Oliver’s fist caught him in the solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs and doubling him over. A second blow to the temple and the man collapsed. Oliver caught him, dragging him back into the room and lowering him to the floor. Not dead—he hadn’t hit hard enough for that—but unconscious for a while.
Oliver bound and gagged him, then moved to the grand staircase.
The second floor was quieter. Darker. Most of the servants would be asleep in their attic quarters. Oliver counted doors, matching them to Mrs. Griffiths’s description. Third door on the right. Eastern side.
The door was locked, but the lock was simple—designed to keep someone in, not to keep skilled intruders out. Oliver had it open in less than a minute, slipping inside and closing it softly behind him.
The room was everything Mrs. Griffiths had described. Luxurious, beautiful, a cage dressed in silk and velvet. Fine furniture, expensive draperies, a four-poster bed with embroidered hangings.
And sitting in a chair by the window was Megan.
Oliver’s heart stopped.
He’d seen her from a distance through the spyglass. Had thought himself prepared. But nothing—not the surveillance, not Mrs. Griffiths’s descriptions, not his own imagination—had prepared him for the visceral punch of seeing her up close.
She was exquisite. Not in the painted, artificial way of London courtesans, but with a natural beauty that hit him like a fist to the sternum. Fair hair fell in soft waves past her shoulders, catching the lamplight. Her face—God, that face—belonged in a Renaissance painting. High cheekbones, full pink lips, skin like cream despite years of captivity. She wore asimple dress of deep green wool that made her look like some forest nymph caught in a hunter’s trap.
And her eyes. Those extraordinary eyes Mrs. Griffiths had mentioned, leaf-green flecked with gold, lifted to meet his.
She froze.
Not screaming panic. Not shocked surprise. Just frozen terror. The instinctive stillness of prey that’s learned sudden movements bring pain. The response of someone accustomed to threats, to unexpected intrusions, to violations of her space and her person.
Oliver’s chest tightened with a rage so intense it nearly choked him.This is what he’s done to her. Reduced her to this. Beautiful and terrified and trapped.
But beneath the rage, something darker stirred. Desire, immediate and unwelcome, coiling hot in his belly. He wanted her. Wanted to cross this room and touch that perfect skin, taste those lips, bury his hands in that luscious hair. The thought rose unbidden and left him sick with self-loathing.
Christ. She’s a victim, and you’re standing here lusting after her like some rutting animal.
In that moment, he was no better than Penharrow, seeing her, wanting her, and he hated himself for it even as his body refused to stop responding to her proximity. This woman had been violated, broken, kept like a possession. She deserved rescue, protection, justice. Not another man looking at her with hunger in his eyes.
And yet he couldn’t stop.
She was looking at him now, those remarkable eyes wide with terror, and Oliver felt the full weight of what he’d planned to do. He’d come here to use her, take her as bait, as witness, as a weapon against Penharrow. He’d told himself it was rescue, but it was manipulation. He wanted to use her beauty, her testimony, her trauma, as tools for his revenge.
The realization made him feel dirty.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Oliver said quietly, keeping his distance even as everything in him wanted to move closer. He forced his hands to stay visible, away from his weapons, trying to appear less threatening despite the weapons at his belt and the scarf concealing half his face.
In the lamplight, she was even more devastating than she’d appeared from afar. That extraordinary face tilted toward him, lamplight gilding her skin, making her look both ethereal and heartbreakingly real. He had to dig his fingernails into his palms to keep from reaching for her.
Focus. She’s not yours to want. She’s a mission. A witness. A victim who needs help.
But his body cared nothing about noble intentions. It only registered the curve of her throat, the rise and fall of her breathing, the way her lips parted slightly in fear. He imagined covering that mouth with his, swallowing her gasps, feeling her melt against him?—
No.
Oliver savagely crushed the thought. This was Penharrow’s doing too. This unwanted desire was what the Earl had cultivated in her, had used to justify keeping her. Every man who looked at Megan and saw only her beauty perpetuated what Penharrow had done. She was a person, not an object of lust.
Even if his body hadn’t received that message.
“I’m taking you away from here,” he managed, his voice rougher than he’d intended.
“Mrs. Griffiths told me men who are obviously mad, were coming to rescue me,” she whispered, and her voice, God, even her voice, was perfect, low and slightly husky as if she didn’t use it often. “He’ll kill us both.”
The sound of it went through him like lightning.
“The Earl of Penharrow is in London,” he forced out, trying to focus on the mission instead of the way lamplight caught inher hair. “By the time he discovers you’re gone, you’ll be beyond his reach.”
