Runaway (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite Book 4) Page 7

  But then I have never been as close to anybody before as I have been to this man. This stranger.

  Without thinking about what she was doing, her feet began to move to the now open door of the carriage. She didn’t glance behind her as she climbed board and settled down in the darkened interior. Molly was glad to leave the street behind, especially when they returned to the lit streets of a more salubrious part of London.

  “Where are we going?” she asked with a sense of calmness she truly didn’t feel.

  Inside, she was a seething mass of emotions she couldn’t comprehend. She was scared, confused, worried, and didn’t want to feel anything yet wanted to experience more of this man, this stranger’s protection and the feelings he brought her. The contradiction was confusing. What had just happened on that street had changed the way she now viewed life and what she wanted from it, but she still couldn’t quite decide if she should want a deeper connection with anybody, especially a man like Jasper who seemed to move about in places like Rigley Row as though he was familiar with them.

  “Who are you? I keep asking but you don’t seem willing to tell me. What do you know about the kidnaps in Leicestershire? How do you know of Oscar? Why are you carrying guns? What aren’t you telling me? Are you the kidnapper? I warn you now that if you try to kidnap me, I shall scream.”

  She tipped her chin up in a brave display of defiance that reminded Jasper of a spitting kitten. He smirked because he knew screaming would make no difference to the final outcome. She was going with them to the safe house, and that was that.

  “We work for the government,” Jasper replied. “My colleagues and I are in London to try to find the people who have been kidnapped from Leicestershire and Derbyshire. One of them was your brother, Oscar. So, I am afraid that now you have to stay with us.”

  It was with no small measure of relief that Jasper said that. He truly felt as though something in his life had finally been resolved.

  At least if she knows who we are she will be less inclined to keep running away and putting herself into bloody stupid situations.

  “The government?” Molly whispered, awed despite her wariness.

  Jasper nodded. “We are going to a safe house we use to regroup and meet colleagues who are working on cases in London. You will be safe there. If you give me your address, I will arrange for someone to go to your lodgings and fetch your belongings. You can’t go back there now.”

  “Why? I cannot stay with you,” she protested.

  Jasper turned to look at her with such certainty in his gaze that Molly knew that whatever she said to this man, whatever objection she put forward, she was going to stay in this safe house and wouldn’t leave until he agreed to it. It was horrifying, just as much as it was a huge relief. If there was one thing her adventure tonight had taught her it was that she was horribly out of her depth trying to find her brother in a city like London alone. Out of her depth, and in deep trouble. She needed Jasper. She might not want him – well, not much – but she needed him.

  “We will help you find your brother, not least because he is still listed as one of the kidnap victims. Until we can find him and find out if he was taken or left of his own accord then we have to believe that he has been kidnapped, we just don’t know by who yet.” Jasper grinned at her. “Thanks to you, my colleagues and I have just received a massive clue to help us with our hunt for the missing.”

  “You have? How? Did you know that man who tried to accost me?”

  Jasper’s smile died. He slowly shook his head. “He might have just been trying his luck given you are young, beautiful and on your own.”

  “Then how can I have helped you find the kidnap victims?” Molly frowned.

  “Because we had searched Rigley Row but got nowhere. All doors were closed to us. Generally, people who venture in there rarely come back out with their lives or pockets intact. Now that we think at least one of the victims is there we can go back but will be a lot better prepared to get answers. Are you sure it was your brother you saw?”

  Molly nodded. “I don’t understand why he ran away from me, though. Why would he not want to talk to me?”

  “Because he might have been trying to protect you,” Jasper suggested. “If he was kidnapped, and he has seen any of the other victims, he would know that you are a perfect target. Running away is the best thing he could do for you right now.”

  “How can you say that? Do you have any idea what it is like knowing that a young member of your family is in there? Did you see that place?” she gasped.

  Of course he has seen that place. He has just said that he and his colleagues have already been in there looking for the kidnap victims.

  “We all have. At some point, all my colleagues have ventured in there. It just isn’t somewhere we are happy to go, but we do anyway. Your brother will be fine given you didn’t follow him all the way back to his base. You will be fine just so long as you stay away from the area and leave finding your brother to us now. One thing I can promise you, Molly, is that we will find him now that we know where to look.”

  “How can you be so sure he is staying there?” Molly whispered.

  “Because nobody runs around Rigley Row freely. If he ran in there but didn’t get accosted then he had a place to go in there. It is telling that he wasn’t chased out like we were. They think he belongs there. We know differently.”

  “He seemed so determined to avoid me. If he won’t stop for me, what makes you think he is going to be willing to stop to talk to you?”

  “He doesn’t have any choice.”

  There was something in Jasper’s voice that made her turn to stare at him. A determined hint of finality warned her that Oscar would do as he was told, just as effectively as she had been made to do what Jasper and his colleagues had wanted. Quietly, she settled back against the seat to contemplate that.

  Moments later, the carriage rumbled into a large yard at the rear of a huge house in an affluent area of London. It was nothing like what she had expected a safe house to look like, but it was quiet, if a little haunting when shrouded in mystery and fog as it was. She had no idea of the true size of the large manor house she was going to temporarily call home. What she did know for definite was that it was about as far from Rigley Row as it was possible to get.

  She still glanced around warily, though, when Jasper led her into a large kitchen in the centre of which sat a huge table around which sat four men in the middle of a meal. Despite the lateness of the hour, they were laughing and joking as they ate meats, pies, and a plethora of other food the likes of which Molly hadn’t seen for a very long time.

  “Gentlemen, meet our new guest. This is Molly, Oscar’s sister,” Jasper began.

  He swiped an apple off the table, too focused on making introductions to even be aware of the somewhat proprietorial arm he slid around Molly’s waist as he turned to face his colleagues.

  “Molly, this is Rhys, Harry, and Albert, but don’t call him that if you want to keep your teeth. Al will do, and Will. You have already met Oliver, our coachman. The other men you saw were Niall, Phillip and Callum. I will introduce you to them later.” Jasper lifted his brows at his colleagues. “Miss Egerton is in a spot of bother. Her brother is in Rigley Row.”

  “Jesus,” Rhys spat. He immediately looked contrite and muttered an apology.

  “For now, nobody is to do anything. We will discuss it later, when Miss Egerton here has told us a little more about her brother,” Jasper warned.

  He waved a hand to a doorway that led into the main part of the house. “I’ll go and show her to her room.”

  “The garden room is free,” Harry called after them.

  Jasper grinned at Molly and waved her before him. “Turn right at the top of the stairs. The garden room is the door facing you at the end of the corridor. Make yourself at home.”

  Molly paused because it was evident that he had no intention of showing her the way, not that she was apt to get lost with directions like those. It
was just that she didn’t want to be alone just yet.

  Don’t be so foolish. You cannot stay with him all the time Molly warned herself.

  Jasper read the hesitation in her eyes and knew she was likely to disappear the first chance she got if he didn’t do something to quell her fears.

  “Look, we will find your brother for you, all right? I don’t know how because Rigley Row is about the worst place in London your brother could be. Do you have any idea why he might have found his own way there if he wasn’t kidnapped?”

  Molly shook her head. “Our uncle used to live in Camden, but he died a while ago. We haven’t had any contact with people in the area for ages. I don’t think Oscar would even remember coming here. His presence there just doesn’t make sense.”

  Briefly, Molly told him how Mr Bakerson at the coaching office had told her where Oscar had been heading.

  “It’s how I came to find out he was here, and not still in Leicestershire,” Molly finished.

  “So, he definitely came here by himself,” Jasper sighed. It didn’t look as though Oscar had been kidnapped, but that still didn’t explain how he came to be in Rigley Row.

  “Both of your parents are deceased?” Jasper hated to ask but needed to.

  Molly nodded.

  “I am sorry,” Jasper murmured. He sighed because he realised then just how much this young woman and her brother had been through over the last several months. “Where have you been staying?”

  “With my aunt back in Leicestershire.” Molly offered him a sad smile. “She was very gracious to provide us with a roof over our heads in our hour of need.”

  “But your brother didn’t like living there,” Jasper finished for her.

  Molly shook her head. “My aunt made it clear that our arrival was unexpected and accommodated us reluctantly. Oliver made no bones about the fact that he wanted to leave.

  “Why didn’t you tell your aunt you were coming to look for him. She might have come with you? I take it she didn’t know you were coming here alone?” Jasper squinted at Molly while he waited.

  “She would have stopped me from leaving,” Molly replied honestly. “We aren’t people to her. We are servants.”

  “Is she the kind of person who has an overly greedy attitude toward money? Would she help herself to things if they had any monetary value?” Jasper asked cautiously.

  Molly paused and looked at him. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Would she?”

  “Why do you not answer my questions?”

  “Would she?”

  Molly sighed. “Yes, I think she is.”

  Jasper nodded. “It is important to know what kind of person your aunt is. Did she take care of you?”

  He judged from her slender frame that she was fed, but only because of her need for adequate nourishment so she could do the chores. She didn’t live a luxurious lifestyle, especially if her clothing was any indication of her financial status. The dress she wore had been repaired in several places and was functional rather than a fashion statement. While she still looked pretty, Jasper knew the dress was old.

  But then she would look pretty in a sack cloth, Jasper thought wryly.

  “We took care of her mostly.”

  Jasper didn’t doubt it. “Well, until we can find Oliver and talk to him directly, I think we have to consider that he has been kidnapped, if not from Leicestershire then from the streets of London. Whether Oscar has connections in London or not, he has to have been taken to Rigley Row by someone. We have to find out who, and which house they took him to.”

  “Oh, my God,” Molly breathed. “Do you think he was kidnapped then?”

  Jasper stepped toward her when she paled but forced himself to keep his hands off her. “Don’t worry. We will locate him. I hope and pray that he has just led us to the place where all the kidnap victims are, then we can return everyone to their homes where they belong. For now, I want you to make yourself at home. I will bring you something warm and dry to change into until we can get your things. What number property do you reside in at Crawley Road?”

  “Twenty-four,” she replied instantly, mostly because she wanted her clothing. “Room 2. But I need to come with you. Mrs Cranning is very particular about who is allowed to cross her threshold.”

  “I will deal with her. You have to stay here. You are under our protection now. Just go and get settled. I will bring you some clothing up for you to change into,” Jasper replied, his voice crisp.

  “You don’t understand,” Molly protested.

  Jasper slowly turned to face her. “Do you have a coin purse secreted anywhere in your lodgings?”

  Molly nodded.

  “Where?” Jasper prompted.

  With a sigh, Molly told him. “But I need to go back there. I can’t lose my lodgings.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, without somewhere to stay there is no place to take Oliver to when I find him,” she argued.

  “He is coming here,” Jasper warned her. “He is an integral part of our investigation now.”

  “Investigation?” Molly gulped. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “We work with the War Office,” Jasper assured her. “You are now under official government protection so, I am afraid, your life belongs to us now. Neither you, nor Oliver when we find him, can go anywhere without permission from our boss, Sir Hugo. He is undercover at the moment, so it will be a while before he is free to come and speak with you. If I were you, I would settle in and be prepared to stay for a while because, right now, there is no safest place in London you could be.”

  With that, and before she could offer any further protest, Jasper ambled off toward the kitchen in search of his colleagues. He wanted them on guard because Miss Molly Egerton was most definitely someone who would run - again. Then, he was going to find them both a change of clothing before influenza took both their lives.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Jesus. How could anybody live like this?” Jasper hissed several hours later when he let himself into the cramped and decrepit room Molly called her lodgings. He stepped into the tiny space and glanced around, only partially aware of Niall following him and slowly closing the door. The narrow room became claustrophobic instantly. The men turned to look at each other in stunned disbelief. There was no furniture inside the tiny space, just a couple of bedraggled blankets in front of the fireplace. Jasper squatted down before them and shook his head in disgust.

  “God, Niall. She is lucky she isn’t dead,” Jasper whispered.

  “No wonder the boy ran away. I think life on the streets has to be better than this,” Niall murmured.

  The room didn’t take long to search. The only chair, a rickety thing with a wobbly leg, was solid wood but so old it looked dangerous. The empty grate of the fireplace clearly hadn’t been used for several years given how damp and mouldy the bare walls within it.

  “My horse lives in better conditions than this,” Niall snorted.

  They both paused when loud voices downstairs built in volume as one of the lodgers argued with the landlady that the rent wouldn’t be paid until the smashed window had been replaced.

  “If she brought her brother back to this he would just run away again. I know I would.” Jasper picked up Molly’s carpet bag inside of which lay several items of feminine clothing. He dug around in it, but there was no coin purse like Molly had said. He wondered if he had misheard her.

  Niall set to work looking for it, not least so he could get the Hell out of the mould-riddled dump. It was making his noise twitch and felt so dank he suspected he was going to need a change of clothing to get rid of the pungent odour of decay.

  “Its so bloody cold in here,” he grumbled, his frown dark and thoughtful as he began trying to pull up the floorboards.

  “I wouldn’t pull too many up, you don’t know who is likely to be down there,” Jasper teased if only to get his mind off the disquiet he felt about how Molly had been living.

  Niall snorted but sto
od and began to stomp about the room.

  Jasper stuck his head up the chimney and felt around for loose brickwork. All he got was a face full of soot.

  “Do you think it has been stolen?”

  Jasper looked at him. “From the sound of that argument, the woman who runs this damned dump is short of money. I doubt she would have any qualms about searching the rooms of her lodgers if she was short of a few bob.”

  He realised then that he should have asked Molly where else she might have hidden the purse if it wasn’t where she had left it. He just hadn’t expected her accommodation to be this barren, though. Their search of it was over within a matter of a couple of minutes, and left the empty-handed men scratching their heads to think of a place where it might be hidden.

  “We have to think like her,” Niall warned.

  “I have never thought like a woman in my life,” Jasper retorted instantly. He folded his arms and lifted his brows. “Go on then.”

  Niall grinned. “You know her better than I do.”

  Jasper opened his mouth but then snapped it closed again because he knew Niall was right. He had spent a little more time with her, even in the few short hours they had known each other.

  “She is pretty. I like her,” Niall added, throwing his colleague a rueful look. “At least you don’t have to worry about an angry father turning up claiming you are ruining his daughter’s reputation.”

  “I am not marrying her,” Jasper snapped.

  “Yet,” Niall teased.

  Jasper rolled his eyes.

  “You were certainly keen to keep her,” Niall sighed. “I suppose that matrimony has to bite at some point.”

  “Look, I just jumped into the river after her. You would have done the same thing if Oliver had been the one to send you to stop that oaf dragging her off. It doesn’t mean I have to marry the damned chit,” Jasper protested.

  “But you do like her,” Niall replied.

  “She is under our protection. We have protected worse than her,” Jasper argued.