To Have A Heart (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 7)

Sir Hugo nodded. “Which is why we must keep her alive. First, we have to get her out of here.”

Callum hated Sir Hugo’s use of the word ‘we’. Bracing himself for what was to come, he leant his shoulders against the tree beside him and watched the patrol amble past, this time with a dog. The canine sniffed at something on the floor, but his ears didn’t even twitch in their direction. Callum knew that the dog would be back in about half an hour but hoped to be well away from the area by the time it did return.

Please God, let me be away from here by then. Don’t let Sir Hugo’s plans involve me any more than I already am.

But God wasn’t listening to Callum’s prayers. Indeed, the good Lord seemed determined to thwart them and Sir Hugo’s next words confirmed it.

“What’s the plan then?” Callum prompted when Sir Hugo made no attempt to tell him why he had been summoned to meet him in the woods at the back of Melrose House.

“We are going to bring her out of that house and get her away from here. We don’t have any time to wait because we don’t know what Melrose’s plans are,” Sir Hugo began.

“What do you want me to do?” Callum dreaded the answer.

His gut was warning him that he wasn’t going to like what Sir Hugo had to say and his gut instinct was never wrong.

“Go in and fetch her.”

Callum closed his eyes and mentally cursed again. An objection hovered on his lips in a way that was so tempting, Callum had bite his lip to stop them spilling forth.

“She doesn’t have any relations at home waiting for her, so it is going to be easier to make her vanish in the short term.”

Callum squinted at Sir Hugo. “Do we take her to a safe house, or keep her moving so Melrose cannot find her?”

“Both,” Sir Hugo hissed.

Callum sighed and puffed out his cheeks.

“Have you seen the patrol here? There is another patrol inside the house,” Callum growled. “It is tantamount to suicide to go in there to try to get her out. She isn’t going to know who in the Hell I am. If I turn up in the dead of night, she is going to scream the bloody place down.”

Sir Hugo shook his head. “Well, make sure she can’t.”

“I didn’t come prepared to drug her,” Callum snorted.

If he had known what this mission entailed, Callum wouldn’t have been so readily available to answer Sir Hugo’s summons.

“Why can’t you go in? You have been inside there, haven’t you?”

Sir Hugo looked at him but didn’t answer. “I have other things to do. I will cover you.”

Callum knew that further objection would be futile. When Sir Hugo gave his orders, they were essentially written in stone, and had to be carried out to the best of his ability.

“We will get her out, and tonight.”

Sir Hugo’s voice was so matter of fact that Callum didn’t doubt it had to be tried. What concerned him was what Sir Hugo intended to do with the woman once they had facilitated her escape.

“I don’t like the fact that Melrose is planning to move, and to London of all places.”

“It is a risk seeing he needs to hide his guilt,” Callum nodded.

“It is like walking into the lion’s mouth. He knows we are investigating him. If he does go back to London, he isn’t going to leave any trace of his crimes here,” Sir Hugo warned.

“But he might take her to London and leave her with one of his cronies,” Callum replied.

Sir Hugo nodded. “That might be so, but he is taking a risk that we aren’t following him and will just investigate his cronies.”

“He is likely to kill her before he leaves then.”

Sir Hugo nodded. “Now that he has dispatched Jemima off this mortal coil, I have no doubt he will turn his attentions to Mallory. I am not going to allow that young woman to die as well. We failed Jemima. We are not going to fail Mallory. We have to move now, tonight, and quickly.”