“At Saxton Castle.”
“You’ll be safe here. My uncle?—”
“Your uncle made a very polished attempt to suggest that my continued presence here represents an inconvenience to the family’s standing.” She watched Oliver’s jaw tighten and felt a flicker of satisfaction at it. “Don’t worry, I handled him, and he told me I was welcome here as long as I liked, but I want to be clear about what I’m saying, which is not that I’m concerned about your uncle’s hospitality. The castle is beautiful. The staff are kind. The food is extraordinary.” She paused. “But I am not safe here without you.”
Oliver’s eyes met hers.
“The guards?—”
“Are not you.” She heard how that sounded and kept going anyway, because she had learned in the last week that honestywith Oliver was the only currency that actually worked. “When you are here, I believe it will be all right. That is not something I can say about six men I don’t know standing at the gate. I have spent fourteen years learning to measure my safety by a single variable, and that variable is how close or how far the danger is from me. Penharrow is not in this room, and so I am safe. You are in this room, and so I am safe. Take yourself to London and those two things are no longer both true.”
Oliver was quiet for a moment. She could see him working through it, the careful, methodical consideration he gave to everything, and she waited.
“No,” he said at last.
“Oliver—”
“I’ve considered it. The answer is no. Traveling with you is too dangerous. I can’t protect you.”
Her spine straightened. “You’ve considered it. In the five seconds since I raised it.”
“I’ve been considering it since before you came down to breakfast.” He held her gaze without any discomfort whatsoever. “You are safer here than you would be on the road to London. The journey itself is a risk. London is a risk. Everything I need to do in the city requires me to move quickly and without constraint, which is considerably harder to manage if I’m simultaneously managing your safety. And Penharrow’s reach extends to London. He has acquaintances there, people who would recognize you or report your presence if we were seen together in public.” He picked up his coffee again with infuriating composure. “You stay here. I will be gone no longer than a fortnight, likely less.”
“A fortnight.”
“Perhaps less.”
“That is not…” She stopped. Drew one breath. “Oliver, I am not asking you to manage my safety. I am asking you to take me with you. I can be useful. I know things about Penharrow’s operations, his contacts, the names of the men who came to the house.”
“Which I will need you to write down in detail, before I leave, in a documented statement that can be used with the solicitor.”
She felt heat invade her face. “I can’t do that”—
“You promised to give testimony,” Oliver’s tone was heavy with disappointment.”
“I can’t read or write. I can tell you the details and you’ll have to write them.” She said softly and listened as Oliver cursed Penharrow to hell.
“I had forgotten that fact, I’m sorry.”
“So, you see, I need to come to London with you. I have to testify in person.”
“No,” he said, pleasantly, finally, in a tone that made it clear that the word would remain the same regardless of how many directions she attacked from.
Megan looked at him. At the absolute, infuriating, completely self-assured set of him. At the fact that he was almost certainly right about the risks, which made the whole thing considerably worse.
“You are the most provoking man,” she said.
“So I’ve been told.”
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
“I didn’t take it as one.”
She pushed back her chair and stood, and he rose automatically, because of course he did, because even when he was entirely impossible, he had the manners of a man raised from birth to know how to behave. She found that particularly aggravating in this moment.
“I am going,” she said, with enormous dignity, “to explore the house.”
“Harold can show you?—”
