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

“Sounds charming,” Mallory huffed without thinking.

Callum smirked. “He is a pompous ass.”

“But he is a pompous ass who won’t be all that prepared for the Star Elite to pay him a visit. We can distract him and hopefully put both men behind bars. You, Callum, will use the time we are distracting Melrose to get Sir Hugo out of the area. Don’t stop unless you must. I will send word to the teams along the way and ask them to meet with you and escort you through.”

“Make sure they make their presence known before they appear before us,” Will growled. “I don’t want to end up shooting one of our own damned men.”

Callum shook his head but didn’t have to think about whether he wanted to go to Mann’s house or drive the carriage to Cornwall. He couldn’t stay behind while Mallory was vulnerable out on a country road in the middle of nowhere.

“Shouldn’t we stick to a main road so it is less likely we can be attacked without witnesses seeing the men responsible?” Mallory asked.

“Melrose will expect us to stick to the main road,” Callum said.

He paused and squinted at Oliver when he saw the thoughtful look on Oliver’s face. There was more, and he wasn’t going to like it.

“What?”

Callum’s gaze slid to Mallory who was staring at her clasped hands. She looked so still, so fragile, that he wondered if he leaned over and breathed on her if she would vanish like a breath of wind. It struck him just how instinctive the need to reach out and place his hand over hers was. The urge to check she was all right, to offer her comfort, was an essential part of him now. Her wellbeing mattered.

They were all drawn to the soft scuffle of movement in the doorway.

Callum launched out of his seat when he looked up at saw Sir Hugo wavering in the doorway. Sir Hugo lifted a hand to stop him and glared at everyone.

“I have been thinking,” he began as he stepped into the room. He wavered a little, as if trying to find his balance, and sidled over to the table. “The only person in this area who owns a house old enough to contain an oubliette is Connor Haugham. He owns Haugham Castle, that huge place up on the Marches. He is also best friends with Melrose’s brother. Go there if anything happens that stops you from arresting Melrose and Mann, and they disappear. I want that oubliette searched, just in case they have snatched someone else we haven’t learnt about yet. I also want the staff questioned and arrested until they can prove they haven’t been involved in Haugham’s activities. Haugham is far enough away that Melrose might turn to him for a place to hide. They are all to be arrested for false imprisonment, kidnap, slavery, and attempted murder. In the meantime, give me a gun. I am not going to lie in the back of any damned carriage helplessly waiting for someone to open the door and try to kill me again. I am not that much of a bloody invalid that I cannot defend myself, or the people with me.”

There was such disgust rife in Sir Hugo’s voice that everyone heaved a sigh of relief. They all knew that someone who had so much strength of character and determination was never going to give in easily to anything, even death. Sir Hugo was going to do exactly what he said he would do, or die trying, of that there could be no doubt.

“You must sit down,” Mallory urged.

She gently pushed a seat out and waved the man into it. He staggered a little, but eventually lowered himself gingerly into the chair and nodded his thanks when Mallory handed him a goblet of brandy. With a hand that shook alarmingly, Sir Hugo took a drink.

Callum placed a hand on Mallory’s waist; a gesture not lost on Sir Hugo or any of the men in the room. It was proprietary and created a unity that was unmistakeable. Sir Hugo was pleased to see it because he knew how important it was to have someone waiting for the men at home. Sir Hugo knew that if he hadn’t had Harriett to fight to return to, he would have succumbed to the suffocating blackness hours, if not years ago. As it was, the mental image of his stunning wife waiting patiently beside the fire with their children playing at her feet gave Sir Hugo the strength that he needed to fight to return to them all.

“Melrose has to die if it becomes clear he cannot be arrested.” Sir Hugo’s voice was hard and clipped.

The men knew they had just received orders that they were to kill Melrose if they got the chance.

“His death has to be a warning to his cronies that their time is up,” Sir Hugo added.

“Is there any news on Claude Smidgley?”

Sir Hugo nodded. “Yes, but he is many miles away. We must concern ourselves with Melrose and Mann right now. We have a team in Gloucestershire watching Smidgley. If he moves, he will be taken down as well. For now, we are waiting to see who meets with him.”

“How long do you think it is going to be before this kidnapping gang is brought to justice?” Mallory asked, concerned for ordinary women who wanted to go about their lives in their usual way.

“No gang is impenetrable, or unbreakable. The more people who are involved means there is less chance that everybody can be controlled or prevented from talking about the crimes. There will always be someone who cockily thinks they can stick their head above the parapet and either boast about how infallible they are, or how high their connections go. That unwillingness to keep quiet, and stay hidden, is going to break the entire criminal network. That kind of fool will invariably play their part in bringing the entire operation to a halt because they don’t do what everyone else does. They are fools, who have had their confidence bolstered by having many people around them of the same mindset. It doesn’t mean they are right, just that they are lulled into a delusional sense of false security that nobody can touch them because there are many like them.”

“They believe that if you take one of them down and put behind bars you take them all, and you cannot do that because there are

a lot of them.” Callum nodded.

“Well, the English took down the French army, don’t forget,” Sir Hugo grinned. “No army is undefeatable. They just think they are. One thing and one thing only makes a good army: discipline. It is foolish for anybody to go off on a wild tangent and speak out of turn or go off and do their own thing just because they can. It is going to get the entire undisciplined army blasted to smithereens and rightly so.”

“In essence, this is a kind of war,” Mallory whispered.

Sir Hugo nodded. “We will disarm our enemy. They are not as clever as they think they are because they can only arm themselves with weapons we too can get hold of. They live in houses just like we do and must go about their business and can be ambushed just like we can. Nobody can just expect to violate people and remain unharmed. Even the most cunning criminal faces justice at some point in their life.”

“We will defeat them,” Oliver announced coldly.