Chapter 6
The men waited until Megan was fast asleep before shedding their still-damp clothes and wrapping themselves in blankets. They’d had worse accommodation in Spain. Here they were at least dry and warm.
“Will she be strong enough to keep up, or is she going to slow us down?”
Webb’s question was expected, and Oliver answered honestly. “I’m not sure.”
He glanced at Megan’s sleeping form by the fire. Even in exhausted sleep, she looked fragile, her face pale in the firelight, dark circles carved beneath her eyes. But he’d watched her cross that river. He’d seen her tend Webb’s wound with steady hands despite her own terror.
“She’s stronger than she looks,” Oliver said. “But we can’t push her the way we’d push ourselves.”
Webb shifted his wounded shoulder with a grimace. “How many days to Shrewsbury?”
“Five. Maybe six or seven if the weather turns.” Oliver fed another log to the fire. “Normally three days of hard riding, but we’ll need to avoid the main roads. Penharrow’s men will be watching those.”
“They’ll be watching the border crossings too.”
“Which is why we’re going north, not east.” Oliver had been planning this since they’d fled the hunting lodge. “We head into the mountains. Rough country, but Penharrow’s men won’t expect it. They’ll assume we’re making for England by the quickest route.”
Webb was quiet for a moment, thinking it through. “The Shropshire mountains in November could be a problem. We might freeze if it snows early.”
“We’ll hunt. There’s game in those mountains, red deer, rabbit, and the odd stolen sheep if we’re fortunate. Better to be cold and fed than warm and caught.”
“Can she ride that far? She said she’d never learned.”
Oliver’s jaw tightened. Of course, Penharrow had kept her ignorant of horses. One more way to ensure she couldn’t escape. “She’ll ride with me. It’ll slow us down, but there’s no alternative.”
“We’ll need to rest your horse more if it’s carrying two. Thank God the horse that ran off at the river wasn’t hurt and followed us. We have three again. And if she falls ill? The river crossing was freezing water, my lord. She could develop lung fever.”
“Then we will deal with it.” Oliver’s voice came out harder than he intended. “Webb, I’m not leaving her behind. I’m not sending her off alone. We keep her with us, and we all reach Shrewsbury together, or we all fail together.”
Webb held up a hand. “I’m not suggesting we abandon her. Just trying to understand the plan, my lord.”
Oliver forced himself to breathe slowly. Webb deserved better than his commander’s frayed temper. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“It’s been a long week.” Webb’s expression softened. “But we’ve been in worse situations. Remember Salamanca? When we were cut off behind French lines for six days?”
“With no food and half the company wounded.” Oliver almost smiled. “This is practically a holiday by comparison.”
“Except at Salamanca, we weren’t responsible for a woman who’d been held captive for fourteen years and doesn’t know how to ride a horse.”
The blunt assessment stung because it was true. Oliver looked at Megan again. What the hell was he doing? He’d gone into Wales with a simple plan: rescue the woman, use her testimony to destroy Penharrow, achieve justice for James. Clean. Military. Achievable.
Instead, he’d found her. This complicated, brave, careful woman who had somehow gotten under his skin in the space of a single day.
“Your uncle will provide protection?” Webb asked, pulling Oliver back to practical matters.
“The Duke has a garrison at the estate near Shrewsbury. Twenty men, all veterans. Once we’re inside those walls, Penharrow can bring an army and we’ll still be safe.” Oliver paused. “The difficult part is getting there alive.”
“Five days through rough country. We’ll need to be smart about it.” Webb pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “First thing tomorrow, we scout for game trails. See if we can bag a rabbit or two before we move out. Can’t travel on empty stomachs.”
“Agreed. There’s a stream nearby, we passed it coming in. I’ll check it for fish at first light.”
“And the horses? They’re nearly done in.”
Oliver had been thinking about that. “They’ll rest when we do. We’ll do some hunting in the afternoon. Megan can rest for the day, then we leave the next morning. One day’s grace. Let them graze, recover their strength. We ride out at dawn the following day.”
“That gives Penharrow’s men time to catch up.”
“They think we’re heading for the eastward border. They’ll waste days searching the wrong area.” Oliver hoped he was right. “And we need Megan rested. She’s at her limit.”
Webb studied him for a long moment. “You care about her.”
It wasn’t a question. Oliver didn’t bother denying it. “She’s been through hell. Someone should care.”
“That’s not what I meant, my lord.”
Oliver met his former batman’s eyes. Webb had known him for ten years, had served with him through the worst of the Peninsular War. There was no point in lying.
“I don’t know what I feel,” Oliver admitted quietly. “Responsibility, certainly. Rage at Penharrow. Admiration for her strength.” He paused. “I feel sorry for her. When she was merely an unknown, it was easier not to think about her life.”
“But now?” Webb’s expression was kind but concerned. “My lord, I’ve served with you long enough to know when you’re being stupid about a woman.”
“This isn’t the time—”
“It’s exactly the time, because whatever you feel for her, it’s affecting your judgment. At Salamanca, you would have sent her ahead with a fast rider while we delayed pursuit. You would have made the cold, military decision that saved the most lives.”
“Megan isn’t a soldier. She doesn’t deserve to be sacrificed for strategy.”
“Neither did half the men who died under our command in Spain, but you made those calls anyway because you had to.” Webb leaned forward.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong to protect her.
I’m saying you need to be honest about why you’re doing it.
Because if this is about guilt over James, or rage at Penharrow, or even just basic decency, fine, but if you’re risking both our necks because you’ve developed feelings for a woman you’ve known for a day... ”
“What would you have me do? Leave her? Send her off alone?”
“No, but maybe don’t lie to yourself about your motivations. Because when we reach Shrewsbury, when we’re safe, what then? She’ll be Penharrow’s victim in the eyes of society regardless of what we know to be the truth, and I doubt she’s looking to replace one jailer for another.”
Oliver wanted to argue, to tell Webb he was wrong, but the former sergeant had an irritating habit of being right about concerns like this.
“I’ll deal with that when we get there,” Oliver said finally. “For now, the only thing that matters is keeping her alive long enough to have choices, and to testify against Penharrow.”
Webb nodded slowly. “Fair enough. Then let’s plan this properly. Five days, you said. What’s the route?”
Oliver pulled out his mental map of the region, built from studying Welsh geography before the mission.
“North from here through the mountains toward Knighton. We’ll follow the high country, harder travel but better cover.
There’s an old drove road that runs along the ridgeline.
Shepherds use it in summer, but it should be passable now. ”
“Water sources?”
“Streams coming off the peaks. Running high with winter rain, good for drinking, but we’ll need to be careful of flooding.”
“Shelter?”
“Shepherds’ huts like this one, scattered through the hills. With luck, we’ll find one each night.” Oliver shrugged. “We’ve slept rough before.”
“She hasn’t.”
“Then we’ll teach her.” Oliver found himself almost smiling. “She’s a fast learner and has the most to lose if we fail. Did you see how she cleaned your wound? Steady hands, good instincts. Five days in the mountains might be the best training she could get.”
“Or it might break her.”
“It won’t.” Oliver’s voice was certain. “She’s survived fourteen years of Penharrow. She can survive five days with us.”
They fell into a silence that stretched comfortably, the way silence does between men who have kept long watches together. The fire crackled. Outside, the wind had picked up, howling through the hills.
“You really have gone stupid over her,” Webb said.
Oliver looked at his hands. “Probably.”
“Then let’s at least be stupid in the right direction. What could possibly go wrong? Five days through the mountains with a woman who can’t ride and a shoulder wound.”
“When you put it that way.”
“Complete madness.” But Webb was smiling. “Reminds me of that night in Badajoz when you decided to take on an entire French patrol with only the two of us.”
“We survived.”
“Barely. And we were younger then.”
“We’re not that old.”
“Speak for yourself, my lord.” Webb shifted his shoulder again. “But yes. We’ve survived worse. We’ll survive this too.”
“Get some sleep,” Oliver said. “I’ll take first watch.”
“Wake me in four hours.”
“I will.”
Webb stretched out on the cot, pulled his blanket close, and was asleep within minutes, the way soldiers learn to sleep quickly, completely, without ceremony.
Oliver remained where he was.
He should have been reviewing the route.
Calculating distances, thinking through contingencies, identifying the variables he hadn’t yet accounted for.
That was how he’d always approached a mission, with the systematic clarity of a man who’d learned, at considerable cost, that emotions not managed in advance became liabilities under pressure.
He looked at the door.
Then, without quite meaning to, at Megan.
She lay on the cot close to the fire, one hand loosely curled beneath her cheek, her breathing slow and even. The firelight moved across her face, warming it, and for a moment she looked entirely peaceful in a way she hadn’t once while she was awake, that careful watchfulness entirely gone.
Oliver made himself look at the door again.