcus ordered.
Once on the floor, he drew his gun and returned fire.
Several returning shots ricocheted around the trees. The noise of the guns firing echoed sinisterly around them. Several birds screeched their protest and took to the skies, but Ben couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see much of anything except for Marcus’ back, and he daren’t tear his gaze away from that.
“Do you see them?” Joe whispered as he came alongside them.
“There is one over there by those trees to the left. Gillespie is on his way toward us with Ball. They are both armed,” Marcus replied quietly.
“I think they are already here,” Joe whispered.
“Smithers and the magistrate are around as well,” Ben replied.
Marcus cursed. He wondered if tonight could get any worse.
It had started out wonderfully but had gone downhill rapidly when he had woken up and realised he had overslept by a good hour.
The only positive thing to come out of this situation was that he knew Jess was safe. Everybody who posed a potential risk to her was now stomping through the woods firing at him. He now wished he had forced Ben to remain in the scullery. Just the thought of having to explain to Jess that her brother had been shot gave him the chills.
He realised then that Ben didn’t have a weapon on him and was, as a result, incredibly vulnerable.
“Can you s
ee if you can get back to the house, and check on Jess? Stay with her, Ben. Make sure nobody gets into that house. Lock all of the doors and close all of the shutters. Don’t let anybody in, no matter what they say to you.” He stopped and ducked when another flurry of gun shots carved splinters out of the trees around them. “Use the trees to protect you. Move when I shoot at them. Hurry. I will come to you when I have finished here. ”
Before Ben could move, several more shots were fired which carved grooves in the trees on either side of them. Marcus took aim and returned as many shots as he could. Even though they were encased in darkness, he was rewarded with a faint cry of pain when someone was hit.
“Over there,” Ben whispered, and pointed to a dark shadow moving steadily toward them.
Marcus spied the target and nodded. He suspected from the outline that it was Gillespie. There was nobody else in the village that tall.
Taking aim, he fired off a shot and watched the man jump back. With little light to see properly, he had no idea whether the man had been wounded or not. Either way, before Gillespie could advance any further, Marcus took aim again.
“Damn it,” he cursed as he studied the now empty space.
“I can’t go, Marcus,” Ben warned. “Jess is in the house. She doesn’t venture out at night. She is safe. You need me here.”
“He is right,” Joe bit out. “We need help.”
Marcus nodded at Ben. “Alright. Keep an eye out for any sign of movement.”
Peering out from behind a tree, Marcus took aim again and exchanged fire with a gunman now hidden only a few feet away.
“We need to get out of here,” he gasped when one bullet whizzed straight past his ear.
He hauled Ben to his feet and followed Joe through the undergrowth toward the main road. Rather than break their cover and make themselves a visible target, they stayed within the trees while they decided what to do.
“They don’t want us going to Mr Grant’s house.” Joe’s voice was full of determination to defy them.
“They have a lot to hide; that’s why. We can’t go into it now, or we will be boxing ourselves up for them to come in and pick us off at random,” Marcus warned.