Loving The Enemy (The Star Elite's Highwaymen Investigation Book 3) Read online

  LOVING THE

  ENEMY

  THE STAR ELITE’S

  HIGHWAYMEN INVESTIGATION

  Book Three

  by

  REBECCA KING

  © 2020 by Rebecca King

  The moral right of R L King to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  COVER DESIGNED BY COLLYWOMPLES.COM

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE LOCAL HEROES SERIES (STAR ELITE)

  TUPPENCE

  OTHER BOOKS BY REBECCA KING

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Old Rectory was a tall, imposing three storey gothic house which stood in absolute isolation amongst miles of empty fields on the outskirts of the quintessentially English village of Mivverford. Oddly, it was miles away from the church, which had its own rectory sitting alongside it, but nobody had bothered to question why a house on the opposite side of the village had been given the name ‘The Old Rectory’ seeing as there was nothing even remotely ecclesiastical about it, and there never had been.

  It was the place Lucinda ‘Lucy’ Jerome had called home all her life, but it wasn’t going to be for much longer. After the recent deaths of her parents, Lucy’s future was more uncertain than ever, and she feared what lay in store for her when she returned there. She had seen her uncle Henry’s carriage heading toward the house and dreaded to think what he might want this time.

  He has more bad news for us, I expect, Lucy thought miserably.

  Nevertheless, despite her growing concern, she ducked her head against the strong winds buffeting her and marched resolutely across the field toward home. While she didn’t want to go home now, staying out in the approaching storm wasn’t an option either. The winds were howling. Rain was starting to pelt down, and the thunderstorm was hovering sinisterly overhead. As if to prove it was merciless, a large flash of lightning lit the sky above them.

  “Did I just hear another rumble of thunder?” Lucy's younger sister, Martha, gasped when she saw the lightening. She lengthened her stride to try to catch Lucy up. Rather than walk alongside her, Martha scuttled along behind Lucy like a frightened rabbit, and clung to the back of Lucy’s saturated cloak with white knuckles as she glanced repeatedly up at the sky.

  Lucy, breathless from the speed she was walking, flicked her sister a worried look over her shoulder. She clutched the thick folds of her only cloak a little tighter when Martha’s desperate hold tugged the cloak open, and cold air and rain began to dampen her day dress. With a shiver, Lucy sniffed inelegantly and eyed the house up ahead.

  “We have to get home before the thunderstorm reaches us.” Lucy didn’t break her stride. She tugged her hood up only to sigh when the folds of her cloak flapped open again and the rainwater began to soak her dress once more. With a disgusted hiss, Lucy yanked the material forward and bunched it up to protect herself, forcing Martha to release her.

  Martha then reluctantly fell into step beside her sister but soon squealed in alarm when her foot slid into a rabbit hole.

  “You goose,” Lucy chided affectionately, yanking her sister back upright. When she was sure that Martha wasn’t going to fall over again, Lucy planted a large palm into the centre of her sister’s narrow back and propelled her into a walk, this time making Martha take the lead. “Now hurry up. We are likely to drown if we stay out here for too much longer.”

  The ground was so saturated beneath their feet that both women struggled to retain their footing. Their boots squelched in the thickening mud, which clung resolutely to their boots as they fought to reach safety.

  “I'm going as fast as I can,” Martha protested, gasping in alarm when her boot slid out sideways from beneath her. She clung to Lucy’s arm to stop herself falling over again.

  “Well, go faster,” Lucy snapped unsympathetically. “The provisions we have just purchased from the village are getting wet. The bread will be ruined by the time we get home.”

  “I don't care about the bread,” Martha protested with a disgusted huff. “It will be no good to us if we die of influenza.”

  “Which is why I am telling you to hurry up, Goose,” Lucy countered, using the family’s nickname for the youngest member of the family. Martha had been named Goose by their father because she was always (affectionately of course), a silly goose, always frightened about something, always asking ridiculous questions, always chasing after someone to be a pest. “I don’t want to die of influenza either.”

  Martha squealed when a loud rumble of thunder rattled the sky over their head. She knew that running wasn’t a dignified way for a lady to traverse the countryside, so began to walk faster with a loose-limbed gait which was part-shuffle, part-waddle, and made her look drunk.

  Shaking her head affectionately, Lucy maintained her rather more dignified pace, until an unexpected flash of lightning cracked loudly above her head and made her forget her manners completely. Lucy then broke into a run and raced after Martha with an unfeminine, long legged stride which ate up the distance, and left her breathless.

  “Hurry up!” Martha screamed as she jumped over the gate bordering the garden.

  Seconds later, Lucy joined her, but both were wind tossed, soaked to the skin, and shaking from the chill of the biting wind. Both young women burst through the kitchen door, jostling and bustling to be the one to get inside first, but slammed to a stop when they saw Mrs Kimble waiting for them.

  “There you are my dears. I was starting to get worried about you. You have been gone for an age,” Mrs Kimble, their housekeeper, gushed. The elderly woman started to flap around them, relieving them of their cloaks and ordering them to take off their boots while tutting and sighing about how soaked they were. “Hurry up. Go and get into some dry clothes. You are going to catch a cold if you don’t. I will put some hot chocolate on to warm you up.”

  “Oh, do, Mrs Kimble. That would be wonderful,” Martha beamed. “We got the provisions.”

  “The bread is a little soggy,” Lucy added wryly, eyeing the sodden basket Martha was shoving at the housekeeper.

  “I am sure everything will be fine. I should have gone. It isn’t right that you go to fetch your own groceries,” Mrs Kimble chided, clutching the basket as she hurried back to the kitchen.

  “We are perfectly capable of going to the store,” Lucy chided. “We are not complete imbeciles you know.”

  “I never suggested that you were,” Mrs Kimble gasped.

  Lucy was about to race up the back stairs to change when she saw the worried look Mrs Kimble slid toward the hallway door. Lucy hesitated. She knew what was wrong. The last time she had seen ‘that look’ on the housekeeper’s face, her and Martha received the news that their parents had become the highwaymen’s latest victims.

  Uncle Henry must be here by now.

  “What is it?” Lucy whispered, dreading the housekeeper’s answer. Her stomach tightened to the point that she began to physically shake and felt sick. Placing a hand protectively over her churning stomach, Lucy eyed the chair she was inadvertently gripping onto for dear life and wondered if she should sit down for a moment.

  “Miss, your uncle is here to see you. I don’t think he has come with good news either. You had better hurry upstairs. Go and get yourself dry before you face him, eh?” There was something in Mrs Kimble’s eyes that warned Lucy the housekeeper already knew what her uncle had called upon them for.

  “What is it? Is the solicitor with him?” Lucy whispered. “The reading of the will is soon.”

  “It’s tomorrow, my dear. To answer your question, no, Mr Saltman isn’t with your uncle. He has come alone, dear.” Mrs Kimble patted the back of Lucy’s hand where it rested on the chair.

  Lucy tipped her head and tried to gauge the worry on Mrs Kimble’s face. While the housekeeper wasn’t crying, there were shadows in her eyes and a slump to her shoulders that had nothing to do with the weather outside.

  “What is it?” Lucy whispered.

  “Go and get changed and speak with your uncle. He is waiting for you. Now hurry. Go, go on,” Mrs Kimble urged, turning away to prepare the hot chocolate.

  Lucy threw a worried look at Martha before defiantly hurrying into the sitting room. She was aware of Martha following her but didn’t offer her any comforting words. Lucy wondered if she should tell Martha to go upstairs and change but wanted Martha to be present in case
they were going to receive more bad news.

  “Lucy?” The tremor in Martha’s voice was so disturbing that Lucy paused outside of the sitting room door and offered her younger sister reassuring smile.

  Before Martha could ask her any questions she couldn’t answer, Lucy shoved the door open and stepped into the sitting room to greet her uncle.

  “Ah, there you are my dear. I am glad you are both here,” Henry Jerome called. He waved at them only to them rake them with a questioning look when he saw their sodden state. “What in the Devil’s name happened to you?”

  “We-”

  “We were taking a walk and got caught out in the storm,” Lucy interrupted throwing a warning look at her sister. She didn’t want Martha to tell their uncle that they were walking into the village to fetch their own provisions because Lucy knew that Mrs Kimble had should really have been the one to go. Lucy had insisted on making the trip to the village this morning because she had needed to do something that was normal.

  Even if the villagers now look at us sympathetically, while some avoid us like the plague.

  With a mental sigh, Lucy glanced at the man seated in the farthest corner of the room, Rupert Kenworthy, the magistrate. She demurely lowered her gaze and dipped into a curtsey before perching neatly on the edge of a seat. It was unnerving to find herself the focus of the magistrate’s scrutiny for several long moments, but Lucy boldly tipped her chin up and ignored him. A somewhat expectant silence settled over everyone, until Lucy couldn’t stand it any longer and was forced to look enquiringly at her uncle. She caught the somewhat dark look Henry shared with the magistrate before he slowly, reluctantly turned to face her.

  “What’s wrong?” Lucy asked without preamble.

  “Mr Kenworthy has come to ask you some questions about the night Maximillian and Adele left to dine with the Rochesters,” Henry began.

  Lucy’s gaze flew to the magistrate who coughed uncomfortably and reddened somewhat in the cheeks. As if preparing to do battle, the magistrate squared his shoulders and stood up. “Miss, can you tell us a little about what jewellery your mother was wearing?”

  “Jewellery? B-But I told you that the other day. I don’t remember,” Lucy replied, her gaze flying from her uncle to the magistrate and back again.

  “Have you not checked Adele’s jewellery box since the accident?” Henry asked, sliding a worried look at Martha. It was clear he didn’t want to discuss such distressing events in front of her, even though at sixteen, Martha was old enough to understand what was going on.

  “I have,” Martha replied.

  Lucy’s brows shot up. “What’s missing?” Her voice was more of a croak, but she made no apology for it.

  “There was a locket, one father gave to mother on their wedding day,” Martha whispered. “Aside from that, there are mother’s pearl earrings missing.”

  “How do you know?” Mr Kenworthy asked quietly. “Are you sure about the details?”

  “I was poking through the box while she was getting ready. I suggested the pearls to her,” Martha replied firmly.

  Mr Kenworthy nodded. He looked pensive for a moment. “I don’t wish to worry any of you, but have you noticed any unusual activity around the house?”

  “U-unusual activity?” Lucy gulped. She stared at the magistrate and felt another wave of sickness sweep through her. “Like what?” Her startled gaze flew to her uncle who, for the first time ever, looked as if he would rather be anywhere else. “Are they still in the area?”

  The magistrate sniffed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat again. In an overly loud, officious voice, he declared: “We have reason to believe that one of the highwaymen lives in the area, miss.”

  “Lives in the area?” Lucy felt weak. She blinked in astonishment and struggled to believe it. “Are you saying that one of the highwaymen is a local? A villager?”

  She mentally began to think of every villager she had ever met, and immediately dismissed everyone.

  “One of us?” Martha reached out to hold her hand.

  Lucy took it and patted it sympathetically, but it was more of a habitual gesture rather than anything comforting. “Who?”

  “We don’t know. But we think that is why the highwaymen have targeted people in this village twice. The highwaymen were seen racing back to this village after they struck that carriage in Simmerton the other week.”

  “But they didn’t kill the victims in Simmerton. The victims there survived, didn’t they? Did they target my parents because they wanted to kill someone but didn’t get to murder the other victims? The Star Elite interrupted them, didn’t they? Aren’t the highwaymen after jewellery at all? Are they just killers?” Lucy demanded, her voice rising with her fury.

  “Don’t upset yourself so,” Henry soothed.

  “Upset? Of course, I am upset,” Lucy cried. “You are telling me that someone, one of those villagers, a person we have probably known for years, has become one of the murderous highwaymen? That we know the person who killed our parents? We have just been to the village. We probably spoke to the man this morning.”

  “Did someone approach you?” Mr Kenworthy asked, quietly interrupting her tirade.

  “Yes, everyone did,” Martha replied. “People offered us their condolences and wanted to know what was going to happen to us. You know if we were going to stay here or move on.” As she spoke, Martha’s gaze remained locked on her uncle, her eyes silently pleading for him to give her a straight answer.

  “You know that your remaining in this house could only be a temporary arrangement, Goose,” Henry murmured, his troubled gaze sliding around the sitting room as if in search of a way out. The slight frown on his brow warned both Lucy and Martha that he was concerned that nothing was packed. “You certainly can’t stay here any longer.”

  “And why not?” Lucy protested. “This is our home.”

  Henry sighed heavily. “You know why. When I agreed for you to stay here it was only to give you some time for you to come to terms with what has happened. After the funerals, you were so upset, you needed time here to understand what was going on. Now, it is time for you to pack and come with me.”

  “I am not leaving here today,” Lucy argued. “We haven’t packed.”

  “Two weeks ago, we still had parents. Now, we have nothing,” Martha whispered.

  “We have our home. Here. This house is our home, Martha,” Lucy growled.

  “For now,” Martha cried.

  “Until Mr Saltman reads the will, we are going nowhere.” Lucy tipped her chin up and glared challengingly at her uncle. Strangely, Henry nodded, as if he fully agreed. Lucy suspected that it was because her uncle didn’t want to have to look after them anymore than they wanted to move in with him. As a lifelong bachelor of sixty-three years of age, he wasn’t equipped to accommodate two headstrong young ladies. While he would do his duty by them and provide them with accommodation if he had to, Henry had no intention of rushing into matters – unless he had to. Consequently, he had given both Martha and Lucy the freedom to remain in the house they had known all their lives, under the watchful care of Mrs Kimble, for a few more days at least.

  “I don’t see why this cannot be a permanent arrangement,” Lucy announced.

  “Well, if your father has left your uncle the house, miss, it is rightly his to decide who lives here,” Mr Kenworthy interrupted. “Sorry,” he added, looking stoically at the floor when Lucy threw him a dark look.

  “Let’s worry about the details another time. We cannot do anything until Mr Saltman has read the will,” Henry sighed. “For now, let’s focus on what Mr Kenworthy is here for. He needs a few more details on what jewellery your mother was wearing the night their carriage was robbed. Was Max wearing a fob watch?”

  “Yes,” Lucy and Martha said in unison.

  “Can you describe it?” Mr Kenworthy asked, removing a small notebook out of his pocket. He began to dig around in his other pockets for a pencil only to come up empty handed.

  With a sigh, Martha heaved herself out of her seat and hurried into the study. Returning with a pencil, she handed it to the magistrate before resuming her seat.

  “Thank you, miss,” Mr Kenworthy murmured.