The Maiden's Hand

I am falser than vows made in wine.

—William Shakespeare
As You Like It,
Act III, Scene v

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

O
liver de Lacey had died badly. He had gone blubbering and pleading to the hangman’s noose, and his last act as a mortal man had been to piss himself.

That morning, he had arisen in his dank cell in Newgate, begged one last time to sire a child on the warden’s daughter, lied through his teeth to the priest who came to grant him absolution, and vomited up his last breakfast.

Now he was paying the ultimate price for his many sins.

After the hanging, Oliver’s descent into hell was not what he expected. Indeed, it bordered on the peculiar. Darkness, aye, but what were those evil slits of gray light and that creaky, lumbering sound? And if he had left his mortal body behind, why did he feel this damnable pain in his neck? Why did he smell fresh-cut wood?

It was new and particularly awful for a man who had not expected to die by execution as a common criminal, of all things. He had always known he would die young. But he had worked hard to ensure himself a glorious demise. He had dreamed of perishing while fighting a
duel, racing horses, perhaps even while bedding another man’s wife.

Not—God forbid—swinging by the neck while a bloodthirsty crowd jeered at him.

At least no one knew it was Lord Oliver de Lacey, Baron Wimberleigh, who had died at dawn. He had been arrested, tried and sentenced in his guise of Oliver Lackey—a bearded, common rapscallion who had incited one riot too many.

Thank heaven for small favors. He had spared his family a great shame. They had all gone abroad until the spring; they would come back to find that Oliver had vanished without a trace.

Ah, what a waste, he thought in disgust as his strange conveyance transported him to eternal damnation. He had wanted to make his mark in his short time on earth. In pursuit of this, he had loved every woman he could find, fought every battle he could join, sampled every delicacy, read every book, embarked on every adventure available to an affable young lord. He had lived fast and hard and voraciously with the knowledge that his illness would one day conquer him.

And this morn, an hour before cock crow, he had died a coward’s death.

“They say he died badly.” The voice penetrated Oliver’s hell-bound chariot. “Did you see?”

God’s light, but it was a horrid, unholy voice.

“I saw.” This voice, in contrast, was as sweet as the trill of a lark at dawn. “He showed no dignity whatsoever. I can’t think why Spencer was so insistent about taking this one.”

Spencer? The devil was called Spencer?

“Spencer,” said the ugly voice, “like the Lord above, works in mysterious ways. Does he know you have come?”

“Of course not,” said the woman. “He thinks I only help with the ciphering. He must never know.”

“Well, pox and pestilence, I don’t like it. Not one bit.”

Amen, thought Oliver. Death was getting stranger by the moment. Descending into hell was an odd business indeed.

The creaking and jangling ceased abruptly.

Now what? Oliver wondered. He braced himself for an onslaught of fire and brimstone.

“Careful, now. Is anyone about?” the man asked.

“Just the chief grave digger in his hut yonder. You did give him plenty of fortified wine?”

“Oh, aye. He won’t stir his bones.”

“But I see a light in the window,” the woman said.

“Right. We’d best put on a good show, then. Move the cart just to the edge of the pit. Let’s get this one out.” The chariot lurched. “Easy now. Easy! Frigging slump-backed nag. Almost backed into the pit. Hand me that chisel. I’ll just pry open this panel.”

A screeching sound rent the air, followed by an equine whinny.

“Shrouds and shambles!” the man hissed. “Mind the box! You’ll spill it.”

A square of light opened at Oliver’s lifeless feet. He began tilting, sliding, until his remains poured down a steep incline. He landed on something dusty and infinitely more noxious than anything he had done inside his canions.

“Oh, no,” whispered the female voice. “Dr. Snipes, what have we done?”

What indeed, Oliver wondered.

“He’s fallen into the pit,” she said as if she’d heard his question.

Ah, thought Oliver. At last it begins to make sense. Hell was a pit, exactly as Messer Dante had described. Except this place was cold. Bone-chillingly cold.

“We’ve got to get him out,” said the man called Snipes.

Yes, yes, please.
Oliver tried to speak, but no sound emerged from his brutalized throat.

“Dr. Snipes, look! He’s come around. Sweet mercy, he is saved!”

Saved?

Oliver saw a pair of shadows looming above him, the sky a cloudy dark gray behind them.

“Mr. Lackey? Can you hear me?” the woman called out.

“Yes.” The word came out as a thin wheeze.

“He speaks! God be praised!”

Why did this instrument of the Devil praise God? And why did she address him as Lackey? Surely the Devil knew his true identity.

“Mr. Lackey, we must get you out of there,” Snipes said.

“Where am I?” There. He had spoken. A horrible rasp, to be sure, but his speech was intelligible.

“I, er, that is, you’re near the City ditch across from Greyfriars,” Snipes said. “In a, er, in a pauper’s grave.”

“This isn’t hell?” Oliver asked stupidly.

“Some would say aye,” the woman murmured.

God, he loved her voice. It was particularly the sort of voice he adored in a woman—sweet but not shrill, crisp and precise as a well-tuned gittern.

“Surely it’s not heaven,” he said. “Purgatory, then?”

“Oh, Dr. Snipes,” the woman whispered, “he thinks he is dead.”

“I
am
dead,” Oliver stated in his raspy voice. The dust and straw stirred as he lifted his fist. He sneezed. “I died badly. You said so yourself.”

He could have sworn he heard stifled mirth. “Sir, you were hanged, but you did not die.”

“Why not?” Oliver felt slightly miffed.

“Because we would not let you. We bribed the hangman to shorten the rope and saw to it you were cut down, pronounced dead and nailed into your box before you died.”

“Oh.” Oliver thought about this for a moment. “Thank you.” Then he groaned. “You mean I begged and humbled and pis—er, disgraced myself for naught?”

“It would seem so.”

A distant cock crowed.

“Come, time is short. We must get you out of there. Can you move?”

Oliver tried to sit up. Jesu, but his limbs were weak! He managed to prop himself up. “This place is all lumpy,” he complained. “What sort of hellhole do I find myself in?”

“Lark told you,” Snipes said. “’Tis a pauper’s grave.”

Lark. Her name was as lovely as her voice.

“You might wish to make haste,” she called. “You could catch a disease from them.”

“From what?” Oliver asked.

“From the corpses. ’Tis a
pauper’s
grave, sir. There’s a heap of them down there, covered with straw and lime dust. When the grave is full, it will be covered over.”

“All that lime makes for excellent grazing once the grass starts,” Snipes remarked helpfully.

“You mean…?” Bile rose in Oliver’s stomach. He lurched to his feet. “You mean you dumped me into a heap of…of
corpses?
”

“A most regrettable accident,” said Lark.

Oliver had spent weeks in Newgate, enduring poor food and putrid air. He had been hanged nearly to death. There
was no way he should have had the strength to sink his hands into the damp earth and scramble out of the grave.

But he did.

In mere seconds he was sprawled, gasping for breath, on the cold and dewy grass.

“God’s shield, that’s foul.” Wheezing, he rolled over. His saviors bent to peer at him. Snipes wore the black cloak and tunic of an undertaker, and in the uncertain light Oliver could see a withered, twisted arm, a prominent nose and chin, and wispy white hair beneath a flat cap.

“I’ll just go and tell the gravedigger we’ve buried the poor sinner.” Snipes lumbered off into the shadows toward a wattled hut in the distance.

“Have you the strength to rise?” asked Lark.

Oliver looked at her. “My God,” he said, staring at the pale oval of her face, its delicate, dawn-limned features framed by a nimbus of glossy raven hair escaping a plain coif. “My God, you are an angel.”

Her full red lips quirked at the corners. “Hardly.”

“Tis true. I
am
dead. I have died and gone to heaven, and you are an angel, and I am going to spend eternity with you. Hallelujah!”

“Nonsense.” Her manner became brisk as she stuck out her hand. “Here, I’ll help you up. We must get you to the safe hold.”

She tugged at his hand, and her touch infused him with miraculous strength. When he stood upright, he saw that he towered over her. Just for a moment he felt a sense of deep connection with her. He could not tell if she felt it, too, or if she always wore that wide-eyed, startled expression.

“A safe hold?” he whispered.

“Aye.” She surreptitiously wiped her hand on her apron. “You’ll stay there until your throat is healed.”

“Very well. I have only one more question for you, mistress.”

“Yes?”

He gave her his best smile. The one that women of good breeding said could dim the stars.

She tilted her head to one side, clearly lacking the breeding to be properly dazzled.

“Yes?” she said again.

“Mistress Lark, will you have my baby?”