Runaway (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 4)

With that, Jasper slammed out of the room and left a stunned Molly staring after him. He had no idea if she would ever speak to him again, but he had to make her realise that his life choices meant he could never resort to simply enjoying life with a youthful innocence again like she probably still did. She had to grow up to be able to fit into his world because if there was one thing he knew for definite, he would never be able to fit into hers.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Take a look at that,” Sir Hugo ordered when he entered the kitchen several hours later.

He had been to check on his men’s investigation into Molly’s aunt’s missing lover: Denzel. So far, nobody had been able to find anything out about him, or the mysterious Marilyn Alton, who didn’t appear to be as fearful as a kidnap victim should be. It was time to get some information out of Marilyn, but first, Sir Hugo had a more pressing matter to deal with.

“What is it?” Jasper asked around an exhausted yawn.

“Read it. It arrived by messenger to my office,” Sir Hugo replied. He plonked himself down into the chair opposite and munched on an apple while Jasper read the missive in his hand.

Jasper read the note once and then again for good measure. He struggled to contain the urge to scrunch it into a tiny ball in his fist which shook with the force of the raw fury that burned through him.

“Jesus,” he hissed. He dropped it onto the table before his boss as though it had just burned his fingers and lifted an angry glare to Sir Hugo’s.

“Don’t do anything rash,” Sir Hugo warned.

“What are we to make of it?” Jasper snapped. “Don’t you think it explains a lot about what is going on around those two?”

He wanted to storm upstairs to Molly and demand she explain the contents of the note Sir Hugo had just received from Molly’s aunt, Edith. But he knew it would be a foolish thing to do while he was this annoyed.

“What does it say?” Oliver asked from his position beside the dresser. He looked casual but for the tension running through him that was visible to both Sir Hugo and Jasper who knew him. He too was quietly disturbed by the presence of the annoying Marilyn, whose petulance was too contrived to be real.

“It demands Molly’s return immediately. She – the aunt – says neither Molly nor Oscar can be trusted, and that they are both thieves and liars. Molly never told anybody she was leaving and has been reported to the magistrate as missing, as has Oscar. However, word has reached her from an acquaintance in London who saw both Molly and Oscar here, that they are alive and well and with me.”

“How?” Oscar interjected. “I mean, how in the Hell could anybody know that you – we – have them?”

“Denzel been watching them,” Sir Hugo murmured.

Jasper blinked and looked at him. “That means they have led them right to our door, doesn’t it?”

Sir Hugo looked at him quite frankly. “It looks like it. Unfortunately, that means that we have to be extra vigilant because Marilyn has made an accusation about Molly for a reason, and it isn’t anything to do with the theft of the bracelet.”

“You don’t think Molly took it then?” Jasper continued to munch his bread, but everything was remained fixed on Sir Hugo’s answer. It mattered more than anything that his boss trusted her, not least because Sir Hugo was an excellent judge of character. If he said Molly was trustworthy then she would eventually be proven trustworthy.

I would also not have any doubts about whether my colleagues trust her or not.

That thought popped into his head with a certainty that was startling because it warned him that he was, inadvertently, already considering a future with her.

“Look at the facts. That bracelet is the real thing. I took it to a jeweller friend of mind. It is worth a small fortune and has to have been stolen from someone of

wealth. It isn’t something that is likely to have been lifted out of someone’s pocket. My friend, the jeweller, said the catch on it is too intricate for it to be purloined without being snapped.”

“It was stolen in a burglary at one of the posh houses in Mayfair or something,” Jasper suggested.

“Molly hasn’t been anywhere alone long enough to do anything like that. Nor has Oscar. Unless he had it when he left Rigley Row, he couldn’t have stolen it either because he was with us. So, Marilyn was framing them to look guilty. Now, this letter arrives demanding their safe return to their caring relation in Leicestershire.”

“She is so caring she doesn’t notice that two of her relations are so miserable they feel they have no choice but to run away to get a better life?” Oliver pointed out sarcastically.

“We know Denzel kidnapped Oscar,” Jasper warned.

“The aunt has said that this Denzel fellow is going to be at the Black Lion hotel on Hanover Road until the tenth. We are to deliver them both to him there, so he can return them home,” Sir Hugo informed them. “Odd, isn’t it? That we leave Molly here after Marilyn accuses her of a crime that would ordinarily get her arrested. When it becomes apparent that she is going nowhere this letter is sent demanding we hand them both over to him, the man we saw in Rigley Row?”

“They aren’t going,” Jasper warned.

“Most definitely not, but one thing we are not going to do is trust Marilyn now,” Sir Hugo hissed.

“Where is she by the way?”