To Have A Heart (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite Book 7)

by Rebecca King

  “Excuse him. He isn’t much good with manners,” he murmured with a nod to Callum.

  “We are not at a bloody ball, Rhys. You are going to want to mark her card next,” Callum grumbled with a disgusted snort.

  Shaking his head, he tried to step back only to have his ankle grasped fiercely by the man who was lying at their feet. Mortally wounded, he was clearly struggling to fight for breath, but managed to find the words he wanted to say before death claimed him.

  Mallory edged closer to Callum’s reassuring strength. It wasn’t lost on her that this was the man Callum had been talking to before the gunfire had ended the conversation.

  Callum squatted down so he could hear what the man wheezed.

  “The old tavern,” was all the man hissed before he gave in, heaved his last breath, and fell into eternal silence.

  With a sigh, Callum eased to his feet and stood back.

  “Where in the heck is that?” Rhys demanded.

  “I saw something like it the road about two streets away. Well, it was an abandoned building that might have once been a tavern,” Niall shrugged.

  “What do you think is there?” Callum almost hated to ask.

  Oliver pursed his lips and shrugged. “I don’t like any of this.”

  “Me neither,” Callum growled.

  “I’ll go and take a quick look, shall I?” Will offered.

  “Not without me, you won’t,” Phillip countered.

  Together, the men went in search of the derelict tavern. Mallory watched them go with a deep-rooted sense of trepidation.

  “Do you think it is safe for them to go alone?” she whispered to nobody in particular.

  “They know what they are doing,” Oliver assured her. “Try not to worry about them, eh?”

  But Mallory did worry. She worried about Will, and Phillip, Callum, and the rest of the men who seemed to move about the county and turn up right when they were needed with surprising ease.

  “We can enlist the townsfolk to help us get rid of this lot, but it is going to take an hour or two to get them all cleared away. You two need to lie low for a while,” Oliver suggested with a nod at the pile of bodies.

  “Let’s get you to the safe house. You can at least get something to eat and some sleep while we go about trying to find out what Sir Hugo is up to,” Harry suggested once he had stepped forward to introduce himself.

  “Has anybody seen him?” Callum asked.

  Grimly, Oliver shook his head.

  “He will show up when he is ready,” Harry mused, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  Callum knew that the longer Sir Hugo remained uncontactable, especially now that Melrose was making his intentions clear, the less the Star Elite were prepared for any major events Sir Hugo had planned, like another explosion, house fire, or gun battle in forests.

  “What now?”

  “We get her to safety,” Oliver breathed. “That plan cannot ever be suspended. Leave us to clear this lot up.”

  “We need help,” Callum snapped. “We cannot just keep stumbling from one crisis to another. I need men who can keep an eye on the area and make sure our path is cleared. I am also nearly out of shot and need to let Horace rest.”

  “Horace can rest when he gets to the safe house. For now, let’s go and use this old tavern as a place for you to wait while we clear up this mess. Once everyone is ready, we can all move out together,” Oliver suggested.

  This was a plan that eased Callum’s mind. Without releasing his hold on Mallory, he walked away from the carnage, and the market square, but unconsciously headed in the direction of the old tavern.

  “Do you really work for the War Office?” Mallory asked as they walked through the streets.

  She suspected this was the last time she would ever be alone with Callum but had no idea what gave her that impression. While she was infinitely grateful that they had support should they face Melrose again, she was also a little sad that her time alone with Callum was over.

  “Yes. I wouldn’t lie to them about that. They must realise that this is not just some haphazard gang they are picking on. We have all trained in the army, fought the French, and lived to tell the tale. Moreover, we have fought hardened criminals in this country, and have either arrested or killed them all. Nobody ever gets away with killing officers of the government, no matter who they think they are.”

  “But the men are dead now and cannot tell Melrose,” Mallory argued.

  “If someone in the village overheard what I said just now, they would report back to Melrose if he challenged them. At least the locals know who we are and that the deaths were caused for a purpose. We are not cold-blooded killers, Mallory. We kill because the criminals we encounter won’t surrender without a fight.”

  “I know that now,” Mallory snapped.

  “I know you do,” he sighed. “I am sorry about that. It is more than you should be subjected to.”

  “It cannot be helped, can it?” she replied.

  Several minutes later, Mallory had another question.

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  Callum sighed. There was just the two of them, outside in the middle of the street where nobody was likely to overhear them. If there was ever a time to tell Mallory what she wanted to know it was now.

  “We have been investigating the disappearance of several women in Leicestershire and Derbyshire for a while now. I don’t know how much you read the newspapers, but there are now a lot of women who have been kidnapped just like you. We have been following the trail the kidnappers have left. It led us to a highly sophisticated network of people in the upper echelons of society who, for reasons only known to themselves, have turned to crime to keep themselves occupied. Some of them have connections founded in the ballrooms of ton. All of them have wealthy and highly influential connections, which is most probably why they mistakenly believed that they could kidnap women off the streets in Leicestershire and Derbyshire and not get put in gaol for it. They truly believe they can call upon their associates, who would have a quiet word in the ears of their contacts who would ensure their release should they be arrested. Unfortunately, our investigation led us not only to a group of criminals in London’s backstreets, but the leaders of the group.

  The Smidgley brothers are twins who have grown up in London’s high society. We think, and only think, that they have been helping their uncle, Claude Smidgley, who is one of the ringleaders of the kidnapping gang. Claud is – was – a good friend of the Attorney General’s associate, a man called Argent. Argent and the Smidgleys are best friends with Melrose, the man who agreed to hide you in his kitchens.

  “Why? Why are they kidnapping people and forcing them to work for nothing? I mean, surely they have enough money that they don’t need to force people into slavery?”

  “They do. This isn’t about the money. Melrose has a steady income of about four thousand pounds a year. He has a portfolio of several houses and businesses the likes of which he can easily afford to maintain.”

  “Well, why is he kidnapping people then? Why is he sending men out to kill me?”

  “He wants to hide what he has been up to. You must understand that Melrose has a lot to lose if you give testimony in court about what he has forced you to endure in his house. He is not only going to lose all his connections within ton, but Melrose loses business connections which could effectively stop his income. That isn’t likely to bother him too much but ending up behind bars for the kidnap and slavery of several women would destroy his reputation. It would be so damaging that nothing and nobody could ever help him retrieve the life he once had once he lost it. Ton survive purely on the strength of their reputations and connections. Something this scandalous would shatter Melrose’s lifestyle as he knows it. I am afraid that as far as he is concerned, it is now a matter of your life or his. You, unfortunately, are expendable and so are we.”

  “But surely he must know that you are working for the War Office. If his connections go to the Att
orney General’s whatever, Melrose knows who you are and that killing you will get him kicked out of society,” Mallory countered.

  “You don’t understand.”

  Callum ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t at all sure that he understood why men who were held in such high regard by many in society would risk it all to kidnap women.

  “Melrose thinks his contacts can get him out of trouble should he ever be arrested for his part in the kidnaps. His contacts go all the way up. The Attorney General is the next to be arrested now that Argent is behind bars, but we cannot find him. He has vanished. We don’t know if he is hiding out at one of his friend’s estates and cannot go through every country house in this land searching for him. We just don’t have the manpower. So, we are going to have to wait for Raymondson, the Attorney General, to show his face again. When he does, he will be arrested. So will Melrose. We only found you because we knew that Melrose was a friend of Argent. Argent has been helping his friend move the kidnapped women around the country and arranging for them to be kept in his friends’ country estates. You were assigned to Melrose’s house. He was going to keep you there and use you as a slave in his kitchen until you were too tired to fight anymore. Only then was he going to move you to London, to another house, where you would be forced into slavery once more.”

  “Yes, but that is what I don’t understand,” Mallory insisted, her voice rife with frustration. “These people have plenty of money. They don’t to do this. I could understand it if they lived in poverty and were doing this for some sort of financial reward.”

  “There is financial reward in what they do,” Callum replied sharply.

  “How? Because they don’t have to pay their slave?”

  “No, because the life of slavery they were going to sell you into was one which included prostitution.”

  Mallory stopped dead in the middle of the street and stared at him. The world swept out from around her before it screeched to a halt and then whirled around her, as if taunting her with the sinister threat it contained. The only sound she could hear was the faint wheeze of her own breath and the heavy beats of her racing heart.

  “Pr-pro-”

  Callum nodded. There wasn’t much he could say. When he did find his voice again, he kept it low while he told her the rest of it.

  “We found a network of backstreet criminals in London in a place called Rigley Row. They are – were – led by the Smidgley twins. The thugs in Rigley Row hid the kidnap victims in the backstreets in the darker side of London where they were introduced to a life of prostitution. It is all a kind of sinister game to Smidgley’s lot. They snatch decent and respectable women like you off the streets. This gang then put the women they kidnapped to work as unpaid slaves in vast estates were escape is impossible because you don’t have the means or strength to try to run for your life. When you are ill, starved, and unable to argue with them anymore, and realise that your life is theirs and that arguing with them for your freedom is futile, they know they can do what they like to you and there is nobody around who can object. All the people you have met thus far have been proper employees of Melrose. They have been paid well for their efforts in breaking your spirit but paid more for their silence. They would have done the job of making sure you know just how hopeless your life is. When you had lost the will to live, and gave up trying to escape, Melrose intended to move you to London whereupon you would have been handed to the Rigley Row mob. There, you would have been given drugs that make you lose what is left of your will. When you were well and truly hooked, you would have been sent to brothels and set to work.”

  Mallory felt tears sting her eyes. She stared blankly at Callum but didn’t see him. While he had talked, Mallory had envisaged every step of Melrose’s plan in horrifying detail and realised then why Callum had been so insistent that they leave Melrose House last night.

  It was only last night I left that place yet it already feels like a million years have passed by.

  Callum stepped forward and cupped her face in his hands. He felt sickened at the thought of what might have happened to her had he not turned up when he had. Silently, he rested his forehead against hers, offering her his strength.

  “They won’t get their hands on you,” he hissed vehemently.

  “They were going to move me, weren’t they?”

  Callum nodded. “Sir Hugo overheard someone say that Melrose was due to return to London. We can only assume that you were to go too so they could force you into the next stage of your ordeal.”

  Mallory swallowed harshly. She knew that had she had something to eat she would have thrown it up by now. She felt so shaken, so deeply horrified, that she knew she would never forget this moment, this day and exact time, when she had been made to realise just how desperate her situation had been.

  “Kill me,” she whispered suddenly.

  Callum blinked at her. He found the idea so repulsive that he scowled deeply.

  Mallory, oblivious to his misunderstanding, continued.

  “If we ever get into a situation where we cannot fight our way out of trouble, and they are likely to take me, kill me.” Mallory stepped back and looked at him with pleading eyes. “I cannot live through that again.”

  As far as Callum was concerned, they weren’t ever going to reach that situation.

  “I have two bullets,” was all he said. “You know that.”

  He just didn’t mention that he intended for one of them to be used on Melrose.

  “You will be safe,” he added while Mallory swiped at the tears in her eyes.

  When she didn’t look at him, Callum knew she didn’t believe him. It annoyed him because it hinted that despite everything, Mallory still didn’t completely trust him.

  Of course, she has only my word that I am who I say I am.

  Carefully, Callum tipped her chin up until she was compelled to look him in the eye.

  “I won’t allow him to get you. Not you,” he assured her, his voice clipped and low.

  Mallory couldn’t speak past the huge well of emotion that lodged in her throat and threatened to choke her. All she could do was gulp.

  Rather than step away, as any sane and sensible man would do, Callum slid a hand through her hair to cup the back of her head. Tugging her gently forward, he placed a gentle kiss onto her lips that was over as soon as it had started.

  What stunned them both was the sharp fission of awareness that curled around them both. It made them both stop and stare at each other warily. It was as though they were each aware of the changes the presence of the other would bring to their lives, but there was nothing they could do. They were both helpless to fight the tide of awareness that connected them. It bound them together in silken bonds which refused to be released. Neither of them felt the need to say anything. Instead, Callum placed a tender acknowledgement of their union onto her lips once more before he forced himself to step back.

  This time, when Callum caught her hand in his, Mallory edged closer to him. Together, they turned to face the road with a solidarity that was startling. In those few short moments, they had changed from a man and a woman, relative strangers and partners in their escape, to a strong unit, and yes, a couple, prepared to fight whatever life threw at them.

  I barely know him, yet I know he is someone I can put my faith in.

  Her instincts assured her that Callum was a man she could trust with her life. He wouldn’t let her down. If she ever doubted him, she only had to contemplate what he had done to thwart Melrose and this thugs in the last day or so.

  As if to prove just how much danger Melrose posed to not just Mallory and Callum, but the rest of the Star Elite as well, a loud blast of gunfire interrupted the tender peace.

  Callum jerked and immediately backed Mallory against the closest wall, pressing himself in front of her so that he could act as a physical barrier to whatever danger threatened them.

  Mallory buried her head in his neck, clutched at his shirt, and waited. She wondered if he realised
just how much his instinctively protective actions revealed about him, and what he felt about her, but doubted it. Callum’s attention was now locked firmly on something happening within a derelict building further down the street.

  “Do you think it is one of your friends?”

  As if to answer, a strange disjointed whistle broke the silence.

  “Damn it. Something is wrong.”

  Callum immediately emitted a burst of whistles that were unlike any animal Mallory had ever heard.

  “Stay here,” Callum ordered only to then realise that he couldn’t simply abandon her at the side of the road for Melrose to pick up.

  All it would take was for Melrose in his carriage to rumble into the street and Mallory would be snatched again just as effectively as she had been taken the first time. But Rhys and Will were in danger. One of them had sent out the call that they had been injured; either of them, or maybe both.

  “Damn.” Callum tugged her across the street.

  As they approached the building, Oliver appeared on the other side of the aged black front door. He signalled that Niall and Phillip were going around the back. Callum knew that he was going to be needed to help search the place, which left him with the problem of what he could do to protect Mallory at the same time. The last thing he could do was allow her to be with him and his colleagues when they entered the unfamiliar structure.

  “You have to come with us,” Callum growled.

  “Are we going in there?”

  Even before they were at the door the sound of brutal fighting became audible. Thankfully, there was no more gunfire but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.

  “We have to. One of us has been injured. We have to get to him.”

  Callum checked the street but suspected that Melrose didn’t have many men left to fight, even if he was stupid enough to put himself inside the building for the Star Elite to find.

  “Stay away from the doors. Come in only when I shout your name. Don’t, and I repeat don’t, stay out here alone. They will snatch you again if you do. Stay close but keep out of the way of the fighting. Preferably stand with your back to a wall and keep an eye on what is going on, so you don’t get caught by any stray bullets. Promise me, Mallory.”