PROLOGUE
Penharrow’s Hunting Lodge, Welsh Marches - March 1813
The early spring crocuses were the first sign of hope Megan had seen in weeks. She knelt in the cold earth of the kitchen garden, her fingers working carefully around the delicate purple blooms, and allowed herself to imagine, just for a moment, that she was somewhere else. Someone else.
A woman who chose to garden because she enjoyed it, not because it was the only time she was permitted outside her gilded cage.
“Miss Megan.”
The voice shattered the illusion. Megan didn’t look up immediately, taking a moment to compose her face into the careful mask of serenity she’d perfected over the years. Only then did she turn to see Mrs. Griffiths, the housekeeper, standing at the edge of the garden path. The older woman’s expression was apologetic, but her posture was rigid with the knowledge that she was being watched.
They were always watched.
“Yes, Mrs. Griffiths?”
“A message, Miss Megan. From His Lordship.” The housekeeper extended a folded piece of paper, sealed with Penharrow’s crest—a raven clutching a bleeding heart. How fitting, Megan thought bitterly, that he’d chosen such a crest.
She rose slowly, brushing dirt from her hands, aware of the guard standing near the garden gate. Thomas, the younger one, who sometimes looked at her with pity before remembering himself and glancing away. Not that pity helped her. Pity never helped anyone.
Megan looked at the note, and her heart had already begun its familiar, sickening descent into dread. Penharrow was in London. He’d been in London for nearly four weeks. The hunting lodge had been blessedly quiet, and she’d begun to hope—foolishly, always foolishly—that perhaps he’d found some new interest to occupy him. Some new woman to torment.
“You’ll have to read it for me.” She hated how Penharrow forbade her to learn to read and write.
Mrs. Griffiths read it for her.
My dearest Megan,
I find London unutterably dull without your company. I shall return this evening and expect to find you properly prepared for my arrival. Bathe thoroughly. Wear the green silk—you know the one. Leave your hair loose. I shall come to your rooms at nine o’clock.
Do not disappoint me.
Yours always,P.
The words were polite, almost tender, if one didn’t know better. But Megan knew better. She knew what each carefully chosen phrase meant.Properly preparedmeant scrubbed until her skin was raw, scented with the perfume he preferred, every hair plucked and every imperfection concealed.The green silkwas the nightgown he’d had made for her last year, so sheer it might as well not exist.Do not disappoint mewas a threat dressed in courteous language.
And she knew, with the certainty born of fourteen years in his keeping, exactly what would happen at nine o’clock.
“Shall I prepare your bath, my lady?” Mrs. Griffiths asked quietly as she crumpled the missive in her fist. The housekeeper’s eyes held that same helpless pity Megan had learned to despise. Pity changed nothing. Pity was the luxury of those who could walk away.
“Yes, thank you.” Megan said as she fought the tears. She’d shed enough tears over that man, and he would not make her shed more. “I’ll come in shortly.”
Mrs. Griffiths hesitated, then dropped a curtsy and retreated toward the house. Thomas, the guard, remained at his post, his hand resting on the pistol at his belt. Not that Megan would run. Where would she go? They were miles from the nearest village, deeper still into the wild Welsh mountains. She’d tried running before.
She’d learned.
Megan turned back to her crocuses, kneeling once more in the dirt. Her hands trembled slightly as she touched the delicate petals, and she forced herself to breathe slowly, evenly. Panic helped nothing. Tears helped nothing. She’d cried all her tears years ago.
How had she come to this?
The question was almost laughable in its futility. She knew exactly how she’d come to this. She could trace the path as clearly as the network of roots beneath the soil.
She’d been seven years old at a village fair, clutching her nurse’s hand, delighted by the ribbons and the music and the honey cakes. And then a handsome man had smiled at her, offered her an apple, and when her nurse turned away for just a moment?—
Gone.
She remembered the carriage ride, the way the handsome man’s smile had turned cold when she’d cried for her mama.She remembered arriving at this very house, being told her name was Megan now, that her old life was gone, that she belonged to the Earl of Penharrow, and she’d better learn to be grateful.
For years, he’d kept her like a doll. Dressed her in fine clothes, had her taught deportment and how to play the pianoforte, but she had never been allowed to learn her letters. She knew now it was so she could not use notes to ask for help. He’d given her toys and trinkets and told her she was his special girl, his treasure, the daughter he’d never had.
