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

“We will go and check on her,” Angus growled. “You ladies stay here.”

“You are in no fit state to go anywhere,” Charity snorted. “Besides, how do you think she is going to feel if she answers the door at this time of night and finds someone like you standing on her doorstep? Look at you. You are all bloodied and bruised. You look like you have been in a fight. You will terrify her.”

Charity knew she was fussing over him but just couldn’t stop. Thankfully, Angus took it all with alacrity. In fact, she was starting to suspect he quite liked it, especially when she placed a staying hand on his chest only for him to place one warm palm over hers and refuse to release her again.

“She could have fallen down the stairs or something,” Angus whispered. “You can’t help her if she has.”

“I will go,” Augusta informed everyone.

“I will come with you,” Monika said, following her across the room.

“Me too,” Gertrude cried. She stopped beside the door that led into the kitchen, grabbed hold of Jasper’s shirt and yanked him after her.

Angus grinned. To see the startled look of shock on Jasper’s face just before he was hauled bodily out of the house by the matronly lady was funny, but he daren’t laugh, his head hurt too much.

“Damn, what are you doing to us?” he muttered, his eyes alight with mirth.

“They have a way of wrapping you up in kindness that is impossible to fight,” Charity replied, her voice husky from the force of the emotions she was having to deal with.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he assured her.

“Are you getting used to it?” she asked incredulously.

“No.” He huffed a laugh. “I am just smart enough to know when to stop fighting.”

Charity wondered if he could sense her tumultuous emotions. If so, he had read them accurately because there was a hint of empathy in his gaze when their eyes locked.

“Let’s get you up to bed,” Phillip suggested.

Together with Justin, he stood quietly beside Angus while Angus awkwardly turned around and shuffled stiffly toward the door.

“I will be fighting fit in the morning,” Angus announced but with little force. “Right now, I am so damned tired I can barely put one foot in front of the other.”

“I will keep an eye on you overnight,” Justin assured him. “I think we are going to have to keep waking you up to make sure we can. That lump on the back of your head is still growing.”

Charity could only agree. It made her want to weep to think what he had been through while she had been tucked away at Monika’s, moaning about how commanding the Star Elite men were.

He could so easily have been killed. Charity closed her eyes at the very thought.

To her dismay, rather than have her worrying thoughts fade, as she followed the men into the spare room and hurried past them to turn down the bed and light the fire, Charity found herself contemplating how she would feel if she was completely in love with Angus, and had her life entwined with his as his wife. How would she bear it if she ever received the devastating news that he could never return because he had been cut down by some ruthless blackguard? She would be dev

astated, distraught, unable to see a future without him, she was sure of it.

She also knew that it was already too late to pretend she didn’t feel anything for him. Everyone knew that she cared about him now, even his friends given the way they kept looking at her and watching her thoughtfully. Thankfully, whether it was because of his own emotions, the injuries he had sustained to his head, or his preoccupation with the investigation, Angus didn’t appear to have realised how much she cared for him yet. Being spared that embarrassment could only be a good thing, though – couldn’t it?

When Charity had turned down the bed, she looked for Angus only to find him standing beside the door watching her.

“I will go and find you something to drink in case you get thirsty in the night. Are you hungry?” she asked quietly.

Angus shook his head.

“I won’t be long,” she said quietly, and quickly left the room.

It was good to get out of the room for a while, and away from the watchful gazes of the men. Charity couldn’t relax, though, because she was still struggling to contain her curiosity about what had happened next door.

It seemed to take an age before the small group of investigators returned. When they did it was evident from the worry in their eyes that they were completely stymied by what they had found.

“Nothing,” Augusta declared succinctly.