by Rebecca King
“Do you know why they have chosen tonight to launch their attack?” Joe gasped as he fired into the trees.
“I think they may have gotten wind that someone has been searching their rooms. We were careful, but may have missed something somewhere. Maybe they have done what they wanted to do, and it is time to move on. I don’t know. I do know that they aren’t going to leave Smothey free men. Not if I have my way,” Marcus declared.
“Let’s get this lot subdued and then we can go and check on Jess. There isn’t much else we can do right now, except follow them wherever they try to go,” Joe whispered. “Barnaby hasn’t appeared in time to be of any use to us. We are on our own. It is best to use the cover of darkness to get into the Grant house and see for ourselves what they are protecting so fiercely,” Joe reasoned. “Come on. We are losing valuable time standing here.”
He didn’t wait for Marcus and Ben to follow him; he just knew they would. They didn’t get far, though. As they ventured deeper into the woods, they were pinned down by gunfire from several guns aimed at them from all directions. Shots rang out around them; one after the other, after the other. It made going anywhere impossible.
“Get back!” Marcus shouted at Ben when he tried to peer around a tree.
Ben stepped out of the way just in time for Joe to get a clear shot of the man he suspected was Lloyd, just a few feet away. The man went down without a murmur.
“Don’t you dare move,” he snarled at Ben, who jumped in alarm.
Removing his knife from his boot, he re-loaded his gun and went to find another target.
Jess sat and listened to strange popping noises coming from outside. She had no doubt that someone was firing guns somewhere. Unfortunately, there could be little doubt that it had something to do with Marcus and the men who had just left.
Just the thought that Marcus; the man who had done such scandalous, yet loving things to her earlier, could be shot at, or even shot, left her feeling sick. Helpless to do anything useful, she began to pray that both Marcus and Ben would still be alive in the morning.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
While he knew what he was about to do was a matter of life and death, constant in the back of his mind was his desperate need to return to Jess. She needed his protection right now. He had to get back to her to keep her safe. After everything they had shared, he couldn’t just and die on her, or allow anything to happen to her. He wanted a life by her side. He wanted a family, a home, a future. As long as he had Jess, he didn’t care what life threw at him. He would get through it because he had a very good reason to do so. Just contemplating what life would be like if she weren't around left him deeply disturbed. His world would end. It was as simple as that.
He loved her. Totally, completely, and unconditionally, adored the woman. She was as essential to him as the air in his lungs. He needed her. Just as much as she needed him.
“Let’s get this job done,” he growled, with more ruthless determination than he had ever felt in his entire life.
He forced himself to forget about everything around him, including Ben, and Jess and focused on what he needed to do. All of his years of training came to the fore in a heartbeat. Without uttering a word, he motioned to Joe and swiftly melted into the trees.
Without a target to aim at, Gillespie and his gang ceased firing.
Silence settled over the woods for several moments while Marcus waited for Joe to get into position, and the gunmen tried to find them.
Ben stared in the direction of a strange sound within trees. When he looked back at Marcus, he realised he was alone. To his horror, he then noticed that Marcus’ friend, Joe, had also vanished. He wanted to get up and run, but everybody had guns and were firing randomly into the darkness. He couldn’t risk that he would be injured.
With no other option available to him, Ben settled as deeply into the base of a tree as he could, curled up into a tight ball, and began to pray.
The sporadic gunfire lasted for another half hour while Joe and Marcus circled their quarry, picking off men as they went.
Marcus came up behind Mr Ball, who was hunkered down behind a pile of dried wood. He didn’t know what hit him when Marcus dug the handle of his gun hard into the back of the man’s head. He crumpled without a murmur. Marcus caught him before he hit the floor, and lay him down quietly before he secured his hands behind his back. Then he tugged the man’s shirt up over his head and used the sleeves wrapped together to tie into a binding to cover his mouth. Assured that Ball was going nowhere, and was now unable to see, or call for help, Marcus shoved him into bushes and covered him over.
Then he turned his attention to hunting down the next man.
Capturing Brammall was considerably harder. The man gave the outward appearance of being effeminate, but Marcus suspected that he had served time in the army. Nobody learnt skills like Brammall had while living in the back streets of London. The man moved with a panther-like silence that made him a considerably bigger threat than Carruthers. He stomped through the undergrowth with all the grace of a wild buffalo.
Unfortunately for Brammall, the skills were there, but they hadn’t been honed to perfection over recent months like Marcus’ had. Age also had a very large part to play in that the man was clearly not particularly well sighted enough to see in the dark.
Marcus used this, and speed, to his advantage to dodge from one shadow to another, and circle closer. Joe played his part in equal measure. By playing moving shadows the way they did, they knew the men they were approaching would get the impression that there was more than just two of them. Not only that but they would become disorientated and confused, and with those two negative emotions would come frustration and doubt.
Sure enough, panic set in, and the men began to shoot randomly into the darkness again, but this time, there was no particular direction to their firing.
Carruthers got taken down while reloading his gun. Once he was also safely secured and stashed in the undergrowth, they turned their attention to Abernathy, who they found crouched behind a thick oak tree.
Tapping him on his shoulder, Abernathy immediately spun around. He didn’t see the fist Marcus landed on him. The man’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. He got caught before he hit the ground.
“If we keep going like this we are going to run out of hiding places,” Joe mumbled as he helped stash Abernathy out of sight.
Marcus grinned and nodded toward the house.
“There is one we don’t have to hide in that house up there.”
Joe nodded. “I have seen him. He keeps peering out from behind the shutters.”
“I think it is the lad, Smithers.” Marcus glanced around them. “Where is Ben?”
He felt bad for having left the lad in the middle of a gun battle, but there was no safe way out of the woods.
“The cavalry has arrived,” Joe muttered. “About time.”
He nodded to Barnaby, who shook his head at them and motioned that someone was following them. He lifted his gun, but Marcus waved him off, fearing that it might be Ben.
Sure enough, seconds later, Ben appeared behind them.
“Is it over?” He asked cautiously.
Marcus shook his head.
“No, we have one in the house, and Gillespie is still at large, and Lloyd, the magistrate. I have reason to believe he is Sayers.”
The mention of the gangster’s name was enough for Kieran, Connor, Jacob, and Callum, to all emerge out of the dense undergrowth and join them. Marcus briefly brought them up to date on what had happened since he had written to Barnaby.
“Well, where is this boarding house? Is anyone there?” Barnaby asked.
Marcus was indecisive. He desperately wanted to go to the Grant residence to see what it was that Sayers and his men were protecting so fiercely, but he needed to see that Jess was alright. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate until he knew she was safe.
“Jess,” Marcus bit out. “I need to see Jess. Come on.”
“W
here is Sayers?” Joe asked with a frown. “I did see another man stomping around in the woods, but he vanished not long after the firing started.”
Marcus swore. “They were trying to pin us down while he got away. This is Sayers we are discussing. They will protect him.”
The men quickly organised themselves and left Callum to gather up the captives while Connor and Jacob guarded Grant’s house and its rather curious occupant.
Marcus, Barnaby, Ben, Joe, and Kieran, all raced across the village toward the boarding house.
“You stay with me, Ben,” Marcus ordered as they approached the house. He turned to his colleagues. “This is Ben. He has been invaluable in helping me search the house, and gather information on Sayers and his gang.”
“Can you use one of these without taking your head off?” Barnaby demanded as he pulled a second gun out of his cloak pocket.
Ben nodded and grinned. “I live in the country. I have been using guns since I was eight.”
“Good, then here. Make sure you don’t shoot one of us or your sister.”
Ben took the gun from him and looked considerably happier now that he wasn’t so vulnerably unarmed.
“Still stay with me, Ben. Gillespie is Sayers; the worst criminal in London. Don’t challenge him. If you do have to shoot him, then target his legs or arms, not his body. He will use his mouth to abuse you, but just ignore whatever he says. Don’t rise to his bait. Clip him, disable and disarm him but, whatever you do, make sure he stays alive. We are going to get Jess, and go through those rooms again. I have a feeling Sayers may have to return to the boarding house to try to look for those gems, especially now he knows he can’t go back to the grant house.”
“Where are they?” Barnaby panted as he raced with Marcus through the village.
“He won’t find them,” Ben assured him. “I will not have them in the same room as Jess, so I moved them.”
“Where are they?” Marcus growled.
“Hidden,” Ben replied.
They slammed to a halt outside a solitary house in the furthest, quietest corner of the village. At any other time, it would have been quite pretty. Surrounded by shadows and menace as it was, it was too isolated to bring any succour to anyone who looked upon it. Barnaby shivered and shook his head, curious to see what this Jess looks like.
“We will go around the back,” Marcus advised.
“Someone has just passed the dining room window, but I don’t think it was Jess. She isn’t that tall,” Ben whispered.
Everyone watched the window for several moments. Sure enough, a tall, dark shadow appeared and disappeared as a man paced around.
“Sayers is in the house. He has Jess,” Marcus snarled and felt his entire world shudder to a halt.
Jess swallowed against the rising tide of bile in her throat, and watched Mr Gillespie, or rather Sayers, pace backward and forward in front of the window. At first glance, she thought it was rain trickling down his forehead. But, when he reached up to brush it off, and she witnessed the violent shaking of his hand, she suspected it was sweat. The man was worried about something.
She had never been so scared in her life, but she was helpless to do anything except wait to see how everything turned out.
“Who has been in this house?” Gillespie demanded.
“Well, everyone you know, me, and Marcus,” Jess replied.
“What about that brother of yours?”
Jess stared blankly at him for a moment. She watched him run a frantic hand through his hair and tried desperately to come up with a lie. When she couldn’t come up with anything credible, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“He is at his lover’s house in Retterton. He goes there sometimes. He will be back in time to light the fires and get everything ready for breakfast. He won’t be back for hours yet.”
“You were in that room. You!” Gillespie snapped.
“Which room?” She wondered if something in his mind had snapped and he had lost all rationality.
“That hole in the wall you call a bedroom. This dump should have been condemned years ago,” Gillespie snapped. “You were in that stable up there. What did you do with them?”
“Do with what?” Jess cried. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Tears sprang into her eyes when his hand slapped across her cheek with painful ferocity. Her cry was loud when he yanked her head back by her hair and shoved his face into hers.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” It was the truth; she didn’t. “Who? I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Gillespie suddenly released her, uttered a vicious curse, and stalked toward the window again. Rather than stand before it to stare out across the garden, he stood to one side and peered around a half-open shutter.
“I need to get out of here,” Sayers muttered to himself.
“Not today, Gillespie,” Marcus drawled from the doorway.
Jess jerked and turned to look at him, and immediately sagged with relief.
Her heart burgeoned with love at the sight of him standing so tall and proud, and blessedly unharmed. He looked so dark and dangerous that it was difficult to associate him with the man whose bed she shared. The Marcus she had slept with had been so incredibly tender, loving and gentle that she had felt cosseted and the most precious person in the world. The man beside her now was sinister. He looked at her, but there was no recognition in his eyes. She might have been a veritable stranger to him, and that worried her.
“Marcus?” she asked hesitantly.
She flinched with fear when he seemed to look through her, and turned an icy glare toward her captor.
“Or should I say, Sayers?”
Marcus surreptitiously studied Jess. He had seen Gillespie hit her. It was why he hadn’t lingered in the hallway any longer. It was clear that Sayers was starting to panic, and was focusing his worry on Jess. It was imperative Marcus got Jess out of the house before Sayers did something serious, like pulling his gun on her.
The last thing any member of the Star Elite expected was to bring the man down so early on in the investigation. Terrence Sayers had always been as elusive as he was ruthless. On the many occasions they had chased him in London, he had vanished just as quickly as he had appeared. Today, they had been handed a golden opportunity and intended to make full use of it.
Determined to get the job over with, Marcus focused his attention on capturing his cornered quarry.
“I think the greyed out hair is an excellent ruse, but it must have been a nightmare in the rain. After all, the powders are, unless I am mistaken, make-up, which will run when it comes into contact with water. Not only that, but your paunch doesn’t move as well as you do. I have no doubt that is padding and will detach completely. It is time for you to understand that the game is up, Sayers.”
Sayers turned to face him; his lip curled derisively.
“You think you know it all, don’t you? Well, I am not Sayers. I am his brother. Sayers is back in London looking after his network there. He never left London at all.”
Marcus shook his head. “Oh well, I am sure you will do just as nicely.”
He knew Sayers was lying. Extensive investigations had already taken place into Sayers’ background. He had no siblings anywhere, hidden or otherwise.
“Your mother is still in Tooting, I do believe, and your father is still in Newgate. He provided us with a lot of information about you.” Marcus knew the message was received loud and clear when Sayers sighed deeply. “His only son.”
“What’s going on, Marcus?” Jess demanded. “He says he wants something back that was in my room.”
“I know, but it isn’t his, you see? It is on its way to the War Office because it has been stolen. It doesn’t belong to him so he cannot claim it back.” Marcus didn’t take his eyes off Sayers while he spoke.
In the periphery of his vision, he saw Barnaby appear outside the window, his gun drawn in readiness. Just knowing he
had backup made Marcus considerably happier, and able to focus on his part of this operation.
“Get away from her,” Gillespie ordered when Marcus stepped casually into the room to be closer to Jess if Sayers made any sudden moves.
Marcus did as he instructed, but slowly. He knew the man would have no hesitation killing Jess if he felt he wanted to, especially given his dire situation. The last thing he wanted while Jess was on the wrong end of Sayers’ gun was to make any sudden moves that might prompt the man to do something rash like pulling the trigger.
“Put your gun down.” Sayers waved his gun toward the floor.
This time, when Marcus didn’t immediately move, Sayers walked up to Jess and pointed his gun directly at her head. It was impossible for Marcus to get a shot off without Sayers pulling the trigger instinctively as he fell. Nor would Barnaby be able to get a clear shot from outside. His gun was effectively useless now, so Marcus carefully put it onto the floor as instructed.
“Kick it under the table.”
Marcus kicked it but kept his gaze trained on Sayers.
“Get down on your knees,” Gillespie ordered.
“No.” That was the last thing Marcus would ever do.
“Do it,” Sayers snarled.
“No,” Marcus challenged.
He knew that if he were foolish enough to do so he would get shot right there and then. There was no earthly possibility Marcus was going to hand himself over to Sayers on a silver platter. Sayers would shoot him in front of Jess. She would then be too horrified to argue with the man should he want to drag her out of the door.
“Don’t hurt him,” Jess pleaded tearfully.
“Shut up,” Sayers snarled. “He doesn’t give a damn about you. He used you to stay in the house because he knew you didn’t want him here. He bedded you so you wouldn’t throw him out. He doesn’t give a damn about you at all. Look at him. Is he doing as he is told to save you? No, he is thinking of saving his skin.”
“Don’t listen to him, Jess. He has you at the end of a gun. It is hardly the rational behaviour of someone who you should trust,” Marcus challenged. “He has pretended to be an ordinary lodger, but is nothing more than a thief and a charlatan.”