by Rebecca King
Her mouth fell open.
To her disbelief, ‘old’ Mr Lawrence no longer shuffled. He walked with a long, arrogant stride that accompanied the sneer on his weathered features. To add to Charity’s astonishment, Mr Lawrence’s hunched back had also straightened considerably.
“You fiend,” Charity whispered when she realised the Star Elite had been right to suspect Mr Lawrence. Indeed, the man she watched stalk down the road, a destination firmly in mind given the surety of his step, had fooled them all.
“He is nothing but a fraudster,” she added, her anger and disgust rising.
“Is everything all right?” the dressmaker asked.
Charity jerked and looked at her blankly. “Yes, fine, thank you,” she murmured.
Yanking the door open, Charity stepped outside. Her gaze immediately searched for, and found, Mr Lawrence’s rapidly retreating back. Without hesitation, she began to follow him.
As she walked through the town, Charity contemplated what to do. How was she to go about notifying the Star Elite of who she had found? It would take days to get a note to them. By then, Mr Lawrence might well have moved on.
Curiosity compelled her to continue to follow him, even though she knew he was a criminal. Charity had to find out where the man was staying, if only so she had somewhere she could direct the Star Elite to. There could be no harm in that, could there? Charity wasn’t sure but decided to follow anyway.
Angus sighed and puffed out his cheeks. He glared up at the sky and shook his head as he let loose a blistering series of vicious curses that made Aaron lift his brows at him.
“You really are truly miserable, aren’t you?” he murmured.
Angus shook his head. “I am sick of being wet, standing in the dark, and chasing stupid people like Horvat and Lawrence.”
He rested one broad shoulder against the coarse brickwork of the wall beside him. Nestled deep within the narrow alleyway, Angus was shrouded in shadow and was able to relax a little as he observed the house opposite. While nobody had entered or left the property for the last hour or two, ‘old’ Mr Lawrence was due back sometime soon. Phillip was following and would alert them if Lawrence went somewhere unexpected. Until then, Angus and Aaron had to observe to see where the Phillip Lawrence’s son went, if he left the small house across the street at all, which he hadn’t.
Angus, as a result, was bored. He shifted and glanced down at the chains at his feet. Just as soon as their target was back inside the house the men from the Star Elite intended to swoop upon the property and arrest the two inhabitants for the murders of Mrs Browning, Mrs Vernon and the real old Mr Lawrence.
“It is quite a complex mystery, isn’t it?” Aaron murmured as he studied the house.
“Now we have that witness statement that confirms ‘old’ Mr Lawrence is in fact cousin Phillip, we can arrest both cousin Phillip and his son,” Angus said with no small measure of satisfaction
“It is a very clever deception they have been living,” Aaron said quietly.
“It never occurred to me to ask if Phillip Lawrence had a son,” Angus muttered. “The ladies will know something that important.”
“While we knew Lawrence was lying about his infirmity, none of us had any suspicion the Lawrence men were working with Horvat, and we were watching them constantly,” Aaron sighed.
Angus nodded. “Now that I come to think of it, I should have checked the loft of Horvat’s house while I was up there, just to see if the loft is sectioned off or joining the neighbouring property. If it joins up, it would be easy for Horvat to access the Lawrence’s home undetected, and vice versa.”
“It is an elaborate way of getting to speak to each other,” Aaron said.
“Yes, but they would do it if they realised they were being watched,” Angus argued.
“Target’s back,” Aaron murmured with a nod to the end of the street.
Angus peered around the edge of the building but only took a cursory glance at the man sauntering arrogantly toward them. His attention was instantly drawn to the woman following. She was too far away, and too well hidden, for him to get a look at her features, but there was just something about her presence that bothered him. He shifted so he could study her as she approached. His gaze slid over those narrow shoulders, the nipped in waist, and the height. The more he studied the figure, the more he grew alarmed. Not only at the deep sense of longing that swept through him at the thought of Charity, but at the thought that the woman he was looking at might indeed be her.
“God, I hope it isn’t,” he growled.
“It looks like Charity,” Aaron muttered in disgust. “It can’t be her, can it? She must be back in St Magdaline, mustn’t she?”
“How in the Hell should I know?” Angus snarled.
He glared at the woman walking toward them. It was obvious even to him that she was following Mr Lawrence. Not only was her gaze trained upon him, but when he crossed the road, so did she.
“Damn, he is going to see her,” Aaron sighed.
“We have to get her out of here,” Angus snapped. “I have no idea what the Hell she thinks she is doing but I am going to bloody well paddle her backside.”
“You are going to marry her,” Aaron reminded him.
Angus rolled his eyes. “I must be out of my mind.”
“Well, look on the bright side, we will have to get all of the criminals off the streets, if only to make sure she doesn’t go and get herself in any trouble while you are away. Either that, or you are going to have to fill the house with babies to make sure she has plenty to keep her busy.” Aaron’s voice was so dry Angus grinned.
“You seriously wouldn’t care, would you?” Aaron prompted when Angus appeared to be considering that very suggestion.
Angus’s grin was cocky as he peered around the corner of the building again. His smirk said it all. No, he wouldn’t mind that prospect one bit. In fact, when he did manage to return to St Magdaline, he intended to put his very well thought out plans for his future into action as quickly as possible.
“Damn, what the Hell do I do with her to get her out of the way?” Angus whispered, his smile dying rapidly. “I need to be here for the arrest.”
“She cannot get involved in that. It is going to be brutal. The Lawrence men are quite capable of strangling the life out of someone. They aren’t likely to go down without a fight, no matter how many men we pour in there,” Aaron warned. “There are only three of us, against two of them.”
“Is there any news from the magistrate yet?” Angus asked.
He shifted into a more comfortable position, so he could watch Charity. Thankfully, Lawrence hadn’t noticed her, but Angus suspected it was only a matter of time before he did.
“Just as soon as Lawrence senior is back inside, we are going to wait for the signal from Oliver and then kick the door in,” Aaron growled. “We don’t have the time to mess around with Charity. Not now, Angus.”
Angus nodded.
“If you must take her somewhere, you have got to hurry back. We can’t do this without you,” Aaron warned.
The men fell silent as they watched Mr Lawrence disappear into the house he had moved in to the day after he had left St Magdaline. The Star Elite had since learned that the house had been legitimately rented, but under the name of Mr Wendle, and only for a month.
Over the last several days, little had happened other than the Lawrences had met with Mr Horvat, only yesterday as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, Horvat had walked out of the house and promptly vanished. Justin and Jasper were currently out looking for him, but that left the men from the Star Elite with little support until the magistrate could get to them.
“Get her out of here, Angus,” Oliver suddenly growled.
Angus looked over his shoulder at his colleague. “How?” he demanded.
“Throw her over your shoulder if you have to. I don’t care what you do but get her off the damned street. We will hold off for an hour or two,” Oliver replied. “Get her back to t
he base. Lock her in if you have to, or tie her to the damned bed, just make sure she is out of the way while we get the targets off to gaol.”
Angus tugged the hood of his cloak up, but before he could do anything more than step out of the alley, a loud blast of gunfire shattered the silence.
What happened next was something that Angus knew he would remember for the rest of his life. The sight of Charity jerking violently while a large patch of red sprayed out around her was indelibly printed on his soul.
Angus couldn’t remember who shouted in protest. He couldn’t remember the second blast of gunfire that escaped the upper window. He didn’t notice both Aaron and Oliver pelt out of the alleyway, their weapons blasting gunfire into the house opposite.
All Angus could remember was racing down the street far too slowly while gunshots ricocheted all around him. His gaze remained locked on an unmoving Charity who, by the time he reached her, was staring blankly at the sky in a way that was all too familiar.
“Charity? Charity! God, Charity?” Angus jerked when the pavement beside him exploded.
Clutching her as tightly as he could, Angus raced for the sheltered protection of a low stone wall just a few feet away only for it to explode in a shower of dust before he reached it. Veering off to one side, he ran down the street. Left and right he raced in a zig-zag pattern to make it more difficult for the gunman to hit him. He hunched over her, trying his best to protect her from any further bullets. Behind him, the street continued to echo hauntingly with the ear-splitting sound of gunfire, but Angus didn’t bother to glance back.
When he reached a point in the road where the gunman wouldn’t be able to see him, Angus ducked into an alley between two houses. Once there, he leaned against the wall. His chest heaved from exertion, but that didn’t even register on him. All he could do was stare in stunned disbelief at the woman in his arms.
“Angus?” Charity whispered. She fought the haze of pain that threatened to make her sick and forced her eyes open.
“What the bloody Hell did you think you were doing?” Angus gasped, but without heat.
“It is you,” Charity murmured when she saw his beloved face hovering above her.
When she tried to lift her hand to touch him, just to make sure he was real, the burning in her shoulder became unbearable. Charity cried out in distress and instinctively curled into him.
Angus held her tighter. He struggled to force words past the lump in his throat. Each time he looked at the blood oozing from her shoulder, he felt his world crumble just a little bit more.
“We have to get you to the doctor,” he grunted.
Charity, who felt considerably stronger now that she knew Angus was with her, forced herself to ignore the pain.
“Put me down,” she demanded.
Angus was reluctant to release his hold on her and shook his head.
“You are still bleeding,” Angus breathed.
“I am fine,” Charity assured him around a pained smile.
Out in the street, sporadic bursts of gunfire, together with the startled shouts of the residents, increased in ferocity.
Angus couldn’t tear his eyes off Charity, who lay limply in his arms.
“Put me down, Angus,” Charity said firmly. “It is my shoulder that is hurt, not my legs. I can stand.”
When Angus merely ignored her, Charity began to wriggle and writhe, until she felt sick from the pain from her wound.
“Please,” she cried when sickness loomed.
Angus knew he had to do something to cover her wound and stem the flow of blood. Reluctantly, he slowly lowered her to the floor. As he did so, to his horror, the sound of footsteps running toward them grew louder. When he noticed a flicker of movement at the end of the alley they were in, Angus looked up in time to watch Horvat slam to a halt.
The man’s feral eyes narrowed when he recognised them. He coldly lifted his gun and took aim. Angus yanked his gun out of his breeches, cocked his gun and fired so swiftly that Horvat didn’t even get the chance to blink before a bullet hit his hand. Instinctively dropping his weapon, Horvat clutched his wounded hand and disappeared.
Charity struggled not to cry out against the pain that pummelled her. Angus’s sudden movement, unbeknown to him, had jerked Charity’s shoulder. The fierce burning had swiftly changed into a thousand tiny knives which turned the pain white-hot. It was so bad that Charity’s world began to darken at the edges. While Angus dealt with the gunman, Charity clutched at the wall and willed herself not to succumb to the need to lie down.
“Can you walk?” Angus asked as he took another shot at Horvat, who had somehow managed to retrieve his weapon, and was now trying to take aim with his good hand.
“Yes,” Charity forced herself to reply. She wasn’t at all sure she could but refused to tell Angus that. She had caused him enough trouble already.
“Go. Go,” Angus urged, firing another shot at Horvat. He saw the man flinch and suspected he had hit him but without going after him, couldn’t be sure.
Charity immediately stumbled out of the alley, but her world began to fade.
“Angus,” she cried when her legs buckled beneath her.
Down the street, Charity saw Aaron step out of a space between two houses and release several shots at the property opposite. He then promptly vanished again.
There was no returning gunfire.
Strangely, the street temporarily fell eerily quiet. For several long moments, nothing stirred or moved.
“No!” Charity cried when she felt Angus step out of the alley behind her at the same time that Horvat appeared around the end of the long row of terrace houses with his gun pointing straight at them.
With all the strength she had left, Charity shoved Angus out of the way as she fell to the floor. When the bullet struck, it hit the wall several feet away from both her and Angus.
When Angus shot at Horvat again, the swarthy man slammed into the ground without taking another step. Proof that he had been hit swirled in the rainwater that trailed a steady stream down the road, which was now stained pink with blood.
Charity groaned when Angus tried to turn her over.
“Leave me,” she whispered. “I will be all right. Aaron and the others need you. Go.”
“I am not going to leave you,” Angus snapped.
“You need to make sure he isn’t going to get back up again,” Charity cried. “Please. Make sure he cannot get back up again.”
Angus dutifully glanced across at Horvat only to curse when he found the street completely empty. Hurriedly, he gently lifted Charity off the ground. Before he could move, the thunderous sound of many hooves racing toward them shattered the silence. Angus cocked his gun but heaved a sigh of relief when Jacob, Marcus, Ryan and Sir Hugo rounded the corner at the end of the street.
“God, you know how to time things right,” Angus declared once Sir Hugo had stopped beside him.
The others swiftly dismounted when they saw Charity.
“Let’s get her to safety,” Sir Hugo ordered. “Use my horse.”
“Aaron is down the street. Oliver is around the back, I think. Two are inside the house. Horvat has gone,” Angus informed them succinctly.
“He won’t be too hard to find if he has been hit,” Jacob assured them. He nodded to Marcus who wheeled his horse around and went to notify the other Star Elite men who were already fanning out around the village.
“Take her to the safe house. Ryan, go and get the doctor. Jacob, go and see where Oliver is,” Sir Hugo ordered. He then turned to Angus. “Do you know who she is?”
Angus nodded. “This is Charity. My future wife,” he announced calmly but firmly.
For several moments, the Star Elite men froze. Everyone looked at each other. When they resumed their allotted tasks, this time they did so with a grim determination that warned Angus neither the Lawrences or Horvat stood a chance.
If there was one thing the men of the Star Elite wouldn’t allow to go unpunished it was one of their lov
ed ones being injured because of their work. Retaliation was the name of the day. Nobody would rest now until the gunman who had shot Angus’s beloved was put behind bars for good.
Angus, who was still struggling with his disbelief over what had happened, tightened his arms around a now unconscious Charity when Sir Hugo tried to take her off him.
“Get on,” Sir Hugo ordered gently.
Reluctantly, Angus released his hold on Charity, but swiftly mounted and held his arms out in readiness. Once Charity was back in his arms, Angus carefully wheeled Sir Hugo’s horse around and set off for the Star Elite’s base.
It was a blessing in disguise that Charity had fainted because she was unable to feel the jostling she received while being cantered through the empty streets. For Angus, it was also a blessing that she wasn’t awake to see the tears he shed, which blurred his vision and melted into the rainwater that fell all about them.
He just wished it was going to be so easy to wash away the memory of just how close he had come to losing his entire life: Charity.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Charity awoke to face a darkened room that was cosy and warm. She blinked sleepily at the roaring fire only a few feet away and sighed with contentment. Life didn’t get any better than this, she was sure of it. She was warm, comfortable, and more importantly, with Angus.
Wait a minute. Angus is here?
Charity’s eyes popped wide. She went hot, then cold, then hot again. Cautiously, she looked down at the arm draped across her waist. Suddenly, the bed moved. When Charity turned her head to look over her shoulder, her eyes met the troubled gaze of the man she now knew she loved.
“How do you feel?” Angus murmured gently.
Charity rolled onto her back and looked at him. Apart from a dull haze she suspected came from the medication the doctor had given her, she felt fine.
“My shoulder is a little sore,” she whispered. Unable to believe he was there beside her, she slowly cupped his cheek. “You really are here.”
Angus lips turned up in a ghost of a smile. “Did you think you were dreaming?”