“Movement,” Webb murmured beside him. “South garden.”
Oliver shifted his spyglass and his breath caught.
Megan.
At this distance, even through the lens of the spyglass, her beauty was arresting. She walked alone in what appeared to be a kitchen garden, wrapped in a forest-green cloak that made her fair hair stand out in sharp contrast. She moved slowly, touching the early winter flowers with careful fingers, her face turned toward the weak sunlight filtering through the clouds.
Oliver adjusted the spyglass, bringing her face into sharper focus. Mrs. Griffiths had described her as beautiful, but that word felt inadequate. She had the kind of beauty that didn’t rely on paint or artifice with high cheekbones, a full mouth, and skin that glowed in the gray November light.
She looked at the flowers, the sky, the surrounding mountains, with the yearning of someone who’d been caged for too long. She reminded him of prisoners of war he’d seen, men who’d spent months in French dungeons and emerged blinking into sunlight they’d thought never to see again.
“That’s her?” Webb asked quietly.
“That must be Megan, yes.”
They watched as she knelt beside a patch of early crocuses, her fingers gentle on the delicate blooms. There was something almost ritualistic about the way she touched them, as if this small act of connection to living things was precious, sacred.
A guard appeared from around the corner of the lodge—one of the four Oliver had been cataloging. The man didn’t approach Megan directly, but his presence was clear. Watching. Waiting. Ensuring she didn’t stray beyond her permitted boundaries.
Megan glanced at the guard, and even from a distance, Oliver could see her expression change. The longing vanished, replaced by carefully constructed serenity. A mask, he realized. She wore a mask of calm acceptance, hiding whatever she truly felt beneath a veneer of compliance.
He’d seen that before too. Prisoners who learned to hide their thoughts, their plans, their hatred, because showing any ofit meant punishment. The realization made his rage at Penharrow crystallize into something harder, colder.
This woman wasn’t a willing mistress. She was a prisoner who’d learned to survive by pretending to be content.
“She’s a captive,” Webb said, echoing Oliver’s thoughts. “Mrs. Griffiths was right.”
“Yes.” Oliver lowered the spyglass. “Which means this isn’t just about James anymore. This is about freeing her from a monster.”
They withdrew deeper into the trees before speaking further. Two days of surveillance had taught them the guards’ patrol patterns, but Oliver wasn’t taking chances.
“Tonight?” Webb asked once they were safely out of sight of the lodge.
Oliver considered. The new moon was in two days and darker skies at night were ideal for infiltration, but every day they waited was another day Megan spent in that cage, another day that Penharrow might return early from London.
“Tonight,” he agreed. “We’ll approach from the north, the way we’ve been watching from. There’s minimal cover on the other approaches, but the northern forest comes within fifty yards of the lodge. We infiltrate at midnight, when only one guard is on duty inside. Webb, you’ll handle the exterior guards. I’ll go in for Megan.”
“If she resists?”
“I’ll carry her out if necessary, but I don’t think she’ll resist.” Oliver thought of that expression of longing he’d seen on her face. “I think she’s been waiting for someone to help her escape. She just didn’t know anyone would come.”
They spent the rest of the day preparing. Oliver had brought rope, dark clothing, the compact pistols Webb had acquired in London. They reviewed the lodge’s layout based on Mrs. Griffiths’s descriptions and their own observations. Megan’s rooms were on the second floor, eastern side. Two windows, bothbarred, so they would have to come out through the house which was more dangerous, but Mrs. Griffth said none of the inside staff would stop them.
As evening fell, they made camp in the forest, building no fire, eating cold rations, speaking in whispers. Oliver cleaned and loaded his pistols with methodical precision, his hands steady despite the tension coiling in his gut. This was familiar territory; the hours before action, the careful preparation, the forced calm.
He’d done this countless times during the war. The difference was that then, he’d fought for king and country, following orders, part of a larger machine. This was personal. This was for James, and for a woman he’d never met, and for the principle that monsters like Penharrow shouldn’t be allowed to operate with impunity.
“You should rest, my lord,” Webb suggested as full darkness fell. “I’ll take first watch.”
Oliver wanted to argue, but Webb was right. He needed to be sharp for what came next. He wrapped himself in his cloak and lay back against a tree, closing his eyes.
Sleep didn’t come. Instead, his mind kept returning to Megan’s face, that expression of longing, the careful mask she’d constructed to survive. He thought about what Mrs. Griffiths had told him. A child, stolen and cared for only to eventually be violated by a man who saw her as property. Years of captivity, of attempts to escape that ended in punishment and death for those who tried to help her.
What would that do to a person? Would she recover from such trauma? Or would she be broken forever, scarred in ways that never healed?
And who were her family? Could he find them?
It doesn’t matter, Oliver told himself. Your job is to free her, not to fix her.
