A Terrible Misunderstanding (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 6)

But it was too late now. While her friends continued their demands for information and began to discuss who had suspected, Clara turned her attention to making the chocolate. It was only when she went to fill the pot that she used to boil water that she realised the water bucket was empty.

“Oh, no,” she sighed as she stared at the dry bottom of the wooden receptacle.

She eyed the back door with little enthusiasm but knew that she couldn’t ask one of her guests to accompany her to the well.

“I won’t be long,” Clara mumbled, but doubted any of her friends heard her given there wasn’t even a lull in conversation.

Leaving everyone to chat about her suitor, Clara shoved her feet into her boots and grabbed the water bucket. The idea of going outside was one she wouldn’t ordinarily contemplate on a night like tonight. Had she been alone she would have invariably found something else to drink. However, with guests in the house expecting hot chocolate to go with their gossip, Clara had no choice but to don her thickest cloak and unbolt the back door.

“I must be out of my mind,” she muttered in disgust once she was trudging down the length of the garden.

Rain pelted down and soaked her through to her skin her within seconds. As she walked, Clara tugged her hood of her cloak up to cover her face before trying, rather unsuccessfully, to hold the edges of the thick material together.

“Can my life get any more difficult?” she whispered only to wince when the wind snatched her words.

When she reached the well, Clara slapped the bucket onto the swinging hook, turned the handle, and lowered the bucket into the well until she heard a faint ‘plop’ as it hit the water. Lowering the rope a little more, Clara then shook it before winding the much heavier bucket back up. As she turned the handle, the rustle of movement and the loud snapping of a twig several feet to her left made her freeze. She blinked and stared at the shadows as she was slammed with the memory of what she had seen earlier. Her heart hammered wildly in her ears. She had forgotten all about it because of the ladies’ arrival and the chaos they had brought with them.

Cautiously, she watched and waited for that figure to emerge. Instinctively, her back straightened in preparation to run. Her eyes widened as she studied the shadows all about her only to find that everything seemed to be moving. Her rational mind tried to reassure her that it was just the strong wind making the trees sway, but she knew it was something more. Something much more. And far more sinister than she had expected it to be. It was not Erasmus. It was someone else.

The small hairs stood up on the back of her neck as she scented danger, even though she couldn’t see anything. Clara knew someone was outside with her.

“Niall?” she whispered, hoping beyond hope that it was him come to scare her as he had promised he would do.

For the first time since she had suspected he was one of the Star Elite, she fervently prayed that he was. That he was watching the house. That he was keeping guard over her. If it wasn’t-

I have no idea what I am going to do.

For several moments more, Clara watched the shifting darkness all about her and waited with trepidation to see what emerged. She fervently hoped that the cracking of the twig she had heard had been a falling branch, or an animal, or something equally innocuous.

“Get a hold of yourself. It is probably nothing. Whoever it was earlier is most probably far away by now,” she whispered, only to wince when she realised how hearing her own voice made her feel isolated, alone, and very, very, vulnerable.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Clara looked at the thin shaft of light filtering out from the edges of the kitchen shutters and felt even more alone. The house seemed a million miles away; far too far away for comfort. More worried now than ever, a somewhat absent Clara cautiously continued to wind the bucket up until it appeared in the open mouth of the well. Removing it from the hook, she turned toward the house only for a dark shadow to suddenly separate from the depths of a large oak tree only a few feet to her right. It was directly opposite where she had heard the cracking of the twig, and so swift that she gasped in horror at the speed in which the man moved.

Her fear increased tenfold when she realised that it wasn’t Erasmus or Niall. Clara knew she had never met this man before. He w

asn’t a villager. As she watched, he stepped out onto the lawn, blocking her route to the safety of the house now behind him. He was dressed from head to toe in black and buried beneath thick folds of a large hat and a heavy cloak. Whoever he was he was dangerous, of that there could be no doubt.

Clara began to shake when the man started to move steadily towards her. He wasn’t lunging, as she had expected him to do. Instead, step by firm yet determined step, he was moving closer.

“Who are you? This is a private garden. You are trespassing. Get out of here. Why are you here? What do you want?” she demanded as she began to back away.

When the man replied his voice was gruff. “You.”

Clara forced herself to stop backing away because she realised that he was slowly guiding her further away from the house, her only sanctuary. She contemplated screaming but suspected the wind would stop any noise she made from reaching the women in the house.

Besides, even if I do scream they won’t be able to do anything except place themselves in danger too. I can’t do that to them.

Immediately, Clara’s thoughts turned to Niall. His warning still rang loudly in her ears. Was it one of his colleagues doing as Niall had threatened earlier; scaring her into going home and staying there where she belonged? If so, why was he in her garden and doing it at this time in the evening? Was she not even allowed to get water now?

The more she studied the man before her the more Clara began to suspect he had nothing to do with Niall either. The size and shape of this new stranger, the way he moved, that mumbling voice and stumbling gait, warned her he was nothing to do with the Star Elite. Or was he? Was this man why the Star Elite were in Serpentine?

Clara risked a quick glance down at her only weapon; the bucket in her hand. She held it tighter before looking up at the stranger still advancing toward her.

“Just what is going on here?” she murmured more to herself than to him. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

For each step the man took toward her, Clara was forced to take one more step away from the house. In the back of her mind, she mentally plotted the garden and woods and tried to remember if there were any paths which she could take that would bring her out onto the road, but her mind was blank. Panic had stolen all trace of logic and memory. All she could do was focus on the house over the stranger’s shoulder and try not to cry.