She looked at him the way a drowning person looks at shore. With hope and desperation and the bone-deep knowledge that rescue might be impossible. She searched his face with an intensity that felt almost physical, and he wondered what she saw. A rescuer? Another captor? Another man who looked at her and saw someone to possess?
“Who are you?” she asked, and the simple question carried such weight.
Oliver knew his answer mattered. Knew that he could choose to be better than he’d planned. Better than his base desires. Better than Penharrow.
He wouldn’t tell her his title. Penharrow was an Earl and why should she trust another peer? “Someone who’s going to see that monster answer for his crimes,” he said, and meant it with every fiber of his being. Let her think it was about justice. Let her think he was noble. He’d burn in hell for his actual thoughts, for the way his body responded to her presence, for the way he wanted her even as he hated himself for wanting her.
He took another careful step forward, watching her reaction, fighting to keep his hands steady. “You’re coming with me. You can walk, or I’ll carry you, but we’re leaving, now.”
The thought of carrying her, of her body pressed against his, her arms around his neck, sent another unwanted jolt of desire through him. Oliver shoved it down viciously.
She’s not yours. She’s not anyone’s. She’s a person who deserves better than your lust or Penharrow’s obsession.
He expected resistance. Expected her to scream, to refuse, to cling to the familiar horror of captivity rather than trust a stranger who’d broken into her room in the middle of the night.
But Megan surprised him.
She stood with surprising swiftness, and grabbed a heavy cloak, and a small saddlebag from a hook by the window. Themovement made her dress shift, revealing the curve of her waist, and Oliver had to close his eyes briefly against the wave of want that crashed over him.
Stop. Stop seeing her as a woman to desire and start seeing her as a person to save.
“Anything is better than staying here,” she said, quiet resignation in her voice. “But I warn you. He’ll hunt us like prey. We won’t be safe over the border either.”
The words struck Oliver harder than any accusation could have. She had no idea who he was, his title or anything. This woman had given up hope. Had stopped believing in rescue. And yet here she was, taking a desperate chance with a complete stranger because any chance was better than none.
The trust implicit in that choice humbled him. Made his earlier thoughts—his base, physical reactions—seem even more shameful.
She chose to trust him. The least he could do was be worthy of that trust.
Even if his body still burned. Even if he still wanted her with an intensity that made him sick. Even if part of him was still planning how to use her testimony to destroy Penharrow.
“I’ll keep you safe. You’ll learn I never lie,” Oliver said, and it was the truth he could give her. Even if he was lying to himself about his motivations. “Can you ride?”
“No. I wasn’t allowed to learn. I wonder why?” she added with bitter sarcasm.
Of course. Penharrow had kept her dependent, unable to escape. The confirmation of how thoroughly she’d been controlled sent fresh rage through Oliver’s veins, rage that warred with the unwanted image of her riding behind him, her body pressed against his back, her arms around his waist.
“Bugger. You’ll have to ride with me and that might slow us down.” He forced the words out evenly, not letting her hear the conflict raging inside him. “We have horses waiting, but weneed to move quickly and quietly. The guard downstairs is unconscious, but he won’t stay that way forever. And there are exterior guards?—”
A shot rang out from somewhere below, shattering the night’s silence.
Oliver swore. Webb must have been discovered. Or one of the exterior guards had spotted something.
“Change of plans,” he said, and did what he’d been wanting to do since entering this room, he grabbed Megan’s hand.
The contact was electric. Her fingers were small in his, cold even through her woolen mittens, yet the touch sent heat racing up his arm. She was real, warm, alive, not a distant figure seen through his spyglass but a flesh-and-blood woman whose hand fit perfectly in his.
Oliver hated how right it felt. Hated how much he wanted to never let go.
“We run,” he finished, pulling her toward the door.
And tried not to think about how Penharrow had touched this same hand. How the Earl had possessed every part of her. How Oliver himself was just another man using her, even if he told himself his purposes were noble.
Even if part of him already knew that somewhere between breaking into this room and feeling her hand in his, his careful plans for revenge had become infinitely more complicated.
Because he didn’t only want to use her testimony.
He wanted her. All of her. In ways that made him no better than the monster they were fleeing.
