by Rebecca King
Erasmus, clearly stunned, stared at him. “You are lying,” he whispered.
“Really? Well, you are free to go, Boyle.”
“Not yet,” Atticus snapped from the doorway.
Everyone turned to face him and watched their boss step into the room. Atticus swept an arrogant look around the room before he levelled a baleful glare on Erasmus who seemed to shrink in the powerful man’s presence.
“I hear you have been harassing my daughter,” Atticus growled at Erasmus and then flicked a look at Niall. “And lying by telling people you are engaged to her.”
“You are nothing short of a criminal to keep me confined like this, sir,” Erasmus declared arrogantly. “I am not a prisoner.”
“Yet,” Will bit out.
“I don’t think you are in any position to call anybody a criminal, Boyle. I have sent men to investigate your business activities and have received word that you have been involved in bribery and extortion.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” Erasmus snorted.
“Really. Well, there is a network of cut-throats in the city who think it is acceptable to wage a campaign of terrorism on local shopkeepers and force them into paying exorbitant amounts for their protective services,” Atticus announced. “I have to warn you that while Morgan here has been nursing you, his colleagues have closed down your connections. They are all, as we speak, behind bars for criminal damage, assault, bribery, and extorting money.”
“You have made that up,” Erasmus sneered.
“I am afraid that your connections are not as wary of you as you might think. They all sold you to the Devil when they learnt that they might strike a deal and lighten their sentence if they told me what they knew about you. I heard some quite interesting stories from them, and it is enough to ensure that you, Erasmus James Boyle, face justice for the criminal you are.”
Niall leaned a shoulder against the wall beside him and folded his arms as he watched Atticus Potter work. He had never seen the boss like this. Whenever he had met Atticus in the past the man had always been stuck behind his desk battling a mound of papers. Now, he could understand why Atticus Potter had earnt his position in the War Office and garnered the respect of some powerful men. Before him was a man who was calm, assured, smooth, yet infinitely dangerous because he knew he had the law behind him, and the might of the Star Elite to ensure that it was served to its fullest.
“Morgan, Harry, take this criminal to gaol, will you? We aren’t going to spend any more time on him. His cousin is already facing charges for misappropriation of office. Seeing as they work together, they can share a cell together,” Atticus murmured.
Nobody spoke while Harry and Morgan dutifully escorted their new prisoner out of the building. They were all relived to see the back of the pest.
“Don’t get too complacent, gentleman. It is not time to celebrate yet,” Atticus warned. “We have another problem to face before we can focus on finding the missing women.”
“What’s that?”
Atticus turned to look at Niall. “It appears that Smidgley’s thug hasn’t heard about his boss being on the run.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is back and watching my house.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
By the time they reached Atticus’s house across the village, the thug had already struck again.
“Mother of God, when will this end?” Atticus cried as he dismounted his horse and dropped the reins unconcernedly onto the floor. He swore roundly when he saw the smashed window of the French doors which now stood wide open.
Even as the men approached, they became aware of the commotion coming from within the property. Phillip, Will, Niall, Atticus, and Rhys, all drew their weapons and edged closer. Niall’s thoughts immediately turned to Clara. As he listened to the din, he thought he heard her voice, but it was too hushed for him to be sure.
“What do you think we should do?” Flo asked. “Oh, dear. I do wish Atticus was here.”
“Well, he isn’t,” Clara snapped.
“Do you know something? You really have been quite miserable of late,” Flo informed her dourly.
“Well, being kidnapped tends to make a person reassess their life,” Clara retorted. She sighed because she saw her aunt’s hurt look and immediately felt awful for having caused it. “Look, I am sorry, all right? I just cannot be the same again.”
“Well, he won’t be the same again. He is going to wake up with a frightful headache,” Flo mused.
“Do you really think I care? I am sick of men thinking they can accost me. I am not some flotsam and jetsam they can just snatch whenever I float by. I am sick of my life bringing me toads,” Clara cried.
She looked around the silent room for inspiration before she eyed the now unconscious man at their feet. He was the thug who had tried to drag her off into the bushes the day she met Niall. Immediately, her thoughts turned to the man who she still felt was her Knight in shining armour.
“He might be physically and mentally strong, but he is an emotional coward,” she sighed.
“Who is, dear?”
“Nobody.” Clara saw her aunt’s rueful look and knew Flo knew exactly who she meant.
“He will come around in time I am sure,” Flo murmured.
“I don’t care. I am not waiting around for him, and I am most certainly not going to allow men like him to keep trying to drag me off with them,” Clara snorted with a nod to the thug at their feet.
With that, she hurried out to the hallway and yanked a shawl off the coatrack whereupon she returned to the room. When it came to approaching the man, though, she eyed him warily. The last thing she wanted to do was touch him. He was a veritable stranger, and even unconscious he posed a threat to her.
“What do we do if he is just pretending to be asleep?” She asked cautiously.
“Well, he can try to accost you again but shall have me to contend with.”
While her aunt held her stick aloft in preparation to strike, Clara edged closer to the man and cautiously tugged his hands behind his back before she tied them together with the make-shift restraint. Once he was tight as tight as she could possibly manage, she fetched another shawl and did the same with his legs.
“Now what?” Clara asked.
“Just what in the Devil’s name are you doing?” Atticus blustered when he stepped into the room only to find his daughter standing under an unconscious thug. To add to his disbelief, his sister was waving a stick over her head in preparation to attack anybody who ventured near them.
“What does it look like?” Clara snapped.
“It looks like you have caught yourself a prize,” Atticus growled.
“Well, this prize you can take to gaol because he has just broken in here or have you missed the huge gaping hole in the window?”
“No, I didn’t,” Atticus replied with an approving nod. “Why do you think we came running?”
“And happened to arrive when all the excitement was over,” Flo snorted. She glared at the men now assembled in Atticus’s study before shaking her head at her brother. “You always were the last to arrive.”
Clara missed what else her aunt said after that. She was distracted by Niall’s arrival. Her gaze turned instinctively toward him and picked him out amongst the men who were looking from her, to the thug, to Flo and back again with acute interest. Worried that Niall might see how much his presence unnerved her, Clara lowered her gaze to the thug and immediately stepped away from him.
“He is the one who accosted me in the garden,” she confirmed to her father, who stopped his argument with his sister long enough to look at her.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
The man groaned and blinked several times before he tried to get up and then realised his predicament. Harry, who was closest, knelt and tipped his head so he could look into the eyes of the thug.
“This here is a petty crook from Derby who works for Claude Smidgley’s best friend: David M
elrose.”
“How do you know?” Atticus asked.
“We have seen him with Melrose only last month,” Harry informed him.
“Lord Helson,” Niall murmured. “He is a wealthy man and has two country estates that would be perfect to hide a kidnap victim in.”
The men hissed a breath and looked at each other.
“That’s Argent’s friend,” Rhys added.
“It starting to look more likely that the kidnap victims have been hidden in the houses of the wealthy who have not just used them for sexual services but have put them into other kinds of service.” Atticus rubbed his chin and began to contemplate possible accomplices.
“How do we get into Melrose’s house? If he is hiding a kidnap victim, his property is going to be impossible to get one of us into even undercover,” Will asked.
“We could break in,” Niall suggested.
Clara knew then that Niall and the Star Elite were going to leave Serpentine. There was every chance now that she would never set eyes on any of them ever again, especially Niall. Her heart wept a little more. She had thought that the last few weeks had taught her what hurt felt like. Now she knew otherwise.
“We are going to have to get someone in undercover somehow,” Will countered.
“For now, the team moves on. This thug is going to tell us exactly who he is working for and what he wants Clara for, but when he is in gaol, gentlemen. Not while he is in my study,” Atticus growled. “Harry, Will, get him out of here. We will interrogate him in the next day or so. Niall, I want a word with you.”
Clara took this as her cue to leave. She barely made it to the door before her father’s next words made it impossible for her to make good her escape.
“Where do you think you are going, Clara? If you won’t mind joining us.” The tone of his voice warned both Clara that it was an order not a request.
“I am not one of your Star Elite,” Clara chided.
Atticus lifted his brows at her. “I had thought that you were involved in this investigation enough to be interested to know what happens next?”
Clara dutifully returned to the room and took a seat opposite her father’s desk while she watched the men carry the thug out of the room. Once outside, they replaced her shawls with ropes and dragged him toward Atticus’s carriage, which was positioned outside the front of the house waiting to take the prisoner to gaol.
Once everyone had left, Atticus waved Niall to a chair and sat behind his desk. He knew it was a somewhat officious stance to take, but he wanted both his daughter and Niall to understand that he wasn’t just a meddlesome father.
“Now, I think you should know, Clara, that Niall’s job is dangerous. I am sure you know that already given what has happened this morning,” Atticus began. “Well, all of the men need to be able to concentrate on the work they are meant to do. They deal with the worst of criminals. Being distracted can get them killed. While they do have the support of their colleagues it will do them no good if they are set upon like you have been, several times in fact. In just the same way that Niall helped you I am sure he will agree that he wouldn’t hesitate to step in to help his friends and colleagues.” Atticus looked questioningly at Niall. “I hope Niall doesn’t consider me too impertinent by saying that.”
Niall pursed his lips and shook his head. “No. It is the truth.”
“However, what I have heard from your colleagues and friends, Niall, is that you are more than a little distracted by what went on here in Serpentine.” Atticus sucked in a breath and began to fiddle with a quill which rested beside his ink pot, not least because he wanted to stand up and rant and rave at them both, but Flo had made him promise that he wouldn’t. Sure enough, when he looked at his sister, he saw a warning look in the dark glare she had levelled on him. She was watching him and would never let him hear the last of it if he gave in to temptation.
“Now I am not one to meddle, but I do believe that a stern warning has to be issued to you both. Life is rarely fair. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, or what position of authority you have, or how titled you are. If Fate decides to land you a cruel blow your entire life can be snatched from you without any warning or explanation. Unfortunately, the criminals the Star Elite face are harsh, cruel, and don’t give a damn who suffers.”
“Where is this going father?” Clara asked quietly.
“I am getting to it.” Atticus huffed. “I am not one to meddle, as I have said, but I do believe that you both have to understand that it is foolish to expect life to make anything easy for you. You, Clara, have led a somewhat sheltered life. You, Niall, have faced the worst of adversities and have had to fight for your life I don’t doubt. You, Clara, are settled here in Serpentine. You, Niall, are required to go anywhere in this country without any more than a moment’s notice. That said, the men in my unit are required to be able to focus on their job and be sharp about what they do. There is no room for mistakes. It isn’t good for any man to bring troubles into his job.”
“I don’t,” Niall interjected.
“Yes, you have.” Atticus gave him a stern look that was as close to a parental glare as it was possible to get. “Your colleagues have found you surly, grumpy, argumentative, and have skirted around doing anything about it far too much. They need to concentrate, not worry about you. Now, I know you were worried that the people in the village believed you were engaged to Clara, but I have learned that they knew all along that you weren’t. I do believe you have also been worried that Clara was apt to behaving recklessly with her life, but now you can rest assured that she has learnt her lesson and won’t be inclined to do anything that would put her through what she has already been through. I would ask you to remember that even if she does stay at home, she is no safer than anybody else. That thug has proven that this morning. She could have been snatched out of her home just as easily as she was snatched off the street. It is not her fault. She shouldn’t be blamed for other people’s criminality.”
Clara nodded when she met her father’s searching look.
“Now, I need to return to London soon enough and am going to leave my sister in charge here as usual. Clara is going to be on her own but now that she has dealt with the thug, I hope that today’s escapade is going to be the last danger she will face. I hope you, Niall, can go about your business well aware that there is to be no repercussions by whatever has gone on here. There are no repercussions. You have done what you can and are now free to move on to Derbyshire with the rest of the team to try to get into Melrose’s house. As for you, Clara, Erasmus Boyle was arrested today and is no longer in a position to bother you. You too are free to go about your business. I would, however, warn you both that true love, the kind of love that makes a marriage work, rarely comes around twice in a person’s life. Once it is lost, or mislaid, ignored, or destroyed, it can never truly be restored. It is like trust, without it there is nothing to build a marriage on. I hope neither of you are in a position that you take your lives for granted and don’t take full advantage of the joys it can bring you, even marriage.”
With that Atticus stood up and turned to leave. While he had been talking, Flo had slowly made her way to the door and was waiting for him with a glint of approval in her eye.
“I shall catch up with you in Derbyshire,” Atticus promised Niall before he escorted his sister out of the room.
“You are coming too?” Niall looked at him in astonishment.
“Someone in higher authority has to take charge of this investigation if the Star Elite are actually going into the houses of men like Melrose. From now on, you are going to need all the protection my position can afford you.”
Once out in the hallway, Atticus and Flora looked worriedly at each other and then moved into the sitting room to wait.
“I will give them half an hour,” Atticus grumbled as he slumped into a chair beside the fire. He nodded his thanks when Flo pushed a goblet of brandy into his hand but remained perfectly still. He looked the epitome of a v
ery troubled man.
Niall stared blankly at the floor for a moment while he contemplated what to say.
Clara was stunned. “I am sorry for that. He doesn’t usually do things like that but must have known you were worried he would think poorly of you for my mistakes. I did tell him it was all my fault.”
“It wasn’t though, was it?”
“I told the lie that made people start to believe that we were engaged, so it was.”
“Yes, but at any point I could have corrected you and told everyone that it was a lie. At no point did you force me to go along with the ruse,” Niall argued. “In my defence, a part of me wanted to see how far you would go with it. Then, when I thought about it, I didn’t find it all that unappealing.”
Clara’s breath hitched. “You didn’t?”
“I get things done. If I didn’t want something to happen, I could have objected and would have done so stringently and not stopped until everyone knew.”
“You seemed so angry with me,” Clara whispered.
“I am sorry.” Niall struggled to understand what he was apologising for. Because he couldn’t put his finger on one single thing, he had to suspect he was apologising for all of his behaviour. “I got annoyed that you were firstly avoiding me and then that everywhere I went I had your friends stopping me from talking to you. They kept standing in my path, trying to sell me tickets for things. This entire village seems to have everything ticketed. If you want to go to the ball, I had to purchase tickets. If I wanted to buy a goose, I had to purchase tickets for the raffle.”
“A goose is expensive,” Clara whispered. “Not many people in the village can afford to purchase one. They can, however, afford to purchase a ticket that might afford them a goose. Each year, in autumn, the butcher kindly raffles a goose off. People purchase a ticket, put their name on it and it is kept in a box. One name is then drawn, and that person gets the goose. The money raised goes to the church.”
“It sounds like a plan.”
