by Rebecca King
“Do you remember?” Charity asked. “What happened?”
Angus nodded and only then realised the rest of the Star Elite were in the room.
“We know who you really work for,” Charity informed him before anybody could speak.
“The Star Elite sound very adventurous,” Augusta declared with a knowing nod.
“I don’t know about adventurous. I have been working for them for a long time now and they still haven’t taught me how to duck,” he grumbled by way of a response.
Charity wanted to smile but was too tearful to even make her lips quirk. She wouldn’t be able to relax again until she was able to speak with Angus alone and make sure he truly was going to be all right.
Before she could answer, the doctor arrived. Everyone reluctantly filed out of the room while he set to work on Angus.
“You can come back in now,” the doctor called after what felt to Charity like a lifetime.
Everyone was tired and on edge, but curious to find out how Angus was, and eagerly filed back into the back room of Charity’s house upon hearing the summons.
“How is he?” Charity asked tremulously as she took up position beside Angus, who was still sitting on the table.
“He will live,” the doctor assured her. “He will have some discomfort in his head for a day or two but will fully recover without too much trouble. The knife wound isn’t deep and should heal in time, just keep it dry and covered up for now.”
While Oliver saw the doctor home, Angus swung his legs over the edge of the table.
“Where do you think you are going?” Charity planted herself firmly in front of Angus and folded her arms defiantly.
“I have work to do,” Angus muttered.
He bit out a low curse despite being in the presence of ladies when movement made the world whirl around him. Suddenly, the entire room became tinged with darkening fog. He realised then that sitting up had been an extremely bad idea.
“How about you get upstairs to bed because right now, I think the only thing you need is a good night’s sleep?” Charity looked at his colleagues. “I am sure someone else can keep watch for one night. Besides, Mr Horvat has already been out tonight.”
Angus’s gaze hardened. “Please tell me you didn’t go after him?”
“We were going to but then we saw the men had found you,” Agatha replied honestly. She fell silent when Monika nudged her rudely in the ribs.
“Well, we had best be off then. It is getting late, and I am sure you gentlemen have things to, er, watch,” Monika declared in an overly loud voice. She turned to Charity. “Remember what we agreed?”
Charity nodded.
“Tomorrow?”
“If possible,” Charity murmured carefully.
She struggled to keep her face impassive and refused to look at Angus. He knew her sufficiently well to be able to read the guilt in her eyes. While she dreaded having to go anywhere near the Horvat house, she knew they still needed to, if only to see if there were any kidnapped ladies in there. If she and Monika were caught inside the property, they could claim they were there to see Mrs Browning, who had been one of the ladies’ church group. If Angus, or any of his colleagues were found in the house by Mr Horvat, their presence would be far harder to explain.
“You get a good night’s rest,” Agatha instructed Angus, who nodded but then winced again.
“Damn that hurts,” Angus growled.
“Can you make it upstairs? You can take the spare room. It is right next to mine,” Charity explained.
“Is the bed all made up?” Augusta asked.
Charity nodded. Even if it wasn’t she didn’t want to tell the ladies. Right now, all she wanted to do was get Angus tucked up into bed, so she could take a moment to herself and try to assimilate everything that had happened. Charity was being barraged with so many conflicting and confusing emotions that she wasn’t at all sure what she should feel anymore. What she did know for definite was that she was going to cry, a lot, and loudly sometime very soon, and would invariably embarrass herself if she didn’t get some time alone.
Before anybody could move, a huge bang rattled the house.
The men, including Angus, immediately sprang to their feet.
“What in Hades was that?” Gertrude cried, hefting her reticule before her as a soldier would use a shield.
Aaron raced through the house and bolted up the stairs. Seconds later, he re-appeared and was shaking his head.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “The street is quiet outside as well.”
“It must have come from next door,” Charity gasped, too scared to do anything more than cling to Angus.
“Mrs Vernon?” Edwina’s scowl was deep with worry and fear.
“I wonder if she has had a fall?” Monika cried. “We must go and check on her.”
“We will go and check on her,” Angus growled. “You ladies stay here.”
“You are in no fit state to go anywhere,” Charity snorted. “Besides, how do you think she is going to feel if she answers the door at this time of night and finds someone like you standing on her doorstep? Look at you. You are all bloodied and bruised. You look like you have been in a fight. You will terrify her.”
Charity knew she was fussing over him but just couldn’t stop. Thankfully, Angus took it all with alacrity. In fact, she was starting to suspect he quite liked it, especially when she placed a staying hand on his chest only for him to place one warm palm over hers and refuse to release her again.
“She could have fallen down the stairs or something,” Angus whispered. “You can’t help her if she has.”
“I will go,” Augusta informed everyone.
“I will come with you,” Monika said, following her across the room.
“Me too,” Gertrude cried. She stopped beside the door that led into the kitchen, grabbed hold of Jasper’s shirt and yanked him after her.
Angus grinned. To see the startled look of shock on Jasper’s face just before he was hauled bodily out of the house by the matronly lady was funny, but he daren’t laugh, his head hurt too much.
“Damn, what are you doing to us?” he muttered, his eyes alight with mirth.
“They have a way of wrapping you up in kindness that is impossible to fight,” Charity replied, her voice husky from the force of the emotions she was having to deal with.
“It’s not a bad thing,” he assured her.
“Are you getting used to it?” she asked incredulously.
“No.” He huffed a laugh. “I am just smart enough to know when to stop fighting.”
Charity wondered if he could sense her tumultuous emotions. If so, he had read them accurately because there was a hint of empathy in his gaze when their eyes locked.
“Let’s get you up to bed,” Phillip suggested.
Together with Justin, he stood quietly beside Angus while Angus awkwardly turned around and shuffled stiffly toward the door.
“I will be fighting fit in the morning,” Angus announced but with little force. “Right now, I am so damned tired I can barely put one foot in front of the other.”
“I will keep an eye on you overnight,” Justin assured him. “I think we are going to have to keep waking you up to make sure we can. That lump on the back of your head is still growing.”
Charity could only agree. It made her want to weep to think what he had been through while she had been tucked away at Monika’s, moaning about how commanding the Star Elite men were.
He could so easily have been killed. Charity closed her eyes at the very thought.
To her dismay, rather than have her worrying thoughts fade, as she followed the men into the spare room and hurried past them to turn down the bed and light the fire, Charity found herself contemplating how she would feel if she was completely in love with Angus, and had her life entwined with his as his wife. How would she bear it if she ever received the devastating news that he could never return because he had been cut down by some ruthless blackguard? She would be dev
astated, distraught, unable to see a future without him, she was sure of it.
She also knew that it was already too late to pretend she didn’t feel anything for him. Everyone knew that she cared about him now, even his friends given the way they kept looking at her and watching her thoughtfully. Thankfully, whether it was because of his own emotions, the injuries he had sustained to his head, or his preoccupation with the investigation, Angus didn’t appear to have realised how much she cared for him yet. Being spared that embarrassment could only be a good thing, though – couldn’t it?
When Charity had turned down the bed, she looked for Angus only to find him standing beside the door watching her.
“I will go and find you something to drink in case you get thirsty in the night. Are you hungry?” she asked quietly.
Angus shook his head.
“I won’t be long,” she said quietly, and quickly left the room.
It was good to get out of the room for a while, and away from the watchful gazes of the men. Charity couldn’t relax, though, because she was still struggling to contain her curiosity about what had happened next door.
It seemed to take an age before the small group of investigators returned. When they did it was evident from the worry in their eyes that they were completely stymied by what they had found.
“Nothing,” Augusta declared succinctly.
“What about Mrs Vernon? Is she all right?” Charity asked.
“I will bet she was cross at being disturbed at this time of night,” Edwina snorted.
“That is what is odd. There is nobody there at all. The fire is going, the candles are lit but nobody is at home,” Augusta reported.
“It is just as though she has gotten up, walked out of the house, and vanished.” Monika waved a hand in the air. “There is nobody in the garden either, and nobody out on the street. God knows where she has gone, but she isn’t at home.”
“I wonder if we heard her front door slamming,” Augusta murmured, more to herself than the rest of the group.
“But it is past one o’clock in the morning. Where could she have gone at this time of the night?” Charity asked.
“I don’t know but we will check again in the morning,” Oliver murmured, his brows heavy with a deep, dark frown. “How is Angus?”
“I think the others are getting him settled into bed. I am just going to get him something to drink and will be up in a moment,” Charity replied.
Oliver nodded and promptly disappeared upstairs.
“Right, well, we had better be going ourselves,” Monika cried. She was cold, tired, and so worried about everything that she suspected she wouldn’t be able to sleep despite her exhaustion, but she had to try. Right now, she wanted to go home, mostly because she was truly starting to feel like a third wheel in the presence of Angus and Charity. If the looks on the ladies’ faces were anything to go by, she wasn’t the only person who felt that way.
Jasper stepped forward. “You ladies have to be escorted home.” His tone didn’t encourage argument.
He was just repocketing his gun when Oliver and Justin appeared in the doorway.
“We will leave Aaron here on watch. Get some sleep everyone. We will reconvene here in the morning. I think you ladies need to be back here to listen to what we have to say, so we will meet again here at eleven o’clock. However, given the odd things going on around here, do not venture out alone not even in daylight. We will come and fetch you between ten forty-five and eleven. Wait for us, we will come for you,” Oliver ordered.
“What is this all about?” Monika asked curiously. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”
“We need to make sure you ladies are protected. If Mrs Vernon’s disappearance isn’t normal, then there is far more of a problem in this village than we all first realised. Until we can establish who is responsible, nobody is to go anywhere or do anything without checking with us first,” Oliver commanded.
A somewhat awkward silence settled over everyone as they filed out of the house. Charity watched the front door close behind the ladies and turned around in time to watch Aaron slam the bolt closed on the back door. Quietly, Charity gathered up some wine for Angus, and hurried back upstairs to him.
Her knock on the door was barely audible, but Angus heard it. He was still sitting up in bed, trying to decide if he dare lie down, when Charity appeared in the doorway.
“Thank God you are here,” he growled. “What’s going on?”
Charity briefly explained. “I have no idea where she might go at this time of night. The only thing I can think is that one of her friends has taken ill and she has gone to sit with them or something. There is simply no other reason for her to leave like that.”
“Don’t worry about it right now,” Angus whispered. “Come and sit with me.”
His soft command was accompanied by a gentle plea in his eye Charity found impossible to refuse. She looked about the room but realised there was no place she could sit except on the side of the bed. Cautiously, she edged closer. It felt scandalous to perch so closely against him but with the bed so narrow, and there being no place else she could go, she had to press her hip against his thigh.
Angus leaned back against the fluffy pillow and heaved a sigh of contentment. It wasn’t absolute. Far from it. He eyed Charity’s awkward position. With a sigh, he used the last of his waning strength to haul her bodily across the bed until she was almost draped over his chest.
“Lie with me,” he ordered softly.
Charity’s eyes widened. She eyed Angus’s bare chest warily and knew from the sight of his breeches on the floor that he had nothing on beneath the crisp white sheets. To even think of being this scandalously close to a naked man was enough to make her writhe with acute embarrassment. Unfortunately, this made her nudge against him.
When he winced, she froze.
“I am sorry,” she gasped.
“I know this is going to raise eyebrows, but my friends won’t bother us. Just lie down, cover yourself over with a blanket.” Slowly, Angus rearranged them both until they were lying side-by-side. With him beneath the sheets, Charity, still fully dressed, lay atop the covers, draped in a thick heavy blanket. Her cheek rested against the hollow of Angus’s shoulder with such naturalness that she sighed in contentment.
“Go to sleep,” Angus pleaded huskily.
Now that Charity was safe in his arms, Angus knew he could finally sleep. With his colleagues on watch, and the ladies back at home where they belonged, life couldn’t be more perfect, and he intended to savour every moment.
Once Charity had started to relax against him, Angus lifted onto one elbow and blew out the candle. They were immediately engulfed in a gentle amber glow from the fireplace which cast them in a serene haze which only enhanced the seductive atmosphere. It wound around their lambent forms and encompassed them both in a healing serenity that drew them closer together than ever before.
Angus gently tipped her chin up and placed a loving kiss upon her lips. It wasn’t sexual or driven by desire. It was a tender confirmation that they would be all right. Whatever the future lay in store for them both as individuals and as a couple, Angus now had little doubt that he would forever be a part of Charity’s life and knew, with absolute certainty, that she felt the same way.
Charity settled against him when Angus lay back down. She listened to the rhythmic thud of his heart for so long that she felt certain it echoed the heady thump of her own. It seemed to confirm that their hearts, which beat as one, were meant to be together.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was disconcerting to Charity to wake up the following morning and find herself all alone. She sighed and stretched lazily before the silence within the room reminded her that she should be hearing the steady thump of Angus’s heart.
When she realised he had left, Charity slowly sat up but was unsure what to think of his absence. Had something happened while she had been asleep? Had he taken ill again?
“Don’t tell me he has alrea
dy gone back to work,” she muttered.
Charity angrily threw the covers back on the bed and stood up only to realise she had not had anything to eat for a long time. She was hungry, and thirsty.
Decidedly out of sorts, she hurried into the back bedroom and quickly saw to her ablutions, changed her clothing and then reluctantly made her way downstairs.
“Hello?” she called when she reached the kitchen table only to find the room completely empty.
A frown marred her brow as she searched the entire downstairs floor of her house only to find herself alone. The deathly silence was unnerving. Edging close to the stairs, she peered up it. Rather than call out, she climbed the stairs and made her way to her bed chamber at the front of the house.
“Hello? Aaron? Angus?” When nobody answered, Charity nudged the door open. To her shock, the room was completely empty. “Where has everybody gone?”
Curious, Charity crossed the room and took up a hidden position behind one of the shutters, so she could study the road outside undetected. All was just as still and quiet as her house. There was nothing odd or unusual on this slightly cloudy day. But Charity knew that something had gone wrong. It had to have done for the men from the Star Elite to simply abandon her house like they had.
Her stomach dropped at the thought that they might not come back. It was disconcerting to find no trace that the men had even been in her home at all.
“I know I haven’t imagined them,” she whispered as she made her way back downstairs.
Her worry and confusion grew as she wandered into her kitchen only to find it spotlessly clean. When she had gone to bed last night the kitchen had been in chaos. The ladies had left before the plates had been cleared away, but someone had tidied up and made sure the house was clean. Not only that, but they had lit the fires before they had left as well.
Immediately, Charity’s thoughts turned to her conversation with Monika last night. Once furnished with a thick slice of meat pie, Charity munched and wandered through the house to the front room window. She studied the Horvat house just across the road and down a bit. Should she go over there? It seemed wrong to offer Mr Horvat a cake of any kind given he might have been the man responsible for attacking Angus. She couldn’t bring herself to be that generous, not even out of curiosity and a quest for the truth of his guilt.
