Fallen Hero (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 3)

PROLOGUE

Aaron stared down at the missive in his hand in abject disbelief. He read it again and again. The words began to swim on the page, and eventually collided in a jumble of blackened smudge that was difficult to even see.

“He can’t be dead,” he murmured, his voice dull and emotionless.

When the black scrawl on the note wouldn’t swim back into focus, he scrubbed at his eyes and forced himself to ignore the vicious stinging behind his eyelids. When Aaron could see properly, he stared hard at the note then stood and moved over to the fire. Tipping the note toward the flames, he squatted and read it again. Shock rendered him speechless for several long moments. All he could do was stare down at the paper and pray that there must be some sort of mistake.

“Thomas is dead?” he whispered.

The ribald laughter behind him faded into the deeper recesses of his conscious thought.

“God in Hell,” Aaron muttered as one thought filtered through the fog of disbelief. “Elspeth.”

Through the fog of confusion, the image of a beautiful young woman with hair the colour of autumn leaves, and eyes that reminded him of cinnamon sprang to the forefront of Aaron’s mind. He had to wonder where Thomas’s sister was now. The thought that she was all alone was enough to make Aaron’s fury begin to burn. He studied the date on the note and cursed violently. When the laughter behind him increased in volume, Aaron sighed, launched out of his chair and slammed out of the room. On his way to the relative quiet at the front of the large property, he carefully folded the parchment and tucked it into his pocket.

Once inside what had once been the front parlour, Aaron closed the door and made his way over to the window. With better light to read the note clearly, Aaron then removed the brief yet devastating letter from his pocket. He was compelled to re-open it and read it a further five or six times, if only to make sure he hadn’t misread it.

“Jesus,” he bit out, his tone bitter and full of deep regret. “What have I done?”

Aaron hadn’t done anything. That was part of the problem. He hadn’t been there for the one person in the world who truly mattered to him, at what was undoubtedly the worst moment of their life.

“I have failed,” he whispered, his voice full of disbelief. “I have failed her.”

“What’s wrong?” Sir Hugo asked quietly from the doorway.

Aaron looked down at the note he still held.

“I thought it was bad news,” Sir Hugo murmured when Aaron didn’t speak. The look on the younger man’s face said it all. Aaron was usually one of the happier men in the group. He always had a ready smile and was the first one to crack a joke. To see him so stern, and so evidently worried about the contents of his correspondence, was worrying.

Sir Hugo closed the door quietly behind him and made his way over to a chair before the hearth. He took a seat and waited patiently for the man to get over his obvious shock.

Aaron read the note again. “How long has it been here?” he murmured.

“About a week,” Sir Hugo replied. “I was going to send it to you with one of the men, but you were already on your way back here so didn’t bother. Unfortunately, we all got waylaid because of Horvat. Is there anything I can do?”

Aaron, who was still struggling to comprehend the contents of the letter, slumped into the large chair opposite his boss.

“It’s too late,” he murmured blankly.

“What’s too late?” Sir Hugo frowned.

Aaron tried to speak. When he couldn’t think of the right way to say what he needed to tell his boss, he held the note out for Sir Hugo to read.

“I am sorry,” Sir Hugo sighed sadly. He handed the note back. “You have known him a long time, haven’t you?”

Aaron nodded. “We grew up together,” he muttered. “We used to live in the same village as children. They moved to Cromley about the same time I moved to London, but we remained in contact.”

His thoughts weren’t on his newly deceased friend, Thomas Lincoln, but were focused firmly on Thomas’s sister, Elspeth.