by Rebecca King
“Where?” Elspeth demanded of her brother. “Where do you think you are going to go that they won’t follow?”
“It is no good going after the money, Thomas,” Sir Hugo drawled.
Thomas stopped and turned to face him.
“We have it.”
Thomas looked from Sir Hugo, then to Aaron. He was stunned and took a moment to try to decide what to do.
“You are lying,” he growled.
“Go see for yourself then,” Sir Hugo replied with a smirk of satisfaction.
Elspeth gasped when the gun dug into her temple and made the delicate flesh start to ache fiercely. She struggled against the burgeoning headache that threatened to make her feel sick, or maybe that was brought about by her situation. Either way, she struggled to stand upright with Thomas pulling her backward at an uncomfortable angle, but she was dragged resolutely out of the house nonetheless.
“I love you,” she mouthed to Aaron as she was hauled unceremoniously down the garden.
“It will be all right,” Aaron bit out.
Elspeth had no idea what she should say, think, do. Fear threatened to overwhelm her to the point that she struggled to retain coherency. She wanted to scream but knew it would be futile because the only men who could help her were watching helplessly as she was dragged off.
Aaron knew that if anybody intervened, Thomas would shoot Elspeth. They had all witnessed killers like Thomas before. There was something about the off-hand attitude he had toward the misery he had caused, and the total disregard for the woman in his arms, that warned everyone Thomas would have no compunction against destroying her life if he chose.
Right now, it wasn’t a case of if Thomas was going to kill her, it was a case of when.
The men inside the house, once Thomas had gone, secured Frederick to the desk in the study.
“Sorry,” Jasper murmured to the restrained convict seconds before he levelled a punch on the man that rendered him unconscious.
When Frederick was on the floor, blindfolded, and certainly going nowhere, the men raced out of the house, but through the front door. Completely avoiding the back of the house where the abductor had vanished with Elspeth, the men ran down the road, and took up positions in the woods at the end of the garden. For now, all they could do was watch and wait, but if someone could get into a good enough position to render Thomas incapable of hurting Elspeth then they would take that perfect shot.
Elspeth, oblivious to the rest of the Star Elite’s actions, continued to stare at Aaron, who followed them every step of the way. Once again, he was the stabilising force in her world of turmoil. She would have given anything to be able to cross the distance between them and tell him how much he meant to her again, but she couldn’t. She had to hope he could read the love in her eyes and he would understand everything she couldn’t tell him.
“Look at it like this, Thomas,” Aaron began. “You have no house because it still belongs to Elspeth. It will get sold only when she decides to sell it and she, and she alone, will be the one who benefits from the money it brings her. You have lost your comrades in arms. Both are now under arrest and will face time behind bars for the crimes you have all committed. We now know of your crimes and will not allow you to escape. Men are watching you as we speak. If you take Elspeth’s life, they will hurt you and you will have to suffer the pain of whatever injuries they put upon you to render you helpless. You will still go to gaol for murdering her. Death is not an option for you.”
“There is no escape,” Sir Hugo confirmed.
Aaron nodded to something or someone over her shoulder. Aside from the rustling of leaves, there was no indication that anybody was there, but Elspeth suspected that someone from the Star Elite had just departed for the graveyard. She hoped so in any case because, right now, the chances of her escaping this situation alive were extremely remote.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Elspeth remained mute as she was dragged toward the graveyard. She refused to speak to the man behind her. He huffed and puffed because he had to drag her weight as well as try to watch for an ambush and keep a gun to her head.
“You really do make life difficult for yourself, don’t you?” she murmured eventually with amused spite when he began to curse virulently.
“Shut up,” Thomas grunted.
“You really are nothing more than a two-faced hypocrite. All that rubbish you spouted in the house about me being a leech, and it was you all along,” Elspeth murmured. “God, what would father say to you? You are an utter disgrace.”
“I said, shut up,” Thomas snapped.
As far as Elspeth was concerned they arrived at the graveyard far too quickly. She began to worry when Thomas hauled her through the gate only to slam to a stop when he saw the freshly disturbed soil that was supposed to mark his final resting place.
“See? It has been disturbed recently because it was dug up. The money you carefully put into the coffin was removed and has been taken by the Star Elite,” Elspeth informed him. “They were your proceeds from crime, after all.”
“You are lying,” Thomas hissed.
“Really? Why else would the soil on your grave be disturbed then?” she retorted coldly.
Thomas, his eyes glued on the grave, yanked Elspeth with him across the empty churchyard. Elspeth stumbled and slipped along beside him. It was worrying to note that somewhere along the way, Aaron and the others had vanished. She suspected it was so they could all get into a position where they could stop Thomas in his tracks. She hoped so because she could see no way she could get herself out of Thomas’s tight hold.
“Will you lighten your grip?” She demanded, tugging on the material of his jacket. “I can hardly breathe.”
“Shut up,” Thomas snapped but with an air of distraction. She suspected it was because he was trying to work out how to dig up the coffin while using her as protection.
“Where is the money?” he demanded. “Who took it?”
“Sir Hugo took it, on behalf of the War Office. It is safely tucked away in a bank account. It’s just not your bank account.” Elspeth fell quiet because she knew just how foolish it would be to tell him that she owned the account.
“It is my money,” Thomas hissed. “It isn’t yours.”
“Well, you aren’t going to need it where you are going, are you?” Elspeth replied. “Gaol feeds you. I don’t think it supplies much in the way of heating, but you will have plenty of bodies to cuddle up to.”
“Shut up.”
“They provide your meals as well, so I hear,” Elspeth continued.
“I said, shut up.”
“You will have work, I suppose, but that will at least give you something to do,” Elspeth continued unabated. She knew she was pushing him far too far, but something within her wanted to provoke him, if only so he knew he couldn’t frighten her anymore.
“Aaron gave up his job because of you, because he held your memory dear. God, how wrong could anybody be about someone? We believed you were worth grieving for. We both cried for you.” Elspeth looked back on those dark days and realised that in a way, she had grieved for the loss of her brother and he had died. She didn’t recognise the man behind her. He was someone she didn’t think she could ever call family.
“Aaron is a fool,” Thomas bit out dispassionately.
“I don’t know what you thought you were doing, or what you really expected to achieve by this charade, but I can assure you that I shall never grieve for you again, Thomas. You are no family of mine. You were never this callous before. What happened? You have had plenty of time over the last several years to do something about your unhappiness, and it wouldn’t have to have involved fraud, pretending to die, or trying to kill me. What changed?”
“I met someone,” Thomas snarled. “But she isn’t high and mighty like you.”
“She is a whore,” Elspeth murmured, believing this to be the only reason why Thomas wouldn’t introduce them.
“No. She is a barmaid. She works in
a tavern. But she isn’t someone you would ever want in the house,” Thomas retorted. “Not Miss Prim and Proper like you.”
“How do you know I won’t like her? I have never met her.”
Thomas dipped his head to her ear. “She works in a bawdy house.”
“I am right then. She is a whore,” Elspeth said matter-of-factly. “What? Does your new girlfriend charge you? Is that why you need the money?”
“We were going to leave England and live aboard. Both of us. The money would provide us with a good life, well away from here.”
“You thought you could live a life off the profits from mine?” Elspeth felt sick again.
“You won’t need the money where you are going,” Thomas warned.
“You really do intend to murder me, don’t you? Do you think your little whore will want you when you are a convicted killer? What use are you going to be to her behind bars? I am sure she will have found another customer by then,” Elspeth spat.
Deep inside, she was coldly furious. So much so, she couldn’t withhold her rage. Rather than cave in to it, she held the memory of the fateful night when she had howled at the storm, hungry, cold, destitute, and with no hope of salvation before her like a shield that would ward off the storm she was currently enduring. She had survived those dark days of desolation, which had been brought about by the selfishness of the man behind her. She could survive this, she knew it because she knew she had come out stronger, wiser, and now had Aaron by her side. It was the thought of a future with Aaron that gave Elspeth the courage she needed to face the man she had once thought she knew.
“Go back to your whore, Thomas,” she urged. “If you turn around, walk away from everything that was not yours in the first place, you might have a few days before the Star Elite catch up with you. You can at least explain to her why you must disappear from her life as well. Believe me when I tell you that she won’t thank you for simply vanishing on her.”
Thomas lifted his gun and pointed it straight at her. “You have to die.”
“Why?” Elspeth cried. “Has not destroying what was left of my family not been enough for you?”
“You know too much,” Thomas replied quietly.
“I know nothing more than the men who have investigated you. They know about you as well. Do you intend to kill them too? Killing me won’t solve your problem, Thomas,” Elspeth reasoned.
Thomas dropped his gaze to the ground at her feet. She knew he was thinking everything through.
“How long have you been his lover?” Thomas asked quietly.
“I love him,” Elspeth whispered.
“He has always wanted you. It is the only reason he has been friends with me,” Thomas whispered.
“No, it isn’t. You are childhood friends. He cared about you,” Elspeth argued.
“No.” Thomas shook his head. “He only came to visit me because he really wanted to see you. It was always you he asked about, you he talked about, you he wanted to see. It was always you.”
Elspeth flicked a furtive glance around the graveyard. She still couldn’t see the men. Were they there? She contemplated what to do but knew the only thing she could do was stall Thomas for as long as it took for the men to get there, and make their presence known.
“What property did you have?” she asked but with little interest.
“What?” Thomas scowled at her.
“Our parents left me the house and some money apparently,” Elspeth murmured. “What did they leave you, aside from the three thousand pounds?”
“The house in Kent that belonged to grandpa. It was an old run-down dump of a place, not worth much. It brought a pittance, I can tell you,” Thomas retorted. “You always got the best.”
“That’s not true, is it? You took it off me,” Elspeth whispered.
She studied the man before her. The ragged beard he had grown while he had been away was now tinged with a grey that matched the hair on his temples. Wherever he had been living during his time away from the house, only a matter of weeks, had evidently been harsh. He was dirty, his clothing torn and stained. He was almost gaunt and had a hollowed look to his eyes that was most disturbing.
“You are not my brother,” she informed him sadly. “I don’t know who you are, but you are not the man I grew up with.”
“You didn’t know the man I have been,” Thomas told her. “You were blind to the real me. All you saw was someone you wanted to see. Someone who would be solid and dependable because I lived at the house. You never gave a damn what I was doing at the desk, so long as I sat at the desk. The bills have gone unpaid for several weeks at a time, but you never knew. When the demands became too persistent, I burnt the paperwork. You never noticed. You were always blind to everything I did. You just stuck to your own little world of contentment.”
“I was easy to fool because I trusted you, Thomas,” Elspeth cried. “That doesn’t make me weak, or a fool. It makes me a nice, honest person. You should try that sometime. Your trying to steal my life isn’t going to make your own existence any better because what you will have will be founded on a bed of lies, deceit, theft, and crimes that will catch up with you one day. You will never be able to rest in peace.”
As if Elspeth had suddenly murmured some magic code, the men from the Star Elite suddenly stepped out from various gravestones in a large circle about them. Thomas looked around and seemed to crumble. The tall, arrogant man who had accosted her suddenly became hunched in the shoulder and looked sullen, almost belligerent in his defiance. Thomas looked about the group darkly, and then glared at Elspeth as though it was all her fault.
Without moving an inch, Elspeth held her breath and turned her gaze to Aaron. She stared hard into his eyes because his face was the last thing she wanted to see before she died.
“I love you,” she whispered, then waited for the inevitable bang that would end her life.
“I love you too, Elspeth. More than anything in the world. You should know that,” Aaron said firmly. His voice shook with the fear that surged through him. He took a breath, but it didn’t steady him.
When Thomas pulled the trigger, Elspeth jerked violently to one side. The movement was so swift, so hard, that she was still gasping by the time she hit the ground and found Aaron leaning protectively over her. The boom echoed hollowly around the silent graveyard for a moment or two.
“What?” she gulped.
“Are you hurt?” Aaron demanded, his voice harsh and desperate.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” He persisted.
“Positive,” Elspeth whispered. She began to cry when the realisation dawned that she hadn’t been shot after all.
“Stay still,” Aaron warned as he looked about to see what was going on.
“Clear.”
Aaron slumped with relief over the woman in his arms while he willed his limbs to stop trembling. Ignoring the presence of his men several feet away, he lifted his head and looked at the woman he knew, without any doubt, that he adored more than life itself.
“God, I love you,” he whispered.
Elspeth blinked at him. “You do?” Her heart soared. Tears vanished instantly. Her eyes brightened with hope.
“Absolutely. If there was one thing Thomas didn’t get wrong, it is that when I came to see him I really came to see you.”
He looked so guilty that Elspeth’s tender heart began to ache for him.
“He was my friend, just not as much as you think he was,” he admitted regretfully.
“He is my brother, but not as much as I thought he was,” she sighed ruefully.
“We have to talk,” Aaron murmured against her lips.
Elspeth nodded but was prevented from replying by Jasper, who stuck his head over the gravestone beside them.
“Do you want to get Elspeth back home, so we can deal with this?” he murmured darkly.
He was gone before Aaron could reply. When Aaron stood up, he realised then why Jasper had looked so grim.
“Da
mn,” Aaron hissed. He threw a horrified look at Elspeth. “Wait.”
But Aaron was too late to prevent Elspeth from pushing to her feet beside him and looking over the gravestone at her brother. Rather than scream, as he suspected she would, Elspeth walked slowly toward the body, the head of which Oliver was draping with a cloak.
“Sorry, Elspeth,” Oliver murmured.
“He is gone?” Elspeth whispered in disbelief.
Oliver nodded.
“He knew he couldn’t go anywhere but behind bars,” Aaron said softly. He walked up behind her and slid his arms around her. Quietly, he turned her in his arms and held on to her tightly. Strangely, she didn’t cry. “Let’s get you home.”
Aaron suspected the tears would come later.
“It is all right,” she murmured when Oliver tried to cover the rest of the body. “I think that by Thomas faking his own death, he inadvertently did me the greatest favour anybody could do. You see, I grieved for him back then. The man who left the house for London, seemingly perfectly content with his lot in life, did die. He certainly didn’t come back as he said he would. I grieved for the man I thought he was, not knowing what he had become. I cannot be sorry for his loss, not really. I know I will cry, because he was still my brother, if only I can forget the man he became in the study. Right now, all I can feel is glad that he is gone, and no longer in any position to hurt us anymore.”
With that, she took one last, lingering look at the corpse and quietly turned her back. She clasped Aaron’s pro-offered hand tightly and allowed him to guide her through the cemetery, all the way back to the house. Once there, she headed straight toward the brandy decanter in the sitting room, and poured two liberal shots before she downed one.
It burned a fiercely blazing trail all the way down to her gut, which instantly began to burn in protest, but Elspeth paid it no attention. She stared blankly into the fire for several long moments.
