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

“No. I can see you don’t have a lot in common. He works for justice for the War Office. You are nothing more than a petty thief, a bully, a fraudster and a coward.” Elspeth shook her head.

She knew that if she signed the papers Thomas would kill her anyway.

“What is to stop me from going straight to the magistrate with this?” She threw the papers onto the desk with a dismissive air she truly didn’t feel.

Thomas leaned toward her, his lip curled in contempt. “What do you think I am going to do?”

“Shoot me then,” Elspeth shrugged. “Because I am not going to sign your papers. I am not going to allow you to thieve what is mine a second longer. You have lied all along and denied me what is mine for years. I think you have done enough, don’t you?”

Thomas snorted. “Oh, so it was all right for me to have to look after you? While I owned this house, it was all right for me to have to be the one to sacrifice my life just because I was saddled with you? That’s how you see it, it is? Nobody wants you, Elspeth. Nobody wants to get saddled with an old maid like you for the rest of their lives. I wanted to go and live in London, but no. You wouldn’t move, or even contemplate life outside of this house. Rather than going out there and even finding some way to help furnish the coffers, you have refused to go anywhere. Instead, you have sat in here every day and sucked the life out of both of us. Now that you know you own the house, I am now not allowed anywhere near it?” Thomas sneered at her, his eyes full of contempt. “Don’t you think I deserve it? Who is the hypocrite now? Who is greedy, Elspeth? Me? You? You are no better than me.”

“I have never pretended to be dead and deliberately lied to steal from you,” Elspeth retorted despite the hurt that flooded her chest. “If you were so unhappy with your lot, why didn’t you just tell me? Why did you decide to go to these lengths? Did you not think I wouldn’t sit and listen?”

“You never go out anywhere,” Thomas snarled. “I want you out of this house, but you refused to bloody budge. Instead, you thought I would be willing to sacrifice my life and my choices to look after you all the damned time, and for what? So we can sit here and get old together like book ends?”

“I thought you were happy,” Elspeth snapped.

“Why do you think I didn’t pay the debts, eh? If you want the awful house, you have to know what it costs to keep somewhere like this. You have nothing else to do with your day. Why don’t you sort out the damned bills? I wanted you to be destitute, so you had to sell this place and live somewhere else. It’s a damned mausoleum from the past; a life that should have died when our parents did. But the people who are owed money had a letter didn’t they, from that meddling oaf from London, Sir Hugo? Suddenly they are all too amenable and are willing to wait for what is due to them.”

“You asked Sir Hugo for his help,” Elspeth huffed.

“I want out of here, and I am going to break free of this place if I have to kill to do it. You are not going to hold me back any longer,” Thomas boasted as though she hadn’t just spoken.

“What do you plan to do? I hope you have great plans because when Aaron and his friends find out what you have done you are going to end up behind bars. I doubt your choices will bring you the freedom you so desperately crave,” Elspeth replied.

“Aaron and his friends have gone. They are not here. They all rode out of town several hours ago. Aaron had no qualms about taking what you offered, though, did he, eh? You didn’t mind whoring yourself for the lawman, but I forgot, Elspeth, only you get a life, don’t you? I am supposed to sacrifice mine for your choices,” Thomas hissed.

“You have sacrificed your life, Thomas, for your greed. Theft is theft, after all. I am going to report you to the magistrate for this. Your lies about your death will become known anyway, once everyone sees that you are alive. You will earn yourself a reputation for being a liar as well, but never mind, eh? You are going to be behind bars anyway, so what does it matter?” Elspeth countered, her voice icy. “You see, this is my house. You were the interloper, the burden. According to these papers, there is a fortune that is mine as well. A fortune you have been using at will – without my permission by the way. How did you manage to persuade the bank to let you have access to my account? Fraud, is it? Was using my money and living in my home not enough for you? What happened to your fortune by the way? Father wouldn’t have left me everything. He had to have left you something of equal value.”

Elspeth shook her head and stared blankly down at the papers.

“No wonder you were happy for the reading of the will to go ahead without me. You must have known what it contained,” she whispered.

“Father knew I hated it here,” Thomas said quietly. “I was glad you were too upset to meet with the solicitor. You, stupid female that you are, were happy to sit here on your backside and let me hold all the meetings, weren’t you?”

“He told the solicitor and bank that you had given him authority to act on your behalf and that you were too grief stricken to attend the reading of the will. We have found a note, several in fact, allegedly signed by you, Elspeth, that gives Thomas full authority to act on your behalf. Because the house was transferred into your name, Elspeth, the solicitor was happy to talk to Thomas, but he couldn’t stop the house being signed over to you. We have spoken to the bank as well. The money you inherited but didn’t know about was deposited in a bank account in your name. Unfortunately, in the five years since, Thomas has withdrawn several large amounts of money from it using a letter, supposedly written and signed by yourself, that gives Thomas authority to take it,” Aaron informed her from the doorway.

Elspeth almost cried out loud with the force of the relief that threatened to overwhelm her when she saw Aaron. She was positively shaking with the strength of emotion, the love, that pummelled her.

“But I never signed anything,” Elspeth informed him. “It’s fraud.”

“It’s theft,” Aaron retorted flatly. “When he tried to get the solicitor to transfer the house into his name, the solicitor refused and insisted on speaking to you directly, Elspeth. I think that is what prompted Thomas to go to such extreme lengths to steal the house.”

“When? When did he try to get the property transferred?” Elspeth whispered.

“About a month before he faked his own death,” Aaron replied. “Callum has returned from London. He has located a friend of Thomas’s who admits to signing the forged death certificate.”

“Who was the man the farmer found then?” Elspeth asked with a heavy frown.

“There wasn’t one,” Aaron declared flatly. “It was all a lie. Thomas took the money to London, got his friend to sign a fake death certificate, put the money into a newly purchased coffin and screwed it down. Then the friend, pretending to be a magistrate, informed the solicitor of Thomas’s death. The solicitor then arranged for the body to be returned to Cromley. The rest you know. In effect, the three thousand pounds in that coffin is yours, Elspeth, because he spent your three thousand pounds on himself.”

Aaron’s venomous gaze fell to the gun Thomas still had pointed at her. The only outward sign of his inner fury was a small muscle that ticked rhythmically in his jaw, and the hard glint in his eye that Elspeth recognised.

Aaron saw the marks on the pale flesh of Elspeth’s shoulder and felt sick at the thought of what could have happened to her if he had been prevented from returning to the house. He wanted to shoot Thomas right there and then, but Sir Hugo said he had to face a life in gaol instead. While they were there, the p

roblem the men from the Star Elite had now was how to get Thomas and Frederick out of the house without injuring Elspeth.

“I warn you now, Thomas, that we have been outside for the last several minutes and have heard everything. We have also arrested your friend in London for fraud. I am afraid that helping yourself to money that belongs to Elspeth, without her approval, is embezzlement,” Sir Hugo warned from the doorway.