For Love Alone (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite Book 8)

by Rebecca King

  The first impression she had of him was that he was tall.

  And wet. And covered in sand just like the man in the woods was.

  Carlotta frowned. ‘Who are you?’ she whispered, and then mentally winced when she heard the quiver in her voice. She wanted to sound authoritative but failed miserably and sounded quite feeble instead.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he growled.

  ‘I-I live here,’ she replied with a heavy scowl. ‘What are you doing in my house?’

  ‘This is your house?’ Phillip raked her with a curious look, mostly because it helped to avoid having to acknowledge the surge of awareness that had slammed into him when she had walked through the door. What Phillip had also noticed was that the stunning young woman before him was worried about something, or someone.

  Someone she had been running from.

  ‘Y-yes,’ Carlotta replied.

  Phillip lifted a brow. ‘You dare tell me that you, who can be no more than twenty years of age, is able to afford a mansion like this? Who else lives here?’

  ‘My uncle,’ Carlotta lied.

  Phillip knew from the awkward way her gaze slid to his shirt that she was lying. ‘You can’t lie for your life,’ he warned.

  Carlotta’s gaze flew back to his. ‘I am not lying.’

  ‘Where is he then?’

  ‘He isn’t here.’

  ‘So, your uncle went away and left you alone. Where is your chaperon?’

  ‘I don’t need one. Who are you?’

  ‘You don’t have a chaperon? Companion? Nurse? Sister? Mother? Brother? Father?’

  ‘No,’ Carlotta whispered.

  ‘You are an orphan living with your uncle.’

  ‘Yes,’ Carlotta replied.

  ‘You really expect me to believe that your uncle left you to fend for yourself in a mansion he closed up before he left? What, did he forget you?’ Phillip squinted at her.

  Carlotta felt her cheeks heat. He was right. She couldn’t lie to save her life.

  ‘Why should I answer your questions? You are the one who is trespassing. This is private property. You are the intruder. I warn you now that I have no valuables for you to steal. If you don’t get out of here I am going to report you to the magistrate,’ she growled, doing her best to sound like her father.

  Phillip released her and stepped back but only to fold his arms and stare boldly at her. He swept her with an appreciative look and watched her shift uncomfortably. It was clear that she wasn’t used to being the object of a lascivious man’s interest.

  Well, you are not married, or here with your lover then.

  Which was a relief, until Phillip warned himself that it was none of his business whether she was married or not. She was pretty, if a man liked someone who had light blonde hair and had somewhat cat-like green eyes.

  She also has more secrets than me.

  ‘Where have you been? You had a key.’

  ‘I told you, I live here,’ she argued. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am nobody you should concern yourself with.’

  ‘But your presence in my home does concern me,’ Carlotta argued.

  Phillip moved over to the window and slid a shutter open only for Carlotta to hurry over and slam it closed again.

  Phillip rounded on her. ‘You don’t live in this house. If you do you are no more the owner of it than I am. I think you should explain why you have covered all the furniture over with dust sheets. Don’t think about telling me that your uncle did it before he went away. That story no damned fool would believe.’

  Carlotta threw him a dark look. ‘What I am doing here is none of your concern.’

  Before Phillip could answer her he was interrupted by a series of heavy thumps on the front door. Carlotta froze and looked at the door with wide, terrified eyes.

  ‘You have a visitor,’ Phillip informed her as if she didn’t already know it.

  It was only when the young woman eyed the drawer containing the large knife that Phillip became wary. He watched with growing alarm as she hurried across the kitchen to the dresser and slid open the drawer. It was then that he noticed several large red marks on her arm. His brows shot up when she turned around with the knife in her hand. Phillip’s brows shot up when he saw the knife in her hand.

  ‘Do you know something? I get the impression that you are not supposed to be here either.’ He pointedly looked at the front door which was visible through the kitchen doorway. Neither of them went to answer it.

  Carlotta glared at him. ‘They are not here for me,’ she snapped.

  ‘Nobody knows you are here,’ Phillip murmured with a thoughtful nod.

  Carlotta glared at him only to blink in surprise when he suddenly left the kitchen and began to walk toward the front door. Horrified that he might think to answer it, she hurried after him. ‘Don’t,’ she ordered.

  Phillip stopped at the bottom of the stairs and threw her an askance look. ‘Are you supposed to be here or not?’

  ‘I am and am not,’ she replied warily.

  Phillip sighed heavily and muttered something that sounded distinctly like an epithet beneath his breath before disappearing into the study.

  Curious to see what he was going to do, Carlotta followed him. She watched him stand next to the window closest to the front door. Dressed completely in black he was almost invisible as he slid the shutter open just enough so he could see who was on the front steps.

  Phillip studied the two men thumping heavily on the door. He suspected they were Smidgley’s men. Both were armed and looked to be the kind of disreputable thug Smidgley would employ. Slowly, carefully, Phillip replaced the shutter and moved away from the window. His gaze immediately returned to the woman who was watching him intently from the doorway.

  ‘Is everywhere in this house locked and shuttered?’ he asked as he stepped past her into the hallway. He studied the locks on the front door and satisfied himself that they were indeed going to stop the thugs from breaking in.

  ‘Yes. Or they were until you broke in.’ Carlotta daren’t tell him anything else. She was curious to know who he was hiding from. ‘Are they here for you?’

  Phillip didn’t answer. Instead, he returned to the kitchen.

  Carlotta watched him until he disappeared. She took a moment to gather her wits about her. It felt ridiculous to stand in the hallway with a knife in her hand. He hadn’t posed any danger to her. He had scared her out of her mind but hadn’t physically harmed her. What she needed to know was if he had hurt someone else.

  Like the man with the scar on his face.

  She wondered if it was the magistrate’s men at the door, or the thugs her father had sent after her. With a worried look at the kitchen, Carlotta went into the study and lifted a hand to slide the shutter open a little.

  ‘Slide that open and they will see you,’ Phillip warned from the doorway.

  Carlotta gasped and threw him a dark look. She hated the way he could move about without making a sound. ‘You did it,’ she hissed, trying hard to ignore just how handsome he was.

  Dressed completely in black, the stranger was powerfully sinister but still incredibly handsome. It was concerning that while she knew she should run for her life all Carlotta wanted to do was find out everything about him.

  Like what he is doing here, where he has come from and who he is hiding from.

  It was startling to realise that he seemed to be in the same situation she was in. What she needed to know now was whether he was running from the same people or working with them.

  ‘But he wasn’t standing in front of the window trying to see inside then,’ he mumbled around a mouthful of bread.

  Carlotta stared at him. When she looked at the shutters again the shadows had indeed changed. She watched as the light filtering around the edges of the shutters lifted again, as if the person outside had moved on and in doings so allowed the natural flow of light into the room to resume. Carlotta opened her mouth to ask how he knew about things like that o
nly to realise the stranger had disappeared again.

  ‘And I didn’t hear him move,’ she murmured in disgust.

  By the time she reached the hallway he was on the landing. Staring up at him she wondered if he was searching for something and did indeed intend to steal something. But she also knew that anything of any real value had been removed by the house’s owners not long after the previous owner had died. There was no possibility she was going to tell this man that, though. He could search everywhere and find out for himself that he was not going to find any valuables.

  ‘He wouldn’t believe me anyway.’ Rather than follow him and see what he was doing, Carlotta returned to the kitchen. Within just a few minutes, the stranger appeared in the kitchen again.

  ‘Your friends have gone,’ he reported.

  ‘They are not my friends. I don’t know who they are,’ she snapped before continuing to saw at the freshly purchased loaf of bread before her. She didn’t look up but was painfully aware of him as he crossed the kitchen.

  As he passed her he leaned toward her but only so he could whisper into her ear: ‘Liar.’

  Carlotta flushed and leaned away from him; from the unwelcome feelings his warm breath shivered down her spine. She wasn’t at all sure why she should find any aspect of this man appealing, but there was something about him that intrigued her. It created a nervous anticipation, a curious worry that was deceptively attractive.

  ‘Hasn’t anybody told you that you shouldn’t swim fully dressed?’ she asked as she eyed the sodden clothing he didn’t even appear to notice was wet.

  ‘How do you know I have been swimming?’ Phillip asked, whirling to face her.

  ‘Well, it isn’t raining and hasn’t rained for the last two days. There is a vast ocean just a few feet away, you know. How else would you get so wet?’ Carlotta lifted her brows at him and smirked.

  ‘And you have just come from the village,’ Phillip replied. ‘Yet you live here. In this vast mansion.’ His gaze fell to her dress. ‘All by yourself. And are wearing clothing that befits someone who is a villager rather than an aristocrat. Are you a servant? A housekeeper?’

  Despite the ache in his shoulders, Phillip folded his arms and rested his hips against the dresser while he waited for her to answer.

  ‘I don’t think my situation is any of your business. Do you want to tell me why you are here? How did you get in by the way?’ she demanded. ‘I used a key. You didn’t. Hasn’t anybody told you that breaking and entering is illegal?’

  Phillip had to admit that she had used a key, which pointed to the fact that someone had given it to her and was allowing her to stay here.

  ‘Have you left your husband or something?’ he demanded.

  ‘Husband?’

  She stared at him with such horrified eyes Phillip knew she wasn’t married. He contemplated what to do for a moment. They could continue to ask each other questions but would not really achieve anything. What he did know was that she was in trouble of some kind and he was likely to be caught up in it if he stayed in the house with her. When, or if he became embroiled in her problems, he would need her to cooperate with him so they could both escape. He couldn’t achieve that if she didn’t trust him.

  ‘My name is Phillip,’ he informed her. ‘Phillip Laithwaite.’

  ‘Carlotta,’ she replied. ‘Carlotta Stoneman.’

  Phillip nodded. She replied without hesitation. It assured him that she was being honest. ‘Forgive me for not bowing but it seems a damned foolish thing to do seeing as we aren’t at a ball or social function.’

  Carlotta agreed. ‘Don’t you think you should get your wounds cleaned? They are likely to get infected if you ignore them.’ She waved a knife to the hole in his shirt and puckered skin that was visible beneath the sodden material.

  ‘It is just a graze, and has been cleaned by the sea water,’ he replied only to then realise just how much he had divulged to her without even realising it.

  Strangely, though, he suspected that he could tell Carlotta his secrets and she was the very last person who would divulge them to anybody else. There was something almost practical, thoughtful, wary yet honest about her that made him less inclined to want to question her further right now. He would find out everything he wanted to know about her once they had become a little less wary of each other. For now, he had to find out what had happened to his colleagues but stay out sight while doing it, just in case those were Smidgley’s thugs on the doorstep trying to find out who was living here.

  ‘Who hurt you?’ he asked with a nod to her arm.

  Carlotta stared down at her bruised flesh. She shivered and contemplated what to tell him but knew she couldn’t lie so had to tell him the truth. ‘Someone accosted me in the woods. It is why I was panicked when I got back. I have been here for several weeks now and nothing has happened to me before. I thought I was safe, but then this man accosted me.’

  ‘Is he from the village?’ Phillip scowled.

  Carlotta shook her head. ‘I haven’t met everyone in the village, but I haven’t seen him there, I am sure of it.’ She eyed her piece of bread but didn’t bite into it. Instead, she raked him with a worried look. ‘He was just as wet as you as a matter of fact. He was also covered in sand and had a long gash down the side of his face.’

  Phillip tensed and immediately straightened. His gaze became stern as he snapped: ‘What did he look like? Describe him.’

  Carlotta took a backward step at the intensity on his face. ‘What?’

  Phillip strode toward her and grabbed her shoulders in a firm grip. ‘What did he look like? Can you remember? Was he young, old?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I have lost – several – of my friends. They may have been injured. I need to know what the man who accosted you looked like.’ Phillip knew that his friends and colleagues of the Star Elite would never inflict on anybody the kind of bruising Carlotta had sustained.

  ‘Well, he was not much taller than me, and stocky,’ she replied cautiously.

  Phillip released his grip. He dropped his gaze and took a breath. ‘What age?’

  ‘About fifty something.’

  He went cold. ‘Hair colour?’

  ‘Silver.’

  Phillip cursed.

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘He told me to help him. He grabbed me and tried to drag me to the village, but I refused. I swung my basket at his face. He had a scar down the right side. It was fresh. It was still bleeding. I ran away while he was nursing it.’

  Carlotta had barely finished before Phillip unlocked the door and slammed the bolts back.

  ‘Don’t unlock this door until I get back. Stay inside,’ he growled as he yanked the door open.

  ‘Is he one of your friends? Do you know him?’ Carlotta called after him.

  ‘Just stay inside the house. Wait until you hear three knocks, a pause, and then two more knocks. That is me. Answer this door or I will damned well kick it down,’ Phillip growled before stalking out of the house.

  He had barely reached the corner of the property when he ran into one of the two men who had been knocking on the front door.

  ‘Ah! There you are,’ the man called with far too much joviality to be believed. While he spoke, his narrow, beady eyes slid effortlessly over every inch of garden and house behind Phillip.

  Phillip could only pray that Carlotta had closed the door behind him. Rather than look at the door, he squared up to the man before him and watched the intruder’s worried gaze fall to the gunshot wound on his shoulder.

  ‘This is private property,’ Phillip growled darkly. ‘Get off this land.’

  The man didn’t move. His friend did. He appeared around the corner of the house and made his way toward them despite having heard what Phillip had said.

  The tallest of the two thugs lifted his hands in a placating gesture. ‘We are just here for a young woman. She was seen heading this way a half hour ago. W
e just want a word with her.’

  ‘What has she done?’ Phillip demanded.

  ‘She hasn’t done anything,’ the smallest of the thugs replied.

  Phillip eyed the man’s gun. ‘Then why are you carrying guns? It is a bit heavy handed for a casual conversation isn’t it? No wonder she is avoiding you.’

  He looked up in time to catch a brief flash of anger in the face of the man closest to him. The men shared a look.

  ‘It seems that you have been in a few skirmishes yourself, eh?’ the thug drawled.

  ‘My behaviour on my own property is nothing to do with either of you. She isn’t here.’ Phillip stared hard at the two thugs but neither of them moved.

  ‘We know she is here,’ one of the thugs stated.

  ‘Then you would also know that she wants nothing to do with you. You don’t work with the magistrate and have no authority to be on my property. If I say she isn’t here, she isn’t here. Even if she was, I wouldn’t hand her over to you if she didn’t want to go. Forcing a woman to go somewhere she doesn’t wish to go is kidnap.’ Phillip then squinted at the thugs. ‘Are you involved in that kidnapping gang who have been snatching women from Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire? Is this woman your new target? I have read all about you in the newspapers.’

  ‘That wasn’t us,’ one of the thugs protested.

  ‘But you want to force the woman to go with you. Clearly, if she has run away from you she doesn’t want to come with you. Taking her anyway is kidnap,’ Phillip protested.

  ‘We work for her father,’ the oldest of the thugs announced.

  ‘And he has sent men after her with guns,’ Phillip said flatly, his gaze falling once again to the weapons the men were trying but failing to hide.

  ‘They aren’t for her,’ one of the thugs assured him.

  ‘So why carry them? Does the magistrate know you are carrying guns in his county? I am going to have to get him to come and have a word with you and relieve you of them. Where are you two staying?’