by Rebecca King
‘Damn,’ he growled twenty minutes later when the trail disappeared but only because they had reached the outskirts of Simmerton.
‘Do you think you can track him through the village?’ Greg whispered.
Dawn had barely started to peek over the horizon. Everything was still and quiet, as it should be. But the village before them held a very dark and sinister secret. It was the hiding place of at least one of the highwaymen.
‘I can try,’ Zach murmured. ‘But it is going to be damned difficult without the trail. I will have to try to find at least one spot of blood that could tell us which house he was going to. If we can’t find it, we won’t know if he has just walked through the village or has been picked up by someone.’
While his friends remained where they were, Zach ambled down the lane, into the field opposite, and back again, until he found what looked like faint traces of blood. He began to follow the faint spots until they disappeared completely in the middle of the main street. He studied the long line of shops on either side of the street and cursed fluidly.
‘It’s odd to see all of the houses with the shutters closed. It makes me wonder what they are afraid they will see,’ Duncan whispered when he caught up with his friend.
‘He could be anywhere in one of these properties,’ Zach whispered.
‘Do you think you would be able to recognise any of the highwaymen? I don’t because it was so damned dark.’ Morgan studied each house and cursed fluidly. Without knocking on doors they could only guess which one the thief was in.
‘I have asked the witnesses to draw sketches of the men who accosted them. We should have fairly accurate sketches of some of the highwaymen later when we have called upon last night’s victims.’
‘Did the young woman tell you how many of them she could draw?’ Greg asked.
‘No, but she said she would draw the sketches first thing in the morning. Even one would help us at this stage,’ Zach replied. ‘Come on. Let’s see if he has left us another marker elsewhere. If not, then it is safe to say that he was either picked up in the village by someone or lives here.’
‘If he does live here, he is close to the witnesses, isn’t he?’ Duncan muttered when they were back on their horses and riding back toward Feckleham Hall.
‘He could pay them a visit at any point in the future and nobody would think anything of it,’ Zach agreed.
‘What he will find is us in residence,’ Reuben murmured, his voice ripe with anticipation.
‘When Elias was patrolling last night, he happened to get into the house,’ Morgan murmured with a sly, sideways look at Zach.
Zach’s brows shot up. ‘He broke in?’
‘Oh, yes. You know, just to see how good their security was. Anyway, it appears that the young woman in question is called Miss Clarissa Muir. At least, that is what some of the post said on the desk in the study. The aunt’s name is Mrs Bettina Warnington, a Viscountess if you please.’
‘She is very pretty,’ Duncan mused.
‘You are married,’ Zach snapped.
‘Clarissa is a fine woman indeed,’ Morgan teased. His grin widened when Zach swore.
‘Stop it,’ Zach growled, his lips twitching. ‘There is nothing between us.’
‘Really? It looked to us like you were an errant suitor climbing out of her window last night,’ Reuben teased. ‘Clarissa didn’t seem all that upset at you for intruding. She even gave you a nice view when you finally tore yourself away from her.’
‘I didn’t tear myself away,’ Zach muttered, shaking his head in disgust. ‘She was annoyed but she too was a little stymied about why the highwaymen hadn’t killed her.’
‘It would have been a damned shame if they had managed to take her life. Clarissa is stunning,’ Reuben growled. ‘We expected her to start screaming as soon as she saw you. It appears that you found a way to silence her.’
‘It isn’t funny,’ Zach warned. ‘Don’t you think that we should be worried that she accepted my presence in her bed chamber so readily? I mean, doesn’t it hint that she is wayward, and apt to get herself into trouble? It is going to be difficult enough to keep an eye on someone like her in the first place without drawing the suspicion of the locals or having them put a connection in place between us that isn’t there. How do you know that we aren’t going to have to beat off every bloody lothario in the county?’
‘True. That is indeed true,’ Duncan mused.
‘You didn’t need to climb into her bed chamber last night to learn that she was headstrong,’ Reuben growled. ‘Clarissa drove the carriage like an expert through the countryside last night while dressed in her undergarments for God’s sake. How many young women do you know could do that, eh? Who in the Hell taught her to drive like that? Who in the Hell let her learn to shoot like that?’
‘Someone did. She certainly didn’t teach herself,’ Duncan added.
‘Clarissa isn’t going to be all that amenable to having her freedom curbed while we investigate the highwaymen,’ Zach warned. ‘Did you see how outraged she was when I told her that she had to be under the protection of the Star Elite and couldn’t go anywhere? God, I thought she was going to start screeching at us.’
‘We know our investigation isn’t going to be easy,’ Greg agreed. ‘It won’t help us that two of the highwaymen got shot last night. The highwaymen are going to be wary now and may change their routine because of what happened.’
‘There is no point keeping watch over Simmerton until we can get the sketches off Clarissa,’ Duncan muttered. ‘Let’s hope she can draw accurately.’
‘What are we going to do about trying to find a safe house?’ Elias asked warily as he eyed the empty fields all about them. ‘We cannot take a house in Rointon, or in Simmerton, and there doesn’t appear to be any outbuildings in the fields we can use.’
‘Because we have to keep an eye on Clarissa, we are going to have to use Feckleham Hall,’ Zach muttered in disgust.
On a personal level, he made himself a promise to keep his distance from the delightfully eccentric Miss Clarissa Muir not least because she made him want things that he knew no sane man should contemplate. He didn’t want a relationship, a courtship, a connection, or even marriage. But while he contemplated that, Zach also knew that he was lying to himself. He began to wonder if Miss Clarissa Muir was that special ‘something’ he had secretly been searching for. It galled him to have to admit it but despite her waywardness, her strange skills at carriage driving and shooting, he was deeply attracted to her.
She is indeed bloody gorgeous.
‘Wait! Who is that?’ Morgan hissed suddenly, interrupting his thoughts.
The men hauled their horses to a stop. They were all on the edge of the treeline overlooking the back of Feckleham Hall. In the early morning mist, all was still and quiet, except for a solitary figure that was closing the door to a single-storey cottage tucked away beside the barn.
‘That’s the coachman’s cottage. He went there last night when Elias tapped on the glass in the conservatory and woke him up,’ Jarvis explained.
‘That’s not the coachman,’ Zach muttered. ‘That person is far too short to be him.’
His thoughts immediately turned to Clarissa. A pang of jealousy slammed into him that was so strong he struggled to contain the urge to go after her and demand to know what her connection was with the coachman.
‘Well, well, well,’ Greg murmured. ‘It appears that we have a clandestine meeting.’
‘She is warming his bed,’ Zach spat in disgust. Shaking his head in disbelief, he forced himself to shove all foolish thoughts about Clarissa out of his mind once and for all, and chided himself for believing, for a short while at least, that his attraction to her might lead to something more.
‘We don’t know which woman it is yet,’ Greg warned. ‘Don’t just assume it is her. That could be the owner, Clarissa, or that companion of theirs. She was in the carriage with the coachman last night. How do you know that is not her?’
<
br /> The need to know made Zach take a second, longer look. From a distance it was impossible to see any distinguishing features. The long cloak the woman wore covered every inch of her.
‘We have to find out who that is,’ Greg hissed. ‘I’ll go and see if the coachman is in the cottage.’ He quickly dismounted and disappeared into the undergrowth.
Zach watched the figure disappear through the back door of the house. ‘That’s the kitchen. If that were Clarissa or the lady of the house, don’t you think they would have used the side door to the study or the main body of the house?’
‘I don’t know,’ Zach growled. ‘But I am damned well going to find out.’
‘It is far too early to call upon them,’ Duncan warned. ‘We have to wait for Al to come back.’
Greg reappeared. ‘He is at home and has just got out of bed.’ He slid a worried look at Zach before mounting his horse and settling himself into the saddle.
‘Let’s pay him a visit then, seeing as he is up. We can find out what he has seen and get him to draw sketches too while we are waiting for the rest of the main house to wake up. As soon as Al gets here, we can then go and pay the women a visit and get the images of the highwaymen off them. The sooner we can get this bloody investigation turned in our favour the better we will all sleep in our beds,’ Zach grumbled.
With far more discontent than he was comfortable with, Zach led the way to the back of the barn. Once the horses had been settled, the men made their way to the coachman’s cottage. As far as Zach was concerned, he wasn’t going to leave until he had a few answers about which woman in the house the coachman was using to warm his bed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Good morning,’ Clarissa mumbled as she stumbled sleepily into the breakfast room later that morning. She tried her hardest to smother her yawn, but it escaped anyway, and caused her aunt to frown deeply at her.
‘Where were you last night?’ Bessie demanded dourly.
Clarissa looked at her. It was clear from the dark smudges beneath Bessie’s eyes that she hadn’t slept very well either. Clarissa felt her stomach flip with nerves. Her hand physically shook as she helped herself to several pieces of toast and a cup of hot chocolate before taking her habitual seat at the table to the left of her aunt. All the while she felt her aunt studying her, waiting patiently for an explanation.
‘Have you seen Rosamund this morning?’ Clarissa asked.
Bessie waved around the empty breakfast room. ‘Does it look as if she is here?’
Clarissa sighed and buttered her toast.
‘Well?’
‘We were robbed. The highwaymen stopped us.’ Clarissa was aware of her aunt’s shock as she quietly explained what had happened.
‘Do you mean to tell me that you were stopped by the highwaymen but none of you saw fit to wake me and tell me when you got home?’ Bessie glared at her accusingly.
‘You were sleeping, and we were tired,’ Clarissa reasoned. ‘I am sorry, but we just wanted to go to bed. We secured the house once we returned but nobody thought to wake you. I don’t think any of us could really discuss it because we couldn’t believe what had happened. It all happened so swiftly. We are fine. I did everything I could to avoid them and managed to get everyone home safely.’ She dreaded having to tell her aunt the next part and hesitated while she tried to find the right words.
‘Go on.’ Her aunt’s tone was deadly.
‘They followed us.’ Clarissa closed her eyes and hung her head when her aunt gasped.
Bessie leaned forward and stared hard at her niece. ‘They followed you? Here? Last night? And you just calmly went to bed without telling me?’
‘Frederick stayed up to keep guard for a while,’ Clarissa cried. ‘We were shocked. Exhausted. Cold. We – I – struggled to believe it had happened to us. The last thing I needed was to have to answer your questions.’
‘This is my house,’ Bessie hissed. ‘Don’t you think I have a right to know if I have highwaymen in my garden?’
‘You don’t understand,’ Clarissa snapped.
‘So tell me,’ Bessie ordered coldly.
‘Another group of riders intervened,’ Clarissa explained.
‘And they saved you,’ Bessie finished when Clarissa lapsed into awkward silence.
Clarissa frowned. She didn’t tell her aunt that one of the men had been in her bed chamber. That was something she could only hope that the man didn’t tell her aunt if he appeared this morning like he said he would. It had to remain their secret – for now at least. At some point, Clarissa knew she would have to tell Bessie what the handsome stranger had done, but that had to be in many, many years’ time, when everything had died down and was in the past where it belonged.
Clarissa sucked in a deep breath. ‘They claimed to be the Star Elite.’
‘The Star Elite saved you?’ Bessie cried. She slammed herself back into her seat and stared blankly at her niece. ‘Good Lord.’
‘There is more.’ Clarissa wrinkled her nose and braced herself. She met her aunt’s pointed glare and said: ‘They followed us home too.’
‘The Star Elite followed you home?’ Bessie looked around the room as if expecting one of them to pop out from behind the shutters. ‘Where are they? What happened?’
‘They said that they were going to stay outside and keep guard, but Frederick remained awake for a while to keep watch when we got home. I was shattered, and just had to go to bed,’ Clarissa explained. She coughed awkwardly when she heard how much her voice trembled from the force of her emotions. She couldn’t remember ever crying in front of her aunt before, not even when she had left her father’s house and moved to Feckleham Hall. Now, though, tears hovered on her lashes and threatened to overspill. ‘They stole our clothing.’
‘The Star Elite stole your clothing?’ Bessie cried.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Clarissa snapped. ‘The highwaymen stole our clothing. The Star Elite shot one of the highwaymen. They – the Star Elite – think the highwaymen are locals.’
‘Locals to us?’ Bessie’s voice weakened as her concern grew.
‘Yes,’ Clarissa whispered.
Bessie leaned forward in her seat and braced her elbows on the table while piercing her niece with a hard look. ‘You had better tell me all of it.’
‘We survived,’ Clarissa said.
‘I am glad you did,’ Bessie murmured, her voice laden with relief. ‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘I am not. The highwaymen didn’t kill us like they killed their other victims.’ This made Bessie scowl. ‘Before you ask, we don’t know why they spared us. We don’t know if it is because the Star Elite interrupted the highwaymen before they could murder us, or if the highwaymen realised that we lived locally as soon as they stopped the carriage.’
‘They followed you home to do the job where nobody could watch,’ Bessie growled. ‘Well, we shall see about that.’
‘The Star Elite want us under their protection.’
‘You, my girl, are going nowhere,’ Bessie bit out.
Before Clarissa could reply, the door to the breakfast room opened and a worried looking Rosamund stepped quietly into the room. It was clear that there was a distracted air about her this morning. It was visible in the deep frown on her face, and the paleness of Rosamund’s pinched features. She slid a wary look at Bessie before quickly sliding into a seat at the table. Bessie remained quiet and watched Rosamund pour herself a cup of hot chocolate with a hand that shook so badly hot chocolate spilled all over the tablecloth. Rosamund muttered an apology and began to dab at the tablecloth with jerky movements.
‘When you have finished, we need to sketch the highwaymen,’ Clarissa reminded her. She then noticed the worried look Rosamund gave Bessie. ‘You don’t have to worry. Aunt Bessie already knows.’
To both Bessie and Clarissa’s amazement, Rosamund removed a small folded envelope from her pocket and slid it across the table to Bessie. ‘I am sorry, but I simply cannot stay.’
; Bessie peered at her for a moment before slowly picking up the envelope. She nodded as if she had already read the contents but dropped the letter back onto the table without opening it. ‘I cannot say that I am all that surprised that you want to leave. If I am honest, I am surprised that you have lasted as long as you have. This life of ours isn’t for everyone, eh? I know a lot of people are offended by it.’ It was clear from the tone of her voice that she was hurt.
‘It isn’t anything to do with life here,’ Rosamund corrected, throwing a worried look at both Clarissa and Bessie. ‘It is just that last night, while we were being accosted by the highwaymen, I realised that I hadn’t really done anything in my life. I could have been shot and all I have ever done in life is exist. It is wonderful here, but you don’t really need me. I am not your companion, I am just another mouth to feed, and someone you can talk to when you get bored.’
‘It is understandable that when faced with death you contemplate your life, I suppose,’ Clarissa muttered. ‘Although I was trying to think of a way of getting out of the situation without them killing us.’
‘I have enjoyed my time here, but it isn’t my life. I realised last night that I want a change. I need to leave to get what I want because it certainly won’t come to me. So, sometime during the night, I cannot remember when, I decided to do something about making changes. My cousin lives in Scotland. Whenever she writes to me, she tells me that I am welcome to stay with her for a while if I ever go to Scotland. It is time that I took her up on her offer. I know she can accommodate me, so travelling without forewarning her that I am on my way won’t be a problem, I am sure of it. With your permission, of course, I should like to take a reference with me, although I don’t suppose I will have the chance to use it seeing as my cousin’s house is out on a loch where nothing much ever happens.’
