For Love Alone (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 8)

‘I take it you have never had an amicable relationship with him,’ Phillip murmured. He hated to ask but had to know if grief had caused arguments between the two of them, and that was why she had run. But Phillip sensed that Carlotta’s troubles with her father went far deeper for far longer than that.

‘No. We have never had a warm or loving relationship. I have always been kept out of sight in the nursery. I was only rolled out when he has wanted to show off that he is a family man. Otherwise, I wasn’t allowed to remind him that I was even in the house. He never wanted to know anything about me because I am not the son he wanted.’

Phillip shook his head because there was a ring of bitterness in her voice that warned him the family difficulties ran deep. They had left a permanent scar on her that wasn’t ever likely to be shaken off. It was a shame, but he knew that his own wonderful relationship with his parents wasn’t the same for everyone.

‘The damned man is a fool. You are still his child,’ Phillip growled.

‘He wishes I wasn’t,’ Carlotta whispered.

‘He said that, did he?’ Phillip was starting to dislike the man more and more.

Again, the image of the thugs flew into his mind, and he knew she wasn’t lying. He struggled to know what to say because he had no experience of what life might have been like for her.

Because I am a man with choices.

‘He made it perfectly clear that he regretted the fact that I was a daughter in everything he said and did,’ Carlotta informed him.

Phillip’s thoughts turned to her mother. He wondered if Carlotta’s relationship had been any better with her, but now was not the time to ask her questions that would upset her.

‘Where did you leave the horses?’ Carlotta asked as she studied the empty street before them.

‘Let’s go this way.’ With a hand in the middle of her back, Phillip guided Carlotta around to the churchyard to the rear of the main street.

Carlotta’s feet ached, her back was sore, and her shoulders hurt with the tension thrumming through them, but that wasn’t what caused her unease. Something else did.

‘I have a horrible feeling that something is wrong,’ she whispered suddenly. She waited for Phillip to sneer at her and dismiss it. To her amazement, he lifted his brows and turned to study the area.

‘Then let’s get out of here,’ he growled. Without hesitation, he tugged her into movement again and led her down a small alley between two houses.

‘Who are these colleagues of yours? What do they look like?’ Carlotta asked.

‘I will tell you later,’ Phillip whispered.

‘Tell me now,’ Carlotta challenged. ‘Why do you ask me questions and expect me to answer them yet refuse to answer any of my questions?’

‘Because I am not going to discuss things about me out here.’

‘What

about the men?’

‘The dead man?’

‘Both him and the gunman who shot at us,’ Carlotta said. ‘Can you tell me about them?’

Phillip sighed. ‘The dead man might have been murdered and I say might because there is every chance that he committed suicide. He was a known criminal who was involved in a large kidnapping gang. I don’t know if you read the newspapers but there was a gang of men who kidnapped young women off the streets in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire in broad daylight. There have never been any witnesses who have seen the young women get snatched. We know from one of the victims we have since rescued that the women walk down the street, a large black carriage rumbles up to them and gets quite close, a door opens and men inside the carriage literally yank the poor victim inside. The door is then closed, and the carriage speeds up. Once the victim is aboard, she is tied up and drugged and only wakes up when she is an oubliette. That is a small dungeon where there is only one entrance and exit; a small hole in the ceiling. Historically, victims who were confined in oubliettes were dropped through a hole in the ceiling and left to fall onto the floor several feet below. They were then left to starve to death or die from the broken bones they sustained when they fell. Anyway, the kidnap victims were left in an oubliette for several days. When they were fetched out they were suitably terrified, and knew their situation was dire. They were then taken to the country houses of several aristocrats where they were put to work as servants. The country houses were in the middle of nowhere, so escape was impossible. The women weren’t paid for their work, and they were made to slave from morning through to night with little rest and virtually no food. They were treated as slaves. If they objected they were beaten. If they tried to escape they were murdered. As soon as the young women’s spirits were broken they were moved to London, introduced to drugs, and then sent to brothels and forced into prostitution.

‘Who are you? How do you know all this?’ Carlotta whispered feeling sicker than she had ever felt before.

‘I am someone who has been trying to bring this kidnapping group to justice,’ Phillip replied. ‘We have succeeded as well. The man you saw hanging from the tree was one of two of the leaders we have been after.’

‘Where is the other one?’ She almost dreaded asking.

‘I have no idea,’ Phillip replied.

Carlotta stared at him. It flicked through her mind that he might be one of the kidnappers and she was the next chosen target, but Phillip was too solid, too strong to be involved in something so heinous. Something deep within her rejected all possibility of it the second she thought of it. There was something about him that was a calm, matter-of-fact practicality, a stern authority that she had only ever seen in magistrate’s men.

‘Have you found them all? The victims I mean?’