A Spinster's Awakening (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 2)

“We have to go over there, don’t we?” Monika murmured having accurately read Charity’s thoughts.

“If we end up in gaol, it is your fault,” Charity grumbled.

Together, the ladies set off for Horvat’s house.

When Charity passed the narrow track at the back of her house, she looked down it longingly. To her horror, her gaze immediately landed on a small group of men carrying a large object toward her home. Charity’s heart sank to her toes. Her cry of shock turned into a mew of dismay. She didn’t stop to think about abandoning her friends, or what she was doing displaying such blatantly raw emotion in front of so many people. Charity lifted her skirt and raced down the track toward the men.

“Angus?” She cried as she drew closer.

“He is wounded. Aaron has gone for the doctor,” Oliver informed her grimly. “Go and get the door open. Can we put him on the kitchen table?”

“He has to be put into bed, don’t you think?” Monika suggested as she hurried alongside them.

Gertrude, who had stopped beside Charity’s gate, swung it open and hurried up the path to alert the women in the house.

By the time the men carried their colleague into Charity’s home, a solemn line of women stood waiting for Angus’s arrival. A pot of water began to bubble on the fire, and clean cloths had been draped over the kitchen table in preparation for the fallen man.

“The doctor is on his way did you say?” Augusta asked, her rotund face almost severe.

“Yes,” Oliver replied. He wanted to stop Charity and demand to know what she was doing out of her house at this time of night, but she looked about to fall over. Now wasn’t the time to challenge her over her foolishness.

It would do her good to see what challenging the enemy can do to a person, even a trained fighter like Angus, he thought angrily.

“Right, ladies,” Augusta snapped briskly. “Let’s get to work. We cannot do what the doctor can do, but we can prepare Angus, so he is ready for when the doctor arrives.”

“It is all right,” Charity assured Jasper when he shifted uncomfortably at having his colleague surrounded by the bustling women.

“Charity, you start to wash,” Agatha ordered. She thrust a bowl and cloth at Charity and turned her attention to loosening the laces on Angus’s sodden and blood-stained shirt. “Let’s get this blood off him so the doctor can see what he is doing.”

Charity dutifully placed the bowl next to Angus’s head and began to bathe blood off his beloved face.

“He has been hit twice,” Charity whispered. “Once at the back and once on the side. Look.”

Oliver bent down to look for himself. “He was blindsided by the look of it,” he agreed.

Minutes later, the women had Angus clean, and resting comfortably beneath the warmth of a thick woollen blanket.

“Now, gentlemen, I think it is time you all had something to eat while we wait for the doctor. He only lives on the other side of the village, so shouldn’t be long. Until then, we demand you tell us what you intend to do about that Mr Horvat,” Gertrude demanded in her habitual forthright manner.

“Is that where you were going? After Mr Horvat?” Oliver asked.

To his astonishment, he was pushed into a chair and furnished with a large slice of cake without even having realised he had moved. He opened his mouth to object, but the scent of the cake was heavily, and he was too hungry to resist.

“Mr Horvat left his house and took the same route he took through the woods last night,” Charity informed them. “We were just watching because you were all busy.”

“He has to be meeting with someone, but who?” Monika asked. “And why would he want to kill Angus for possibly seeing him?”

“Because he has something to hide,” Gertrude retorted before any of the Star Elite could speak.

Suddenly, Oliver found himself pierced with the steady stare of a lady he suspected was called Augusta.

“You are not from the War Office, are you?” she declared suddenly, a hint of determination in her eye.

All the women froze.

Oliver sighed. He contemplated whether to brush them off, and refuse to give them any information, but given they had taken such good care of Angus, and he already appeared to have surrendered his bachelorhood to the stunning young woman who clearly adored him, Oliver could see no reason to lie to them.

“We are from the War Office. We are not in the habit of going about lying to people,” he warned darkly. “However, we are from a special part of the War Office called the Star Elite. We work mostly undercover, and on large scale crime; criminal gangs, people smuggling, that kind of thing. Now, I am not saying that the young girls who have been kidnapped have been smuggled, but because several have gone missing, and have yet to be found either dead or alive, we have been called in to investigate. It is our job to work undercover, around the local magistrate who is going about his normal duties, to find out who is responsible, and get them off the streets before they can damage any other innocent lives.”