The Maiden's Hand (27 page)

“Is that so?”

“You wanted the world to see you as a frivolous man. Quick to love, for certain, but quicker still to lose interest and move on. Who would have thought that Oliver de Lacey, notorious rakehell, would come to share so deep a love with a woman like Lark?”

Oliver wished he could touch his friend then, enfold him in an embrace and tell him what the many years of their friendship had meant to him. Instead he said, “Kit, I want you to tell me what to do.”

“Do?”

“When they question me. I want to know how to keep them from arresting Lark.”

Kit thought for a long while. “I cannot be certain, but perhaps there is a way.”

“Then tell me! By God, tell me!”

“Oliver, I fear—”

“What?”

“If you do this, it might save Lark but cost you your life.”

The words, at first, had little meaning to Oliver. His life. So what was that without Lark, anyway?

“Kit,” he said, “tell me exactly what to say.”

Lark caught Belinda’s hands in hers. “I try not to despair, but it comes over me in waves.”

“I know,” Belinda whispered, bending her blond head so that the sunlight through the office windows touched the golden tresses with fire. “I feel it, too.” She looked down at the letters scattered across the table. “As soon as I learned what had happened to Oliver, I sent word to our parents. But their ship had already left Bristol.”

Lark nodded. “Of course, they would be going after Natalya. It was a foolish and dangerous thing for her to do, marrying in secret, leaving England with a fugitive. Yet part of me admires her courage.” She took her hands away and mindlessly shredded a bit of ink-blotched parchment. “Imagine, leaving everything you’ve ever known—family and home—to be with the man you love.”

Belinda smiled wistfully. “You or I would have done the same.”

Lark shifted on her wooden chair. The baby, growing fast and active these days, pushed a tiny appendage against her stomach. She felt such a torrent of love that she nearly cried out with the sharp, sweet pain of it. “I would give anything to be with Oliver now. He was not happy about the baby when I first told him, but when the shock wore off, he shared my joy.”

Belinda burst into tears. “At least you had that joy to share!” She grabbed one of the desperate letters they had penned and tore it to bits. “How dare they take my Kit! How dare they take him while I am yet a maid!” Then she could speak no more, for the sobs overwhelmed her.

Lark levered her ungainly form up and knelt on the bench beside the weeping girl. They clung together until Belinda took a long sniff and wiped her face with her sleeve.

“How unforgivably selfish of me,” she said, steely once again, her de Lacey pride pushing past despair. “To lament my virginity while Kit and Oliver rot in the Tower.”

Trying to pull Belinda out of her melancholy, Lark handed her a silken handkerchief and asked, “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Manage to look beautiful even as you weep?”

Belinda stroked Lark’s black hair. “In ten years’ time, I’ll not be so comely. But you, my sister, will still have that look deep in your eyes.”

“What look?”

“The one that glows with…I’m not sure, but it was one of the first things I noticed about you. You’re calm and peaceful, as if you know exactly who you are, where you’re going and what you want.”

Lark laughed for the first time in weeks. “I know nothing of the sort. Oliver’s love gives me strength,” she said, touching the brooch Juliana had given her. She had worn the talisman each day since they had taken him. The days had stretched to weeks, now months, and still she had not found a way to see him. Officially he and Kit were “guests of the Crown” and as such were entitled to decent lodgings and meals. Yet Lark knew better than to trust the word of officials who answered to Bishop Bonner.

She wished she had told Oliver her true feelings, confessed that she loved him as he was, not as she wanted him to be. She wished she had told him that the way he loved her was enough, more than enough. Instead he had gone to prison believing she still did not trust his love.

“Belinda,” she said, “I want you to see something.” With shaking hands she opened the coffer on the table. Inside were bottles of ink and sharpened nibs for the quills and
styluses. In the very bottom of the coffer lay a well-worn parchment covered in Oliver’s scrawling penmanship.

She had read the words until they were etched in her memory. The letter was meant for his child, but the tone of it frightened her. He wrote advice and endearments as if he did not expect to live.

In typical forthright fashion, Oliver advised his child to eat his vegetables and avoid picking his teeth at table, to honor his mother, and above all, to enjoy life. It was the simplest of ideas, yet until she had met Oliver, true happiness had eluded her.

At the end of the missive, the tone changed. “When the rain caresses your cheeks,” he had written, “when the waves meet the shores, it shall be my kiss, my touch, ever so gentle upon your brow. I am that near to you, my child. You will never be alone.”

Belinda shook with quiet sobs. Reverently she folded the letter and placed it back in the coffer.

“He knew he was going to be arrested, didn’t he?” Lark asked.

“Perhaps. But—” Belinda bit her lip, then took a deep breath. “It might be his illness, too. He doesn’t speak of it much, but it plagues him still from time to time.”

Lark shivered. “He wanted me to believe the sickness no longer troubled him. If he was falling ill when he wrote this, being in prison could mean—” She dared not finish the thought.

Belinda pounded the table with her fist. “I do not understand how your pleas to see your husband can go ignored.” She glared at all the letters. They were copies of copies sent in a daily barrage to the queen at Hampton Court, to Bishop Bonner in London, to the warden of the Tower, to Dr. Feckenham, dean of St. Paul’s. They had written to
Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield but had not yet sent the letters. Those were a last resort, for to imply any familiarity with her was mortal danger for them all.

Lark heaved a great sigh. “I receive no answer save ‘Wait and see.’ I weary of waiting.”

She and Belinda stared at the letters to Princess Elizabeth. There were three of them, all in cipher, all small enough to be rolled and tucked into a glove or bauble.

“Dare we?” Belinda whispered.

“We must. I’ve half a mind to raise an army and storm—” Lark stopped talking when Nance Harbutt poked her head into the office.

“A caller to see you, my lady.”

Lark and Belinda picked up their skirts and hurried from the room. “Perhaps you finally have permission to go to the Tower,” Belinda said.

“I pray so.” Lark pushed the door open, stepped into the room and gasped. “Wynter.”

Just for a moment, Wynter, whose glib tongue could cut like a knife, stood speechless. His shining onyx eyes focused on Lark’s midsection.

With cold, ruthless certainty, Lark knew she would kill to protect her child. She imagined unsheathing the dagger, plunging it into Wynter’s neck or chest, and felt not even a twinge of distaste.

There was nothing, she realized, as fierce and unforgiving as a mother’s love.

At last Wynter smiled and performed a practiced, courtly bow. His ever-present rapier touched the flagstone floor briefly with the movement.

“Ladies,” he said, including them both with a nod.

“Do not pretend courtesy with me,” Lark stated. “When
last you disturbed the peace of my home, you wrongfully arrested my husband. When will he be released?”

“That depends on him. He’s a danger—to you as well as to the True Faith.”

“Why have I not been allowed to see him?” she demanded. Her voice was that of a stranger. It rang with assurance.

Wynter raised one eyebrow. “So. The mouse has turned into a lioness. I am impressed.”

“I,” she shot back, “do not care. I want my husband back.”

“My lady,” Wynter said, “you must come with me.”

His words echoed those spoken to Oliver the last morning she had seen him, the morning she had discovered the depth of her love for him. “Am I under arrest?” she asked.

“Certainly not. I am taking you to see your husband.”

Belinda, as haughty and beautiful as a foreign princess, glided forward. “She’ll need to collect a few belongings.”

Only Lark caught the desperate flash in Belinda’s eyes and felt the subtle trembling of her hand as it grasped her own.

The letters. Their last hope.

“Call for your belongings, then,” Wynter instructed.

“I’ll fetch them myself,” Belinda said. “’Twill be quicker, and I’m certain you’re eager to be on your way.”

Some time later, as sorrowful retainers watched from the top of the garden, Wynter stood on the quay with Lark.

“Lark?”

The hesitancy in his tone startled her. She had always been cowed and uncertain in his presence, not the other way around.

“What do you want?”

“Forgive me.”

She wanted to laugh and cry and scream with rage. There had been a time when she had wanted to like Wynter, to understand him, to win his regard. But that was long
ago. This man had taken her husband from her at the moment she needed him most.

She stared directly into Wynter’s handsome, austere face and said, “Tell me, Wynter. Why are you permitting me to see Oliver now? Why not when I first requested it?”

Wynter held himself very still for a moment. His face was as heartbreakingly beautiful as ever. “Because,” he said in a soft, kindly voice, “he has been condemned to die.”

O
liver stood chained at the wrists, his arms spread-eagled and attached to two wooden beams. He tried to remember when they had removed him from the Lieutenant’s Lodgings and conducted him to this cryptlike place in the bowels of London Tower, but the days had blurred in his mind.

A fire roared in a crude, rounded grate. Its purpose was not to keep Oliver warm, of course, but to heat the branding irons.

The radiance of the fire glared off other horrors: the Iron Maiden, designed to crush a man into compliance. The pincers and the strappado and the thumbscrews. He saw other instruments so unique, so new and so evilly ingenious that he did not even know what they were called.

Yet by now he knew them well. The great hook had held him aloft while they had interrogated him about the mysterious disappearance of Richard Speed. The iron boots, with their interior spikes, had enclosed his legs and feet while they had questioned him about his visits to Hatfield. The glowing brands had rendered him nearly senseless
with pain as the interrogators had speculated on his father’s sudden voyage abroad.

Exhausted well beyond the ability to sleep, Oliver stared into the heart of the fire. They had deprived him of rest in order to weaken him, and that—though they knew it not—had been a mistake. It was during these moments that he found his greatest strength.

At some point it had ceased to matter that he was a prisoner, that he had been tortured. He had taught himself to stare into the fire and fly away, far away, like a bird. He could soar beyond their reach, where he was free, truly free, and safe.

They thought, of course, that he was going mad. Perhaps he was, but it was the keen, intelligent insanity of sheer determination. They would not break him.

They tried to get him to admit that Lark was a Samaritan, for the panicked babblings of Phineas Snipes were not conclusive enough for Bonner’s men. The mood of London was shifting; outcries against the horrors of Smithfield crescendoed, and the council had to proceed with caution.

Poor, broken Snipes had mewled and pleaded for release from the Tower, but to no avail. A fortnight ago he had managed to hang himself from a rafter. His pitiful death had not even roused Oliver and Kit from sleep. Snipes had gone that quickly, that willingly.

Phineas was a coward, but he was not stupid.

There were some things, Oliver now knew without question, that were worse than dying.

Of late, he had experienced his share of them.

Even so, the torture had the most amazing effect on him. He grew stronger in his will. At first he had tossed out cocky answers, claiming responsibility for every misdeed
from the murder of the boy-princes in the reign of Richard III to bringing the sweat upon London.

He had confessed to every crime save those that would incriminate Lark.

The amusement in toying with his captors had quickly palled.

Now he simply waited for the next wave of torment. Perhaps the new session would bring the oblivion of death. He tasted the bitter irony of it. He had always been resigned to dying young. The fact had never concerned him overmuch. Now, though, he had a reason to live. He had Lark.

He knew not whether it was day or night, for the chamber had no windows. His legs gave out once or twice, and he stumbled, but his arms, chained and spread wide, kept him up off the floor. The posture gave him a new appreciation for the agonies suffered by Christ on the cross. But as Oliver slipped deeper and deeper into a dreamlike state, it was not the Lord’s face he saw, but Lark’s.

Later, with a creak of rusty hinges, the low door with its curved lintel swung open. In marched a troop of bodyguards, stationed like curtain walls around the man they protected.

“Lord Bishop Edmund Bonner,” announced one of the soldiers, staring straight ahead.

A black-and-scarlet-robed man stepped forward. Oliver watched in fascination, for this was his first face-to-face encounter with the dread Bishop Bonner.

It was interesting that a man credited with such inhuman cruelty could look so ordinary. Coarse, even, like a workman on the London docks. The florid face and plain brown eyes that studied Oliver, lingering on his bare, lacerated chest, could have belonged to anyone. Bonner might
have been a farmer bringing his goods to market, an ironmonger, a seaman, or a lading clerk at Gravesend.

Somehow, the fact that this wholly unremarkable man was responsible for death and torture, for the haze of flesh-scented smoke that hovered over the West End of the City, made him more frightening than the devil himself.

He trundled in a wide circle around Oliver. “I was a prisoner myself. More than once. First at the Marshalsea and then right here in the Tower.”

“Feeling nostalgic, are you?” Oliver inquired, quirking an eyebrow.

Bonner completed the circle and stopped in front of him. Almost as an afterthought, he backhanded Oliver hard enough to stir a flurry of stars before his eyes. Oliver merely blinked, refusing to offer even so much as a grunt of protest.

“Faith and constancy proved to be my salvation.” Bonner fingered his heavy gold chain of office. The gleaming ornament was attached at each shoulder and draped across his chest, bright against his black-and-bloodred garments.

“My lord,” the bishop continued, “I am told you have not yet unburdened yourself of your many heresies. You have not yet comforted your soul against the bosom of the True Faith.”

“Ah,” Oliver said in a voice rusty from screaming. “Tell me, would this True Faith happen to be the same one that condemns innocent men and women to death?”

The men of Bonner’s lifeguard put their heads together to whisper amongst themselves.

“Innocence,” Bonner said, “is a matter of opinion. And here, only my opinion counts. I can—”

“You can burn in hell.” Oliver’s own words startled him. Once, almost a year ago, he had groveled and pleaded
for his life. Now here he stood, chained like an animal, beaten but not broken. Not even close to broken.

Lark, he thought, his heart rising on a surge of love. Lark had taught him that a man needed a place to stand, a purpose to drive him.

“That is your final word, my lord?” Bonner asked.

“It is.”

Bonner’s dark eyes were hooded, as if he concealed some secret knowledge. He sent a nod to the guard by the door.

“You might find,” Bonner said, “that you’ll change your mind yet.”

His silent entourage melted from the room. Only the bishop and the warden remained. Bonner’s ham face held a look of expectant relish.

The fire snapped and flared, and a coal rolled out onto the hearth. Hearing a gasp from the doorway, Oliver looked up. His heart seemed to stand still.

“Lark,” he whispered.

She stood riveted, pale with shock. A voluminous hooded cloak wrapped her, and he had the fleeting, insignificant thought that summer had turned to autumn during his imprisonment.

In that frozen moment he saw himself through her eyes. His upper body lay bare and furrowed by wounds. Chains pulled his sinewed chest and shoulders taut, and his flesh ran with cold sweat. His hair had grown long and lank, his ragged beard was unclipped.

Rousing himself from shock, Oliver yanked at his bonds, feeling the cold burn of the iron manacles, glad of the pain, glad to feel something other than fear for her.

Bonner broke the silence. “Take him down,” he ordered.

Keys clanking, the warden came forward. The manacles fell away. It took all of Oliver’s strength to remain standing.
He swayed, his vision blurring as he watched Bonner and the warden disappear through the door.

The moment the door thudded shut, Lark rushed to Oliver, an anguished cry on her lips. She caught him against her.

She felt sturdy and clean, unbefouled by the corruption of imprisonment.

“Don’t try to stand, my love,” she said.

As one, they sank to the floor. Oliver felt as if his every joint were on fire, but he ground his teeth together to keep from crying out. Lark untied her cloak and removed it, spreading it out near the fire.

She looked at the burns and lacerations on his chest and back. She seemed to study each individually, and when she saw him watching her, she said, “I feel each one as if it had been inflicted on me.” She pressed her lips to his shoulder, which bore the scar of last week’s flogging. “I cannot look at all the wounds as a whole yet, for if I do, the pain will be too great.”

“Ah, Lark.” They huddled close, then, silent, hearts and eyes saying what their voices could not.

In time, he cradled Lark’s face between his hands. Was it only last winter that she had saved him from the hangman? “Everything about you is the same, yet not the same,” he said.

She gave him a tremulous smile and passed her hand down over her abdomen. “I trow you do not mean the obvious.”

He kissed her brow, right at the hairline, and inhaled deeply. She smelled as fresh as gillyflowers in springtime, and he would always think of her this way, warm and clean and new.

“Nay,” he said. “When first we met, you were a stubborn, ill-tempered, self-righteous little mort.”

She tried to laugh. “So I was. I suppose it was my way of hiding.”

“You simply had no trust in yourself.” His tone deepened and softened in case Bonner’s men had their ears pressed to the door. “I saw you defeat a brigand, save condemned men and teach the Princess Elizabeth a lesson in humility, all with no notion that you were doing anything extraordinary.”

He slid his hands down to cup her shoulders. A thousand times he had held her like this in his dreams.

“Look at you now.” He tried to keep the catch from his voice. “Glowing. Self-assured.”

“Then that is even more extraordinary,” she said. “Never in my life have I been less sure of myself.”

He drew her against him and simply held her. It hardly seemed possible that he had once thought holding a woman without bedding her to be a waste of time.

That was before Lark. Back when he had believed love was something to be given out like coppers tossed to the crowd at a pageant.

Now he knew better. Love was too precious a gift to be flung about. Its true value could only be known when it was hardest to give—perhaps to the person who least wanted it.

“Why do you smile?” asked Lark, caressing the line of his jaw.

“I was remembering the first time I tried to make love to you. Being refused was a new experience.”

She opened her mouth, looking apologetic, but he stopped her from speaking. “You were right to refuse me. I had to earn my place in your life.” Looking into her eyes, he fancied he could see the rain.

She blinked fast. “I found the letter. The one you wrote to our child.”

He blew out his breath. “And?”

“I would hate you if I did not love you so much!”

“Love me? But you said—”

“I was wrong.” He heard the bitter edge to her voice. “I thought I was a learned lady. Able to quote scripture as easily as I could spin and weave.” Finally she drew a deep breath. “Nothing has prepared me for the way I love you.”

From the blackest despair shone the brightest joy. “Say it again, Lark.”

“I love you. Does that come as such a surprise?”

“You said you could not. That I was false and shallow. That I failed to love with my whole heart.”

“Tis I who failed,” she said. “I wanted you to change. To become solemn and logical and conventional. Now I realize I love you because your heart runs wild. Because you laugh and tease and defy convention. Because you are everything I am not. I do love you, Oliver de Lacey. I do love you with so much of myself that there is none left to ever doubt you again.”

He wondered if she had any idea of the value of the gift she had given him. She made all his suffering worthwhile, gave meaning to everything he had ever done, ever been.

“Why did you not tell me about your illness?” she asked.

“What illness?”

“Belinda told me the asthma plagues you still. You let me believe you had outgrown it, yet you still have attacks.”

“You would have worried.”

“You had a bad spell the night I told you about the baby, didn’t you?”

“Aye.”

“You doused yourself with wine and pretended to have gone carousing rather than admit you were ill.”

“Aye.”

“For pity’s sake,
why
?”

He took her hand in his and stroked it. “That’s just it, Lark. Pity. I could live with your contempt more easily than with your pity. There is nothing to be done about my condition. From the time I was a babe, my father consulted physicians and astrologers, healers of all sorts. None of them offered any hope. They consider it a miracle that I survived even this long.”

“Oh, Oliver.” She held fast to his hand.

“I daresay the greatest help of all was Juliana. She took me out of the sickroom and into the world, gave me the ephedra herb, and in spite of all predictions, I thrived.” With a pang of bittersweet remembrance, he thought of the rough-and-tumble days of his boyhood at Lynacre. “I even dared to think the disease was cured, for I ceased having attacks around the time I sprouted my first beard. But every once in a while, the illness would besiege me.”