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

by Rebecca King

  Mallory nodded. As a silent and unwilling accomplice, Mallory watched Oliver kick the front door in. The resounding bang it made as the fragile wood shattered beneath the heavy weight of his boot made her jump. She watched him point his gun into the gloom and step inside. When no gunshots greeted him, Callum edged toward the door. Seconds later, he too disappeared inside before he popped his head back out again and tugged her into the building with him.

  “Stand there. Don’t move. Don’t speak, and don’t do anything except call out if someone else comes through the door.”

  Callum nudged her backward until she was pressed firmly against the nearest wall. She cupped her elbows in her hands and watched him. In that moment, Mallory was struck by such conflicting emotions she wasn’t at all sure what she should feel.

  Callum was by far the most handsome of the Star Elite men. He was cool, almost unflappable, and clearly in his element searching the building with a brisk efficiency that made it clear he had done things like this before. His handsome features were stern, glacially frozen in time. So much so, he became a stranger to her, but he still created emotions within her she daren’t put a name to. As she watched, he silently signalled to his friend, Oliver. Together, they paused while they waited for Niall and Phillip to find them.

  “Nothing,” Phillip grunted when they did.

  The heavy thuds were coming from upstairs.

  Callum put his finger to his lips and beckoned Mallory closer.

  Callum pressed his lips to her ear. “When we have reached the top of the stairs and I signal you, come up after us. Don’t stay down here.”

  Mallory nodded. She was happy to follow seeing as the thought of being left anywhere in the building alone was simply horrible.

  Callum and Oliver went up the stairs first. They crept up, step by silent step, their guns drawn in readiness should anyone appear at the top. Once on the landing, Niall and Phillip nudged Mallory after Callum. She opened her mouth to tell them that they should go first only for Phillip to nod at Callum, making it clear that they wanted her to stay with him.

  Mallory hastily climbed the stairs.

  “Stay here. Call out if someone appears at the bottom of the stairs,” Phillip whispered before he stepped around her.

  Together with Niall, the men made their way toward the heavy thuds and curses coming from a room to their right.

  Oliver and Callum quietly made their way down the hallway but in the opposite direction. Together, they searched the rest of the rooms on the upper floor until they reached the last one at the end.

  Without stepping inside, Callum beckoned to Mallory. Mallory didn’t hesitate. She raced toward him only to slam to a halt in confusion when she saw the dark look on Callum’s face. In that moment, she knew that this was a Callum she had never met before. Gone was the charm, the rueful smiles, and the twinkle of mischief in his eyes. In their place was a hard cruelty that was nothing short of lethal. Something, some powerful emotion, had changed his face and turned each angle of his jawline and high cheekbones sharp. Unless she was very mistaken, Callum was furious; coldly and ruthlessly furious.

  “What is it?”

  “Stay here,” Callum growled. “Don’t move.”

  Mallory was curious to know what was inside the room that had made Callum so angry. Before any of them could look, a sharp movement at the end of the corridor caught their attention. They all turned to watch Rhys help an injured Will shuffle awkwardly down the corridor. His eye was swelling shut, his cheek and upper lip were cut, his shirt was blooded and torn, but he was alive and grinning like a lunatic – until he saw the cold watchfulness of his colleagues’ faces. Then his smile died.

  “What?” Rhys demanded.

  Niall and Phillip came to stand behind Oliver and Callum. The men looked at Oliver who turned his attention to the room. Rather than step inside it, he studied the floor, and the wall inside the door. Only when he could be assured that the room hadn’t been boobytrapped did Oliver venture into the room, which was empty save for one thing: a body.

  Mallory followed them only to cry out in alarm when she saw what had made the men so grim.

  This wasn’t just any body. This body had been so badly beaten that his face was almost unrecognisable – almost.

  But the men from the Star Elite did recognise who had been bound by the ankles and wrists, and so badly beaten that his face was swollen and bloodied, as was most of his battered and broken body.

  Callum stepped closer.

  “Who is it?” Mallory whispered.

  Oliver, Phillip, Rhys, Will, and Niall, equally as grim as Callum, all stepped closer to the body hanging suspended from the ceiling by his tightly bound wrists.

  “It’s Sir Hugo,” Callum whispered, his voice low and hushed, in deference to their valiant boss.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Callum removed a small but wicked looking knife from his boot and turned to the rope wound tightly around Sir Hugo’s wrists and used to suspend him from the ceiling. Once Oliver and Niall were in position to catch him when he fell, Callum cut the rope that had prevented Sir Hugo from ever being able to defend himself against his captor’s cruel blows.

  “Is he alive?” Rhys whispered.

  Callum grimly knelt beside the body of his boss and checked for breath. He felt his stomach dip and shook his head just once, crisply, when he couldn’t feel any sign of life.

  Nobody moved while Callum placed his head on Sir Hugo’s chest.

  “He has a heartbeat. Get a doctor,” Callum hissed grimly. “Hurry.”

  “We have to get him out of here. Niall, go and get a cart.”

  Callum met Oliver’s stunned gaze over the width of Sir Hugo’s chest.

  “How bad is it?” Oliver asked

  “He is going to be lucky if he makes daybreak,” Callum whispered.

  “We have to get him to Harriett.”

  Will fell to his knees at Sir Hugo’s bare feet.

  “He cannot be subjected to a trip to London, or Cornwall. He isn’t strong enough. We have to send someone to bring her to him,” Oliver growled.

  “There isn’t time,” Callum whispered. “Besides, we cannot leave him in the area. What if Melrose finds him again?”

  To prove his point, he eased Sir Hugo’s blood-soaked shirt away from his shoulder to reveal a small bullet hole.

  “He has lost a lot of blood.”

  “That doesn’t mean he is going to die,” Will growled. “He cannot die. Not on our watch.”

  “We weren’t with him,” Callum snapped. “This isn’t our fault. He was on his own. He said he knew where he was going, and what he was doing. We were duty-bound to believe him. He said he was going to intercept us but then didn’t turn up. How were we to know that he had been caught? I thought he had lingered in the woods to talk to you, or I would have insisted on staying with him.”

  “If he gave you orders you were expected to complete them, Will. He would have been mad at you had you gone against them, Callum,” Oliver quietly assured him when he heard the emotion in Callum’s voice.

  He knew that all the men were equally shaken by what had happened to their boss, not least because this was Sir Hugo, the stalwart of the Star Elite. It was unthinkable that anything could ever happen to him – but it had.

  “It is unthinkable that he might die,” Oliver said aloud.

  “We cannot let it happen,” Callum announced flatly.

  Mallory stepped forward. Without thinking, she yanked a large strip of material off her skirt and nudged Callum out of the way. Dropping to her knees beside him, she folded the cloth and placed it firmly over the still oozing bullet hole. Pressing down on it, she opened Sir Hugo’s mouth and peered inside.

  “What are you looking for?” Oliver demanded.

  “Blood. We don’t need him choking,” Mallory replied calmly. “We have to get him off this dirty floor. He needs water, blankets, and warmth. Then, once his wounds have been cleaned, we can get a doctor to have a look at him. Firs
t, we have to get him out of here.”

  As if to prove that they were still in danger, the distant sound of gunfire broke the silence.

  “I will damned well cut that blackguard down,” Will growled, surging to his feet.

  “A wise general knows when to retreat. Right now, we must do what is best for Sir Hugo. He needs us to get him seen by a doctor and fit to return to Cornwall,” Oliver warned.

  “Don’t you think that is what Melrose wants? He knows that we won’t let him bleed to death and will do everything possible to get him out of here. Melrose will use our distraction to head to London, I don’t doubt. We cannot allow him to escape and disappear like Claude Smidgley. While Melrose’s men are trying to put up a barrier by stopping us leaving here, Melrose is heading further and further away. We must catch the blackguard, and now before he reaches his friends. Sir Hugo wouldn’t have it any other way. He would order us to go after Melrose. You know he would.”

  Callum ran a frustrated hand through his hair because they faced an impossible situation. They had to carry out their duties and do everything possible to capture Melrose, but now also had to look after one of their own.

  “We cannot let him die,” Oliver said.

  “Nobody is going to,” Callum snapped.

  “Let’s get him to the safe house and patch him up. If the doctor says he is well enough to travel, a few of us can take him home. The rest can go after Melrose,” Oliver suggested.

  “We need all the men we can get given how murderous Melrose is,” Will warned.

  With the plans made, the men went to find a door they could use as a makeshift stretcher. Once Sir Hugo was on it, they carried him down the stairs to the back door to wait for Niall to arrive with the cart.

  There wasn’t anything she could say so Mallory followed the men in stoic silence, all the way down the stairs until they reached the back door overlooking a small yard. Within seconds, Niall drew a cart to a halt before them.

  “We have the loan of it until tomorrow,” he explained. “We should be able to get him to the safe house and return it to the woman by then.”

  Mallory eyed the cart. It looked as aged as the old woman who had helped them hide in the courtyard. She didn’t doubt that was who Niall had turned to for help. With a mental nod of thanks, Mallory stood back to watch the men lift Sir Hugo into the back of the vehicle.

  “Get up beside me,” Callum ordered her.

  When she didn’t immediately move, Oliver lifted her onto the bench seat.

  “Wait!” Mallory cried.

  Oliver swore. Callum glared at her, but Mallory was too busy clambering into the back to kneel beside Sir Hugo.

  “Give me that blanket, please,” she asked of Niall, who dutifully stepped forward to hand her a blanket he had purloined from somewhere.

  Mallory draped it over Sir Hugo before she tore another piece of material off her skirt and swapped it with the now blooded one covering Sir Hugo’s wound. When she was satisfied that she had done all she could to make him more comfortable, she nodded at Callum.

  “We can go now,” she murmured quietly.

  When she looked at him, she placed a hand over Sir Hugo’s wound again, effectively doing everything she could to stem the flow of blood.

  Callum shared a look with his colleagues. None of them said a word as they stepped back to allow Callum to nudge the carriage into motion. While the men fetched Horace and the rest of the horses, Callum guided the carriage through the village toward the safe house.

  This journey was unlike any other Mallory had ever undertaken. It was solemn but everyone was watchful and tense. They all knew the dangers of being in a slow-moving vehicle while Melrose’s men were about.

  “I will go on ahead and get the doctor at the house for when you arrive,” Phillip offered.

  “It is going to take an hour or two. We don’t know if he has broken anything, so we must take it steady. I daren’t drive any faster in case I injure him some more,” Callum said. “Just make sure that we don’t have anyone lurking in the undergrowth, eh?”

  Phillip nodded and cantered off leaving the rest of the men to surround the carriage as best they could given there were only a handful of them.

  “Wait! Why is he going anywhere alone?” Will demanded as he squinted at Phillip’s back.

  Oliver paused and turned to look at his colleague.

  “Look at what they have done to Sir Hugo. He is one of the best of men, yet they have beaten him into a bloodied pulp. Maybe this was done by that mob we cut down in the street, maybe there is another mob out there. We don’t know. What kind of bloody fool rides off, even to fetch a doctor, when Melrose can do this to us? Don’t you think there is safety in numbers? Don’t you think it is best that we all stick together? Once Sir Hugo is at the safe house, we can send three men out to fetch the doctor. Right now, we stay together, Oliver. It isn’t safe for Phillip, or any of us for that matter, to go out by ourselves. The last thing we need is two men dead.” Will glared at his colleague even though he knew it wasn’t Oliver’s fault that Melrose had gotten the better of them this time.

  Oliver didn’t take it personally. He knew and understood Will’s frustration. They all felt the same way.

  “How are you doing back there?” Callum asked of Mallory.

  “Fine,” she replied. “The blood from this wound seems to be easing a little.”

  Callum turned to have a look. Indeed, there didn’t seem to be so much blood oozing from the hole now that Sir Hugo was lying down.

  “Keep putting pressure on it,” he said.

  Mallory had no intention of doing anything else.

  “I am going with Phillip,” Will announced suddenly.

  Before anyone could say otherwise, he nudged his horse into a canter and disappeared.

  Callum shared a knowing look with Oliver. They both knew that they were riding into danger. It was going to come at them from any quarter at any given moment. All they could do was hope they reached their destination alive.

  Callum threw a look over his shoulder at Mallory. There was little he could do to protect her right now. One look was all it would take for Melrose to know that she was with the Star Elite, and alive and well. Melrose would do everything possible to get her off the back of the cart, but there was no place she could hide. She was a sitting target.

  “There is no alternative,” Oliver said, as if he had just read Callum’s thoughts.

  Callum turned to face forward.

  “Just make sure we have plenty of shot,” Callum growled.

  With that, the men lapsed into silence.

  The ride seemed to be endless. At no point during the hour-long journey to the safe house did Sir Hugo twitch or even blink. Even staring at him, Mallory was barely able to see if his chest was still moving. She knew that he could pass away at any moment and she might not know it. Consequently, she took to resting her hand against his heart to feel for that steady, reassuring thump called life.

  “Thank God for that,” she breathed when Callum guided the cart into a long, winding driveway.

  A tall, sprawling house sat waiting for them, as aged and quaint as the village it sat beside.

  “How wonderful,” Mallory breathed as she studied it.

  The low-lying thatch above the crooked front door gave the building a quaint charm that made her smile. It was evident that the house had been built many years ago. It had withstood plague and famine yet still offered shelter and protection to those who needed it, which was just as well because it needed to shelter people who had a war to fight now.

  Throughout the journey, Callum had remained stoically silent. Mallory had wanted to talk to him but couldn’t find any topic of conversation that was appropriate given what had happened to Sir Hugo. How could one engage in idle chit-chat when a man’s life hung in the balance, and when they were likely to be attacked at any given moment? What did one talk about?

  Because she couldn’t talk, and nobody else seemed inclined to, tension
had not just formed over them, but strengthened with each passing mile. Mallory had become more and more on edge until she started to wonder if it was possible to break beneath its heavy weight.

  “He is still alive,” she murmured when the carriage rumbled to a stop outside the back door of the house and Callum moved to the back of the cart.

  At first, only one man came to the door to greet them. When he realised that the men had brought an injured man with them, he ventured outside to see who it was. He blinked when he saw Sir Hugo, then looked at his colleagues for assurance that it was truly him. The man then disappeared back inside the house without saying a word. Seconds later, he came back outside with several more men who all raced toward the cart.

  “The doctor is here,” one of the men announced with a nod to a small black carriage that had just turned into the end of the driveway. Beside it were Phillip and Will.

  “Let’s get him inside,” Oliver growled.

  All Mallory could do was stay still while the men slid Sir Hugo out of the cart. Rather than follow the men inside with their burden, Callum lifted his hands to Mallory, and helped her jump down.

  “How are you?” he asked quietly.

  Mallory looked down at her bloodied hands. “I have had better days but can only count my blessings.”

  Callum offered her a half-hearted smile and turned her toward the safe house. Although he was certain nobody had followed them, they could be fooled into relaxing.

  “Go on inside. I am going to see to the horses,” Callum said.

  Mallory studied the house but didn’t move.

  “I don’t want to go in there just yet,” she admitted without thinking.

  Callum smiled. “They won’t bite.”

  “I know but they need to settle Sir Hugo. I will just be in the way.”

  Callum didn’t object when she followed him across the yard to the stables instead. In a way, he could understand her reluctance to go inside, especially seeing as it was a house full of strangers.