by Rebecca King
She wasn’t surprised when, with his gaze locked firmly upon hers, he slowly slid the bolt across the door and stepped closer to her. There was still a part of her that expected him to lambast her for being so foolish as to go over there in the first place.
It transpired that Mr Horvat’s house was the last thing on Angus’s mind. Before Charity could do anything more than gasp, he hauled her against him and slammed a kiss onto her lips that stole her breath. She felt bruised by the force of his desire but because it matched her own she didn’t protest. With a boldness that startled her, Charity clutched his head and tugged him closer as she returned the full force of his kiss with a desire that raged out of control.
As Angus lifted her high into his arms, Charity tugged at the laces on his shirt. She wanted to feel the warmth of his skin beneath her hands. She needed to feel the heavy pounding of his heart that beat in rhythm with her own. Her stomach dipped with nervous anticipation when she realised he was carrying her up the stairs, but she didn’t object. Not even when he slowly lowered her onto the soft bed in her bed chamber, and slowly followed her down onto the cool, crisp sheets.
The following morning, Charity yawned and stretched only to realise she was not alone. She had expected to wake up this morning to find Angus had left again. But, given the hard arm that was still curled protectively around her waist, and the muscular warmth pressed against her back, Angus quite clearly had no intention of going anywhere anytime soon.
“Morning.”
Charity shivered at the sound of his husky voice still thick with sleep. Her bruised and swollen lips curved into a secretive smile.
“Good morning,” she whispered, unwilling to speak any louder for fear of breaking the wonderful contentment that had settled over them.
When she wriggled around to face him, Angus groaned. He leaned up on one elbow and stared down into her wonderful eyes. He had no idea if the pink tinge to her cheeks was down to embarrassment or memories of what they had shared. Whatever had caused it, he liked it. There was a contented glow about her that made him smile.
Maybe it is because of what we shared, he mused, because it had been more than he had ever expected, and something he wanted to indulge in as often as possible.
For the first time in his life, Angus didn’t care about the consequences of sharing a woman’s bed. Nothing else mattered but ensuring that from now on only he would share Charity’s bed, life and hopes and dreams for the future. The urge to make sure she knew that was so strong that for a moment, Angus struggled to think of the perfect way to tell her how much she mattered to him. He had never expected to need to say to a woman that he loved her. He had never considered that marriage was something he would want as much as he wanted it with Charity.
“Damn,” he murmured when a heavy pounding on the door downstairs interrupted their blissful embrace. He lifted his head and looked ruefully down at her. “We could ignore it.”
Charity shook her head chidingly at him. Her dove grey eyes twinkled with mischief. “If we don’t answer it, I wouldn’t put it past the ladies of the tapestry circle to borrow somebody’s ladder. Are you prepared for the sight of Mrs Applebottom’s face pressed up against the bed chamber window?”
“Noooo,” Angus murmured. His eyes widened because he too could envisage Augusta demanding entrance through the window.
They both turned to look at the shutter, which still stood slightly ajar.
“I suppose I had better answer it hadn’t I?” Angus murmured huskily.
His loving look, and reluctance to get out of bed, made it clear that it was the very last thing he wanted to do.
“I think I had better answer it. You need to get dressed, or hide,” Charity urged him.
The last thing she wanted to do was leave the wonderful warmth of Angus’s embrace, but she had no choice because the persistent pounding on the door was getting louder. Hastily, she dressed and hurried downstairs.
“Is Angus here?” Oliver demanded when she opened the door.
“Er-”
Charity jerked when Angus placed a warm palm on her waist.
“What is it?” he asked, beckoning Oliver and Aaron into the house.
Oliver looked warily at Charity, but she remained by Angus’s side.
“Come on in. It is freezing in here. I’ll light the fire while you tell us what has happened,” Angus murmured.
He didn’t wait for his colleagues to agree, merely turned around and hurried over to the fireplace in the back room.
“We have found Mrs Vernon,” Oliver announced suddenly.
Charity slid into a chair at the kitchen table, not least because her knees had started to tremble. She knew immediately from the solemnity in his eyes that the news wasn’t good.
“She was found wrapped in a rug. It appears she was strangled.”
“Where was she?” Angus asked. He crossed the room and placed a comforting hand on Charity’s shoulder.
“Just on the outskirts of the village, about a mile away. The local farmer found her when he was checking his ditches yesterday and sent for the magistrate. He tried to contact us, but we were all out rounding up locals.” Oliver’s rueful gaze fell to Charity who winced because she now knew how much trouble her meddling had caused.
“Sorry,” she mouthed to him.
Angus winked at her. He couldn’t prevent a soft smile from creeping on his lips despite the sad news.
“I don’t understand why he would want to kill her,” Charity whispered.
“You said yourself she was a gossip who always watched what the people in the street were doing. Maybe the assailant thought she saw something he didn’t want her to see?” Angus suggested.
Charity nodded. “I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but she was a busybody. Even so, I don’t think anybody would wish her dead. She didn’t have enemies. Nobody would want to hurt her. She had to have seen something.”
Angus nodded and lifted a troubled gaze to his friends. They too realised that if someone had seen him and his friends coming and going from the house then Charity was in just as much danger as Mrs Vernon had inadvertently been in.
“Go on,” Angus growled when he realised neither of his colleagues had taken a seat ergo had no intention of staying.
“Horvat has disappeared,” Oliver warned. “He left just before dawn and took a bag with him. Rather than using his usual route, he left the village down the main road, right past the spot where Mrs Vernon was found. It appears that he has jumped ship. Jasper and Phillip are on his tail as we speak. Justin has gone to find the Lawrences.”
“Do you think they are working together?” Charity asked.
Angus lifted his brows at her. “What makes you think that?”
“It just seems odd that they have left at the same time. Not only that but the Lawrences, whom you have suspected all along, have left just as Mrs Vernon vanished. Maybe they killed her and dumped her body on the way out of town?” Charity suggested.
Angus grinned at her with a quiet sense of pride. His smile, which he didn’t seem able to remove from his face, widened considerably when Aaron rolled his eyes.
“Now you are starting to sound like us,” Aaron muttered ruefully.
“We have to watch both of the Lawrence men and Horvat now, I am afraid,” Oliver warned. His gaze turned to Angus as he spoke.
Charity knew Oliver was trying to tell Angus that his help was needed and that they had to leave – quickly.
“You have to stop this, Angus,” Charity whispered, her heart breaking just a little. “Go and find him.”
“You have to be safe,” he warned.
“I am. The only suspicious people we have had in this village have all left now, but they are out there somewhere. Surely that means I am safer staying here?” Charity argued.
“I know,” Angus sighed. He still didn’t want to leave her. It was far too soon after last night.
When his gaze lifted to hers there was a hint of plea in his eye that made her
smile gently at him. He needed her understanding.
“It is all right, I don’t mind,” she assured him. “I think we will all sleep more soundly in our beds at night if we know that anybody who poses a danger to us is locked away. That’s your job. I know that now.”
Angus sighed. He gently picked her hand up and clasped it in his. There was so much he wanted to say but no time in which to say it.
“You have to go with them. They need your help, Angus,” Charity murmured, battling tears.
A dull ache began to form in the centre of her chest because she wanted to ask how long he would be gone and secure a promise from him that he would return, but Charity couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to expect Angus to give her false hope.
He won’t know how long this will take. It could be a few days, several weeks, or a year or more.
Charity quickly closed that thought out and fought to paste a brave smile on her face.
“We have to go, Angus,” Aaron warned. “Time is ticking. We can’t let them get too far away.”
Angus nodded. For the first time since he had woken up that morning, his smile dimmed to the point that his face was almost grim as he pushed away from the table.
“I will be out in a minute,” Angus murmured.
Thankfully, his colleagues quietly left.
Once they were alone, Angus tugged Charity tenderly into his arms and simply held her. He dreaded the moment he had to walk out of the house.
“I will be back just as soon as I can,” he said quietly. “I promise.”
“You cannot promise things like that,” she whispered. “You don’t know where this investigation is going to take you.”
Charity offered him a brave smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Don’t go out at night, Charity. Promise me. I don’t want you venturing into any of the neighbour’s houses unless it is to share some cake,” he urged in a voice that was nothing short of fierce.
Charity nodded. “After last night, I have had enough adventure for the time being.”
Angus lifted his brows at her. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Her cheeks blushed. “I didn’t mean that. I could have gotten you into awful trouble last night in Mr Horvat’s house. It was wrong of me. I am sorry.”
Angus nodded. “I am just glad I was there to get you back out again. Hopefully, we can find the Lawrences and Horvat before they manage to hide. Once they are behind bars they must prove their innocence before they can ever be set free again. Right now, they need to be held under suspicion of Mrs Vernon’s murder, and several kidnappings. Until we can get them off the streets, though, please, please, please, I beg you, don’t destroy my life by doing something rash and getting yourself killed.”
Charity’s heart flipped. She was certain it skipped several beats entirely.
“Would it?” she choked, wishing with all her heart that they were still upstairs, tucked up safely in bed, and neither of them had decided to answer the door.
“I don’t know what I would do,” he whispered, his voice thick with the force of the emotion he couldn’t put a name to. He had never experienced it before. It was part fear, part worry but, more importantly, love. He knew it with every fibre of his being that he now truly, completely, loved Charity Kemble.
“It is you who is going out there to chase kidnappers and murderers. It is you who must stay safe. I will wait for you and promise not to do anything stupid that would put my life in danger,” she assured him.
Boldly, she stood on tip-toe and placed a kiss onto his lips that contained all the emotions words couldn’t convey. Nothing she was able to say seemed strong enough to express the way she truly felt about the tall, proud man standing before her.
“I love you,” Charity whispered tearfully. “Now, go.”
Stepping back, she awkwardly offered him a shaken smile. Thankfully, she was prevented from making any more of a fool of herself by someone knocking on the front door. She suspected she knew who it was.
“Now go. If you are still here when the ladies arrive, they won’t let you escape until they know all the facts about where you are going, and what you intend to do. You have work to do,” she whispered, not giving a clearly stunned Angus the chance to speak.
Her eyes silently begged him not to break her heart by staying or challenging her about her declaration. When the knocking became more persistent, Charity took one last, longing, incredibly loving look at Angus then hurried out of the room.
Angus wanted to go after her, but Charity was already answering the front door. He had no choice but to quietly let himself out of the back door before she let the ladies into the house. He knew she was right. The ladies of the tapestry group, her friends, were nothing if not determined, and could interrogate a person better than his boss in London, Sir Hugo.
Once outside, Angus sighed miserably, and stood looking longingly at the house he had to leave behind.
“Come on, friend, the sooner we get this over with the faster you can come back to her,” Oliver murmured in commiseration.
Reluctantly, Angus took one last longing look at the house, and slowly turned around. He daren’t look back. If he did, he knew he would be back inside doing something rash like asking Charity to marry him.
“Later,” he promised Charity quietly, and meant it.
Charity felt the emptiness of the back room when she returned to it more keenly than she had ever felt anything before. She stared at the spot where Angus had been standing only moments ago and wished she hadn’t been so determined to push him out of the back door. It was difficult to reassure herself that he would be able to return to her. He had said he would, but she truly didn’t believe it, and wouldn’t until he re-entered her life.
For now, Charity knew that all she could do was sit and wait for the day she could be with Angus once more. It was going to be a very long wait.
“I am going to go out of my mind,” she whispered.
“What was that?” Alice asked as she plonked herself down into a seat at the table. She placed her bag at her feet and rested her arms on the table-cloth while she waited for everyone to take up various positions about the room.
Charity’s small back room was cramped. So much so, she suggested everyone move into the much larger front parlour.
“Have you heard the news?” Augusta asked calmly, blatantly ignoring her.
Charity nodded. “Mrs Vernon has been found.”
“No, that’s not what we meant,” Alice replied.
“Has she? Where did she go?” Gertrude demanded.
Charity sighed. She looked at her friends and took a deep breath, then explained what she had learned from Angus and his friends.
“Good Lord,” Monika murmured.
“I meant that the Star Elite have gone,” Agatha thundered.
“She knows,” Monika snapped. “Angus will have told her he was going.” She looked askance at Charity, who nodded.
“They also still suspect the Lawrences and have gone to find them because they left the village at the same time that Mrs Vernon vanished,” Charity informed them. “Because they don’t know who has killed her right now, it is safest for all of us not to discuss what has happened with anybody. I don’t think word has gone around yet that Mrs Vernon is dead. It is best if none of us breaks the news, just in case the killer is still here, or decides to come back.”
Everyone murmured their agreement.
“Where is Angus?” Augusta asked, patting the back of Charity’s hand.
“He has gone to help find them. Mr Horvat left as well, but I don’t know if he went in the same direction as the Lawrences. Whatever happens, Angus will be back, it will just take time.” Charity just wished she could feel as confident about that as she had sounded.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Two weeks later, Charity stepped down off the post chaise and looked around the bustling coaching yard. It was the very last place she wanted to be but needed to get away from her life for a little
while. A nice overnight stay in Cragmire would be just the ticket. Or would have been, if it weren’t for the acute sense of loneliness that had settled over her during her journey and refused to budge.
While the ladies had been wonderful since the moment Angus had walked out of her kitchen, their concern had become somewhat claustrophobic, and repetitive. Charity knew their hearts were in the right place, and still sought refuge in their enthusiastic reassurances whenever she was at her lowest, but there was only so many times she could hear the phrase: ‘He will be back, I am sure of it’, before she quietly went out of her mind.
She needed a break, from her life, her friends, and the cold and empty silence of her home. For some odd reason she couldn’t quite understand, Charity felt as though she was waiting for something to happen, and it wasn’t just Angus coming back to her. She felt restless, on edge; unable to settle. Over the course of the last several days, a strange sense of doom had slowly crept over her. It was most distracting, and disturbing because she had no idea what caused it.
“Well, hopefully a little bit of shopping will help,” she murmured as she crossed the coaching yard and made her way out onto the street.
Unfortunately, Charity had little interest in the shops she needed to visit, or which tavern could provide the most luxurious room to suit her budget. In fact, the only thing that appealed to her was going home.
Was Angus in the town somewhere? Was he keeping watch nearby? She wished she knew. The knowledge that she didn’t made her even more miserable.
Half an hour later, with her purchases tucked into her basket, Charity turned to leave the dress-maker’s shop. She reached out to open the door only for her gaze to be captured by the sight of a familiar figure ambling down the pavement across the road.