by Rebecca King
‘Because I need to call upon him in the morning. Is he at home? What is his name?’
Clarissa scowled. ‘You are going to have to call at the house in the morning and find that out for yourself, aren’t you?’ Her gaze slid to the window. ‘But use the front door instead.’
Zach’s lips quirked. ‘You have been incredibly lucky tonight and came close to death, far closer than you realise. From now on, you must stay at home. Keep all the doors and windows locked, and make sure that you remember that you are the only people who have seen these highwaymen. That means that the highwaymen might not have killed you in the middle of the village because of alerting the villagers to their presence. It also means that they have followed you with the intention of silencing you at home where nobody is around to hear you scream. Do you have many servants in residence here?’
‘I am not going to tell you that,’ Clarissa snapped. ‘Prove to me that you are Star Elite.’
‘That will be achieved in the morning.’
‘Well, until morning, stop asking me questions. Now is neither the time nor the place for an interrogation. If you are Star Elite, you should know how wholly inappropriate it is for you to be in a young lady’s bed chamber at night. I am not a criminal, and therefore should not be treated this way. Now, get out before I scream and wake the entire household.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Zach murmured, but began to backstep toward the window anyway if only so he didn’t do something rash like give in to temptation and kiss her.
‘Watch me.’ Clarissa sucked in a deep breath and opened her mouth to scream.
To her astonishment, within a blink a large hand slammed over her mouth and all her breath escaped her when she was dragged against a large masculine chest. She struggled as she fought for breath but was helpless as she was bent backward over his arm. All she could do was glare balefully up at him and mumble a weak order through his gloved fingers.
Zach grinned at her. ‘See? I told you that you wouldn’t. Now, I am going to stand you up but remember, never challenge an intruder in your bed chamber late at night.’ He slid a lazy gaze along the length of her curved so temptingly against him that his body began to respond in ways that were neither welcome nor expected. When he spoke, his voice was husky with desire. ‘All sorts of scandalous things might happen.’
When he felt her try to struggle, Zach hauled her upright with as much speed as he had used to render her useless. Clarissa blinked when the world whirled around her again. This time, she found herself upright. To her dismay, he still didn’t release her. He held her more gently and tipped his head back to look down at her. She could feel the warm fan of his breath brush her cheeks. It created a shiver of deep warmth within which seemed to blossom and flood the rest of her with a strange yearning she had never experienced before. She felt heavy while at the same time reckless. Clarissa wanted to lean against him when she knew she should push him away. It was foolish to be like this with him; to allow this man’s hands to rest upon her. If only she could get the strength to lift her hands and push them away, she would – any minute now.
‘What do you want with me?’ she asked quietly.
‘I want you to stay at home where you are safe. I want you to understand that I am not lying to you when I tell you that I am one of the Star Elite and that you are now under our protection.’
‘You cannot just storm into someone’s life and announce that they are under your protection without permission.’
‘I don’t need your permission,’ Zach persisted. ‘Like I have said, I am one of the Star Elite and can do whatever I please.’
‘So, invading young women’s bed chambers is something that you want to do so you can do it? Manners and social dictates don’t apply to a man like you? Laws don’t apply to you, do they? You are no better than a highwayman,’ she snorted disparagingly, carefully avoiding just how much she was staring limpidly into the dark warmth of his hypnotic eyes.
‘I am vastly different to a highwayman,’ Zach assured her.
‘How?’ she breathed.
As their conversation progressed their voices lowered to barely audible breaths. Her heart skipped when his gaze fell tellingly to her lips. It then began to thunder as she watched his head lower toward hers. She wanted to turn away, to avoid the heavy warmth which eventually settled over her lips but in the end couldn’t move. Curiosity compelled her to remain exactly where she was and not avoid it. If she allowed the kiss to happen then this wild, reckless need to know what it felt like to be kissed by him would disappear and she could then deal with this strange attraction she had toward him. It had burst into life the second she had seen him out on the street, and it grew stronger the more she was with him.
But I met him just hours earlier.
Feeling like this toward him despite their short acquaintance was alarming because now, in a short space of time, he had not only managed to get into her bed chamber, but he was kissing her while she was in her nightgown as well. She should be screaming the house down. She should be yelling for Frederick or struggling to get free of his gentle hold.
God, I don’t even know his name.
Clarissa mentally groaned but the heady sensation of his lips pressing against hers made it difficult to think about anything except how silken his lips felt against hers, and how gentle they were. She couldn’t focus on anything other than the heat that seemed to emanate from him and engulf them both in flames of desire that were hedonistic. His lips compelled her to sample him in return, to tease and taste as much as she wanted. Every fibre of her being seemed to come to life in his presence. She felt considerably more than she could ever remember feeling about anything in the past. Each breath seemed sharper, purer. The fine material of his shirt, so soft and warm from his flesh, seemed softer than the finest silk when he was so close. The gentle slide of his lips was seductive, but they disappeared before she managed to understand what was happening.
To her disbelief, he tugged her gently toward the window and proceeded to climb outside.
‘Wait! You will fall,’ she gasped. ‘Where are you going?’
Zach clung to the trellis and grinned unconcernedly at her. ‘Close the window behind me and lock it and then close the shutter too. We will call upon you in the morning. Get some sleep.’
‘But where are you going?’
Zach paused half-way down the rose trellis beside her window. ‘After the highwaymen of course.’
‘But they have gone.’
Zach sighed. ‘We are going to be keeping watch so try not to get upset if you see people moving about in your garden. We are going to stay in the barn for the night until we can speak to your aunt in the morning. You, meantime, should go to bed and get some sleep. In the morning, try to draw the faces of the men who accosted you. We need to identify them so any features like scars will help us a lot. For now, go to bed.’
‘Wait!’
Zach paused again and peered up at her.
Clarissa had never seen any man has handsomely roguish as this man before. He was not just handsome but daringly devilish. When he flashed that Devil may care grin at her, her heart melted just a little. She found herself smiling down at him as she asked: ‘What’s your name?’
Zach huffed a laugh, aware that she had no idea what she looked like hanging out of her bed chamber window with her long hair flowing loose and her billowing night-gown gaping open because the laces had come undone. She looked well tousled to the point that if someone saw them, and him leaving her bed chamber so late at night via the window, they might come to the wrong conclusion about what he had been doing inside her bed chamber with her. It was enough to make Zach drop to the ground and stay there.
‘Zach,’ he replied. ‘Yours?’
Clarissa shook her head at him. Her eyes were alight with mischief when she said: ‘You will have to find out in the morning when you call upon the house, won’t you?’ With that, she retreated into her bed chamber and slid the window down.
Zach huf
fed a laugh. ‘Minx. You are bloody pure minx,’ he grumbled good humouredly before retreating to the barn.
When he reached it, Zach was pleased to note that the beautiful young woman had done as he had asked of her and closed the shutters. For now, the Star Elite could go about their business unhindered by the watchful eyes of the house’s occupants. First thing in the morning, though, all of that had to change because whether the delightfully attractive young lady liked it or not, she was going to spend the foreseeable future under the watchful eyes of the Star Elite.
CHAPTER SIX
Several hours later, Zach’s colleagues watched Zach study the ground carefully. They had spent the last hour or so following a bloody trail the injured highwayman had left through the countryside.
‘The trail is random. They are trying not to be found. The blood splatters stop over there, but then restart over here. He may have stopped to cover his wound a bit more,’ Zach explained. ‘He came this way, though.’
Zach looked for another patch of darkened soil. When he bent down, his fingers came away wet and smeared with red. The stain was barely visible in the soil in the field, but the boot prints stood out starkly.
‘He was alone,’ Al said as he studied the area.
‘They split up,’ Zach replied. ‘The highwayman couldn’t have been that gravely injured or the group might not have left him. What we can surmise from this is that it must be habit for them to split up as soon as they have robbed someone.’
‘I wonder if that is what has made the highwaymen impossible to catch? Might it be that as soon as they have robbed the carriages, they all leave the area in different directions so there isn’t a group of riders for anybody to notice? Individually, the highwaymen could lose themselves in undergrowth a lot easier if there is just one of them rather than a group,’ Al said.
‘If at least one of the highwaymen lives near the location of their next robbery, he could scout out places to hide and none of the locals would notice anything unusual,’ Jarvis suggested.
Morgan squatted down to study the small brown spot of blood. It always amazed him that Zach had the ability to track with such ease. As far as he could see the field was nothing but roughly ploughed soil, but casting the boot prints aside, Zach had found blood. It was startling but impressive.
‘Nobody has ever reported seeing a group of men on horseback charging around late at night,’ Elias muttered. ‘Staying apart until the robbery takes place and then splitting up straight afterward has to be the way they are working. It doesn’t make sense that they would allow one of their injured men to venture off on his own unless he was going home.’
‘Unless he was going to get help from someone he could trust,’ Al added.
‘If they each take turns travelling with the stolen goods it will be impossible for anybody to identify the man who has the stolen items,’ Morgan mused. ‘It’s a very clever way of reducing the chances of getting caught.’
‘But it is the only way they could move about without being noticed. What we have to consider is that the men are locals who live near to the sites of the robberies.’
‘There have been five attacks so far, right?’ Elias asked.
Everyone nodded.
‘And nine highwaymen.’ Elias watched everyone nod. ‘We might have the areas where five of the highwaymen live.’
‘Which means that they are going to strike four more times before calling an end to their crimes?’ Zach shook his head. ‘It is damned risky.’
‘But if they weren’t prepared to take risks, they wouldn’t be highwaymen,’ Duncan reasoned. ‘They are reckless. They know we were in town last night but had no qualms about chasing that carriage all the way home.’
‘I wonder why they didn’t shoot the victims?’ Greg murmured.
‘I wonder why they followed them home,’ Reuben added. ‘What do they want from the victims?’
Zach looked up when he realised that the conversation had stopped. He lifted his brows when he found everyone looking at him. ‘I have no reason to doubt her when she told me that she had absolutely no idea. She looked as confused by it as we are, and worried. She was very worried that the highwaymen might break into the house and kill them while they were asleep in their beds.’
‘That coachman of hers was trying to keep watch last night so that is confirmed,’ Evan muttered before rolling his eyes. ‘I caught him asleep in the conservatory.’
Zach grinned. ‘They are worried about why they were spared.’
‘They are the victims here,’ Al warned. ‘While what happened does look odd, we cannot suspect any of them because they were held up and robbed.’
‘We need to find out why the highwaymen didn’t murder them though,’ Evan warned.
‘Maybe it is because the man who was supposed to kill them was more local than they realise?’ Zach suggested. ‘I mean, maybe when he realised just who he had stopped he couldn’t bring himself to kill them.’
Jarvis was shaking his head before Zach had finished talking. ‘These are cold blooded killers. If the leader of this group ordered the victims to be murdered, they would have been killed. Even if the local couldn’t bring himself to kill the victims, the other members of the group would. It does explain why the victims have to die, though.’
‘Because they might recognise one of the highwaymen as a local,’ Jarvis agreed.
‘I think we can now all agree on how they scout the area and escape it. We now know that they are bold enough to stop carriages in villages. We also can surmise that at least one of the highwaymen live close to the sites of the robberies. What we don’t know is where they are meeting or when their next attack is going to take place,’ Al sighed.
‘We don’t have long,’ Zach warned. ‘If they panic because they know we are right behind them they may increase the frequency of their robberies or stop altogether. That is what we don’t want to happen. If they stop, they are in the area somewhere but so well blended into society we may never find them.’
‘They can’t be planning to stop, or they wouldn’t have spared three witnesses last night,’ Jarvis argued.
‘Maybe they intend to start burgling houses,’ Evan suggested. ‘Or intend to kill their victims when they are going about their ordinary lives, so they don’t get arrested for any more murders if they are caught.’
‘That might be it,’ Al sighed. ‘If they know we are here, and the magistrate is watching all the taverns, and asking too many questions, they may be planning for the worst possible situation. If they don’t kill any more people at the site of the robberies, and those victims die as they go about their ordinary lives shortly afterward, nobody can prove that the highwaymen killed them, especially because nobody knows who the highwaymen are.’
Zach puffed his cheeks out. ‘That makes the young woman in the house and her friends our best friends right now. We must protect them and stop them leaving that house. Further, if we are working to assume that one of the highwaymen is local, we have to find him and get him talking.’
‘Let’s get as far as we can with this trail then, but stay out of sight,’ Al warned.
They all looked at the empty field they were in and knew they could be seen from at least three different hiding places. Zach cursed and shook his head before sharing a rueful look with Al.
‘They are very clever to do something like this,’ Jarvis sighed when they entered another field and found themselves with Simmerton to their right, and a large group of farm buildings to their left.
‘It’s the farmer,’ Zach announced.
‘Can we get anywhere near the farm buildings without being seen to find out if the trail stops anywhere near the farmer’s garden?’ Al asked.
Zach pursed his lips and contemplated it.
‘We need to follow the trail, but with dawn approaching we don’t have long. While it looks as if the injured went toward the farm, we cannot just assume that he went there.’
‘Get following the trail. Try to stay out of sight.
I want the area searched, everyone. By dawn, I want to know if that farmer is one of the highwaymen. Elias, find out who that farmer is. The rest of you try to search the farm’s outbuildings just in case that is where our highwayman is hiding.’
Zach stood up when Al began to march back across the field. ‘Where are you going?’
Al stopped and turned to look at him. ‘To clear our trail and go and search the village. I want to know if we injured any more highwaymen last night. That woman was a bloody good shot. She had to have hit at least one of them. There must be more trails. Evan, you come with me. The rest of you we will see later in the barn at the big house.’
Once Al had left, Zach found the trail again and began to follow it with the rest of the men beside him.
‘Unless we can find these blackguards meeting in a tavern to plan their next attack, we aren’t going to be able to find out where they decide to strike again,’ Jarvis growled. ‘There is nothing to say that they are actually meeting in a tavern. They could be meeting in someone’s house.’
‘Nobody would think anything odd of locals going to see friends.’ Zach agreed, and followed the trail for another couple of hundred yards.
‘The farmer could have eight or nine friends visit him and nobody is around to notice,’ Duncan mused as he turned to look at Simmerton, barely visible beside a large hill. ‘It is certainly difficult for anybody to see the farm from the village.’
‘There are plenty of open fields the highwaymen could use to get to the farm without anybody seeing them, especially if they visit at night,’ Greg murmured.
Several minutes later, Zach cursed when they passed the farm and continued across the fields. He struggled to concentrate because each time he looked up and realised how remote their location was, the more he worried about how far he was away from the young woman in the large house. For some strange reason she hovered in the back of his mind and refused to leave him alone. Each time he closed his eyes she was there, waiting to taunt him. He could still mentally see her standing in her bed chamber, leaning out and smiling down at him with a mischievous smile that was addictive. He wondered how many suitors she had gazed down at but immediately cast that thought aside when an unfamiliar pang of jealousy slammed into him. With a muttered curse, he forced himself to focus on the trail and at least try to put all thoughts of the young woman aside. Deep within, though, he redoubled his efforts because he wasn’t going after the highwaymen to protect the reputation of the Star Elite. He was determined to catch the thieves who robbed her to stop them targeting her in the future. He already knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to her because he hadn’t done enough to catch the men responsible for last night. His determination to protect her made him suck in a deep breath, clear his thoughts, and focus on the job at hand.
