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

by Rebecca King

  “They are going back to Ruth’s house, aren’t they?” Elias muttered.

  “Yes, so we are going to give them other things to think about,” Al replied. He looked over his shoulder at Ruth who was now holding both their horses. “Take them deeper into the woods but don’t stray too far off the path. Call for us if someone appears.”

  Ruth studied the huge animals on either side of her and wondered how on earth she was going to move them anywhere. They were so busy trying to eat the undergrowth she didn’t have the strength to tug their heads up. When she did finally get them to pay attention to her and stop munching, she then got tangled up in the bramble. By the time she had untangled her skirts, the horses were eating again.

  “God, this is hopeless,” she moaned only to scream when the first of the gunshots shattered the silence. It was echoed by three, four, even five more shots that she suspected came from Al and Elias. A brief pause was met with a more distant popping sound she suspected was the highwaymen firing back. When one or two branches on nearby trees shuddered, Ruth realised why Al had warned her to move the horses. With gritted teeth, she tugged, nudged, and scolded the horses into moving until she managed to put several more feet of distance between them and Elias and Al.

  “Now what?” she whispered when she had finished, but with nobody around that she could even see anymore, Ruth received no answer.

  Elias grinned when he watched the highwaymen scatter like leaves in the wind. Three of the eight riders were lying motionless on the floor. A fourth was clearly wounded. Two highwaymen had immediately turned around and headed back to safety as soon as the first bullet was fired, and two other riders split up and rode in opposite directions.

  “We have to go after them,” Al warned.

  “We can’t leave Ruth,” Elias snapped, refusing to even contemplate it. “And we aren’t going anywhere alone. Remember what they did to me and Morgan and we were together. We are not splitting up again. Splitting up when the highwaymen aren’t around is fine. Splitting up when they are just a few feet away is suicide. No. We aren’t doing it.”

  “If we hide her-” Al suggested, glancing worriedly over his shoulder at the thicket. He was impressed that she had so effectively hidden the horses, but now was a little perplexed because even he was going to struggle to find them.

  “No. No. No. We are not going to do anything that puts her life in danger either,” Elias growled. “We stick together.”

  Al fired another bullet at the highwaymen before glaring at his friend. “Don’t mistake your gratitude for a deeper emotion. She is already in danger by being in these woods with us. We have to protect her, but to do that we have to eradicate them.” He pointed one long finger across the field.

  “I know that,” Elias spat. “I just don’t want to challenge the highwaymen while she is out here with us.”

  “Well, we can’t take her back to the cottage.”

  “We are going to take her to the safe house. What are the highwaymen going to do? They have no support. They don’t even have each other right now, do they? They separated. If they want to challenge us, one man will have to take on the two of us,” Elias replied.

  “Let’s go,” Al sighed. While it annoyed him that they couldn’t hunt at least two of the highwaymen down, Elias was right.

  “We have no idea who they are coming to meet,” Elias added. “Or how many more of them there are nearby. There might be more of them in these woods. I don’t want to wait around to see if there are and how many of them there are.”

  With one last dark look at the dead highwaymen in the field, Elias went to find Ruth. He found her nearby looking bored while she watched the horses munch on the foliage.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” Elias murmured gently, lifting her into the saddle with effortless ease.

  Ruth was amazed at how swiftly Elias had appeared before her, tugged her to her feet, and swept her back onto the horse. She waited for him to sit behind her and then asked: “What’s wrong?”

  Elias pursed his lips and shook his head. “It is nothing. We have to go.”

  Ruth found out what bothered him when she saw the body-strewn field. “Do you know who they are?”

  “No,” Elias replied.

  “Don’t you want to know who they are?”

  “We will find out.”

  “How?” Ruth rapped.

  Elias lifted his brows at her. “Do you really want to go into the field to see who we have killed?”

  “Yes.” If she was honest, no, she didn’t, but she was curious to know which of the villagers were now dead.

  Elias studied her. “It is going to be dangerous because we will be visible like the highwaymen were. They could attack us.”

  “I want to see who they are, Elias. I need to know who we have been living near who has been betraying us all,” Ruth persisted.

  Elias shared a look with Al. They had planned to return to the field later, once Ruth was safe, but had to hope that Rointon didn’t remove the bodies while they were away. Now, they had the chance to see who their foe was.

  “Do you think you can identify some of them?” Al asked, looking troubled.

  “Yes. I have lived around these parts all my life. I want to know who has been helping them,” Ruth announced. Why she was so adamant about it was beyond her, but she was compelled to satisfy her curiosity. She suspected it was because it was going to help her put Riddlewood behind her. Whatever it was, Ruth remained quiet as they approached the bodies.

  “This one is a local, Mr Carl Reman,” Ruth muttered after one quick glance at the corpse. “He worked for Rointon as a stable hand.”

  “Has he been working for him recently?” Al asked.

  “He must have still been working for him. I know of him, but don’t know him personally. He lived and worked on the estate. His mother used to live in the village until she died last year.” Ruth looked at another body. “This is – was - Eddie Walters. The gaol should have records on him. He lives in Madderly and worked in the flour mill. He has been in and out of gaol on charges of theft, and fighting, for years.”

  Al watched Ruth almost disinterestedly tip her head to study another man only for her gaze to be drawn to the body who was next to him. As he watched, she blinked in disbelief and stepped a little closer.

  “Do you know him?” Elias shared a worried look with Al when Ruth didn’t answer.

  Ruth was stunned. It took her a moment before she could whisper: “It’s Mr Arnold.”

  “You know him?”

  Ruth nodded jerkily. “He is - was - a neighbour. Our elderly neighbour.” She reached down to tug the hat off the dead man’s head to reveal a shock of white hair above an elderly face that was horrifyingly familiar. “Mother of God. He lives just down the road from us, Elias. He – he was one of the neighbours I used to run errands for.”

  “What?” Elias scowled. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. He was ill last year – influenza, I think he said. I took letters to the posting office and delivered packages to other villagers for him because he said he was too ill to get out.”

  “What kind of packages?” Al asked, growing increasingly alarmed. “Where did you take them?”

  Ruth felt sick. She stared at the man who had quite clearly lied to her about being incapable of getting about by himself and felt as if she had just received the most startlingly rude awakening of her life. “He was lying. He had to have been lying to me. But why?”

  “Were the packages taken to someone in the village?” Elias pressed.

  “I took them to Bernard Turner in the village. He works at the butchery,” Ruth whispered. “I didn’t stop to ask Mr Arnold what was in the packages. I can remember teasing him about sending packages to Mr Turner so often, but Mr Arnold tapped the side of his nose and said that it was a private matter. Do you think that they were stolen goods?”

  “When did this happen?” Elias asked. “Was it last year when he was ill?”

  “No. No. I started fetchin
g some groceries for him when he was ill. Like everyone else, though, he started to ask me to do more for him. Late last year, he asked me to take a few packages to Mr Turner seeing as I was on my way past the butchery,” Ruth muttered eventually. She struggled to get her muddled thoughts in order. Her mind raced in several different directions at once as she tried to make sense of so many different possibilities, trying out each one for size before dismissing it as irrelevant or unworkable or improbable. Eventually, she realised that Elias was still waiting for her to answer. “He stopped me in the street when I was passing his house one day. I was on my way to do some shopping. He asked me to pop a package to Mr Turner for him and said that Mr Turner was expecting it. I didn’t stop to ask him what it was. I didn’t think anything about it. I just agreed to take it because it wasn’t going to take me out of my way. Bernard looked pleased that he received it and shoved it under the counter when I gave it to him. Do you think it was connected to the highwaymen’s stolen goods?”

  “Is Bernard Turner here?”

  Ruth shook her head at Al’s question.

  “Maybe Arnold was carrying some of the stolen jewels away from the area,” Elias suggested to Al before telling Ruth: “What we do know about the highwaymen is that each man who is involved in the robbery of the carriages takes a different route away from the scene of the attack. One, if not more of them carry the stolen goods. The carriage’s occupants are robbed of everything of any value. Jewels, furs, silks, coins, even leather shoes. Anything that the thieves think they can make a few coins from gets taken. With six or eight highwaymen helping with the robbery, they all carry some of the stolen goods when they leave the area. We think it is because if they are intercepted by us or the magistrate, the thieves lose only a small portion of their stolen hoard. We have managed to get close enough to them on a couple of occasions to mortally wound two or three of them before they could evade us. It wasn’t long after a robbery, and at a time when they thought they were safe.”

  “How do you know where they are going to strike?” Ruth asked.

  “Since they started, they have been robbing carriages at approximately five-mile intervals along the Great North Road.”

  Al nodded. “Until they decided to return to Mivverford. That is when Lucy’s parents were killed by them.”

  “Why did they return to Mivverford?”

  “Because they received a tip off from someone who told them that we were anticipating where they were going to strike next and mustering in the area to intercept them. So, the highwaymen returned to Rointon’s estate and struck Lucy’s parents’ carriage in Mivverford instead.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would he attack a carriage so close to home? He was running the risk of you realising it was him. Was he trying to lure you onto his estate?” Ruth asked.

  “He is familiar with the estate because he grew up there. Further, as a landowner, he can shoot anybody he thinks might be trespassing. He could shoot one of us and claim that he didn’t realise we were Star Elite. We doubt that he takes the stolen goods back to his house, so even if we did get into the property, and past the men who are guarding the place, I doubt we would find any incriminating evidence there. We have to try to catch Rointon in the act as it were.”

  “Good Lord.” Ruth looked at the ground they were standing on. “Who owns this land?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care. What I do know is that we are going to get out of here before the two men who escaped return with reinforcements,” Al announced flatly.

  “All of these men were in the tavern the other night,” Elias confirmed, having studied the faces of the deceased. He ran a weary hand down his face. He hated to admit it, but the Laudanum was taking some time to clear his system. It might have been the largely sleepless night that left him feeling as if he was walking through fog. Whatever it was, he had a sudden urge to get to safety before Rointon killed them all.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Wait. What’s that?” Ruth cried several miles later.

  “What’s wrong?” Elias murmured gently when he saw her frown.

  “Over there. Look.” Ruth pointed across the fields to a dark group of riders huddled together, trying to hide beside a long stretch of stone wall. It ran alongside a winding road leading to a nondescript little rural village called Cottesmine. “Are they highwaymen?”

  Elias cursed beneath his breath when he saw the riders. “They are certainly not Star Elite,” he muttered, sharing a worried look with Al.

  “Oh, no,” Ruth moaned when she saw a carriage rumbling toward the riders.

  “They are going to attack them,” Al growled, standing in his stirrups so he could study the surrounding countryside.

  “Rointon can’t know that some more of his men have been eradicated,” Elias muttered. “He must have sent that other group back to the cottage while he robbed another carriage.”

  “We have to stop the attack,” Ruth cried.

  “What do we do? We cannot risk a gun battle.” Al’s gaze fell meaningfully to Ruth.

  “We can’t just sit here and do nothing. We may not be able to scare the highwaymen away, but we can stop the carriages from reaching them,” Ruth argued.

  “Look, there is another one coming from the other direction.” Elias pointed out the liveried coachmen driving a resplendent carriage toward the highwaymen from the opposite direction.

  “If they don’t stop one carriage, they will attack the other,” Al warned. He looked worriedly at Elias. “They could stop them both if they are desperate enough.”

  “You go and intercept one carriage, and we will do the other,” Elias suggested. “We can force them to turn back before they reach the blackguards.”

  Al studied the rooftops of the village about half a mile or so away. “You go that way. If there is any problem, go into the village and use the houses to hide. I will go and speak to the other coachman and then go on to Mivverford to fetch reinforcements. We will come and find you.” Al looked worriedly at Elias. “If you are sure you two are going to be all right. I don’t mind circling back and coming after you if you think you are going to have a problem getting through the village.”

  Elias was already shaking his head before Al had finished talking. “No, we will be fine. It is safer for us to go that way because it is a shorter journey. We will see you back at the safe house.” Elias turned his horse around to leave only for Al’s next words to stop him.

  “If you are not back by nightfall, I will come and find you with a search party. Do you know the waterfall? Meet me there by seven. If you aren’t there, we will assume that Rointon has got you somehow and will start searching.” Al lifted his hand in farewell and disappeared toward the trees. He watched the highwaymen as he went but they were too focused on the approaching carriages to notice him.

  “We have to hurry,” Ruth muttered, horrified at just how close the carriage was getting to the highwaymen.

  “Hold on then.”

  Before Ruth could do anything more than gasp, Elias kicked his horse into a canter before nudging him into an even faster gallop. Unlike the last time they had thundered across the fields together, this pace was frightening. The horse’s head lowered. The ground whipped past at a horrifying pace. The heavy thunder of the horses’ hooves hammering into the ground was breath-taking. The noise that rushed through her ears was a breathless rush of rhythmic pounding that reverberated through her entire being. The heavy jarring of the horse landing on the road when they jumped the low wall bordering the highway made her cry out, but the short yet swift journey was all over as quickly as it had started.

  “Woah there, sir,” Elias called, lifting his hand to the startled coachman. Elias positioned his horse sideways in the middle of the road to block the carriage’s progress. To his surprise, the coachman immediately lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender, as if he had anticipated being targeted by the highwaymen. “Put your hands down, man,” Elias snorted in disgust. “We aren’t the highwaymen. We have
just come from across the fields.”

  “I saw that, sir,” the coachman replied with a nervous stutter.

  “The highwaymen are further down the road. If you stand up, you should see them around the next bend, just at the edge of the trees up yonder. If you go anywhere near them, you will lose your valuables and your life.”

  “But how do I avoid them?” the coachman asked looking pale and shaken.

  Before Elias could reply, a rather dapperly dressed gent stepped down from the carriage. “What is it, Boris?”

  Boris looked at his employer. “This young couple here are saying that there are highwaymen up ahead, but they haven’t targeted anybody during the daytime before, sir.”

  “They are desperate now,” Ruth informed the gentleman traveller. “The highwaymen are having to use random locations and stop unwary travellers at random times of day now because they know the Star Elite are out looking for them at night. We have just come over the brow of that hill and saw them waiting for you. If you can, turn the carriage around, and go back into the village. If you take the road to Mivverford, you can cut through to Temmelcross from there.”

  “How do you know we are going to Temmelcross?” the man demanded.

  “Because that is where this route takes you,” Ruth replied simply. “If you are not staying there you are passing through. The Great North Road is just beyond it.”

  The offered her a delighted smile. “Then I owe you my deepest thanks. You kind people have saved our lives today. I thank you.” The man looked at Boris. “Can you turn the carriage around somewhere?”

  Boris looked at the stone walls bordering the road and shook his head. Even Elias could see that it wasn’t going to be possible to turn the carriage around in the road.

  “We could unharness the horse and turn the carriage around ourselves,” Boris muttered only to stop when Elias started to shake his head.

  “It is far too dangerous. If the highwaymen see us, they will rob you before we can get the horse reharnessed. We can ride down the road a little way and open the gate to one of the fields for you from the inside. You can turn your carriage around in the field. The ground is hard enough. You shouldn’t get stuck. You must be quick, though, and do it before the highwaymen see you. Once you are free of the field, don’t stop to wait for us. Get to the village as fast as you can drive, understand? You might want to get the word out amongst the locals that the highwaymen are in the area and stop any other carriages that are heading this way from leaving the village.”