The Lover Switch (The Star Elite's Highwaymen Investigation Book 4)

by Rebecca King

  “Let’s move him,” Mark pressed, throwing another worried look at the door.

  “We will have to get him to a doctor once we are away from here.” Ruth scowled at him when Mark immediately shook his head.

  “The new doctor isn’t as innocent as you might think,” Mark edged. He threw her a dour look that warned her she wasn’t to ask for more details about the new doctor’s guilt yet. “How do we move him?” he asked, pointing to the man on the bed. “He is huge.”

  Ruth eyed the man’s feet hanging over the end of the bed by several inches. She was exhausted already having trudged through the snow to get there. Fear had sapped her energy, but the worst part was yet to come. Her job was going to be considerably harder now because she had to get an unconscious man almost twice her size out of the tavern.

  “What do you think they did with his friend?” Ruth asked as she helped Mark roll the man toward the edge of the bed.

  Mark huffed and puffed as he helped her but muttered: “He was knocked out. I don’t know if he is still alive. When they find out that this one has disappeared, they may turn their attention to his friend. I don’t know where he is. We have to find him too.”

  “Let’s just get this one out of here first. Then we can think about his friend.” Ruth fought the urge to cry. She was completely overwhelmed by the fact that two men’s lives now depended on her. However, they were real people, and were really going to die if she didn’t help them.

  We all are.

  For once, Ruth didn’t question Mark’s willingness to help her. Instead, she decided to make good use of him. Firstly, she ordered him to listen at the door for someone approaching before she made her way over to the bed and tried to get the man to wake up enough to be able to help them at least a little.

  “Sir? Can you hear me?” she called softly. “Sir?”

  “Someone’s coming,” Mark breathed moments later.

  “What do I do?” Ruth turned around in circles, flapping her hands, trying to quell her panic.

  “Get on the bed with him.”

  “What?” Ruth looked at Mark with wide, horrified eyes.

  “He is supposed to be here with Carolann. You know.” Mark nodded meaningfully and winked broadly at her.

  “I am not going to do that, or even pretend to,” Ruth protested, sounding as horrified as she looked and felt.

  “I don’t mean you have to. Just pretend. We have to do a lover switch.” Mark sighed and hurried over to the chair in the corner of the room. Snatching an embellished shawl off the back of the chair he threw it across the room to her. “Pretend to be Carolann.”

  “He has someone with him,” Ruth gasped in horror when she heard the murmur of multiple voices outside. She stared at the man on the bed and wondered if this was the moment she was going to die; that all her carefully made plans would come to nought. But there were so many things she wanted to experience in life that Ruth refused to die yet. It was the thought of how little she wanted to die that compelled her to get onto the bed like Mark suggested. The second she laid down beside the handsome stranger, though, he moaned.

  “Lie down,” Mark urged, flapping his hands at her.

  Ruth felt sick as she hesitantly lay down beside the stranger from the Star Elite. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him while Mark pushed at the man’s shoulders, until he flopped over her, pressing her down into the saggy mattress. To her shock, Mark then lifted the man’s leg up and draped it over Ruth’s hips before positioning the man’s head on the pillow beside Ruth’s head.

  “That will have to do,” Mark muttered, stepping back to study his handywork. “Put your arms around him.”

  Ruth’s cheeks were fiery. She was glad that the man was unconscious. God only knew what he would think if he opened his eyes and found himself staring down at her. She didn’t get too much time to think about it, though, before heavy thumping on the door jolted her out of her shock.

  “Say something,” Mark mouthed, flapping his hands at her again.

  “What do you want?” Ruth cried in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Carolann’s.

  “There is a man here who wants to see his friend,” the inn keeper replied, his voice muffled by the thickness of the door.

  “He is busy, go away,” Ruth called. She pulled a face at Mark and cried: “He will have to wait his turn.”

  Ruth rolled her eyes when Mark grinned. His shaking shoulders assured her that he found this funny. Ruth blew out the candle on the side-table so that the room was encased in just the orange glow emanating from the embers in the fireplace. She then positioned the pillow beneath her head and did her best to hide who she really was in case someone opened the door. Ruth struggled to breathe beneath the stranger’s weight. He was far heavier than she had anticipated, but if this kept them alive then she was prepared to do stay where she was for the time being. For now, all she could do was hope that whoever was at the door went away without entering the room.

  Elias moaned when he tried to open his eyes only for a lightning shaft of pain to lance across his head. He knew that he should be fighting but couldn’t remember what. The need to find out forced him to ignore the discomfort running through his entire being and focus on the world around him. When he opened his eyes, though, he got the shock of his life when he found himself staring down at the most luscious pair of brilliant blue eyes he had ever seen. He stared deeply into them for a few moments until one thought registered on him and escaped his mouth before his recalcitrant brain could consider the wisdom of saying the words aloud. “You are not the whore.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” Ruth muttered dryly. “Shut up.”

  It even hurt Elias to lift his brows in astonishment at her. Before he could speak, he yawned widely.

  “Stay awake, we are here to get you out,” Ruth warned.

  That was enough to force Elias’s brows down again. “Out? Of where?”

  “You don’t remember, do you?” Ruth snorted, shaking her head. She didn’t doubt that whatever he had been given had been administered to him through alcohol. She could smell it on his breath.

  “I was drugged,” Elias mumbled.

  “They want to kill you,” Ruth announced simply. “They plan to kill you and use your disappearance as a warning to the Star Elite not to mess with the highwaymen. What happened to your friend? Do you know where he went?”

  “Shush.” Mark flapped his hands at them.

  “Carolann? Open this door at once,” the inn keeper demanded, thumping on the door again.

  Mark suddenly grabbed the iron headboard of the bed and began to tug on it. He tugged and pushed with all his might until the bed started to make rhythmic squeaking sounds. Ruth’s cheeks turned rosy.

  “It’d be best if you came back later,” the inn keeper muttered to the Star Elite operative beside him.

  Al rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief that of all the occasions Elias could decide to visit a doxy, it had to be now when they were knee deep in an investigation. But the bed springs didn’t lie.

  The inn keeper waddled off to serve more patrons leaving Al to throw one last worried look at the bed chamber door before he decided to leave his friend to it. Later, they would talk, but for now, Al had to try to find Morgan.

  “Would you stop that?” Ruth demanded when she started to feel sick. She was shaking enough without Mark’s efforts.

  He was grinning like a fool when he finally released the bed and stepped back leaving Ruth to shove, wriggle and push until Elias rolled off her. She then primly jumped off the bed and brushed out her skirts before poking stray strands of hair back into the tight bun at the nape of her neck. It took every ounce of control she had to gather her composure around her like a shield. Eventually, she turned to glare at Mark and ask: “How did you know to do that?” She looked at the space under the bed to make sure that Carolann wasn’t dead. “Do you know what? I don’t want to know.” Planting her fists on her hips she looked at the lad. “Now
what?”

  Mark looked questioningly at the man on the bed. “Do you think you can get up?”

  Elias gritted his teeth and force himself to sit up, but his face was grim as he clutched the edge of the bed to stop himself falling face-first onto the floor. “What happened to the witch?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Mark drawled with a sly look under the bed. He nudged the visible strands of hair out of sight and then turned to Ruth. “We have to go. They have his friend, don’t forget.”

  “Shit,” Elias whispered when the first faint hints of memory returned to haunt him. “Morgan.”

  “Where would they take him?” Ruth prompted.

  Elias threw her a dark look. “You seem to know more about what they are doing than I do,” he growled.

  “I overheard a conversation,” Ruth snapped, seeing no reason why she should betray Mark after everything he had done for her. Of course, at some point she was going to have to decide whether she was going to inform the magistrate about Mark’s involvement with the highwaymen or not, but for now she had other, more urgent issues to attend to. It was better that she didn’t know how involved with them Mark truly was, or what part he played in the gang.

  At least then I won’t know what I should have told the magistrate.

  But Ruth promised herself that she would tell his mother and let her decide what to do about her criminally minded son. That was the best compromise she could come up with – for now at least.

  “We have to get you out of here. They plan to kill you,” Ruth informed Elias briskly. “But I can’t get you out of here alone. I need you to help.”

  Elias forced his aching head to focus on the room long enough to take a good look around. Even sitting on the side of the bed was exhausting. He had been drugged but at least he hadn’t been poisoned.

  “I think they gave me some sort of sleeping draught,” Elias whispered, scowling heavily.

  “Laudanum,” Mark muttered, picking up a brown bottle off the dresser. “If they gave you too much of this it would kill you or make you very sleepy.”

  “They planned to kill you once you were asleep which is why the witch brought you up here,” Ruth explained. “We have to get you out of here before they come up to murder you.”

  When Elias merely looked around the room as if still trying to figure out how he had managed to get there, Ruth sighed and looked at Mark. “What do we do? He is of no use to us.”

  “The gun,” Elias muttered with a nod at Mark.

  Mark immediately retrieved the gun that Carolann had taken off Elias when she had got him into the room.

  “Give it to her,” Elias whispered with a nod toward Ruth.

  It was then that Elias took his first good look at the stunning creature trying to rescue him. He had no idea how she had managed to get herself involved in the highwaymen, but he was glad that she was fighting for him and not against him. She was what he would only describe as lush.

  God, she is gorgeous.

  There was an air of no-nonsense practicality about her that Elias found infinitely appealing. He considered himself a good judge of character, and every ounce of his investigative instincts were screaming at him that he could trust her. He therefore didn’t question the wisdom of nodding to his gun and asking her: “Have you used one of these before?”

  Ruth shook her head.

  “Good. But you are going to have to if we get caught by them,” Elias muttered. He forced himself to ignore the aching urge to lie down and go back to sleep. Shaking his head to clear out some of the fog, Elias focused on what he needed to tell her instead: “Remove the gun, pull that little lever at the top and point it at whomever you shoot. If you don’t have the stomach to kill someone with it then try to shoot at their legs, or hands, because it will stop them chasing you or shooting you.”

  It was on the tip of Ruth’s tongue to tell him that she couldn’t shoot another living soul, but she knew that she had to fight for not just her own life but for both the Star Elite’s and Mark’s lives too now. She looked askance at the stranger, but he shook his head. “I have my own,” he announced only to then realise that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. “Where are the rest of my clothes?”

  “Are these them?” Mark asked, racing across the room to a haphazard pile of clothing strewn carelessly across the bed chamber floor. He picked up a gun holster, complete with gun, and held it aloft for the investigator to see.

  “That’s it. Give it to me,” Elias urged softly. He muttered his thanks when the young lad fetched all his belongings and lingered long enough to help him dress. Now that he had his gun on him, Elias felt considerably safer, and more like his normal self.

  I would be more like my normal self if I could get my mind to work properly.

  “God,” Ruth murmured when the stranger eased off the bed and stood upright. She was taller than most women but had to tip her head back to look up at him. The man could only be described as massive.

  Elias, in his drug-fuelled confusion, misread her bemusement at his size for concern over his weapon. “I won’t use it unless I have to.”

  “We have to go before he comes back,” Mark warned. “We can’t use the stairs, though.”

  “Well, how else are we supposed to get out of here?” Ruth gasped.

  “The window,” Elias mumbled around another yawn. “We have to use the window.”

  “There is nothing beneath it but a twelve-foot drop,” Ruth snorted. She suspected that someone like Elias would break his legs.

  “Then we are going to have to use the stairs,” Elias replied simply.

  He rubbed a weary hand down his face but immediately started to lean forward when sleep almost reclaimed him. Ruth shoved her hands against his shoulders and forced him upright. She realised her mistake the second that her hands touched him.

  Her eyes shot up to his. Briefly, something infinitely fragile settled between them. It vanished in an instant, but Ruth was so shocked by its appearance that she was physically shaking when she tried to step back only to realise that his hands had settled over hers. For a few moments, they stared deeply into each other’s eyes. Ruth knew then that she had done the right thing trying to keep him alive. This man was a real living person, and someone who didn’t deserve to die because of a few highwaymen. In those few precious seconds, she resolved to continue with her fight for them both.

  It has nothing to do with the overwhelming attraction between us.

  “Hurry!” Mark urged.

  “Move,” Ruth growled simply but in a voice that was stern. “Now. Move.”

  Elias found himself being bullied, shoved, badgered, and propelled across the room and forced to stay awake. When they reached the door, he had to lean against the wall to stop himself from falling over but was held upright by the determined young woman.

  “We can’t carry him and fight,” Ruth warned Mark.

  “I will use my gun,” Elias mumbled.

  “You are likely to shoot yourself,” Ruth snapped dismissively. “You take this.”

  Elias blinked and frowned in confusion at the poker she rammed into his hand. He opened his mouth to object to holding it only to watch Mark yank the bed chamber door open. Together, they faced the long corridor that would lead to their freedom - if they could use it without being caught.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Elias was almost on his knees by the time they reached the back door of the tavern. It might have been the urgent need to sleep, or the darkness of the tavern, but he had the distinct feeling that the world had created a black void around him, and it threatened to swallow him. The urge to just lie down and surrender to its suffocating emptiness was strong, but neither the stunning beauty who had rescued him, or the young lad, were willing to let him give in. Despite his inability to think clearly, Elias knew that he owed these two strangers his life.

  “My horse,” he whispered into the lavender scented hair of the woman who was doing her best to prop him up against a wall. “I need to find my horse.
I can’t leave him here.”

  “We will find him, and your friend,” Ruth whispered. Her cheeks were flaming hot this time through embarrassment at having to press herself so suggestively against him. There wasn’t an inch of air between them, despite his height. While she did it to stop him falling over, she was still so intimately pressed against him that she could feel every breath he took and every twitch of muscle and flesh beneath the white shirt of his. “I am going to Hell for this,” she whispered, horrifyingly aware of how much the heightened attraction she was feeling was wrong.

  Mark yanked the door open and then shoved his narrow shoulder under Elias’s arm. Together, he and Ruth propelled Elias out of the tavern and into the darkness of the night. They paused long enough for Mark to close the door quietly behind them. To their horror, they were half-way to the rear of the stable block when one of the patrons left a stable and began to amble toward them.

  Ruth tugged on Elias’s arm, dragging him forcibly into the darkness of an empty stable next to them.

  “Ere, lad, what are you doing out here?” the man demanded of Mark, who lingered out in the stable yard because he hadn’t had the time to dodge out of sight.

  “I am waiting for Bob,” Mark replied casually.

  “What are you doing with that poker?” the man demanded, peering at the weapon in Mark’s hand.

  “I am going to hit you with it,” Mark snorted in disgust. “What do you think?”

  The man scratched his ear, unsure if he should laugh or not. “You had best get home. Bob isn’t here. He left with Rointon about half an hour ago.”

  Mark cursed and looked disgusted. “He said he would take me with him this time.”

  “Aye, well, there are different things happening.” The man smirked.