Captive Surrender (30 page)

Stephen managed to ease
Robbie’s hold on him enough to bend down to peer into the young
lad’s face. “Are you going to help us? We need you to light the
way. Let’s get this oaf downstairs, in the darkest dungeon we can
find. He can stay there until Rufus and his men come for
him.”

Robbie nodded and offered
him a weak smile. The boy’s fear was written on his pale face, but
there was little Stephen could do.

Half an hour later, with
Rousseau tied more firmly to the chair in the darkest corner of the
cellars, they hurriedly left the house. Once outside, Stephen
placed a reassuring hand on the boy’s bony shoulder and motioned to
him to remain quiet. The grounds were still and silent; only the
occasional hoot of an owl could be heard somewhere off in the
distance. Reassured that they weren’t going to be challenged at
all, they wasted no time and left Dinnington far behind.

Robbie still had tears on
his face when they reached the back door of Cragdale. “Prudence is
going to kill me for what you have seen today,” Stephen sighed, and
rubbed a weary hand down his face as he thought of the roasting she
would undoubtedly give him.

“
I won’t tell
her,” Robbie replied hesitantly.

Harry offered him a
rueful smile. “You might not, but I certainly will. Your sisters
need to know what you have been through tonight, and you can tell
them how you helped to capture one of England’s most wanted
criminals.”

“
Most wanted
criminals?” Robbie gasped. His eyes popped wide with surprise and
he glanced from Stephen to Harry, with a look of awe on his face.
“Really?”

“
Really,”
Stephen replied ruefully. He got no further opportunity to speak
for the next several moments, because the door was yanked open and
Prudence appeared, bathed in a halo of light.

“
Where in the
hell have you been?” she demanded at the same time as she hauled
the young boy into her arms and gave him a huge hug. She had barely
released him before he was swept into the house by a clearly shaken
Eloisa, who dragged him to sit before the fire.

Prudence remained where
she was and turned her attention to Stephen. Her heart pounded in
her chest at the wonderful sight of him standing in the dim light
of the hallway. Oblivious to Harry’s presence, she launched herself
into Stephen’s arms and gave him the biggest hug she could
manage.

“
You are
hurt,” she gasped at the sight of the smears of blood on his shirt,
and began to pat him randomly across his chest in search of a
wound.

He futilely tried to
capture her hands while he stepped aside, mindful of the fact that
Harry still stood on the doorstep. He shook his head at his
colleague’s smirk but was too touched by her open display of fear
and worry for him to really care what anyone thought. “I am fine,
really. It isn’t my blood.” He managed to capture at least one of
her hands, and it was enough for him to haul her into his arms for
a proper kiss.

Several moments later,
Prudence found herself released again just as quickly and had to
take a moment to try to gather her scattered wits about her. Did he
say that he hadn’t been hurt? Her eyes flew over him, from the top
of his head to the tip of his toes. There were faint smears of
blood on him, but no evidence of any injury. She looked askance at
him and crossed her arms as she waited.

“
Come into
the sitting room and I will tell you.” He needed to tell Rufus
anyway and, from the mulish look on Prudence’s face, knew that she
would continue to pester him until she knew everything. He could
try to spare her blushes, but he didn’t want to start their married
life with any kind of secrecy between them. She needed to know just
how dangerous his job could be sometimes, and just what kind of
people the Star Elite dealt with.

Over the next hour, he
and Harry described what had happened, ably assisted by a suddenly
communicative Robbie. Now that he was in the safety of his own
home, his initial fear had subsided, and he was more or less back
to his usual chatty self. It was a relief to see the light back in
the boy’s eyes and the colour return to his cheeks.

When Harry had finished
where they had left Rousseau, Rufus nodded and headed toward the
door. “I will go and round up my men. I think that we will leave
him at Dinnington for the time being and move him in the morning.
My men can keep an eye on him. If any of his thugs appear, we will
arrest them too.”

“
We have no
idea what happened to the rest of the employees,” Harry replied,
and gave Rufus a pointed look. “They may have disappeared, but they
may still be waiting somewhere for further
instructions.”

“
Don’t worry,
I am sure that if they are there my men will find them.” He didn’t
add that at least two of his most trusted men were old employees
from Dinnington, and knew the estate like the back of their hands.
If the thus Rousseau had employed were anywhere nearby, his men
would know where to find them.

Relieved to be able to
have such unquestionable support from the magistrate, Stephen sat
back in his chair and glanced at the sheaf of papers Robbie held
out to him.

“
What are
those?” Stephen frowned as he took them off him. When he had
entered the room he had made sure that Prudence sat as close beside
him as was possible and had savoured her reassuring warmth beside
him. He removed his arm from around her shoulders and leaned
forward to study the papers in his hand.

“
I took them
off the table while you carried Rousseau toward the door. I didn’t
know if any of the men were outside and didn’t want to risk that
they would be taken before you could get a good look at them. The
man who got killed was looking for something in them. I thought you
might know what it was.”

Stephen was stunned and
flicked at glance at Harry, who chuckled and ruffled the boy’s hair
affectionately. “Good God, Robbie, we could do with you on our
team,” Harry chortled and looked at the boy with pride.

Robbie preened at his own
cleverness being recognised by someone like Harry and puffed his
chest out importantly.

Stephen studied the
papers with a mixture of shock and horror that was rapidly followed
by relief. “Jesus,” he whispered, and flicked page after
page.

“
What is it?”
Prudence demanded when she couldn’t stand the suspense any more.
Even Harry looked impatient to know what Stephen was looking
at.

“
Here, take a
look for yourself,” he murmured and handed Prudence several of the
papers.

She gasped as she studied
the ownership deeds to Cragdale Manor. She went cold all over and
felt her hands begin to shake as her mind tried to grasp the fact
that the papers she held were the deeds to Cragdale Manor. She
flicked one of the pages and stared in horror at her uncle’s
signature.

“
He sold
Cragdale,” she whispered, and felt the sting of tears that she
couldn’t bring herself to blink away. A heavy silence settled over
the room.

“
Sold it?”
Eloisa repeated weakly. “To Levant?”

Prudence shook her head.
“Uncle Bernard has sold Cragdale Manor to someone called Charles
Taylor,” she shook the paper in an attempt to get her blurry eyes
to focus on the scrawl. “According to this, about a week ago.” Her
voice trailed off to a husky whisper.

“
It is fine,”
Stephen assured her.

Prudence stared at him.
“How can you say this is fine?” She demanded, her voice rising. “He
has sold the family home.”

“
Who is
Charles Taylor?” Eloisa’s voice was full of tears.

“
He was
Levant’s man of business,” Stephen replied gently. “The tall man
who paid the threatening visits with Levant, but never
spoke.”

“
But Taylor
and Levant are dead now,” Prudence gulped, unsure what this meant
for the family. “So who owns the house we live in?”

“
Right now?
His Majesty, I think. The house was purchased by a traitor to
England, and a dead one at that. My boss, Sir Hugo, will sort out
ownership.” He glanced ruefully at Harry before he turned a smile
on Prudence. “Hugo will be more than sympathetic to your situation
and will ensure that the house is turned over to you.”

He knew that his own
offer for the house had been made too late, but all was not lost.
As soon as he explained to Sir Hugo that his offer had been more
personal than official, he was certain that the head of the Star
Elite would ensure that the house remained in the
family.

“
But how? I
mean, we haven’t purchased it.”

“
There are
ways and means, Prudence,” Stephen replied smugly. “There are ways
and means.”

He started to laugh when,
for the second time that evening, Prudence threw herself at him and
hugged the life out of him. In spite of the teasing and laughter
from Robbie and her sisters, he swept his arms around her and drew
her into a hug.

He was tired, hungry and,
in spite of all of his years with the Star Elite, more than a
little shaken at the memory of seeing Robbie tied helplessly to a
chair but he wouldn’t have changed this precious moment for a
second.

While everyone in the
room chattered around him, he sat back and simply absorbed the
noise while he contemplated life. He had spent many years fighting,
first for king and country with the army, before being conscripted
into the specialist unit of fighters who were sent to carry out
tasks that no otherwise reputable man would consider getting
involved in. In the five or so years since had been with the Star
Elite, he had seen things and done things that he would much rather
forget. Throughout all of that, he had considered himself to be
comfortable in his own skin. He was a man of the world who knew
what he was and who he was, and was proud of what he had achieved
in his nine and twenty years. He had never once considered himself
to be short of anything he considered important and had been
satisfied with his lot in life. That is, until Prudence and her
family had landed in the middle of his life and caused
carnage.

Now, he had an entirely
different future mapped out for him; one that he hadn’t even
considered possible before, and it included a complete family. He
glanced around at Prudence, Eloisa, Madeline, Margaret and
Georgiana before he turned his attention to their young brother,
Robbie. The Freestone family had endured far more than any young
group of people should, but had faced the hardships together, with
a determination to protect, guide and help each other. That
willingness to unquestioningly support their loved ones while
asking nothing in return had humbled not only him, but his
colleagues, Marcus and Harry. Their home, as impoverished as it
might be, had belonged to someone else, but they had still looked
after it with a diligence that should have shamed their uncle into
at least being fair with them in return.

As it was, Stephen had no
doubts about committing the rest of his life to helping them return
the house to its former glory, and was looking forward to the day
when he could call Prudence his wife, and wouldn’t have to sneak
about the house at the crack of dawn to avoid detection. He shared
a smile with Prudence and drew her closer so that he could kiss her
forehead. Whatever the future held in store for them, Cragdale
Manor was home to all of them, and would always remain that
way.

Prudence sighed with
contentment. She cast a furtive glance at the clock and wondered
what he had done to her. At one point in her life she would never
have considered being so openly affectionate with any man,
especially one who only a few short weeks ago had considered the
enemy. Now, here she was, through his patience and loving
gentleness, betrothed to him with the prospect of being married in
only a few short weeks.

When they had returned
from the beach earlier, he had made it perfectly clear that he
would accept no delay in getting married, and would not leave to
meet with his boss in London until she was his wife. Then he would
meet with Sir Hugo, and discuss his future with the Star Elite,
before he returned to Cragdale to make arrangements for the first
round of repairs to the house. After a rather sensual bout of love
making that still had the ability to bring a blush to her cheeks,
they had talked through many issues, not least the rather touchy
subject of Agatha. Prudence had finally relented enough to allow
Stephen to arrange for a doctor from London to visit and examine
Agatha’s mental health. At which point they agreed that as a
family, they would decide the best course of action to take with
her.

Whatever happened in the
future, Prudence knew that with a man like Stephen by her side, she
would be happy, protected, safe and loved, and she in turn would
make sure that wherever his work took him, he would always have a
place he could call home, and someone there who loved him with all
of her heart.

Life didn’t get any
better than that.

The End.

BOOKS BY
REBECCA KING

Further
details on all of Rebecca’s books can be found on her
website:

Rebeccaking-author.co.uk