The Maiden's Hand (19 page)

“Lark?”

She smiled at his gentle, endearingly uncertain tone. “Mm?”

“I meant to tell you something earlier. Don’t fall in love with me, Lark.”

“Mm?” she said again. “Why not?”

“I saw your heart break when Spencer died. I’d not want you to suffer like that again.”

Her eyes fluttered shut. “Fall in love with you, Oliver? Now, why would I commit such a folly as that?”

In the days that followed, the air was piercing and clear, and springtime swept down from the Chiltern Hills, blanketing the landscape in green. Drovers herded flocks of sheep up for their summer grazing. Copyholders plowed the outlying fields, and their children broadcast the rye seed.

Lark fell into the routine that had ruled every season at Blackrose Priory. She supervised the rents, saw to the making of candles and sausage, ordered the scrubbing of floors and walls and halls.

Aye, she thought, making her way to the sewing room to help Florabel with stuffing a mattress, the days passed as they always had.

But not the nights.

The mere thought quickened her blood, and she felt a warm spasm low in her belly. She paused outside the small room off the kitchen and tried to conquer her unbidden blush.

The maid must have stepped out. The mattress, just half filled with straw and sweet herbs, hung in the middle of the room. Lark stepped to the other side and began gathering up armfuls to stuff in the mattress. After several minutes had passed, she heard a footstep outside the room.

“Florabel,” she said without looking up, “I expected all the retainers at Blackrose to abhor me for marrying Lord Oliver so soon after Spencer’s death.” She poked more straw into the mattress. “In truth, everyone seems so accepting. What do the servants say when I am not around to hear?”

Florabel worked in silence; Lark could hear the soft rustle of straw as she cut it.

“Ah. You needn’t answer, then,” Lark said, “and I shouldn’t pry. But tell me, Florabel, what
do
you think of my lord husband?”

Lark was obsessed with him. She wanted to talk about him to anyone who would listen.

More silence. Lark imagined the girl’s cheeks ablaze with embarrassment and smiled. “You needn’t answer that, either, Florabel. It’s plain to see everyone finds him charming. He is boisterous and funny and bright and exasperating.” She closed her eyes, collapsed into the full mattress behind her and savored the spice of dried lavender and bay. “Also, he is quite insufferably handsome, don’t you think? Of course you do. All women do.” Since
Florabel was of an age with Lark and newly wed herself, Lark added boldly, “I get very little sleep these days, for Lord Oliver is very…active at night.”

“To say nothing of the days,” said a low, decidedly masculine voice. A warm weight fell upon her. Her eyes flew open. Before she could cry out, Oliver kissed her, long and hungrily, pressing her into the mattress while the clean ticking billowed up around them.

For a moment the intense pleasure that rushed over her obscured all else. She felt an almost painful joy, as if her thoughts and words alone had summoned him.

She tore her mouth from his long enough to rouse indignation. “Where is Florabel?”

He laughed and touched his tongue to her ear. “I gave her tuppence and sent her to market.”

“But we have work to do.”

He pressed his hardness into the cradle of her hips. “So we have.”

Suspicion chilled the inevitable heat he kindled. “How long have you been here?” she demanded.

He tugged at her bodice and sleeve lacings. “Long enough.”

“Long enough? What does that mean?”

He laughed again and tugged at her chemise until her breasts were bared to his mouth, his tongue, his lightly nipping teeth.

“Long enough to hear myself called charming, funny, bright, handsome…I blush to continue.”

“And so you should.” In spite of herself she weakened, lifting herself toward the wicked delights offered by his mouth. “I didn’t mean a word of it.”

“Of course you didn’t.” He hiked her skirts and lowered his canions.

“I won’t love you,” she said, opening to him helplessly, raising her hips and sighing as he sank into her.

“Of course you won’t.”

She let out a soft sob as he began to move. “Then why…do I let you…want you…” Her voice trailed off.

“Because you can’t help yourself, my sweet. Nor can I.”

Oliver did not know how much time had passed. He did not care. He looked through the single, unglazed window of the sewing room and saw that the sky had darkened to the color of Lark’s blushing cheeks.

Lark.

He glanced down at his sleeping wife. The mattress cradled them like a cloud, keeping the chill air at bay. When he was a lad, dry straw used to irritate his lungs, but it had not bothered him in years, God be thanked. Now only the occasional London summer or sometimes a sense of anxiety brought on the illness that would ultimately conquer him. Here, the air was soft and safe, and he had not suffered a seriously anxious moment yet.

Lark sighed and curled herself closer against him. She had fallen asleep in his arms, as sweetly exhausted and trusting as a babe.

For weeks Oliver had lived in a state of confusion. He was a rake. A prodigal. A daredevil. This bucolic, monogamous life was not for him. His mission was to go adventuring, to sample all of life’s pleasures, to consume delight in great gulps, not caring what wounded rubble he left in his wake.

But something terrible—something unthinkable—had happened.

Oliver de Lacey had fallen in love with his wife.

He spent a few minutes wondering when it had hap
pened. He decided it had not come upon him all at once, like a direct hit from Cupid’s arrow. Instead his feelings had spread gradually, sprouting from the germ planted the moment Lark had pulled him from a pauper’s grave. Nurtured with humor and sympathy when she had bravely faced him in a Southwark tavern and endured his antics at Newgate Market. Leavened with admiration when he had realized the risks she took to save the wrongfully condemned. Grown with tenderness when he had watched her weep at Spencer’s deathbed.

And finally and irrevocably sealed when she had surrendered to him on their wedding night.

He frowned slightly at the memory. He had gone about it all wrong, letting his fear turn to anger and accusing her of conspiring to trap him into marriage. They had argued their way out of that, thank God, but she had surprised him yet again…the moment he had joined with her.

Oliver was a man of vast experience. He knew a maiden when he bedded one. Lark was as virginal as any he had known; she was innocent in all ways…but one.

He told himself he was wrong, that perhaps she was made differently, that her maidenhead had yielded without the usual resistance. Yet every so often doubts nagged at him. He had never placed a high value on the insubstantial shield between innocence and knowledge, but at odd moments he did wonder if Lark hid something from him.

It mattered not. Oliver leaned down and kissed a stray curl that adorned her temple. That was the beauty of love—it made such things cease to matter. He felt as if all his life he had been running a race and now, at last, he had found the finish line.

Gone was the restlessness that once drove him to live his life at a frantic pace. Lark made it seem all right to slow
down, to watch the color of the sky deepen at twilight, to listen to the laughter of children at play, or to lie motionless, for hours, with his sleeping wife in his arms.

His finger traced the delicate line of her brow and temple. He wondered if anyone else suspected the passion that burned beneath the plain, scripture-quoting Lady Lark. How could one small, prim woman wreak such havoc on a man’s heart and soul?

Oliver sighed and gazed down at her. Soft skin, dusky eyelashes shadowing her cheeks, a bowed mouth that was beautiful when she wasn’t pursing it in disapproval.

The wave struck with unusual force. Oliver felt a tightness in his chest, braced himself. An attack. Not now. Not here.

The familiar darkness never came. He let out a breath of relief when he realized it wasn’t an attack. It was something quite different.

He realized that there was one flaw in loving. It hurt when it wasn’t returned.

I won’t love you.
Her breathless, almost desperate declaration echoed in his mind.

He curved his mouth in a bittersweet smile. “Then I hope you don’t mind,” he whispered, “if I love you.”

It was the first time he had spoken the words aloud, and he waited for lightning to strike.

Instead, a hammering sounded at the door of the sewing room.

Lark blinked herself awake. “What is it?” she mumbled.

“My lord! My lady!” Florabel’s voice shrilled with anxiety. “Come quickly! Lord Wynter has returned!”

W
hen Oliver and Lark found Wynter, he was pacing in the great hall and questioning the steward like a Spanish Inquisitor.

“Why weren’t the rye fields left fallow? And what about the western uplands? I thought I ordered the grazing there.”

The steward, a thin-necked man called Cakepen, wrung his hands. “Quite so, my lord. But there were a few cases of the bloat, and then—”

“Wynter!” Hiding his annoyance behind a broad grin, Oliver strode forward, both hands outstretched. Wynter was a handsome bag of male pride, Oliver acknowledged. And perhaps, like Oliver himself, no stranger to using his looks to his advantage.

Shamelessly, Oliver gave him a back-pounding hug. “Welcome to Blackrose.”

Wynter hauled himself free, flinging out his arms to rid himself of the hug. “What do you here?” Without waiting for an answer, he glared at Lark. “I should have known your wit was too small to dispose of a mere houseguest. Why
is
he still here?”

Oliver gave Lark no chance to reply. “I can see you’re consumed with grief over your father’s passing.” He pressed a cup of ale into Wynter’s hand. “Apparently you were so sick with mourning that you failed to come and pay your respects at his burial.” He patted Wynter on the shoulder. “Time will heal your heart, son.”

Wynter gulped the ale and rolled his eyes. “Son? Have you taken vows while I wasn’t looking?”

Oliver laughed. He heard Lark catch her breath and hold it in agonized, waiting silence.

“Aye,” he said, “I have. Marriage vows.”

Wynter’s eyes narrowed.

“’Tis true.” Oliver refilled Wynter’s glass. “And since Lark was your father’s wife, and therefore your stepmother, I might well be your stepfather.” He winked at Lark. “Have I got that right? Does marrying the stepmother make me this young landraker’s—”

The ale cup slipped from Wynter’s hand and spilled into the rushes on the floor.

Lark was no help at all. She stood there pale and goggle-eyed, looking as if she had swallowed a live toad.

In a single stride Wynter had her backed against the wall, his hands gripping her upper arms and his furious face mere inches from hers.

“Is this true?”
he demanded.

Just for a moment, Oliver stood perfectly still. He had never, ever felt this way before, so at first he didn’t recognize the feeling.

Then he identified it: rage. Clean and sharp and brutal. It was as if someone had put a glowing brand to his brain. The heat was so tremendous, he thought his head would explode.

With his blood boiling, Oliver leaped forward, grabbing
Wynter and spinning him around. Wynter’s arms exploded outward, shoving Oliver away and unbalancing him. He staggered back while Wynter’s hand found the hilt of his sword.

No one, but no one, was quicker with a blade than Oliver de Lacey. Even before he found his footing, he had his weapon drawn, the tip of it pushed into the tender hollow between Wynter’s collarbones.

Wynter’s eyes widened in astonishment. Then he nearly crossed them as he looked down at the sword. His own weapon dropped with a defeated clatter to the floor.

Oliver usually grinned good-naturedly at his victims before he bested them. This time he did not smile. His own fury worried him. His control hung by a slender thread—a thread controlled by the small, frightened woman who watched them both.

“Please don’t kill him,” she whispered.

The faint, pleading words reined in his rage. He could not trust himself to move, but he did manage to force himself to put on an expression of paternal disapproval. “Here now, my boy.” He spoke calmly enough. “If you persist in being naughty, I shall have to send you to your room.”

“You meddlesome knave,” Wynter said. “They gossip about you in the lowest dives in Southwark.”

Oliver hooked a thumb into his baldric. “There is much of me to gossip about,” he couldn’t help commenting. “And how would you know the dives of Southwark, hmm?”

Wynter tossed away the question with a blink and countered with one of his own. “How can you think to keep a wife? And Lark, of all women! I’ve known her far longer than you. I know how to handle her. She is—”

“My wife,” Oliver snapped. “I have never had a wife
before, and I rather like this one, so I mean to keep her. Much to my surprise, I am possessive of her.”

To reinforce his meaning, Oliver increased the pressure of the sword point. “So you see, Wynter, I cannot allow you to touch her. Nor to make any remark I could construe as insulting. Is that clear?”

“Yes.” Wynter spoke very softly, as if in fear of deepening the pressure of the steel on his vulnerable neck.

“Excellent.” Oliver winked and sheathed his sword. “If you had any idea, Don Weasel, how close I just came to killing you—”

“Oliver, never mind.” Lark put a hand on his arm and kept her eyes downcast. “You’ve made your point.”

He had just rescued her from a twisted, hateful man. Wasn’t she grateful?

“Indeed you have.” Wynter swallowed hard and touched his throat. “Though my mother raised me to be a hospitable host, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave Blackrose. Now that my esteemed father—of well-beloved memory—is gone, I have work to do.” He sent a thin smile to Lark. “You have done an adequate job of managing the estate. But, as I expected, you’ve not been nearly as thorough as a man.”

If Oliver had made such a taunt, she would have flown in his face and proven him wrong. With Wynter, however, she simply clasped her hands in front of her and said, “You know I am a hard worker, Wynter.”

“Ah, indeed you are. I wonder if our dear Lord Oliver wed you for that virtue alone.” Wynter kept the open door at his back, no doubt well aware that Oliver would attack again if provoked. “I think not. Anyone with half the wits of a hen knows he wed you for your property—that which is legitimately yours.”

“You pretend to know much of what happened while
you were off to London,” she said, but her voice was uncommonly soft.

“You believe everything Oliver de Lacey tells you,” Wynter said, disgust curling his lip. “Maybe you’re a gull rather than a lark. No matter. When you discover his game, you’ll come running back to me.”

With that, he turned on his heel and left the hall.

Lark stood rigid, pale, watching him depart. It worried Oliver to see her like this—his Lark, his hardheaded outspoken Lark, quelled into weak silence.

Back to me.
Oliver frowned at Wynter’s words. Not
to me,
but
back to me,
as if he had possessed her before.

The thought was so outrageous that he tossed it away like so much offal. Trying to lighten the moment, he said, “I suppose I’ll have to wait until supper to tell him the suit is concluded and he’s been disentailed.”

“Aye,” she said.

Her meekness infuriated him. “Look at me, Lark! Now!”

She lifted her gaze to his. Her great mist-colored eyes, bruised by the shadows of her thick lashes, reflected ancient wounds that made him want to shake her—or take her into his arms.

He did neither. “What poison does he feed you, Lark? A half hour ago, I looked into your eyes and saw naught but passion and wonder and joy. Five minutes with Wynter and you’re like a candle that’s burnt itself out. It hurts me, Lark. It hurts me to see you like this.”

“Ah, and there we have it,” she said, crushing her fists to her sides. “
You
feel hurt. You always see things in terms of yourself. You never try to understand
me.
”

“Then make me understand,” he snapped. “Why do you cower before him? Has he hurt you, abused you? By God, if he has, I won’t even need my sword to kill him.”

“No! Oliver, if you truly care about my feelings, you’ll stop interfering. And
I
shall deliver the news about the entail.”

“That should be interesting to watch. You can barely get three words out when he’s around.”

She clenched her fists at her sides. “Excuse me, for I must see about supper.”

In a whirl of stiff skirts and indignation, she was gone.

That evening at supper, Lark served capon. She made no apology to Oliver when the hapless roasted bird arrived at the high table. She merely stared straight ahead, out at the lower tables where the stewards and overseers, footboys and maids, and occasional wayfarer took their meal.

Ironically, her quarrel with Oliver had given her the strength to endure this evening. She had vented her temper, that unseemly, angry passion Spencer had so disliked, and she had survived the ordeal. She would survive tonight. She would not let either Oliver or Wynter make her cringe.

Wynter sat at her right, Oliver at her left. On the other side of Wynter sat Mr. Belcumber, the portly and empty-headed mayor of Hempstead.

Oliver chattered blithely with Mr. Nettlethorpe, a successful breeder of horses who had promised to locate a stud for Oliver’s prized Neapolitan mare.

As she had been for the past score of years, Lark was left alone with her thoughts.

How ironic, she thought bitterly. Spencer had been convinced that Oliver would be her salvation. That with his youth and beauty and charm, he would fling open the cage and she would soar.

She took another sip of wine and thought back to Wynter’s arrival. She had felt that familiar thud of trepidation she always experienced in his presence.

It was a rare gift, indeed, to be able to rip a person to shreds without even touching her. Wynter had a way of using words like a tarred lash, stripping away at her until she shrank like a defeated dog. She had given him that power over her.

From time to time she tried to make excuses for herself—she had met him at the tender age of seventeen; her judgment had been blurred by his sleek beauty and magnetic air. But when she was honest, she admitted her own shameful weakness. The ugly past was her secret, her carefully hidden sorrow.

Every once in a while she had tried to fight back, but always on behalf of innocent folk accused of heresy, never herself. Even Oliver had failed to repair her pride. Aye, he had put Wynter in his place, had threatened him, and she had been filled with hope. But Oliver had acted for his own benefit. Because
he
hurt.
His
pride was at stake.

She sighed and set down her wine, having no taste for it. Of late, she had a sour stomach. Her gaze strayed to the coat of arms above the door. Spencer’s device, a hart passant, still adorned shields and hangings throughout the house.

‘Tis not your fault, Spencer, she thought. The fault lay with her. She could not find happiness. She never would. And two years earlier, she had flung away her own peace of mind.

“Who is that woman there?” Interrupting her reverie, Wynter pointed at a lower table. “The one in the gown of dark blue.”

Lark’s heart leaped as she followed Wynter’s pointing finger. Richard Speed’s outlandish disguise had proved to be unusually successful. With his yellow curls and broad face, Reverend Speed resembled a handsome, upcountry maid in simple garb.

“Well?” Wynter prodded.

Lark gave him the explanation they had settled upon. “Mistress Quickly is a poor widow fallen on hard times.”

“She looks lonely. Where are your manners, Lark?”

Before she could contrive an excuse, Wynter sent a servant to fetch the buxom Mistress Quickly.

Lark gripped Oliver’s knee under the table.

He smiled and whispered, “So you’re over your pique? Can’t keep your lovely hands off me?”

Scowling with impatience, she whispered, “I fear Wynter has taken a fancy to our guest.”

She expected Oliver to think and act quickly to avert the disaster. Instead he threw back his head and hooted with laughter. Moments later he stood to help Mistress Quickly up to the raised head table.

Lark saw Oliver lean down and say something into Speed’s ear. Speed went pale, but that only enhanced the illusion of maidenly trepidation. His curtsy, when he was presented to Wynter, seemed endearingly clumsy. His blush, as he took a seat on the bench between Wynter and Lark, was genuine.

When Wynter’s hungry eyes fixed on the tightly filled bosom, Lark wished she had not been so liberal with the straw.

“Try the capon,” Wynter said, pushing the salver toward Speed. “’Tis unusually succulent.”

Speed sniffed and waved a dainty handkerchief in front of his face. “Capon makes me bloated. You’d not want me breaking wind at the high table, would you?” Batting his huge, guileless eyes, Speed gazed at Wynter.

Oliver made a gurgling sound, almost choking on his wine.

Yet wonder of wonders, Wynter seemed enchanted. He
regaled Mistress Quickly with tales of his travels, boasting that the queen had received him with a special kiss only a week earlier and that Bishop Bonner was considering him for an official post as undersecretary to the undersecretary of heretics’ widows and orphans. The office made certain that those who had lost their providers to heresy suffered no lapses of their own.

“How exciting for you,” Speed piped. “Imagine, rooting out all those dangerous old women and small children. I’ve always considered them a threat to the security of England.”