Cold Comfort (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 5)

Oliver sighed, but blatantly ignored his friend for a moment or two. Instead, he selected an apple from the fruit bowl in the middle of the table and began to crunch noisily on it.

Emmeline didn’t think he was going to speak.

Eventually, Harry sighed. “If you don’t, I will.”

Oliver glared at him. “Over the course of the last year or two, several of our men have fallen.”

“Fallen? You mean were killed?” Emmeline looked around the men who all slid knowing looks between them. “How?”

“No. They weren’t killed, not as in dead.” Oliver shook his head.

Emmeline found herself copying him. “I don’t understand,” she murmured.

“They married.”

“Several of them.”

“Practically every month a man fell. And married.”

Emmeline nodded sagely as she looked at the men seated around the table once more. “That’s good then, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” Oliver muttered with a heavy sigh. “They have, along the way, tried to leave the Star Elite, our organisation, but their specific skills were still needed so they never really leave. Take a colleague of ours; a fine gentleman, a wonderful warrior who everyone can trust implicitly. He had to guard someone; a young woman called Rose. By the time the investigation was over, he was married, and has-” Oliver squinted at Harry.

“Six.”

“Six? Six – children now,” Oliver continued. “Because he is a good friend of Sir Hugo’s, he agreed to help our boss should we ever need it. He was then joined by one or two other men who married, and they now operate a branch of the Star Elite in one of the rural counties.”

“They formed a local group so the men who are married and have wives and children are able to continue working for us yet live closer to home. Like we have told you, most of our work involves long hours, often undercover and overnight. It makes marriage and raising a family impossible unless the men are living close to home.”

“It also helps that they are familiar with the villages in their area and are able to investigate crimes on a much larger scale using their skills they have learnt from the Star Elite. The magistrates are therefore removed from investigating the crimes and are often all too willingly are happy to just oversee the trail of whatever criminals the Star Elite arrest and put behind bars. It has worked so well that the hierarchy in the War Office have sanctioned the establishment of more regional branches of the Star Elite.”

“So everyone can now marry,” Emmeline said innocently.

Several of the men found this extremely funny and began to snigger.

“No.” Oliver burst out before rolling his eyes. “Good God. It isn’t like some sort of race. No. It just means that if someone finds a wife and wants to marry, they can either settle in whatever county the wife lives in or can go home to whatever county they come from. They can join a regional branch of the Star Elite, which will probably be closer to home than London. Invariably there will be some travelling involved in the work they do, but they will be based closer to home and don’t have to work from our main base in the War Office. But marriage is a choice.”

“It is just that without the regional branches of the Star Elite for married men to join if they wish, marriages would be impossible because of the length of time couples would be apart. Raising a family would be difficult. Some men happily live and work in London still, or live on the outskirts, but others who hail from, say, Oxfordshire, can join the Oxfordshire branch if they wish and make life easier for themselves,” Jasper said.

“So, there you have it. Now you know about the inner workings of the Star Elite, I warn you now that you must never discuss our organisation with anybody.” Oliver looked over his apple at her and sighed when he saw her blink at him. “Please.”

“Who would I tell? Do you know something? I don’t think anybody would believe me about you even if I told them. Why, in all my days, I have never heard of such an organisation. Of course, everyone has heard of the War Office, just not this Star Elite. However, thank you for telling me because I

did wonder who you were and why you seemed to be able to work with such authority and not annoy the magistrate.”

“The magistrate is waiting for us to tell him what to do,” Oliver warned. “He won’t appear unless we send for him.”

“So what do I do now? Now that you have two of the thugs behind bars, surely you don’t need me to lure out the Smidgley brothers, do you?” Emmeline’s voice rose to a near-squeak. Her stomach dropped her to her toes when Oliver began to nod.

“Yes, we do. For now, we eat. Then we are going to send some of the men off to keep watch over the Smidgleys, and then you are going to settle in here while I read some of the reports the men have left. Then, later, we are going to decide what we are going to do to bring this investigation on a little bit, but that can’t involve you.”

“How long do I need to be here for?” Emmeline asked.

“Do you need to be anywhere else? Is there a loved one nearby who will worry for your safety if you are not at home?” Oliver stared intently at her as he waited for her to confirm whether she had a suitor or not. He had no idea why it should bother him so, but it did. He had no idea what he would do if she said that she had a loved one, an intended, who would worry himself sick until he heard from her again.

“No.”

“Sure?”