The Maiden's Hand

“It’s so much better when you do it.”

She nodded absently and began working the frogged onyx fastenings free.

Her hands were as light and delicate as the brush of a bird’s wing. As she bent close to her task, he caught a whiff of the most delicious scent. It clung to her hair, her clothes, her skin. Not perfume or oil, but something far more evocative.

Woman. Pure woman. How he loved it.

“Why did you stop me from killing that sheep biter who tried to murder me?” he asked.

She parted the doublet like a pair of double doors. “You are no assassin, my lord.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know for sure. But instinct tells me that you have never killed a soul, and it would pain you if you did. You seem a compassionate man.”

“Compassionate?” His doublet, finally freed, fell backward with a clunk to the table. “I am no compassionate man, but a bold and brash rogue. A brute of the first order.”

“A brute.” Her mouth thinned, and a sparkling echo of humor lightened her voice. “Who faints in the aftermath of battle.”

He snapped his mouth shut. So, she thought the asthma attack was a swoon. Should he set her straight, or should he allow her to go on believing him a coward? Worse than a coward. A high-strung, tender, emotional, limp-wristed, sentimental man. A wretch beyond redemption.

She answered the dilemma for him, bless her. She turned those enormous rain-colored eyes up to him and said, “My lord, I do not impugn your manhood.”

“Thank God for that,” he muttered. Seeing that he had irritated her, he donned a look of earnestness. “Go on.”

“Your behavior today marks you as a person of true courage. For a man who loves combat, to fight is no sign of bravery. But for one who abhors it, to do battle is a sign of valor.”

“Quite so.” The idea pleased him. If the truth be known, he loved a good sword fight or round of fisticuffs. But let her think he had been forced to drag courage from reluctance for her sake.

“This will hurt,” she said. “The fabric of your shirt clings to the wound.”

“I’ll try not to scream when you remove it.”

“Truly, you are never serious.” Gingerly she worked the caked lawn fabric from the gash in his side. He felt a burn, then a hot trickle as he began bleeding anew, but he’d be damned if he’d say anything. Compassionate man indeed!

She lifted the shirt over his head and removed it. Her exclamation was high-pitched, feminine and wholly welcome to Oliver’s ears.

“I do so love it when a woman cries out at the sight of my bare chest,” he said.

“Tis a terrible wound,” she said.

“Nay, just bloody. Clean it up and bandage it, and I’ll be good as new.”

He was hoping that as she worked she would notice his chest was broad and deep, nicely furred with golden hair a shade darker than that on his head. But the silly witling had no appreciation whatever for his physique. His male beauty was lost on her. He wondered what the devil she was thinking.

Determined to keep her wits about her, Lark concentrated on her task. But her thoughts kept wandering. She could barely keep from staring. She caught her lip firmly in her teeth and tried to think only of cleansing the wound, not of the magnificent body of the man sitting on the table.

He was right about the gash just beneath his arm. It was shallow and should heal well. His thick doublet had protected him from the worst of his opponent’s blade.

“’Tis clean now,” she said, rinsing her hands in the water basin. She pressed a folded cloth to the cut. “Hold this, please, and I’ll bind it.”

“This is such an honor.”

He was the most obliging man she had ever met. Perhaps that was why Spencer had chosen him.

“I shall have to wrap you snugly to keep the pad in place,” she said.

“Wrap away, mistress. I’m all yours.”

This proved to be the most awkwardly intimate part of the whole business. She leaned close, practically pressing her cheek to his naked chest as she passed the strip of cloth around behind him.

She could feel the warmth and smoothness of his skin. Could hear his heart beat. Its rhythm quickened.

Nonsense. She was plain as a wood wren, and he was as beautiful as a god.

A god, aye, but he smelled like a man.

In truth, the scent was as exotic to her as the perfumes of Araby. Yet some primal instinct inside her, some wayward feminine impulse Spencer had failed to suppress, recognized the scent of a man. Sweat and horse, perhaps a tinge of saddle leather and woodsmoke. Individually these smells provoked no reaction, but taken as a whole they made a heady bouquet.

She gritted her teeth and tried to keep from fumbling with the bandage. In one day she had seen and heard and felt more of the world than she had in all her nineteen years, and she did not like being thrust into such a feast of voluptuousness.

What she liked was life at Blackrose Priory. The quiet hours of study and prayer. The sober, steady rhythm of spinning and weaving. The safety. The solitude.

One day with Oliver de Lacey had snatched her out of that protective cocoon, and she wanted to go back in. To tamp down the wildness growing inside her, to deny that she had ever felt such a thing as excitement.

“Lark?” he whispered in her ear, and his breath was a tender caress.

“Yes?” She braced herself, wondering if he’d ask her again to have his child.

“My dear, you have bound me like a Maypole.”

“What?” Lark asked stupidly.

“While I’m not averse to bondage in some situations, I think several yards of cloth is sufficient.”

Startled, she stepped back. The makeshift bandage did indeed wrap him like ribbons round a Maypole. A strangled sound escaped her.

A giggle. Lark had never giggled in her life.

Oliver released a long-suffering sigh. “Had I known it was so easy to make you laugh, I would have gotten myself wounded much earlier in the day.”

She sobered instantly. “You must not say such things.” Seeking a distraction, she began to tidy the area, folding the unused bandages and removing the basin of water. “I never did thank you and Kit, my lord, for enduring such trouble on account of me.”

“What man would not lay down his life for a lady in peril?” he asked. “Happily, it did not come to that. In fact, I should thank you.”

She emptied the basin out the door of the kitchen and turned to him, perplexed. “Thank me for what?”

“As you pointed out earlier, you stopped me from killing a man. For all that he did provoke me, I should not like to have his blood on my hands.”

“My foolishness almost cost you your life. I let him grab me from behind.”

Oliver slapped his palms on the tabletop. “Ah, you did fight like a spitfire, Lark. Your quick thinking and courage are rare.”

“In a woman, you mean.”

“In anyone.” A lazy smile lifted a corner of his mouth. “When I remember that poor trot’s face…He didn’t expect to be stomped upon and jabbed by a mere slip of a girl.”

Lark absorbed his words like a rain-parched rose. Never had she been praised before, not even for doing tasks of servile duty. Oliver seemed genuinely pleased with her.

He lifted his shirt to put it back on. “Why do you suppose the leader of the brigands was so adamant about not harming you?”

Lark ducked her head. After seeing the coin Kit had found, she had a very good idea indeed why the cutthroat had uttered the cryptic message. It was no coincidence that they had been waylaid en route to Blackrose Priory. The brigands were hirelings sent to stop them from reaching their objective.

They could have killed Oliver, she thought with a nauseating wave of guilt. “I am so sorry,” she said softly.

“Don’t be.” Oliver poked his head through the neck opening of his shirt, then winced as he tried to put his arm into the sleeve. Lark set aside the basin and hurried to help him.

“Here, don’t twist around so,” she said. “You’ll pull at the wound.” She held out one sleeve and took his hand to guide it.

Something strange happened. When their hands touched, there was an instant of deep connection, when she suddenly lost track of where she ended and he began, when she could feel her mind touching his, when such a profound sense of caring welled up in her that she could have wept.

She caught her breath and looked up into his face.

He had felt it, too; she could tell because she saw her own stunned expression reflected on his face.

They were strangers, and yet they were not. Some part of her understood that even though they had only just met, she knew him. Knew the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, the way his throat rippled as he swallowed, the way his thumb felt pressing into her palm.

“Oliver?” Her voice sounded thin and bewildered.

“Hush.” His fingers brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek. “Let not words get in the way.”

“In the way of what?”

“Of this.”

He moved his knees apart so that she leaned snug against him, and then he kissed her.

The very idea that he would actually do such a thing so stunned her that she stood there, as rigid and unresponsive as a hearth broom.

Until the heat started. It was a slow, searing burn that seeped through her body, warming the cold, empty places inside her.

She gave herself up to sensation, not thinking, only wanting. The hand still clinging to his within the sleeve tightened, and she felt the answering pressure of his fingers. Her free hand crept up his bare chest. He was smooth and hard there, and the hair was slightly coarse. He was warm, so warm, she wanted to melt against him. She hooked her arm around the back of his neck. His fine, silvery hair felt as downy as it looked.

His lips were soft yet firm, and gentle, not grinding and demanding. They brushed slowly back and forth over her mouth, softening and moistening her lips until they parted. Then he did a most unsettling thing—he ran his tongue across her lower lip.

The shock first numbed her, then awakened her from the torpid, kiss-induced dream.

“Stop!” she shouted, and jumped back. And suddenly they were all entangled by shirtsleeves. The thin, white fabric tore as she tried frantically to disentangle her arm.

On fire with mortification, she backed away, staring at him as if he held a mirror to her own wickedness. He could never know what a sin it was for her to covet him.

He looked as pleased as a fox in a dovecote. “Don’t play the Puritan, sweetheart. I could have given you much more than a mere kiss.”

A mere kiss. She clung to those words. People kissed when they said hello or goodbye. When they gathered for holidays or met each other after prayer services.

But not the way Oliver de Lacey had just kissed her.

Not as she had just kissed him back.

“That was an evil thing to do,” she said, then braced herself, half fearing a bolt of lightning would strike her dead on the instant.

He chuckled. “Pity you favor Reformed principles, Lark. If not, you could wear a crown of thorns or a hair shirt.”

“You’re a wicked man,” she said.

“And you are an excessively good woman. Don’t you ever get bored with being so virtuous?”

If only he knew. She was not virtuous at all.

She could stay no longer, not with him still sitting half-naked and tousled, eyeing her as if she were one of his lightskirt doxies. Without another word, she turned and fled.

It was the first time a woman had left him voluntarily. Oliver stared at the empty space. Lark had glared at him as if he had raped her.

“It was merely a kiss,” he repeated to himself as he gingerly donned his doublet. “A kiss. ’Tis not like I swived the saintly wench.”

Wincing from the hot pain in his side, he slid down from the table and found a small cask of wine. He filled a clay mug and took a deep, cleansing swallow. “I’ve kissed half the women in England,” he declared to the empty room, to the rows of pots hanging from the rafters, and to the iron tongs hanging over the hearth. “Or if I have not, it wasn’t for lack of trying.”

Yet he could not deny that holding Lark in his arms had caused a peculiar and unwelcome sentiment to rise within him. Sentiments that a man like him had no business feeling: tenderness and devotion and the utter certainty that he could be happy with this woman and this woman alone.

He was no stranger to wanting a woman, to having one. But the idea of being with anyone other than plain, shy little Lark was suddenly repugnant to him.

Holding her in his arms had given him a notion that had never before occurred to him. He wanted to live forever.

Forever.

And that, he knew as he took a glum sip of the cheap wine, was impossible.

In his finer moments, he was philosophical about his own mortality. His disability had been a part of him. He accepted it. Sometimes he managed to convince himself that he was healed.

But then he’d get that horrible tightening in his chest, that insatiable hunger for air, that dark glimpse of eternity, and he remembered he was marked for an early death.

In some ways the knowledge had made him a better man—more daring, more bold.

Then he had kissed the prim, thin-lipped, disapproving Mistress Lark—the most unlikely of women—and suddenly he was desperate not to die.

He had entranced her with his kisses, had felt the desire emanating from her small, clutching hands. There was no surprise in that. He might be deficient in some skills, but kissing was not one of them. Aye, he could manipulate her body, could bring her to a state of near rapture if he chose to do so, but could he win her heart?

“Aye, that I could,” he decided, draining his mug and slamming it down on the sideboard. Her aversion to his embrace at the last did not trouble him. He simply needed more time to convince her of his wonderfulness. “I could indeed. I could make her love me.”

A painful dilemma, that. For if ever he won her heart, he was doomed to break it.

“You never finished explaining to me what you meant about the brigands,” Oliver said the next day.

The three of them headed north, wary now in the winter sunshine, watchful for signs of more highwaymen. In the distance, pink-tinged clouds melted down onto the gentle Chiltern Hills, and forested mounds rolled out endlessly on either side of the road. Dry, frozen grass clung to the sloping sides of the hills, and sleepy hamlets huddled in thatched clusters along the river.

Lark held her neck stiff and her chin high. Kit trotted up beside her. Saddle leather creaked as he leaned toward her. “Did you know them, Mistress Lark?”

She could talk to Kit. She did not look into his eyes and feel as though she were drowning.

“Not exactly. I think they were sent to stop us from reaching Blackrose Priory,” she said.

“Really?”

“Aye.” She had no choice but to admit her fears. “Spencer’s sole enemy must have learned what he plans.”

“What does the gentleman plan?”

She was keenly aware of Oliver’s presence behind her. She felt the heat of his stare like a ray of the sun.

“I must let Spencer tell you that.”

“You say he has an enemy. Who is that?”

“Wynter Merrifield.” Lark paused as a cloud passed over the sun, then gave way to dazzling brightness. “His only son.”

Kit gasped. “The man’s son is his enemy?”

“Sadly, yes.” She remembered the coin Kit had found. Of Spanish origin, it had been. “More I cannot say. Spencer will explain all you need to know when we arrive.” She trotted on ahead, wishing the kiss had not happened, wishing she had not lain awake half the night thinking about his lips upon hers.

When Lark moved out of earshot, Kit glared at Oliver. “What in God’s name are we doing?”

“Helping a damsel in distress?”

Kit studied her stiff figure riding in the fore. Mistress Lark rode as if she had a ramrod up her back. “She doesn’t look distressed to me. Why is she being so secretive?”

“Because we’re a pair of rogues. She doesn’t trust us.”

“And you trust her? Oliver, I need hardly remind you that she almost got us killed.”

“It was exciting, was it not?” Oliver smiled, savoring the memory. “Swordfights have ever made my blood run hot.”

“I worry about you, Oliver. I truly do.”

He nodded at their silent leader. “She makes my blood run hot, too.”

“Anything in skirts has that effect on you.”

“Out of skirts is even better.” Oliver studied her. To the undiscerning eye, she resembled her namesake—a small, drab bird. Yet he knew better. He knew there was softness beneath her rigid exterior, the heart of a woman beating in her breast, and a host of dreams inside her, just waiting to be set free. “That one’s special.”

Kit pushed back his hat and scratched his forehead. “Her? You’re mad. Look at her.”

“I’ve been looking, and I know what you’re thinking. She’s small and dark and plain. She’s about the least worldly wench we’ve ever encountered. She has the disposition of a badger. And she bites her nails and quotes the scripture.”

“And she fires your brand?” Kit demanded incredulously.

“The challenge of her stirs my blood, Kit. It is no great feat to desire a woman who is fair and charming. But this one.” He nodded ahead, feeling a curious rapture. “If I could love her, I’d be capable of anything.”

“She helped save you from hanging. It’s disturbed your judgment,” Kit said stolidly. Suspiciously.

“That’s always been your problem, my friend. You lack imagination. You see only what is there on the surface. Mind, I don’t blame you for loving my sister, but Belinda’s easy to love. She’s pretty, she has a charming temperament, and she loves you in return.”

Kit thumped his fist against his chest. “She does?”

“Of course she does, you muttonhead, though I trow ’twas not your brains that won her.”

“Why do I endure you?”

“To keep yourself from running quite mad with boredom. Tell me, Kit, how do you endure toiling away at the law day in and day out?”

“Such toiling does earn me a living. Not all of us are born to wealth and idleness.”

The laughter drained from Oliver. Most of the time he enjoyed the advantages of his rank. Every once in a while he wondered if he might be a better person were he forced to fend for himself. Fortunately his moments of doubt were few and far between, easily banished by thoughts of his own splendor.

Could he have been, even so slightly, wrong?

A short time later they reached the estate of Blackrose Priory. Oliver eyed it with appreciation. The long road, winding northward and westward, was kept free of deep ruts and holes and stones. The hedgerows were freshly clipped and alive with the music of thrushes.

Thick-coated sheep grazed on the gentle hills that rose behind the main building. The priory itself, once a haven for Bonshomme monks, had a good-size almshouse and a broad lawn with fountains and knot gardens. The path to the front had been paved with pebbles. The old Gothic hall, echoing with ancient, ghostly voices, had sprawling wings added on each end. It was built of native stone, which gave it a warm, brownish hue.

“The servants defer to her,” Kit muttered, watching Lark.

It was true; the grooms who came to look after their mounts obeyed her murmured instructions. The pair of footmen who appeared at the main door bowed low to her.

“Who is she to this Spencer?” Oliver wondered as they followed her up the broad steps to the huge arched doors.

“Some relation,” said Kit. “You ought to ask.”

“I don’t think she enjoys being questioned.”

She stopped inside the door and turned to them. The weak light in the great hall leached her complexion of all color. The marble hardness of her face startled Oliver. He could scarcely remember how she had looked last night when she had kissed him. She had been soft and warm and alive, a vivid contrast to this whey-faced stranger.

“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll see that you get something to eat and drink. His Lordship will receive you shortly.”

She turned like a soldier obeying an order and marched through a low door to the right of the hearth.

A door on the opposite side of the hearth opened, and in stepped a remarkable young man. “Charming, isn’t she?” he said, a sardonic curl to his lip.

“Indeed,” Oliver said. Without moving a muscle, he took the measure of the man. Of medium height and build, with glossy black hair and a pointed beard, he was dressed in black velvet, with a rapier at his hip and a wide smile of welcome on his face. His dark eyes flashed with the promise of a quick, observant wit. When he moved, it was with lithe, unconscious grace.

Oliver felt a shock of instant dislike as he fixed an equally charming smile on his face.

The newcomer held out a well-tended hand. “Welcome to Blackrose Priory. I am Wynter Merrifield, Viscount Grantham.”

Ah, thought Oliver as he introduced himself and Kit. The heir. The enemy. The man who had sent hirelings to stop them from reaching Blackrose Priory. Was he the man who caused the hardness on Lark’s face?

Oliver kept a bold grin in place. “My lord, we’ve already had a taste of your welcome.”

Four

Wynter Merrifield strolled to the hearth and propped an elbow on the massive mantelpiece. The hall must have once served as the refectory for the Bonshommes, for it was long, with a high, vaulted ceiling. Figures carved of stone and blackened with age-old soot leered down upon the tables and cupboards. Two low doors flanked the hearth, and above it hung a pair of crossed swords.

Wynter subjected the swords to a moment of contemplation. “I don’t understand, my lord. Have we met?”

“The bridge at Tyler Cross,” Oliver said. “Your welcoming party bared its talons.”

Wynter turned, and his austere, handsome face went blank. “Welcoming party? I have no idea what you mean.”

Kit regarded Wynter with unconcealed dislike. “We were attacked,” he said. “Mistress Lark thought perhaps the brigands were in your hire.”

“Mistress Lark is a strange bird.” Wynter spread his arms to convey his bafflement. “She has ever been a victim of rampant imagination. Suspicious little mort. My father has done his best to reform her, but to no avail.”

“Is she your sister, then?” Oliver braced himself. To think that Lark was kin to this smooth, cold creature made his hackles rise. Or worse, was there a marriage in the works? He refused to dwell on the horror.

Wynter laughed, his amusement genuine and oddly seductive. He seemed a man who cloaked himself in shadows, hiding his true essence, showing only a chiseled and icy charm. “No.”

“A cousin, then? Your father’s ward?”

“I suppose you could term it that, after all these years.”

Oliver went to a trestle table, pressed his palms on the surface and leaned forward, forcing out the words. “Then is she betrothed to you?”

This time Wynter threw back his head and roared with laughter. “And I feared being bored today. My lord, you are too amusing. Lark is not betrothed to me. Far from it, thanks be to God.”

Oliver’s shoulders relaxed. He pretended it did not matter, that his question had been an idle one. “Just wondering,” he commented.

Wynter pushed away from the hearth and strolled gracefully toward Oliver and Kit. He held Oliver’s gaze for perhaps a heartbeat longer than polite interest dictated, and in that moment they clashed.

They didn’t touch, nor were any words exchanged, but Oliver felt ill will emanate from Wynter like a breath of wind before a storm.

“Now then,” Wynter said, a smile playing about his thin lips, “you must forgive my manners, but might I inquire as to your purpose here?”

“You might inquire,” Kit said, beefy fists tightening, “but—”

“His Lordship will see you now.”

Oliver turned to see a pale, soberly clad retainer at the main doorway, gesturing for them to follow him up a wide staircase.