My curiosity deepened, and I told myself I’d find out what he was hiding in that library and what secrets lived in the west tower—but was I truly brave enough?
I startled when, somewhere in the castle below, a door closed. The sound echoed through the stone walls, and my hand went to my hip before I remembered I had left my weapon in London.
3
OLIVER
On day three, I woke feeling more like myself than I had since before the attack. The headaches had faded from a constant assault to a dull presence lurking at the edges of my skull, but my body ached with the restlessness of a man who’d spent far too long lying down.
I had too many days of forced rest ahead of me, in a castle that felt increasingly like a pressure cooker—Ophelia and I sharing a suite, our host being a mystery I couldn’t stop picking at, and my own body betraying me.
Now, I needed air, needed to breathe something that didn’t smell of old stone and the lingering medicinal tang that clung to everything I touched.
Except Ophelia had other ideas about my morning.
“Not until I check your vitals,” she said when I mentioned wanting to take a walk. She was already reaching for the medical kit she’d appropriated with the blessing of the hospital staff.
I sat on the edge of my bed and let her take my wrist in her hands to register my pulse rate. I watched her asshe counted the beats silently. Her dark hair was pulled away from her features that managed to be both delicate and fierce. A small furrow appeared between her brows as she concentrated.
I’d wanted her for as long as I could remember. The desirous ache had become as familiar as breathing. I’d told myself my reluctance to act was because MI6 frowned upon officers complicating matters with personal entanglements, but the truth was simpler and more pathetic—I was terrified she’d reject me.
We were both on leave now. The regulations that had kept us apart seemed distant here, irrelevant in this castle at the edge of the world. But I wasn’t whole yet, wasn’t the man I wanted to be when I finally confessed my feelings.
She shone a penlight into my eyes when I raised my head. Her face was close enough to mine that I was tempted to lean forward and kiss her.
“You’ll live,” she pronounced, clicking the light off. “I think we can manage a walk on the grounds, nothing strenuous. If you start feeling unsteady or if your head hurts, we return. No arguments.”
“Yes, doctor.”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“You certainly play one convincingly.” I got up, testing my balance. The room stayed steady around me—a marked improvement from two days ago, when standing had made the world tilt like a carnival ride. “Shall we?”
A cold wind cut across the landscape, carrying the scent of peat, distant rain, and the wild emptiness that seemed to define this place. After days trapped inside, first in hospital, then within the castle’s ancient walls, the vastness of it made me dizzy—though I was not about to admit that to Ophelia.
We walked slowly, following a path that wound away from the main entrance toward the ruins of an old chapel. She kept pace beside me, adjusting her stride to match my appalling stamina. Each step required more effort than it should, and my legs trembled with the strain of what I once would’ve considered modest exertion.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said, gesturing at the landscape rolling toward the horizon. “Bleak, but beautiful.”
“The Morses have their estate in Kent,” I said. “Rolling green hills, ancient oaks, a river perfect for punting.” I paused to catch my breath, leaning on a lichen-covered stone that might have been part of a wall centuries ago. “But this—I understand why a man would love this land. It’s breathtaking in its honesty.”
“Its honesty?”
“It doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is. The land is beautiful and brutal and utterly indifferent to human concerns. There are no manicured gardens here, no artificial lakes designed to impress visitors. There is only rock and heather and sky.”
Ophelia studied me with an unreadable look. “That’s surprisingly philosophical for a man who claims to think primarily about cricket and whiskey.”
“Near-death experiences have a way of inspiring reflection.” I pushed off from the stone and resumed walking, though at a slower pace. “Also, the cricket season doesn’t start for months, and I’m not allowed hard spirits yet, so I’m forced to find alternative topics for contemplation.”
Her laugh was quiet, and the sound of it warmed me more than the weak sunlight struggling through the clouds.
“What doyou make of our host?” I asked as we turned toward the gray bulk of Greymarch that rose against thedarkening sky. From this distance, the place commanded the same attention it did up close.
Ophelia’s gaze remained fixed on the fortress ahead of us, and she didn’t speak right away. “He’s not who I thought he was.”
“Nor I.” At the Labyrinth briefing, I’d barely noticed him. Now, Kiernan Lockhart silently commanded attention whenever he entered a room. I’d noticed it during dinner the previous nights—how my thoughts drifted toward him even when I was trying to focus on Ophelia.
I noticed powerful men all the time. It was part of the job—assessing potential threats, determining who might be dangerous and who was merely posturing. That was all this was. Our host deserved the same assessment as any other player on the field. The fact that my gaze lingered on the breadth of his shoulders and the strong line of his jaw meant nothing. Even as I thought it, I knew the lie for what it was.
