“His Lordship doted on her, had a governess brought in for deportment and music, and dressed her in fine clothes, gave her toys and trinkets. I thought...” Mrs. Griffiths’s voice cracked slightly. “I thought he meant to raise her as a daughter. To give her a good life but when he refused to allow her to read and write I had my suspicions.”
“But he didn’t give her a good life?”
“No.” The single word was heavy with regret. “When she turned sixteen, the tutors stopped coming. And His Lordship...” She couldn’t finish.
Oliver didn’t need her to. He understood perfectly.
“She tried to run away. Four times, I think. Maybe five. Each time, he found her. The last time...” Mrs. Griffiths closed her eyes. “There was a groom. Daniel. Young man, kind heart. He tried to help her get a message out. His Lordship had him hanged in the stable yard. Made us all watch. Made her watch.”
The room seemed to grow colder. Webb, from his position by the door, met Oliver’s eyes. They’d known Penharrow was a monster, but hearing it confirmed, hearing the details...
“Where is she kept?” Oliver asked quietly.
Mrs. Griffiths opened her eyes. “She’s not kept locked in a cell, if that’s what you mean. She has rooms. Beautiful rooms, but the windows are barred. The guards watch her constantly. She’s allowed to walk in the garden during the day, but only the kitchen walled garden. The rest of the grounds are forbidden.”
“How many guards?”
“Four at the lodge, plus two groundskeepers who report to His Lordship. Inside, there’s myself, two maids, a cook, and the butler. Eight servants total.”
“Are they loyal to Penharrow?”
“The guards are. He pays them well and they’re ex-soldiers. They know which side benefits them.” Mrs. Griffiths paused. “The servants... we do what we’re told. We’re afraid. But that doesn’t mean we approve.”
Oliver leaned forward. “Mrs. Griffiths, why are you telling me this?”
The old woman’s eyes filled with tears. “Because this is not the first young girl he’s taken. I learned that when they get to a certain age they are sent away. I don’t know what Penharrow does with them, but I can imagine. Then shortly afterwards another young child or young woman arrives. I don’t want that happening to Miss. Megan.”
“Do you want us to rescue her?”
“Someone needs to help her, because I’m too old and too afraid to do it myself, and it eats at me every night. When I saw you in the stable, asking questions, looking north toward the lodge... I thought maybe, just maybe, God had finally sent someone who could save that poor girl.”
“What will happen to you and the staff though?”
“We will have to look after ourselves.” Mrs. Griffiths’s laughwas bitter. “I suspect he’ll keep us if we say we were overpowered, as he’ll want to use the lodge again and he’ll not want to find staff again.”
Oliver sat back, his mind racing. This was more than he’d hoped for; inside information, detailed intelligence about the lodge’s security, and most importantly, an ally within Penharrow’s household.
“The guards. Their routine. When are they most vulnerable?”
Mrs. Griffiths described the daily schedule—the changing of the watch, the times when the servants were occupied with meals, the small window between midnight and two in the morning when only one guard was awake, making rounds.
Oliver committed every detail to memory. When Mrs. Griffiths finally left, pressing his hand with her gnarled fingers and whispering, “God bless you,” he felt the weight of her hope settle on his shoulders like a physical thing.
Webb approached after she’d gone. “Do you trust her, my lord?”
“I don’t know, but everything she said aligns with what we already knew. She has no reason to help us unless she’s telling the truth about wanting Megan freed.”
“Or unless Penharrow put her up to it. Set a trap.”
Oliver had considered that. “Possible. But if it’s a trap, we’ll spring it on our terms. Tomorrow, we ride north. I want to see this hunting lodge for myself.”
CHAPTER 3
The hunting lodge sat in a valley like a jewel in a crown of rocky hills that made up the area around Llandrindod. Oliver observed it from the cover of trees on the northern ridge, his spyglass trained on the stone building below. Three days of surveillance had given him a thorough understanding of its layout and routines, but he never tired of studying it, never stopped looking for weaknesses.
It was smaller than he’d expected, comprising a two-story structure built of gray Welsh stone, with a slate roof and tall windows that would have been elegant in a London townhouse. Here, in this wild landscape, they seemed out of place, too refined for the rough surroundings. At the rear of the property was a solid stone walled garden but the front was open and that’s where the majority of the guards spent their time.
But it was the bars on those windows—discreet from a distance, but visible through the spyglass—that told the real story.
