The Maiden's Hand

Oliver bowed to Wynter. “Excuse us.”

Wynter bowed back. Perhaps by accident, perhaps by design, his slim fingers brushed the hilt of his sword. “Of course.”

Oliver paced back and forth in the master’s chamber, a long, narrow room with a bank of shrouded windows at one end and a fireplace at the other. Spencer Merrifield, earl of Hardstaff, had banished everyone save Oliver from his bedside. But even the old lord’s imperious command failed to evict the shadows that haunted the deep corners. Oliver guessed it had once been the abbot’s lodgings. The draperies over the tall windows held the sunlight at bay and cloaked the chamber in mystery.

“You move like a caged wolf,” Spencer observed in a calm voice from his bed.

Oliver forced himself to slow down. Spencer could not know it, but the darkness and the stale, lifeless smells of the sickroom were all too familiar to him. He had spent the first seven miserable years of his life in such a place, exiled there by the superstitions of his doctors and by the impotent grief of his father. It took the unexpected love of a most unusual woman to induce Stephen de Lacey to bring his ailing son into the light.

“Could I open the draperies?” Oliver asked.

“If you like.” Spencer stirred, making a vague sweep of his arm. “My physician claims sunlight is noxious, but I feel equally ill in light or in dark.”

Oliver parted the curtains. For a moment he savored the view, a beautiful valley cleaved by the silvery river, a patchwork of fields and meadows, all embraced by the forested hills.

Then he turned to get his first good look at the man who had saved him from hanging and then summoned him from a perfectly good day of gaming and wenching. Afternoon light showered through the lozenge-shaped panes of glass, making shifting patterns of black and gold on the flagged floor. Long, dappled shafts fell on a frail man whose skin hung loose upon his skeletal frame. He had wispy hair that might have been black at one time, proud aquiline features and keen eyes.

He hardly looked the hero or the crusader, yet there was something about him. The aura of a powerful mind that had outlived its useless body.

“Why did you tell Kit to leave the room, my lord?” asked Oliver.

“We’ll need him, but not yet. Do sit down.”

Spencer had a pleasant way of giving orders. He was, taken as a whole, a rather pleasant man. The fact that Oliver owed his life to the earl made it easy to like him.

“I should thank you,” he said. “I thought I was done for, that it would all end at the gallows. My lord, I am in your debt.”

Spencer nodded. “The life of an innocent man is payment enough. Still, I do need your help.”

“What is it, my lord? What can I do to repay you?”

Spencer stared at the foot of the bed, where a great chest with an arched lid stood. “The deed is possibly illegal. At best, it’s a manipulation of the law.”

Oliver grinned. “I’ve been known to break a statute or two in my time. In sooth, Oliver Lackey was not wholly innocent. I did indeed incite riots and mayhem when the mood took me. Tell me more of this task.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“My forte.”

“It involves a great deal of record searching.”

Oliver’s spirits fell, for such work bored him. “Not my forte.”

“That is why we’ll need your friend Kit.”

Oliver was suddenly impatient with the whole affair. He resisted the urge to start pacing again. Even in sunlight the room held the dank promise of death. Blackrose Priory was a strange place indeed, peopled with strange inhabitants, not the least of whom was Mistress Lark. He much preferred the rollicking atmosphere of London.

“My lord,” he said, “I cannot help but wonder what you require. Mistress Lark went to a great deal of trouble to find me and bring me here.”

Spencer clutched the tapestried counterpane as if he wished to leave his bed. “You gave her trouble?”

The ferocity of the question took Oliver aback. “No, my lord. But I do confess I wasn’t sitting at home waiting for her to come calling. She found me—” he dropped his voice to a mumble “—at a Bankside tavern.”

“God’s shield,” Spencer snapped. “I expected better from you.”

He sounded like someone’s father, Oliver thought. “She is incredibly loyal to you, my lord,” he observed, hoping to turn the subject.

“Of course she is,” Spencer grumbled. “I have raised her from infancy. Given her every advantage, taught her a woman’s duties—”

“A woman’s duties? And what might they be, my lord?” Oliver had a few ideas of his own, but he wanted to hear Spencer’s answer.

“Obedience. That above all things.”

“Ah.” Oliver had to remind himself that Spencer was his host and responsible for saving his life. He had to content himself with the mildest comment he could muster. “My lord, I have never subscribed to the view that women are inherently sinful and need to be brought to heel like mongrel puppies.”

Spencer wheezed out a long-suffering sigh. “You still do not understand, do you, my lord? You believe I summoned you here to help me. It’s Lark, you jolt-head. I brought you here to help Lark.”

“He wants us to what?” Kit demanded.

They strolled in the parkland north of the old priory. The forest in the distance covered the rising hills with skeletal gray trees. Archery butts and a quintain, long idle, rose from the yellowed lawn amid a tangle of wild ivy. An abandoned well, surrounded by rubble, stood amid the disarray. A broken stone pedestal lay near the well, where doubtless some saint or other had once reigned in serenity.

“Break the entail on this estate,” Oliver explained. “He doesn’t want Wynter to inherit.”

“Wynter must inherit, since you say he’s the eldest—and only—son.” Kit picked up a rock and tossed it at the ragged target. It hit dead center, tearing a gaping hole in the weather-worn leather. “Unless he’s been declared illegitimate. There’s always that. Wasn’t Spencer’s marriage to Wynter’s mother annulled?”

“Yes, but Spencer refuses to declare Wynter a bastard.” He grinned. “Legally, that is. According to the old man, Wynter is not trustworthy. I gather the lordling’s a bit too Catholic for his very reformed father.”

“Then the old man should have raised him in the Reformed faith.”

Oliver watched a flock of rooks take flight from the trees that fringed the park, black wings beating the pure white of the winter clouds.

Ah, but he did like Kit. Simple, solid as the earth beneath his feet. In Kit’s mind there was no question as to what was right and what was wrong. Kit knew.

“I expect Spencer would have done just that,” Oliver said. “But Wynter’s mother had other ideas, and did her utmost to instill them in her son. She was Spanish.”

The one word explained all, and Kit nodded. “A servant of the queen, was she?”

“Aye, one of Catherine of Aragon’s ladies. Passed away a year ago, but she’s having her revenge on Spencer now. She lives on in Wynter. Apparently her devotion to Queen Catherine is reflected in Wynter’s allegiance to Queen Mary. If he inherits this place—” Oliver swept his arm to encompass the rambling priory “—Spencer fears it will once again become a Catholic stronghold, perhaps placed at the disposal of Bishop Bonner.” He winked. “Perhaps given back to the Bonshommes, the religious order that once inhabited Blackrose. I understand they were a naughty lot.”

Kit shuddered. “Bonner. Just the thought of him clouds a sunny day.” He picked up another stone and hurled it, hitting the archery butt again. “Lord Spencer does not wish his property to fall to his son. Where shall it go, then? To Lark?”

“Yes. To Lark. He claims it is a fairly simple legal procedure.”

“When legal procedures become simple, people will no longer need my services,” Kit said. “But why you? Why us? There are a thousand London lawyers he could have chosen.”

“I pointed that out. He claims to know my father. Claims I inherited his deep sense of honor.” Oliver bowed with a mocking flourish.

Kit laughed. “Little does our host know.”

Just for the smallest fraction of a second, the comment bothered Oliver. He recovered instantly. “It matters not. He arranged for me to be saved from the gallows. He needs our help. So we’ll help him.”

“We?”

“You and I, dear Kit.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything.”

Oliver crossed his arms over his chest. “You will.”

“I won’t.”

A bell sounded.

“Let’s go in to supper,” Oliver said, striding toward the priory.

He ignored Kit’s protests all the way to the dining hall. Sparsely furnished, it was a cavernous room with a hammer beam ceiling and painted hangings on the walls. Not exactly a warm, relaxing place in which to take supper.

More chilly than the room were the two people who waited to dine with them.

Oliver had not thought it possible that there could exist a gown plainer than the one Lark had been wearing earlier. Yet she had managed to find one. It was dyed unevenly in shades of black and ash-gray. The bodice was flat and unadorned, the sleeves so narrow and tight he wondered how she managed to move her arms.

Yet it was her face that disturbed him most. Framed by the ugliest of coifs, it was stone-cold, the light gray eyes empty, the mouth stiff.

Oliver strode across the room and snatched her hand. As he sank to one knee and bent to brush his lips over her chilly fingers, he whispered, “Where did she go, the woman of fire and spirit who all but dragged me from London?”

He was beginning to fear she was not Lark, but a cold, look-alike stranger. Then he felt it: the profound connection he had experienced the first time she had touched him. It was like the throb of a heart or a spark rising from a fire. Instantaneous, unmistakable, deeply felt.

Her face showed only brief recognition; then she blinked and the icy mask fell back in place. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, why she acted so strangely, but not in the present company.

He straightened, released her hand and turned to greet Wynter. “My lord.” He offered a nonchalant bow. “I see you bring out the best in Mistress Lark.”

Wynter sent him a conspiratorial wink. “Then I shouldn’t like to see her at her worst, should you? Welcome to my table.” He nodded at Kit to include him.

“Your father’s table,” Oliver corrected with his most pleasant smile. “Lord Spencer is an admirable man.”

“Lord Spencer is dying,” Wynter said without concern. “I assume he sent for you in order to cheat me out of my rightful inheritance. I won’t let you. Let’s eat.”

He planted himself on the canopied chair at the head of the table. Oliver shot a “what an arsehole” look at Kit and held Lark’s chair out for her.

She stared at him blankly.

“Do sit down, Mistress Lark,” Oliver murmured.

A smooth, melodic chuckle flowed from Wynter. “Do forgive our Lark. The social graces seem to be beyond her grasp.”

She didn’t even flinch. It was as if she were accustomed to his biting comments. She seated herself with the unthinking obedience of a beaten spaniel.

Oliver sat across from her, and Kit took the seat at the foot of the table. Wishing he could kiss some life back into Lark, Oliver grabbed the pewter wine goblet at his place.

Lark cleared her throat and clasped her hands in prayer.

Feeling sheepish, Oliver released the goblet, and when she finished asking the Lord’s grace, he and Kit dutifully replied, “Amen.” Wynter made an elaborate sign of the cross.

Eager to have done with the tense and silent meal, Oliver was pleased to see a small army of well-trained retainers break into action, flowing in through a small side door from the kitchen. He savored the fresh bread and butter, a salad of greens and nuts, a delicious roasted trout.

“Thank you, Edgar,” Lark murmured to a boy passing the bread basket.

“Took me months to get the servants in hand,” Wynter explained, reaching up without looking around, confident that the bread basket would appear. It did. “I suppose dear Lark did her best—didn’t you, Lark?—but of course that couldn’t possibly be good enough. Not for these rough country types.”

He could not see the blaze of anger that lit the serving boy’s eyes as the lad withdrew. Oliver stifled a laugh. “You just won them over with your charm, my lord.”

Wynter had a rare gift for focusing his gaze as sharp as a blade. “My lot has not been easy. Spencer disgraced my mother and sent her into exile. Whatever charm I possess, I did not learn at my loving father’s knee.”

Kit, ever the guardian of right and wrong, lifted his cup and released a huff of breath into it.

Oliver wished he, too, could remain the skeptic, but he could not. Wynter bore the scars of wounds for which he was not responsible. Just as Oliver hadn’t asked to be born with asthma, Wynter hadn’t asked to be born to a woman whose morals were too loose and a man whose morals were too rigid.

“No one’s lot is easy,” Lark stated. She turned to Oliver. “Except perhaps yours, my lord.”

“Indeed,” he said wryly, angling his wine cup toward her in a halfhearted salute. He contemplated telling her what it was like to turn blue for want of air but decided it was inappropriate conversation at table.

The main dish arrived, the platter borne high on the shoulders of two footmen. They planted it with a flourish in the center of the table.

Wynter closed his eyes and inhaled. “Ah, capon. A favorite of mine.”

“Lord Oliver,” said Lark, “why don’t you do the honors and serve yourself first?”

Between his sympathy for the nasty Wynter and his distaste for the main dish, Oliver felt queasy. “No, thank you. I never eat capon.”

Kit smothered a laugh.

Lark tipped her head to one side. “Whyever not?”

“It’s a castrated cock, that’s why. Gives me a bad feeling.”

He expected her to be shocked by his bluntness. Instead he saw a faint spark of amusement in her eyes.

“I take it you’d never ride a gelded horse, either,” she said.

“I ride only mares.” God, he liked her. She stood for everything he hated, everything he found tiresome, and he liked her immensely.

“I have no qualms about eating capon.” Kit wrenched a leg from the roasted bird and bit into it. Wynter took the other leg. Oliver held out his goblet for more wine.

“How is the weaving coming along, Lark?” Wynter asked quite cordially.

“Well enough,” she said without looking at him.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Is it, then? It appeared to me that you’ve been neglectful of late. I’ve seen no progress on the tapestry you’ve been weaving.”

“I didn’t realize I was under your scrutiny.”

“One can’t help but notice when a woman neglects her duties to go traipsing off to London.”

Oliver looked from one to the other as if they were engaged in a tennis match. What an extraordinary pair they made, despising each other with such civility.

“And what have you done with yourself, Wynter?” Lark’s voice was low, yet dripping with venom. In contrast to the servile spaniel who had first entered the room, she seemed to be coming out of herself, brandishing words like a sharp blade. “Turned in any heretics lately?”

Wynter smiled. “Dear Lark. You are always so full of pointed humor.” His hand clenched around the ivory handle of his knife.

When Spencer did finally die, Oliver knew Lark would have to beware Wynter Merrifield.

“Wardens’ Temporal Act…Treasonable Offences by Rank Villains’…. None of these will do.” Kit frowned at the thick, heavy tome on the long library table.

Lark knelt on the bench beside him and dragged a fat, smoking candle closer. “What about this one?” She pointed to an entry on another page of the huge tome. “An Acte for the Disbursement and Recovery of Real Property.”

Oliver rubbed his weary eyes. Midnight was but a vague memory, and they had been in Spencer’s amazingly huge library since sunset, poring over law books and legal tracts.

“We’ll have to go to London. We’ll never find what we’re looking for here.” Kit closed the huge book with a thud.

“Ouch!” Lark said. “You’ve closed my finger in it!” She yanked the book open.

Oliver’s mind kept toying with what she had said earlier. “Disbursement,” he said to himself. “Recovery…” As a youth fleeing the boredom of polite nobility, he had gone to St. John’s at Cambridge to hear shockingly reformed ideas on the law. Unfortunately his memories of that time were obscured by a pleasant mist of women, gambling, drinking and general mischief.

Kit took a sip from the wine jug. “You carry on the search. I’m but a common lawyer. A very weary common lawyer.” Yawning, he left the library.

“Is he really a commoner?” Lark asked.

Common. Oliver’s mind clung to the word for a moment. “His father was a knight who had eleven sons. Kit fostered with my father.” The recollection plunged Oliver into the past. There had been a time, long ago, when his father had barely acknowledged Oliver’s existence. Kit had been the substitute son, the golden lad who learned to ride and hunt and fence at Stephen de Lacey’s side.

If there were wounds from that time, they had healed nicely, Oliver decided. He adored both Kit and his father.

He brought his thoughts to the present and looked at Lark. The pale stranger at supper had given way to the lively maid who had braved a Bankside tavern to find him.

What a charming scholar she made, so sweetly unaware of her provocative pose. She had her elbows planted on the heavy tome, her knees on the bench, and her startlingly shapely backside thrust out and upward in a way that brought the devil to life in Oliver.

Wisps of dark hair escaped the detestable coif, and the locks curled softly around her pale face. The hunt for a loophole in the law seemed to animate her, causing her eyes to dance and her lips to curve into an artless smile. Even better, the angle of her pose allowed Oliver to peer unobstructed into the bodice of her dress. It was a beautiful bosom indeed—what he could see of it. High, rounded breasts, the skin like satin or pearls, and if he craned his neck, he fancied he could just barely make out a shadow where her skin darkened—

“Are you ill?” she asked.

Oliver blinked. He shifted on the bench. He glanced down at his codpiece. Other than being too tightly trussed, he felt fine. “No. Why do you ask?”

“You were looking at me rather strangely.”

He laughed. “That, my darling, was lust.”

“Oh.” Her gaze dropped to the page. Something told Oliver that she had little experience with lust.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I assure you, I can control my base impulses.”

“Perhaps.” She drummed her fingers on the page. “’Tis true, I sense no danger when I’m with you. Yet at the same time, I feel as defenseless as a fledgling fallen from the nest.” A single crease of bafflement appeared between her brows.

He touched the tip of her nose. “That’s because I threaten the most vulnerable part of you, my pet. Your heart.” He gave her no chance to ponder that, but forged on. “Now. What is it you keep reading on that page?”

“It’s about the disbursement and recovery of—”

“That’s it!” Oliver jumped to his feet. He strode to her side of the table, leaned down and skimmed the page. Even as his eyes absorbed the printed words, he noticed her scent of fresh laundry and femininity.

“What’s it?” Lark blinked at him.

He lifted her bodily from the bench. He wanted to share his exuberance, to show her the clean, effervescent joy of a puzzle solved. While she gaped at him as if he’d gone mad, he planted a brief, noisy kiss on her mouth, then spun her around, throwing his head back and laughing.

“Lark, you have the wit of a scholar!” he cried.

“I can’t.” The spinning seemed to render her breathless, so he stopped and held her by both hands.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Well.” She looked up at him with heartbreaking earnestness. “Because I’m a woman.”

“So was Eleanor of Aquitaine. Christine de Pisan. Perkin Warbeck.”

“Perkin Warbeck was a pretender to the throne,” she stated. “And he was a boy.”

“Don’t be so certain.” He couldn’t help himself. Such sweetness as he saw in her face should be outlawed as a strong intoxicant. He tipped up her chin and brushed his knuckles along her jawline. “Why in God’s name do you believe such humble ideas?”

She tried to look away. He held her chin again, his touch gentle yet compelling. “The most learned men of the age have made a great study of the minds of women. They have proven that women are weaker.”

“Learned men also once claimed the world was flat. Lark, you just gave me the key to breaking Spencer’s entail.”

“I did?” For a moment sheer joy transformed her face into a vision of loveliness. He had no idea how she could seem so plain and lifeless one moment, so glowingly beautiful the next. She presented a far greater puzzle than English law, a far more interesting one, too.

“The Common Recovery,” he said with satisfaction. “I never thought of it until you suggested it. You’ve a fine mind, Lark, and the man who says otherwise is a fool.” He smiled down at her, his hands cradling her cheeks. “I could kiss you.”

“You’ve already done that, thank you very much,” she said. “How does it work?”

He found himself staring at her face. Candlelight had such a happy effect at moments like this. The warm glow healed her pallor, brought out the elegant shape of her nose and cheekbones, and flickered in the velvety depths of her eyes.

“How does it work?” he repeated, mindless now with desire. “Well.” He pulled her toward him, passing one hand around to the back of her waist. She gasped, and he smiled.

“It would help if you were not so stiff in your upper body.”

“My lord—”

“And you should hold on with both hands—just so.” He took her hands and brought them to his shoulders, then around behind his neck.

“But—”

“And for Christ’s sake, don’t talk. That spoils everything.”

“What I meant was—”

“You talked. Disobedient wench.” He cut her short with a kiss. When he had kissed her in the tavern, he had been woozy from his attack. He was recovered now, and he meant to prove to himself that he could control his desire for her. That she was no different from the dozens of other women he had wooed and won. He wanted to obliterate that one frightening moment when she had made him feel deeply. Care deeply. Want something that could never be.

He opened his mouth over hers, brandishing his tongue like a weapon, smoothing his hands over her shape. She was a woman like any other. A nicely put together bundle of hip and tit and silky hair. An object to be enjoyed, not enslaved by.

Even as he told himself these things, he felt the truth crashing down around his ears. Lark was special. Lark was the one woman who could make him feel these things. Lark was—

Oliver’s breath left him in a whoosh. He staggered back and glared at her.

“Why did you do that?”

She glanced at her fist, then relaxed her fingers. “Punch you in the stomach? You’ll notice I was careful not to hit your wounded side.”

“I was kissing you, and you punched me.” The blow to his pride cut deeper than any flesh wound.

A wry smile curved her lips. Her mouth was soft and moist, and he wanted it again, but he was too angry to try.

He began pacing the room. “Don’t you like me, Lark?”

“Truthfully, I think not. No matter. Spencer needs your help. I am loyal to Spencer. Ergo, I shall endure you. I must be careful with you, Oliver. I wanted to know how the Common Recovery worked, and you showed me how a kiss worked.”

“Given a choice of the two,” he said dryly, “I’d choose the kiss every time. The Common Recovery is a heaving bore.”

“But we can use it to bar Wynter from inheriting the priory.”

“Aye, we can.” A delightful notion occurred to him. “It is very complex, Lark. It will take much hard work and many hours of preparation from Kit and me. And you.”