Lies and Misdemeanours (3 page)

Her hands bunched up the material of his jacket as her fingers clenched. She was aware of someone saying something nearby but couldn’t focus her attention on what was said. When she tried to ease away, Charlie’s arms tightened and drew her back against him again. She had no choice but to either make a scene and pull away more forcibly, or settle against him.

He shifted to accommodate her weight and deepened the kiss when she leaned against his heavenly warmth in mute appeal.

She was only vaguely aware that a carriage rolled past and someone called something, but didn’t bother to try to pay them any attention. Every thought, every feeling, every emotion she possessed was focused completely on the man who kissed her with such mastery that she struggled to find the will to draw breath.

Charlie was only vaguely aware that Meldrew had gone, but made no attempt to stop the kiss. He could taste innocence on her lips. It was addictive. The somewhat hesitant way she copied his movements called to something deep within him, and it brought forth a need to protect her at the same time that he had to claim her as his.

He tried to draw away, to remind himself that she wasn’t used to this and he mustn’t frighten her, but made no attempt to stop her when she held his jacket tighter and, in doing so, drew him closer.

“God, Hetty,” he growled when his fevered body began to demand more than circumstance would allow.

His lips nibbled across her chin, and became buried in her lavender scented hair while he willed his body to cool. Inevitably, when he lifted his head to look down at her, the temptation of her mouth was too much to resist, and he was drawn back to the delicious temptation of her mouth.

This time, when his lips settled over hers, Hetty slid her fingers into his hair and copied his caresses with a fierceness that left him unable to deny her anything. His answering groan swept through them both, and left her quivering against the force of desire that raged between them.

Their embrace would have continued undeterred because neither of them hadn’t the strength, or the will, to pull away. However, the sudden slam of the tavern door down the road was like a bucket of cold water over them, and they jerked apart guiltily. The once all-consuming passion suddenly evaporated, but left them both shaken and wanting.

Hetty eased back, and tried to gather her wits about her while she tried to identify the source of the noise.

Charlie tipped his head back so he could gaze up at the sky while he willed his body to cool.

“It’s Wally,” Hetty moaned, unsure what she should think, feel, or do.

She looked at her fingers and, one by one, slowly unfolded them so that she could release her tight hold on his jacket. It was shocking to think that she had been so wanton with this man; a veritable stranger. Her brother knew him better than she did. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“We have to see where this takes us, Hetty,” Charlie whispered urgently when he saw Wally walking toward them. He looked down at her and groaned at the stunned look of wonder in her eyes, but made no attempt to remove his hands from her waist and allow her to draw away.

“Do you really want to?” she asked a little nervously.

She stared at him, amazed by the raw need on his face that was an echo of her own desire. The thought that she, Hetty Jones from Hemsley, had the ability to affect a man like Charlie the way she apparently had left her a little stunned.

Although she wasn’t frightened by what they had just shared, the thought of her brothers’ reaction if they ever found out made her more than a little nervous, and uncertain about the wisdom of allowing Charlie so close again.

After all, he had just said himself that he was only due to stay for another week or two. What future could they have together if he didn’t even live nearby?

“Of course I do,” he assured her. “What do you think the kiss was all about?”

“Well, I thought it was to stop Meldrew from approaching us,” she replied quietly.

Charlie leaned toward her. “Well, if that’s the reason why I kissed you, why didn’t I just release you once they had gone?”

Hetty swallowed and looked at him, but was prevented from having to answer him by Wally, who had a dark frown on his face as he studied first Charlie, then Hetty just a little too intently.

“Everything alright?” He asked casually as he drew to a stop beside them.

Sensing that a confrontation was brewing, Hetty rushed to explain. “Meldrew was here a moment ago. He was at the Carpenter’s again.”

Wally looked at her. “Did he say anything to you?”

Hetty shook her head. “Charlie intervened,” she replied quietly.

“Yes, I saw that.” Wally’s pointed look warned Charlie that they were going to have words as soon as Hetty was gone. Meantime, he gave his sister a pointed look.

“I think that you had better come back to the tavern with me where I can keep an eye on you,” he drawled a little arrogantly. He kept his gaze locked on Charlie while he spoke.

Charlie nodded his acknowledgement of the unspoken warning.

“There is more going on than you realise,” Charlie warned. He winced at his rather poor choice of words when Wally’s brows shot up, and he turned an accusing glare on Hetty.

“What?” her brother demanded querulously.

“Not with Hetty,” Charlie snapped. “God, man; what do you take me for? I mean, with me.” He sighed and shook his head. “Where is Simon?”

“Getting the ales in,” Wally groused. “I came to see what was taking you so long.”

Fed up of the men sizing each other up like a pair of fighting cocks, Hetty glanced down the road at her friend’s house.

“When you two are finished, I am going.” She threw a dark look at Wally. “Try not to get too drunk.”

“You go and get the ales in. I will take Hetty to her friend’s house,” Wally suggested as he sidled past Charlie, and nodded down the street. “Come on, Hetty.”

Hetty opened her mouth to object to Wally’s high-handedness, but caught the wink Charlie gave her before he turned and dutifully sauntered away. She stared after him a little nonplussed, and would have thought that she had imagined the last several moments; if it wasn’t for the fact that her lips still tingled from the force of his kisses.

“There is more to him than meets the eye,” Wally warned as he ambled beside her.

“I know,” Hetty replied somewhat dreamily. She jumped when Wally gasped and glared at her.

“Now, I am not going to stand for any of that wantonness from you, Hetty Jones. You have not been brought up to be that kind of woman.”

“How dare you cast aspersions on my character?” Hetty burst out. The glare she threw at her brother could have blistered stone and, even in the darkness, she watched the tips of his ears turn pink as a somewhat abashed look swept over his face. “I
know
I am not that kind of lady. How dare you suggest otherwise?”

“Charlie is a handsome man, that’s all I am saying. All the tavern wenches think so,” Wally replied somewhat awkwardly.

A surge of jealousy swept through Hetty, and she scowled darkly at the tavern door as it closed behind the man in question.

“I am sure they do, and they can have him with bells on, I am sure,” she snapped in disgust.

“Just don’t let him dally with you, that’s all I am saying.”

“I shall do no such thing Walter Jones,” Hetty snapped in her sternest voice. “How dare you even suggest that I would?”

“I am just saying that he isn’t going to be in the area for long,” Wally sighed. “Just don’t let him use you for amusement while he is here.”

“Amusement? Oh, right, so that’s the only reason why anyone like him would look at me right?” Hetty snorted in disgust as her temper flared at his mention of the one niggling doubt of her own that refused to be ignored.

“No, I am not saying that at all,” Wally sighed in exasperation.

“So? What are you saying? That I am so desperate to snare myself a husband that I would be prepared to dally with the first man who does nothing more than escorts me to my friend’s house when it is dark so that I am safe, and my brothers can continue to prop up the bar?”

As she spoke, her voice rose in volume to the point that she was nearly shouting by the time she lapsed into affronted silence. She folded her arms defensively and watched her brother’s mouth open and close several times.

He glanced furtively around the empty road, as though he rather wished that he
was
propping up the bar.

“We are here,” he grumbled in an attempt to avoid having to answer her. He nodded to the house that was still several feet away, but made no attempt to escort her the rest of the way.

Hetty made a point of looking at the ground they were standing on to the front door of her friend’s house, and sighed – loudly.

“I will see you later,” Wally urged when she made no attempt to move.

“Yes, I shall make my own way home – alone – in the dark, shall I?” she snapped pointedly when Wally turned around and slunk off.

Wally froze, and sighed deeply before he reluctantly turned back to face her. “What time do you want to go home?”

Hetty knew that her brothers were quite prepared to spend the evening supping ale until they were in their cups and barely able to stagger home. However, she was more than a little put out at her brother’s high handed ways, and his poor timing which had interrupted what was the most startling moment of her life.

She wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily.

“About an hour should do it,” she declared spitefully.

She knew that the evening was still relatively early, and Wally would hate having to leave so soon.

She saw the instinctive objection on his face, and lifted her brow defiantly when he opened his mouth to argue with her. Her chin lifted when he sighed deeply and he ran a hand through his hair in frustration. She knew he was trying to think of some argument, but she refused to back down.

“I will come back for you in an hour,” he replied gruffly, with what she was sure was a muffled curse.

“You could always send Charlie,” Hetty called after him. “After all, he does seem to be more of a gentleman than you and Simon put together.”

When Wally stopped but didn’t bother to turn around, she knew that she has pushed him as far as she dare, and turned her back on him with a disgusted huff.

By the time she reached her friend’s front door and lifted her hand to knock, the silence of the main street was broken by the rather fierce slam of the tavern door.

The following morning, Hetty slammed a saucepan onto the kitchen table and threw a dark glare at Wally. He looked sheepishly at her before he returned to polishing the tack with more force than was necessary, but studiously didn’t say a word.

The atmosphere within the kitchen was so thick that it could have been cut with a knife, but Hetty wasn’t about to soften toward him. Not after the debacle of last night.

While he had come back for her as he had said he would, he had been two hours later than planned. She would have forgiven him for his oversight, if it wasn’t for the fact that when he had appeared on her friend’s doorstep he had been such protective help that she had practically ended up carrying him all the way home. Her disgust had been increased only by the fact that there had been no sign of Charlie whom, she had been assured, was still deep in conversation with Simon, who had remained at the tavern to enjoy another ale.

She couldn’t help but wonder what it was with the male of the species who seemed so addicted to the innkeeper’s watered down brew. Whatever it was that he actually served certainly had all of the men in its thrall because they seemed addicted to it.

It was beyond comprehension because the last time she had tasted it she had wondered if he had gotten the keg mixed up with the mop bucket.

Not for the first time that morning, her thoughts turned to Charlie. She wondered where he was and what he was doing. The mere thought of the tavern wenches finding him attractive made her so annoyed with, well, practically everything, that she slammed a plate onto the table beside the saucepan with so much force that it broke into two pieces.

She stared down at the two halves in disgust, and glared once more at Wally before she turned to fetch another one.

It worried her to think about what she had shared with Charlie last night. She knew so little about him that she just wanted to sit down quietly somewhere so she could ask him lots of questions. Unfortunately, with her brother behaving like a bulldog chewing a wasp, it was highly unlikely that was ever going to happen and that seemed to increase her already bad temper.

“I will go and get him up,” Wally grumbled, when Hetty slapped breakfast onto the table with a sniff.

She ignored him and sat down at the table to eat.

Moments later, Wally entered the kitchen with a scowl on his face.

“What?” she snapped.

“He isn’t here,” Wally announced flatly.

“Is he in the sitting room?” Her worry grew when Wally shook his head.

“I have searched the house. He isn’t here.”

Hetty sighed, and threw her buttered bread onto the table before she left the room.

Now that she came to think about it, there had been no caterwauling last night, and nobody had knocked on the door to demand entrance just after midnight.

A cold hand of fear swept down her back as she thought about the carriage full of men who had visited the Carpenter’s house last night, but she immediately dismissed the two as being unconnected. They couldn’t be linked; they just couldn’t be. There was no reason for Meldrew to pester Simon again so soon. He had only been by the mill a couple of days ago to make another financial demand; with menaces.

“He has to be around here somewhere. The innkeeper won’t allow him to sleep at the tavern,” Hetty assured him. “He is probably in the barn again.”

“If he was in his cups, he wouldn’t have been able to make it to Charlie’s lodgings,” Wally sighed.

“Where are his lodgings?” Hetty asked curiously.

“The Dog and Ferret,” Wally replied absently. It was clear from the vague look on his face that he was worried. “I will go and take a look in the barn. You are probably right. He is just in the barn, that’s all.”

He didn’t wait for her to answer, and disappeared out of the kitchen door without a backward look.

Hetty watched him go, and only then realised that she didn’t even know Charlie’s surname. A flush of shame tainted her cheeks as she remembered the steamy embrace she had shared with him last night. Remorse for her wantonness suddenly swept through her with sufficient force that she stared at her breakfast in disgust before she wrinkled her nose up and shoved it to one side. To kiss anybody the way she had kissed Charlie was a scandal in its own right, but to do so with a man whose surname she didn’t know was shockingly bad.

Her anger at Wally suddenly evaporated, and was quickly replaced with regret.

She could understand his cautionary words now because essentially, he was right. Although she was attracted to Charlie, she hardly knew the man and had no business encouraging his affections. Especially since he had made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t staying in the area for long.

“Should we go and check Charlie’s lodgings, just in case they had gone to the Dog and Ferret because it’s closer?” Hetty suggested once Wally had completed a walk down the driveway and checked the road that led to the village, but had found no trace of their brother.

“I doubt that they would have made it all the way over to the other tavern, Hetty. It’s right on the other side of the village,” Wally sighed.

“We don’t know if they were drunk though. I mean, what is to say that they didn’t just decide to go to Charlie’s lodgings to play dominos or something?” She countered.

She tried to reassure herself that there was nothing amiss. Simon had probably fallen asleep somewhere, and would stumble home in a couple of hours looking like he had spent the night beneath a hedge. She would have believed it as well, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was highly unusual for him not to come home at all.

“He is stopping at the Dog and Ferret,” Wally replied thoughtfully.

“Why don’t we go to the Dog and Ferret?” Hetty suggested enthusiastically. “If Charlie is there, he may be able to tell us where Simon is.”

Although she was as worried about Simon as Wally was, she was also concerned for Charlie’s welfare, and needed to see with her own eyes that he too was alright.

Wally considered that for a moment; then nodded. “Let’s go.”

Worried silence accompanied them on their journey to Charlie’s lodgings. Wally helped her down from the cart almost absently. They both looked worriedly at the windows above the front door for several moments before they made their way inside and went in search of the innkeeper.

“Have you not heard?” the man gawped at them. “He was taken to prison last night. Frederick Blagmire was murdered last night. Shot right through the heart in the woods near to the mill. Another man was with him. I think it was that man we have upstairs; Charlie something or other. They were caught red-handed they were; standing right over the body, so I hear.”

Hetty went cold all over and stared in horror at the innkeeper while she tried to absorb his words.

“Simon,” she whispered dully. “My brother Simon.”

The innkeeper looked regretful. “I am sorry, I thought you knew. It’s all over the village. Everyone’s talking about it.”

Hetty watched the innkeeper’s mouth move but couldn’t bring herself to respond. What could she say? She felt Wally shift uncomfortably beside her and turned to look at him. The worry on his face almost made her cry and, for a moment, she felt the world swim around her alarmingly.

“Are you sure it’s Simon?” Hetty demanded with a frown. Her defiant look almost challenged the innkeeper to deny it. To her horror he merely looked apologetic.

“Unless the gossips have it wrong, it’s him. I checked his room this morning and he isn’t there, so I can only assume that it’s him.”

“His name is Charlie,” Hetty told the innkeeper. Her stomach dropped when he nodded.

“Aye, that’s the one. Tall bloke with dark brown hair and grey eyes.”

Hetty nodded, and felt a pang of longing so deep that her hands began to tremble.

“I have seen him with your brother a time or two,” the innkeeper declared. “They drank here a few times.”

“They are friends,” Hetty assured him.

The innkeeper nodded.

“Is Charlie’s horse still here?” Wally asked with a frown.

The innkeeper threw them a cautionary look. “Yes, but I don’t see what use it is going to be to him now. You know how ruthless Meldrew is. He will have them swinging from the gallows within days.”

Hetty shivered. “Are you sure it was him? Charlie?” she gasped, unable to believe that someone as passionate and gentle, and as ruggedly handsome as Charlie, was a cold-blooded killer.

“Go and see his room for yourself, if you don’t believe me,” the innkeeper shrugged.

“We will do,” Wally sighed.

He and took the key off the man and escorted Hetty upstairs.

Although she knew that the innkeeper was right, she still hoped that he had his facts wrong, and they would find Charlie tucked up safely in bed with Simon in a chair next to the fire.

Wally pushed the door open, and took a quick glance into the room before he stood back to allow Hetty in first. She glanced up as she passed but knew, even before she looked inside, that the room was empty.

It smelled of the soap Charlie used, and brought forth a wave of emotion that was so intense that Hetty struggled to breathe beneath the force of it. She wandered aimlessly into the room and studied the neatly made bed. A shirt lay haphazardly draped over one of the bedposts but, apart from that, the room looked like nobody had been there for days.

“Damn,” Wally growled as he studied the empty room.

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” her brother sighed.

Hetty spied a bag beneath the bed and bent down to pick it up.

“What are you doing?” Wally scowled when she began to search through drawers.

“If the innkeeper is right, he will want to let the room out again. We need to take Charlie’s possessions with us. He can fetch them from ours when he re-appears.”

When Wally didn’t object, Hetty began to empty the drawers of Charlie’s possessions. Wally helped but there were really very few personal belongings there, and it didn’t take long to put everything into the bag.

“There isn’t much, is there?” Hetty sighed as she placed the bag on the bed.

“He is only a visitor to these parts though, Hetty,” Wally reminded her. He nodded to the bag. “We will keep his things with us until we can find out what is going on.”

“Wally?” Hetty called when she opened a drawer up beside the bed and found a large gun nestled inside.

“Now, what would he need that for?” Wally murmured with a scowl as he studied the wicked object.

“I don’t know, but didn’t the innkeeper say that Blagmire had been shot?” Hetty asked.

She knew deep inside that Charlie was innocent, and the presence of the gun inside the drawer just seemed to prove it.

“Let’s search this place properly,” Wally growled. “We are going to have to take that with us too,” he added as he nodded to the gun.

When Hetty merely stared the gun blankly, Wally reached around her and placed it carefully into the bag in front of them. Once the room had been searched once more, they made their way downstairs.

“We will take his horse with us,” Wally told the innkeeper, who nodded somewhat solemnly.

“Aye, that’s fine with me. Given your brother is his friend, I am sure you will know what to do with it. I’ll show you where it is,” the innkeeper said, and led Wally to the stables around the back.

“Let’s go home,” Wally growled. He climbed aboard, having tied Charlie’s horse to the back. His shoulders were stooped with worry, and his frown was deep as he took a seat beside her on the bench. He nodded toward the rather sympathetic innkeeper, who nodded solemnly at them as they left, but nobody spoke.

“Why are we not going to Derby?” Hetty said firmly as Wally turned the cart toward home. “We need to go to the jail to explain that this has all been a terrible misunderstanding.”

Wally looked at her. “We need to leave this gun at home, along with Charlie’s horse. We can’t take them with us to the jail. We can go to Derby from there, and see what we can find out about them,” he replied calmly. “I just hope to God the man he was caught with wasn’t Simon.”

“He isn’t here,” Hetty replied tearfully when the mill house and outbuildings had been searched, but found to be disappointingly empty.

Wally sighed, and threw Hetty a dour look. “We have to go and find them then.”

Hetty nodded. They both knew what he meant. Meldrew had struck again. The consequences to Simon, and the family, if their brother was being held captive in jail this morning didn’t bear thinking about.

At that moment, she was too afraid to speak. Too afraid to think or even feel anything because she knew that when the realisation did sink in that Simon was at the mercy of one of the county’s most ruthless men, hysteria would not be far behind.

The dark, almost macabre walls of Derby jail sat amongst assorted buildings in the town centre like a panther waiting for its prey. Its dark and dingy stonework was interrupted only by the narrow slits of heavily barred windows which let only the minimal sliver of daylight in to the helpless individuals inside.