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

  Lucy shared a rueful look with her sister. She doubted the magistrate was any more equipped to catch the highwaymen as their uncle was to look after young women. The magistrate seemed like a bumbling idiot; someone who was too awkward and unsure of himself to be bold enough to challenge murderers. It didn’t bode well of his capability to not only find the highwaymen but capture them as well.

  “I thought the Star Elite were investigating the highwaymen,” Lucy said while Mr Kenworthy was scribbling furiously in his notebook.

  “The Star Elite have been informed, miss.”

  “Well? Where are they?” Lucy looked around the room as if expecting them to pop up at any moment.

  “They are investigating, miss.” Mr Kenworthy coughed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat as if uncertain of that too.

  Lucy rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “Where? We have just been into the village and didn’t see them, did we, Martha?”

  Martha, who was staring at the carpet beneath her boots, slowly shook her head.

  “Well, they wouldn’t be a clandestine organisation if they were visible, miss, could they?” Mr Kenworthy argued, once again reddening in the cheeks. He slid an askance look at Henry, as if mutely asking him for masculine support.

  Henry sighed. “I am sure the Star Elite will catch the murderers in time.”

  “But how many more people have to die before they do?” Lucy countered flatly. She sucked in a breath and forced herself to calm down. Deep inside, she was aware that it would do no good to annoy her uncle and besides, it really wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t asked to be put into this situation anymore than she and Martha wanted to face a life of upheaval and grief.

  “Miss, I need to know if you have seen any unusual activity in the fields around the house in the days prior to-” Mr Kenworthy slid a worried look at Henry, as if questioning if he should say the words.

  “In the days prior to our parents’ murders,” Lucy announced bluntly. “I haven’t.” Again, she looked askance at Martha who slowly shook her head.

  “Do either of you leave the house after dark?” Mr Kenworthy asked, for once not looking scared about asking a direct question.

  “Whatever for?” Lucy demanded. Her answer was so instinctive that Henry’s lips twitched, and he looked considerably more malleable. Lucy, oblivious to her uncle’s reaction, shared a curious look with Martha, as if unable to fathom why anybody would be outside at night. Martha shrugged. She had no idea why anyone would do such a thing either. “There are miles and miles of empty fields around us. Whyever would we need to go for a walk after dark?”

  Mr Kenworthy coughed and seemed to realise the foolishness of his question. He focused on his notebook for a moment, as if trying to brace himself to ask the next question.

  “Is that all?” Lucy asked when Mr Kenworthy took to scribbling in his notebook again and seemed to have forgotten the rest of the occupants of the room were still there.

  “I think that it might be wise for you, and your sister of course, to stay with your uncle for the time being,” Mr Kenworthy began.

  Lucy’s face changed instantly. It hardened considerably. Her blue eyes turned glacial as she squinted maliciously at the magistrate. “I think that is a private family matter, and certainly nothing to do with you. Given the dangers that lurk amongst the village, and the fact that none of the villagers are safe either, it might be more prudent if you focused your attention on capturing the men responsible for murdering innocent travellers, don’t you?”

  “I think what Mr Kenworthy is trying to say, my dear, is that the highwaymen are living far too close for comfort. If one of the highwaymen is a local, he would have recognised your parents during the robbery, and now knows that you two are living here by yourselves,” Henry began. “It is no longer safe for you to remain here unchaperoned.”

  “You mean we can’t live here without a man in the house,” Lucy hissed. Her anger appeared out of a seething mass of burning emotion she had yet to be able to control. It had started to form the moment she had learnt of her parents’ brutal murders at the hands of the highwaymen, and had been stoked into an inferno by the uncertainty of her future, grief, and her anger at being so helpless that she couldn’t avoid any of it. It wasn’t helped now by her knowledge that one of the villagers, people she had trusted, was responsible for the death of her parents. “Might I remind you both that my father was a man, and he was helpless against their brutality. What makes you think he would have been any safer in the house? Or that Uncle Henry is safer in this house? Or we are any safer in his?”

  “Well, I am not saying that at all, miss,” Mr Kenworthy blustered.

  “But you are saying that little women like us need a brave man in the house even though the man would be in as much danger as we supposedly are. Might I remind you that we are only in danger because you don’t seem capable of finding the highwaymen? Rather than sitting here and telling us what to do with our lives, why don’t you go out there and try to find the culprits? If one of the killers is a villager, you don’t have to go far to find him, do you?”

  “That’s enough, Lucy. Remember your manners,” Henry murmured.

  “Oh, I am,” Lucy hissed. “Believe me, I am.” She settled back in her seat in a huff and glared maliciously at the magistrate. As far as she was concerned, Mr Kenworthy and the Star Elite were the reason why her parents were dead. If they had all done a better job and had captured the thugs as soon as they had claimed their first victim, her parents would be alive today.

  Henry coughed uncomfortably. “Is there anything else?”

  “Not from me, no.” Mr Kenworthy snapped his notebook closed and stood up. He began to march to the door only to hesitate. “The Star Elite are on their way and will probably want to have a word with you in the next couple of days. Meantime, I would advise you to move out of this house and take all your valuables with you.”

  “Oh, what, so we can travel with our worldly goods and get robbed as well,” Lucy called after him in a tone that was laden with sarcasm.

  “Lucy, that’s enough,” Henry snapped.

  Lucy snorted. “I see no reason why we should change what we are doing. Until the will has been read there is no proof that you do own this house, Uncle Henry. Therefore, I see no reason why Martha and I should move to your house, or anywhere else for that matter. Further, I have no intention of presenting those lawless bandits with another carriage they can rob, especially one that is full of our worldly possessions. We are staying here. Mr Saltman will be here first thing in the morning for the reading of the will. Until then, we shall await a visit from the Star Elite. I am looking forward to that.”

  There was something in her tone that made Henry look worriedly at her. Mr Kenworthy bowed before marching briskly out of the house without a backward look. He disappeared so swiftly that Martha barely made it to the window before the magistrate had disappeared.

  “My, he left in a hurry,” she murmured.

  “He has got a highwayman to try to find,” Lucy snorted.

  “He stole our pencil,” Martha cried, turning to face the room. She rolled her eyes when she saw Henry shaking his head.

  Lucy wondered if the man was going to rest his aching head in his hands in a weary display of defeat. Instead, Henry glared at her and shook his head again, clearly baffled by their unusual conduct.

  “I take it that Mrs Kimble is looking after you both well then?” Henry asked ruefully.

  “Yes, thank you,” Lucy replied primly.

  “Tell me, what were you doing in the village?” He lifted his brows and tried not to look too condemning, even though he disapproved of two young women walking around the countryside unchaperoned.

  “Trying to be normal,” Lucy replied bluntly. “Life has been so abnormal of late that we decided to do something, well, normal. We had to face the villagers are some point. They were all curious, and many offered their condolences.”

  “We avoided some of them because it all got a bit too much,” Martha interrupted.

  “There can be no crime in fetching a few provisions, can there?” Lucy’s brows lifted.

  “No, of course not,” Henry capitulated.

  “Good, that’s settled then,” Lucy replied with a firm tug on the skirts of her damp dress. “Now, I will go and get changed, I think.”

  “Me too,” Martha exclaimed, jumping to her feet and hurrying out of the door.

  Once she was alone with her uncle, Lucy met his gaze. “It might help everyone if you considered making this a permanent arrangement even if Mr Saltman announces that the house now belongs to you. As much as we love you, Uncle Henry, we need to be with the likes of Mrs Kimble. She understands us and our needs. She knew what we needed this morning. While it was highly unusual for us to go to the village alone, it isn’t unheard of. There is no crime in walking to the village to purchase a loaf of bread. We didn’t do anything wrong and shouldn’t be found wanting for needing a little normality in life. I know you want to do well by us, but you aren’t aware of what we need. We need to be here. You need to keep your life as you know it too. Neither of us asked for this situation to fall upon us. Now that it has, we all must do what we can to make sure that we retain some normality, or those highwaymen may well have murdered us all.”

  “But it isn’t normal for two young women like yourselves to live here unchaperoned. I know Mrs Kimble is an excellent housekeeper, but she isn’t kith and kin. She isn’t family. She has to have time off,” Henry argued.

  “And we will manage when she does. We aren’t wayward. We aren’t headstrong to the point of being reckless. Neither Martha nor I intend to do anything to put our lives in danger,” Lucy cried. She hated to feel the sharp sting of tears, and rapidly blinked them away.

  “I am not saying that you would,” Henry replied in a tone that was hushed. “But like the magistrate has just said, the danger lurks out there somewhere, and it now knows that you and Martha live here alone.”

  In that moment, something deep inside Lucy began to change. Her tears vanished and were replaced with something that was cold and hard. Mentally, Lucy stared absently into the fire and promised herself that she would extract vengeance on those responsible for the death of her family. She would do whatever she had to do to protect what she had left in life, no matter what the cost to herself. The highwaymen were nothing more than hardened criminals. Men who had little respect for life or property or possessions. They all deserved to be behind bars for what they had done and be left to rot there for the rest of eternity. What Lucy didn’t intend was for either her or Martha to now become their new victims just because they were alone in the house – for now.

  More importantly, I am not going to be forced out of here by a group of lawless thieves.

  Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her brows at her uncle, silently challenging him.

  “All right. You can stay here for a day or two, but only if the Star Elite are here tomorrow. If they aren’t here by then, as soon as Mr Saltman has read the will, you and Martha are coming with me whether you like it or not, and whether you are packed or not.”

  With a gracious nod, Lucy turned to leave the room only to notice movement outside of the window. While she was hugely relieved, especially after what her uncle had just said, Lucy braced herself once more because it appeared that another group of troublesome men had appeared in her life, and this time it was the Star Elite.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Simmerton

  “I am afraid that we have received more bad news,” Al warned as he stalked into the kitchen at Feckleham Hall. He slapped a folded sheaf of papers onto the kitchen table and glared at his colleagues even though he knew the news wasn’t their fault. He was livid but all he could do was clench his fists and rest them on the table. He leant over his hands and gritted his teeth while he battled the urge to punch something.

  Beside him, Morgan, whose boots were propped up on the kitchen table, sat upright and eyed the boss of the Star Elite’s latest investigation warily. “God, they've struck again, haven't they?” he growled.

  Al, his face grim, nodded. He cursed fluidly to release some of his pent-up fury. When he could speak, his voice was guttural. “It appears that the highwaymen have moved on again. Unfortunately, their area of choice this time is not where any of us expected them to attack. We all assumed that they would move further north along the Great North Road like they have been doing since they started.”

  “Where have they struck instead?” Elias demanded.

  “They have backtracked to Archie Hammond's patch in Mivverford. The victims, a man and wife and their coachman, were shot during the robbery. The magistrate, Rupert Kenworthy, has been investigating but has sent a messenger to inform us of what happened. He has demanded our presence in Mivverford as a matter of urgency.” Al’s lip curled and warned the men that there was more bad news.

  “When did it happen?” Morgan asked warily.

  Al cursed again. “Eight days ago.”

  “Eight days? Why in the Hell are we just learning about it now?” Morgan demanded. “Does Kenworthy not know we are investigating?”

  “He probably doesn’t think we are investigating seeing as we haven’t arrested anybody yet,” Duncan sighed.

  “The location of this latest attack is rather odd. At first, the magistrate wasn’t sure the robbery was linked to the highwaymen because the site of the attack isn’t anywhere near the Great North Road,” Al reported.

  “What has prompted him to change his mind?” Evan demanded. “And why wait eight days to tell us about it?”

  “I don’t know. I think it is because he cannot find any other explanation for why the highwaymen would strike again, in a place where they have struck before. Whatever the bloody reason, Kenworthy hasn’t seen fit to inform us until now. A messenger arrived this morning saying that there has been another robbery, eight days ago. Kenworthy has gotten nowhere investigating it and wants our assistance because he thinks the carriage was stopped and the occupants murdered and robbed by the highwaymen, even though it isn’t anywhere near the Great North Road.”

  “So, Archie is still alive,” Evan murmured thoughtfully. “And back in Mivverford.”

  “Maybe,” Morgan grunted with a dark glare at his friend.

  “He appears to have run all the way home but cannot stop robbing people or miss the opportunity to steal a few coins,” Al confirmed. “It is unusual that the highwaymen have returned to the site of a previous robbery, I will grant you.”

  “But not impossible,” Reuben muttered.

  “The villagers will be wary after what happened and will watch and suspect everyone. The highwaymen are taking an even greater risk of being caught because they are more likely to get noticed, yet they have struck again in Mivverford anyway.”

  “It looks like they are getting desperate,” Duncan warned.

  “It tells me that they are either desperate or somehow anticipate that we will be waiting for them at their next location,” Al replied.

  “Maybe they are getting help from the locals in Mivverford,” Jarvis suggested.

  “I don’t see how they can know what we are planning to do with the investigation unless they have been either watching this house or are inside it to hear what we are planning,” Morgan added.

  “Maybe someone more local to Simmerton has been watching us and passing information back to the highwaymen. Until now, the locations of the highwaymen’s attacks have been spaced approximately five miles apart and moving steadily along the Great North Road in a northerly direction. At least one of the highwaymen lives near to each robbery site so they know the locations of their attacks well, and at least one member of their team can return home undetected with their stolen goods,” Al reported, even though all of the men in the Star Elite already knew the details of the robberies.

  “Maybe they changed locations to try to avoid us?” Duncan added with a shrug.

  “We know that there are two locations the highwaymen haven’t struck yet, and they are both further north along the road,” Jarvis added.

  “Maybe they need Archie to smelt their stolen goods and so decided to rob a carriage closer to a site they had used previously knowing that we wouldn’t be there, and it was closer to Archie’s blacksmiths in Mivverford.” Al shook his head and cursed again before throwing himself into a kitchen chair.

  “Well, Archie will have had the time to smelt anything they stole by now. It wouldn’t take a blacksmith long to do it. It is what happens to the smelted goods that we need to concern ourselves with,” Jarvis replied. “Someone has to be buying the smelted metal or stolen goods. But how do we do that if we can’t get our hands on any of the smelted goods or get close enough to the highwaymen to even identify them?”

  “We return to Mivverford,” Al announced, looking apologetically at Zach. “I am sorry. I know we agreed that we would stay here for a while, but there is nothing else for it. Three more people have died in Mivverford. We cannot stay here unless we have credible proof that the highwaymen are moving this way again.” Al offered his friend and colleague a smile. “Look on the bright side, we are only going to be a few miles away. You can return home before too long.”

  Clarissa, Zachary’s new fiancé, was standing next to Zach and smiled her understanding at Al. “You have to do what you have to do. Just find these criminals,” she replied with a shrug.

  Zach smiled adoringly at her because he knew that she truly did understand nature of his work and didn't have any qualms about him leaving so abruptly. Over the last few days, Zach had fallen even more in love with the woman beside him, and he hadn’t ever thought that was possible. But each new day surprised him, as Clarissa did now.

  The affection was evident between them. Neither of them made any attempt to hide their adoration of each other in front of either Clarissa’s Aunt Bess or Bess’s fiancé, Frederick, or Zach’s colleagues in the Star Elite. Thankfully, everyone was highly approving of the burgeoning relationship between them. Consequently, Zach could go to Mivverford comfortable in the knowledge that Clarissa would have the company and support of her aunt and Frederick while he was away. Clarissa, meanwhile, knew Zach’s colleagues well enough to be confident that they would do everything possible to ensure that he returned home to her safely. Consequently, with all doubts erased, everyone was able to focus on what was important - capturing the highwaymen.