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At last, her brother did as he was told. There was another scrunch of dried leaves and then the sound of slightly-too-big boots running, footsteps blessedly muffled by the woodland carpet. She wished she could join him, her heart bounding as the two gamekeepers waded towards her, each with a gun slung across his back, but even overpowering dread couldn’t steal her relief that Peter would be safe.

Hard fingers closed around her wrist. ‘Got you. You’re coming with us.’

Meg tried to twist free but the gamekeeper held firm, the guttering light of the lamp in his other hand showing triumph in his unfamiliar face. She recognised neither he nor the other man who stood back to restrain the mastiff, although that was no surprise. No one from the village would have been caught dead working for Anthony Fernley after what he’d done, the loyalty locals had shown his father having vanished in the face of the new Viscount’s selfishness and greed.

The gamekeeper lifted the lantern to peer behind her. ‘Where’s your friend?’

‘What friend?’

He shook her roughly. ‘Don’t try my patience. We saw him. Where’s he hiding?’

Meg took a deep breath. She knew he’d be able to feel how she trembled but all the same she managed to raise her chin. ‘I don’t know who you mean. The moonlight can play tricks on the eye. Perhaps it was a shadow you saw.’

The man sneered down at her. Instinct made her want to try to pull away again but she made herself stare back as coolly as she could manage. Every second the men spent focusing on her was another second bought for Peter to reach Lark Cottage without being caught, and for that she would have stood with eyes locked on the gamekeeper for the entire night.

‘She won’t tell us anything,’ the dog-handler grumbled. ‘If she’s from Hayworth, she’ll be the same as all the rest. They look after their own down there—it’s a nest of liars and thieves.’

‘That’s true,’ grunted the other man. ‘The Viscount’s been fair since he inherited and they’ve repaid him by stealing his game and trespassing on his land. He’ll be glad there’ll be one less of them to worry about after tonight.’

Frightened as she was, Meg felt a spark of anger. Who were they to talk about the village when they were newcomers themselves, little more than hired thugs brought in to do Anthony Fernley’s bidding?

‘That isn’t so,’ she snapped, wishing her voice was steadier. ‘It’s your wretched master that’s in the wrong. Folk here would never have been forced into stealing if Lord Fernley hadn’t enclosed the land they’ve lived off for hundreds of years.’

Both men jeered. The fingers on her wrist bit deeper, but the sudden sweep of anger had knocked the very edge off her fear.

‘You don’t understand the way things were for people from Hayworth before he took over. We used to be able to hunt in these woods. We farmed the fields, grazed animals on the common land… Now all of that’s gone because he wants to line his own pockets. His father was a fair man—what do you think the old Lord Fernley would say if he could see how people are starving on his son’s authority?’

The mastiff growled at her raised voice, although the two men remained unmoved.

‘I wouldn’t presume to guess what my betters might think,’ the one deliberately bruising her arm shrugged. ‘The likes of you shouldn’t, either. Don’t talk about the Viscount as if you knew a single thing about him or his family. What clue could some grubby girl have about any of the Fernleys, living or dead?’

He laughed coarsely, the lamplight showcasing several missing teeth. Evidently he thought he’d caught her out, and as he began to drag her away Meg knew there would be no point in telling him he was wrong.

Once upon a time, she’d known the Fernleys very well indeed—or one of them, at least.

A once-familiar face flitted across her mind as the gamekeeper marched her through the trees, her arm pinned painfully behind her back. She hadn’t seen Anthony’s younger half-brother for five years and yet she could still recall the way his eyes had crinkled when he’d smiled, involuntary memories of him rising when they were neither welcome nor helpful.

What’s the point in thinking of him, now or any other time?

Even if he’d still lived at Wellbourne House there was nothing to say he’d have come to her aid, she thought distantly, concentrating on staying upright despite the weakness in her legs. The connection she’d once thought would last for ever was now nothing more than a faded ghost, reduced to a few wisps of regret and nostalgia still clinging like the remnants of a tattered flag aboard an abandoned ship. The life they’d planned together had lain in ruins before even having had a chance to begin—but the blame for that didn’t lie solely in her hands.

A gnarled root caught her foot, jerking her back into the present, and she stumbled, wincing as the movement jarred her twisted shoulder. The gamekeeper’s beery breath was hot and horrid in her ear and her already blazing apprehension stoked higher as she saw they were approaching the edge of the woods.

She tried to turn to look back at her captor, gasping in pain when she felt the bones grate in her wrist.

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘Where do you think?’ The gamekeeper barked another laugh no more pleasant than the first. ‘Where do you imagine a dirty, thieving poacher belongs?’

Meg’s breath caught, but she wasn’t given the chance to answer.

‘You’ll go to prison first and then, depending on your sentence, I’d say either the colonies or Hell. Which do you reckon they’ll opt for, Will?’

‘Depends on the judge,’ the other man replied. ‘Might be lenient for a woman.’

‘Not if Lord Fernley has his way. He’ll push for hanging, no doubt about it.’

The first man leaned down, his chin almost touching Meg’s dark hair, and he chuckled as she strained to turn her face away.