The Maiden's Hand (15 page)

“Oh, meager wit,” muttered Bess. “I didn’t see that coming.” She shook her head in self-disgust, the torchlight catching the sparkling beads in her elaborate coif. “I am far too bold and impulsive.”

“And I lack both of those virtues,” Lark admitted. Bess eagerly seized yet another pawn, inadvertently clearing a path for Lark’s rook.

“Not everyone sees boldness and impulsiveness as virtues. Besides, you’re wrong, my lady. Are you not the one who has saved the lives of no fewer than eleven condemned prisoners? And isn’t it true that you devise the cipher used by the Samaritans? I’ve been stumped by that cipher for months. Is it built on someone’s birthdate or—”

“My lady,” said Lark, terrified by Bess’s uncanny knowledge. The activities of the Samaritans were supposed to be kept strictly secret. “You are misled. I’m not the one—”

Bess laughed, throwing back her head so that the torchlight caught the gold filaments and jewels in her coif. “Self-effacing to the last. Never mind, I’ll not force you to admit you played a role in stanching the flow of Englishmen’s blood.”

As if you ever could, thought Lark. She captured Bess’s bishop with her rook.

“Still, it is an admirable thing, the way you hide your cleverness behind the guise of a simple woman without a thought in her head. I must remember that for the future.”

“Remember what?” asked Lark.

“To fool them. To claim I am no more than a lowly woman—”

“Your Grace?” A servant stepped hesitantly to the table.

Lark frowned. Was Bess a duchess? But she claimed she was not married.

“Aye, a lowly, ignorant woman,” Bess continued, disregarding the servant. “When in sooth I know I shall always be smarter than them all.” She lifted her chin and favored the servant with a dazzling smile. “I do beg your pardon, Cuthbert. Idle female chatter. We are so hopelessly shallow, we can’t seem to help ourselves.” She winked at Lark.

Cuthbert held out a purse of leather. “Ma’am, the letters have come from your sister the queen.”

“Thank you, Cuthbert. Set them on the table. My poor, unfortunately female brain will have to cope with them later. It is so hard to reason when one is but an addle-witted woman.”

Cuthbert bowed and left, frowning and scratching his head.

Bess scanned the letter. Just for a moment, stone-cold fury hardened her face and flared in her night-dark eyes. The moment passed in a heartbeat, and Bess beamed at Lark. “This is useful indeed. Oh, I am an imp. Poor Cuthbert doesn’t know what to think.”

Nor did Lark. She simply sat there as if someone had planted her on the bench and she had grown roots. Her
head throbbed with the echo of Cuthbert’s words.
Your sister the queen. Your sister the queen.

Good God in heaven. Bess was the Princess Elizabeth, heir apparent to the throne of England.

“Y
ou might have told me,” she snapped at Oliver as they left the residence the next day.

“Told you what?” He massaged his temples and blinked at the early-morning light. Unlike Lark, he had stayed up until dawn, drinking and playing at cards.

“That this is Hatfield House,” said Lark, pleased to see him flinch when she raised her voice. “That Bess is the Princess Elizabeth.”

They left behind the handsome palace and gardens, taking a well-traveled road through a great oak forest. The clack of dried reeds along the verge mingled with the muffled, steady thud of the horses’ hooves.

Oliver rubbed his palm over his chin, where a light, golden stubble grew. “As I recall, you did not have much to say to me after I pointed out your fear of letting yourself feel a woman’s passions.”

Lark scowled at the memory. In sooth she
had
been silent. Determinedly so. “Still, you might have—”

“Hush!” Oliver stood up in his stirrups and twisted around, looking back over his shoulder.

Lark reined in her horse. Then she, too, heard it—hoof-beats.

In one fluid motion, Oliver dismounted and helped Lark down. They led both horses to the bracken at the side of the road. A concealing growth of reeds and genet plant hid them from view. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.

The sight of that hand—the same hand that had taught her temptation so tenderly—poised to do violence sent chills through Lark. She studied his face and noted the tautness of his jaw, the expectant heat in his eyes.

“You
like
this,” she whispered. “Why is it that you
like
this?”

He lifted one eyebrow, one side of his mouth, in the most endearing expression she had ever seen. With gentle lover’s fingers, he touched her beneath the chin. “Because it reminds me that I’m alive,” he said.

The rider came into view. Unbarbered yellow hair flying out behind him, he sat on the horse awkwardly, yet with great command. Tension flowed out of Lark on a surge of relief. “’Tis Richard Speed,” she said, leading her horse back onto the road. Oliver remounted his mare and joined them.

“Something’s amiss,” he said.

Speed nodded miserably. With his soiled tunic and uncombed hair, he looked for all the world like an angel recently banished from paradise.

“Well?” prompted Oliver.

“We’ve been found out. All Bishop Bonner’s henchmen are afoot, looking for me.”

Oliver swore. “Are you certain?”

“The Princess Elizabeth received a communiqué only last night.”

Lark stiffened in surprise as she remembered the letter de
livered by Cuthbert and the icy rage she had seen, just for a moment, in Elizabeth’s eyes. Could Queen Mary herself have warned her not to be caught harboring a fugitive?

The idea revolved round and round in Lark’s mind. She had always regarded Queen Mary as a remote, immovable obstacle to the cause of Reform, certainly not as a woman who cared deeply about her sister.

“Bonner’s spies always lurk like a plague near Bess,” Oliver said. “The creeping, unmannered dogs seek any excuse to find her guilty of treason or heresy. They know she’ll crush them if she takes the throne.”

“That’s why I left Hatfield so quickly. She offered to shelter me until I could plan another escape, but I did not want to risk tarnishing her reputation.”

“God’s heels, you
are
a martyr, aren’t you?” Oliver said in disgust. “You should have stayed.”

“And if they found him with the princess?” Lark asked.

He glared at her for precisely a heartbeat; then his eyes danced with pleasure. “For someone so well convinced of the inferiority of women, you do make a valid point.”

His easy acceptance of her opinion startled her. Spencer would have sent her off to memorize pages of proverbs.

“So what was the warning?” Oliver asked.

With a shaking hand, Speed raked the loose, long hair back from his face. “Bonner’s men have sealed the ports, and they inspect every ship be it incoming or outgoing.”

“So Gravesend’s out.” Lark thought quickly as she studied her companions. They were alike enough to be brothers, both blond and fair and excessively handsome. Yet where Richard’s face held earnestness and fortitude, Oliver’s was blasé and cynical.

Even so, she saw something in Oliver, a raw, restless pain that engaged her sympathy. He lived in a state of de
bauchery and even took pride in his venial lusts. Equal measures of agony and exuberance and cleverness formed his character. There was no reason she should like him, yet he fascinated her. Much more, she was ashamed to admit, than did the holy Richard Speed.

“We must go to Blackrose Priory,” she said. As soon as she spoke the words, she felt a deep tug of certainty and knew she had chosen wisely.

Oliver pulled idly at the pheasant feather in his hat and scowled at her from beneath its shallow brim. “The Reverend Speed will be a fine gift for Wynter. A lamb to the slaughter.”

“Wynter won’t know.”

“He’s not stupid, Lark. A brain-infected villain, perhaps, but not quite a fool.”

“Nor am I.” She caught her breath, aware that she had never before truly believed that. She squared her shoulders and, all on her own, mounted the horse. “I have a plan.”

“Incredible.” In an innyard northwest of London, Oliver walked in a wide circle around the Reverend Richard Speed, looking the preacher up and down with wide, laughing eyes. “If I did not know your true identity, even I would believe the disguise.”

“I feel ridiculous. A misbegotten mongrel.” Speed glowered at his two grinning companions. “Is this absolutely necessary?”

“I fear so,” said Lark. “You’ll get used to it. You look splendid.”

“Quite splendid,” Oliver agreed. “Gorgeous, in fact.” It took all his restraint to keep from breaking into great peals of laughter. “You make a most convincing woman, my dear Speed. Or shall I say, Mistress Speed?”

Because he was a godly man, Speed did not curse, but his glare held pure poison.

“Of course,” Oliver continued as Lark bent to sift through the garments they had—by hook
and
by crook—acquired, “we cannot call you by the name Speed at all, for by now it’s notorious. What shall it be, then? Lady Lackbeard? Dame Deviant?”

“Enough. I won’t stand for this another moment.” Red faced and exasperated, Speed reached up to tear off his demure coif.

“Wait!” Lark straightened, putting a hand on his arm, raising a pleading face to his. “You are too quick to give in. Think what is at stake, Richard.”

Oliver snapped his fingers. “Quick. Mistress Quickly! You’ll go down in history as the martyr in petticoats,” he couldn’t resist adding.

Speed conceded the point with a disgusted nod. “I suffer in the name of the Lord,” he grumbled, kicking sullenly at the hem of his overskirt. The gown, pilfered by Oliver himself from a bawdy house in Shoreditch, fit snugly across the shoulders but too loosely in the front.

“You need a bit more up top.” Oliver plucked a handful of straw from a pile beneath the eaves of the stable. “Hold still.” He pulled at the neckline of Speed’s coarse lockeram chemise and inserted the straw, fluffing out the busked bodice of the dress.

“It itches,” Speed protested.

“Not so much as a hair shirt,” Oliver said. When he finished with the straw, he added a somewhat crushed ruff collar to conceal Speed’s Adam’s apple.

Lark continued exploring the contents of the sack Oliver had gotten from the leaping house. After a moment
she straightened, holding an odd, furry object dangling from a string. “What on earth is this?”

Oliver nearly choked on suppressed mirth. These two green Protestants were going to be the death of him. “That,” he said, his face determinedly solemn, “is a merkin.”

Lark cocked her head and frowned. “I still don’t—”

“It’s just the touch we need to perfect the disguise.” Oliver snatched it from her. He stooped in front of Speed and hiked the reverend’s skirts. “It’s a privy wig.”

Lark gave a squeak of horror and turned away, covering her face with her hands. Speed froze with revulsion. When he found his voice, he said, “There’s no need to carry the disguise this far.”

“You never know where spies might be lurking, my dear Speed,” Oliver said. He would burn in hell for this jest, but he couldn’t resist. “Put it on.”

Just as Speed finished tying on the odd hairpiece, a groom brought their horses around. He gaped at Speed for a moment, then clapped his hand over his mouth and fled. When he ducked out of sight, they could hear his guffaws.

“There goes dignity,” Speed grumbled.

The three of them mounted and left the innyard just as the sun was chasing off the damp chill of dawn. Speed rode sidesaddle, one leg hooked awkwardly over the bow, his feet pushed into tight fustian slippers. He complained loudly and steadily, his straw-stuffed bosom jouncing with each step of his trotting horse. At noon they passed the bridge at Tyler Cross.

Though he laughed and joked about Speed’s costume, Oliver never forgot that the reverend was a fugitive running for his life. Neither did he forget what had happened the last time they had crossed the bridge here.

But today they encountered no winter travelers, no coach conveniently embedded in the roadside mud.

By the time the rising, round hills came into view, Speed had grown quiet and resigned. If he managed to keep his face free of whiskers and his big hands and thick wrists hidden, if he managed to temper his voice, no one would suspect he was a man.

“Lark, my felicitations,” Oliver said. “The disguise is clever.”

“We shall see how clever,” she said in her typical cautious way.

It was happening again, a shutting-down that came over her when she approached Blackrose. She was like a flower caught in a sudden frost. She lost the color and life that made her vibrant and special. She became withdrawn and somehow damaged.

Oliver thought he knew why now. Spencer was her husband. That gaunt, dying old man in the master’s chamber was her
husband.

And—irony of ironies—Wynter was her stepson. He was several years older than she, but he was her stepson. It boggled the mind.

Quite unexpectedly, Oliver felt a small, hot pang of sympathy for her. He imagined what her life must have been like here—wife to a man who was father instead of husband, mother to a stranger who clearly despised her. How bizarre and sad it all was.

As they passed through the gatehouse of the priory, he caught up with her, reached across and touched her shoulder.

She turned to him, and he saw that the transformation was complete. Lark was gone; the marble-faced stranger had taken over.

“Yes?” she asked. “What is it?”

“I just want you to know, I’ll stay here for as long as you need me.”

Bitterness tightened her smile. “Nay, my lord. You’ll stay for as long as it pleases you.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I am coming to know you, my lord. You are quick to take up a cause and just as quick to abandon it. Truly, you have the loyalty of Simon and Peter.”

A blaze of fury lit Oliver’s chest. She was right, damn her. It had ever been the way with him. He pursued those things that interested him; when interest waned or he felt the least bit threatened, he moved on to the next adventure. The difference was, this time he did not want the adventure to end.

“You’re wrong.” He reined in, and they waited as two stable lads ran forth to take their horses. “This time I shall stay and see this through. Did I not so vow that night on the hill?”

“Vows made in wine seldom hold.” She dismounted without assistance and tossed her reins to one of the lads. Oliver leaped off his mare and made a great show of helping Richard Speed dismount.

The reverend’s beskirted form dropped clumsily to the stone-paved drive. He tugged at his tight bodice and ran a finger around the rim of his ruff.

“Thank you, my lord,” he muttered under his breath.

Oliver grinned and whispered, “Try that an octave higher, and I’ll believe you.”

Lark led the way into the great hall. With long, manly strides, Speed stalked toward the door. Oliver grasped his elbow. “You walk like a ploughman, not a lady. Slow down. Tiny mincing steps. A slight sway to the hips. Like this.” He demonstrated, then turned to see Speed gawking at him.

“My lord, pardon me for asking, but where the devil did you learn to walk like that?”

Oliver laughed. “Years of careful and diligent observation, my dear Speed.”

They entered the hall to find Lark being greeted by a worried-looking servant.

“What is it, Crispus?” she asked.

The man clutched at the edges of his ill-fitting jerkin. “’Tis the master, ma’am. He’s taken a turn for the worse. The physick were with him all the night through, and now Goody Rowse has come from the village to sit.”

Lark spared not a glance at Oliver and Richard. She picked up her skirts and raced for the stairs.

Over her shoulder she said, “Where is Lord Wynter?”