Rescued By The Marquess (Damsels In Distress #1)

Prologue

The early spring crocuses were the first sign of hope Megan had seen in weeks. She knelt in the cold earth of the kitchen garden, her fingers working carefully around the delicate purple blooms, and allowed herself to imagine, just for a moment, that she was somewhere else. Someone else.

A woman who chose to garden because she enjoyed it, not because it was the only time she was permitted outside her gilded cage.

“Miss Megan.”

The voice shattered the illusion. Megan didn’t look up immediately, taking a moment to compose her face into the careful mask of serenity she’d perfected over the years.

Only then did she turn to see Mrs. Griffiths, the housekeeper, standing at the edge of the garden path.

The older woman’s expression was apologetic, but her posture was rigid with the knowledge that she was being watched.

They were always watched.

“Yes, Mrs. Griffiths?”

“A message, Miss Megan. From His Lordship.” The housekeeper extended a folded piece of paper, sealed with Penharrow’s crest—a raven clutching a bleeding heart. How fitting, Megan thought bitterly, that he’d chosen such a crest.

She rose slowly, brushing dirt from her hands, aware of the guard standing near the garden gate. Thomas, the younger one, who sometimes looked at her with pity before remembering himself and glancing away. Not that pity helped her. Pity never helped anyone.

Megan looked at the note, and her heart had already begun its familiar, sickening descent into dread.

Penharrow was in London. He’d been in London for nearly four weeks.

The hunting lodge had been blessedly quiet, and she’d begun to hope—foolishly, always foolishly—that perhaps he’d found some new interest to occupy him. Some new woman to torment.

“You’ll have to read it for me.” She hated how Penharrow forbade her to learn to read and write.

Mrs. Griffiths read it for her.

My dearest Megan,

I find London unutterably dull without your company. I shall return this evening and expect to find you properly prepared for my arrival. Bathe thoroughly. Wear the green silk—you know the one. Leave your hair loose. I shall come to your rooms at nine o’clock.

Do not disappoint me.

Yours always, P.

The words were polite, almost tender, if one didn’t know better.

But Megan knew better. She knew what each carefully chosen phrase meant.

Properly prepared meant scrubbed until her skin was raw, scented with the perfume he preferred, every hair plucked and every imperfection concealed.

The green silk was the nightgown he’d had made for her last year, so sheer it might as well not exist. Do not disappoint me was a threat dressed in courteous language.

And she knew, with the certainty born of fourteen years in his keeping, exactly what would happen at nine o’clock.

“Shall I prepare your bath, my lady?” Mrs. Griffiths asked quietly as she crumpled the missive in her fist. The housekeeper’s eyes held that same helpless pity Megan had learned to despise. Pity changed nothing. Pity was the luxury of those who could walk away.

“Yes, thank you.” Megan said as she fought the tears. She’d shed enough tears over that man, and he would not make her shed more. “I’ll come in shortly.”

Mrs. Griffiths hesitated, then dropped a curtsy and retreated toward the house.

Thomas, the guard, remained at his post, his hand resting on the pistol at his belt.

Not that Megan would run. Where would she go?

They were miles from the nearest village, deeper still into the wild Welsh mountains. She’d tried running before.

She’d learned.

Megan turned back to her crocuses, kneeling once more in the dirt. Her hands trembled slightly as she touched the delicate petals, and she forced herself to breathe slowly, evenly. Panic helped nothing. Tears helped nothing. She’d cried all her tears years ago.

How had she come to this?

The question was almost laughable in its futility. She knew exactly how she’d come to this. She could trace the path as clearly as the network of roots beneath the soil.

She’d been seven years old at a village fair, clutching her nurse’s hand, delighted by the ribbons and the music and the honey cakes. And then a handsome man had smiled at her, offered her an apple, and when her nurse turned away for just a moment—

Gone.

She remembered the carriage ride, the way the handsome man’s smile had turned cold when she’d cried for her mama.

She remembered arriving at this very house, being told her name was Megan now, that her old life was gone, that she belonged to the Earl of Penharrow, and she’d better learn to be grateful.

For years, he’d kept her like a doll. Dressed her in fine clothes, had her taught deportment and how to play the pianoforte, but she had never been allowed to learn her letters.

She knew now it was so she could not use notes to ask for help.

He’d given her toys and trinkets and told her she was his special girl, his treasure, the daughter he’d never had.

She’d believed him, in the way desperate children believe the lies that make their captivity bearable.

And then she’d turned sixteen.

Megan closed her eyes against the memory of that night.

The night the pretense of paternal affection had shattered, and she’d learned what he’d prepared her for all along.

The night she’d fought, and screamed, and discovered that no one would come to help her.

That the servants had been told she was his ward, a distant relation, troubled and prone to hysterics.

That the nearest magistrate was in Penharrow’s pocket. That she was utterly, completely alone.

That had been five years ago.

Five years of being his possession, his plaything, his prisoner in all but name. Five years of smiling when commanded, wearing what he chose, accepting his touch because refusal meant punishment, not only for her, but for any servant who showed her kindness.

She’d learned that lesson too.

Her fingers stilled on the crocuses as the memory surfaced, sharp and bitter as bile.

His name had been Daniel. A young groom, barely twenty, with kind eyes and a gentle way with the horses.

He’d been new to Penharrow’s service, didn’t yet understand the rules.

When Megan had asked him, in a moment of desperate hope, if he might help her get a message to the authorities—to anyone who might help—he’d agreed.

Penharrow had discovered the plan within a day.

Megan would never forget the way Daniel had looked at her from the gallows Penharrow had erected in the stable yard. The Earl didn’t believe in turning criminals over to the magistrates when he could dispense his own justice. Theft, he’d called it. The groom had stolen from his employer.

Everyone knew it was a lie.

Everyone had watched anyway as Daniel hanged, his neck broken, his body left swinging as a warning.

And Penharrow had made Megan watch, his hand gentle on her shoulder, his voice soft in her ear: “You see what happens when you make me angry, my dear? I would hate for anyone else to suffer because of your foolishness.”

That was three years ago. Since then, Megan had stopped asking for help.

They’d had a visitor recently, James. She’d refused to let him help her.

He’d left and she stopped trying to involve others in her escape attempts.

Because she’d learned the cruelest truth of all, that Penharrow would kill anyone who tried to free her, and he’d make her watch.

She couldn’t bear any more blood on her hands.

A breeze rustled through the garden, carrying the scent of damp earth and coming rain.

Megan looked up at the gray sky, then at the stone walls of the hunting lodge that had been her prison for most of her life.

Somewhere beyond those mountains was the world she barely remembered.

Somewhere out there, people lived freely, made their own choices, loved whom they pleased.

She would never be one of them. Not as long as Penharrow lived.

The thought crystallized with sudden, cold clarity.

Not as long as Penharrow lived.

She’d tried escaping four times in the early years. Each time, he’d found her. The last time had cost Daniel his life. She’d tried to run, to hide, to seek help from others.

Perhaps it was time to consider a different approach.

Penharrow kept a pistol in his study. She’d seen it, a dueling piece, ornate and deadly.

He also kept a collection of knives, souvenirs from his travels.

And then there were the household poisons—arsenic for the rats, belladonna in the garden, a dozen substances that could kill a man if administered correctly.

Megan had worked with the gardener. She knew which plants were poisonous, which ones caused a slow death, which were quick.

The thought should have horrified her. Good women didn’t contemplate murder, but Megan was long past pretending to be good. Goodness was a luxury afforded to women who had choices. She had only survival.

What would happen when Penharrow tired of her? What if she grew too old?

She was in no doubt that he’d simply kill her.

And if she couldn’t escape Penharrow, perhaps she could kill him first.

The idea was both terrifying and exhilarating. She’d never killed anyone. Could she do it? Could she look into his eyes as the poison took hold, or pull a trigger, or drive a blade between his ribs?

The memory of Daniel’s body swinging from the gallows answered that question.

Yes. She could.

She would need to be careful. Plan meticulously. Penharrow was intelligent and suspicious, and any unusual behavior would alert him, but she had advantages too. He thought her broken, compliant, too afraid to act. He thought fourteen years of captivity had taught her helplessness.

He was wrong.

Megan stood, brushing the dirt from her skirts. The crocuses nodded in the breeze, delicate and resilient. They’d pushed through frozen earth to reach the light. They’d survived.

So would she.

She turned toward the house, her decision made. She would bathe as commanded. She would wear the green silk. She would submit to him tonight, as she had submitted countless nights before.

But she would also watch and wait and plan.

And when the moment came—when she’d prepared everything perfectly, when she was certain of success—she would act.

Penharrow had taken everything from her. Her childhood. Her innocence. Her freedom. He’d stolen her very name, her identity, transforming her from whatever she’d been at seven years old into this creature he’d molded for his pleasure.

But he’d made one critical mistake.

He’d kept her alive.

And as long as she lived, she was dangerous.

“My lady?” Thomas called from the gate. “Best get inside. Rain’s coming.”

Megan nodded and walked toward the house, her spine straight, her face composed. She looked, she knew, like the perfect lady. Beautiful, refined, obedient.

Penharrow’s prisoner.

But inside, where he couldn’t see, something had shifted. A spark had caught, small but growing. Not hope—she’d learned better than to hope. But something harder. Something cold and sharp as a blade.

Determination.

She would escape this life. Either by running far enough that he’d never find her, or by ensuring he never drew breath to search.

One way or another, Megan would be free.

Or she would die trying.