The Maiden's Hand

by Susan Wiggs

  She looked at him sharply. “Some people take such solemn oaths quite seriously. Spencer did. He wed me out of a sense of duty to his old friend. He’s told me this many times.”

  A sense of duty. No wonder the woman had no notion at all of her own worth.

  She gazed off at the moon-silvered distance, the roll of hills delving toward the river valley. A light mist stole through the dale, its moody presence giving the land an aura of mystery. “At that time, I suspect Spencer’s life was quite empty. He had just put aside his Spanish wife—Wynter’s mother. He forced her to annul the marriage on grounds of her imprudence.”

  “You mean she cuckolded him?”

  Her cheeks darkened. “Aye. She left in high dudgeon and went north to a Catholic sanctuary in the Borders.”

  “Leaving Spencer without wife or child.” Oliver was beginning to see a horrible sort of logic in the tale.

  “In practice, yes, though once he learned he had a son, Spencer made certain Wynter would always be recognized as his legitimate heir. It is a decision he came to regret.” She tilted her head slightly as an owl called from the woods. “When Spencer’s petition to the Court of Wards was denied, he went to King Henry and asked permission to marry me.”

  “And the king allowed it?” Oliver thought for a moment. Aye, old Harry would have found it quite amusing. Oliver remembered the king—corpulent, belligerent, dangerously intelligent, yet woefully ignorant in matters of the heart right up until the end.

  “Of course he allowed it.” Oliver answered his own question. “It would leave a loyal noble, an adherent to the Reformed faith, in charge of three important estates—Montfichet, Eventide and Blackrose.”

  “Aye. Spencer was extremely loyal to the king.” Lark spoke slowly, thickly.

  Good Lord, was the woman getting drunk? “You became the infant countess of Hardstaff. How very singular.” His nerves were stretched to their limit. “Lark, I must ask you…”

  She flung out one arm, then flopped back on the blanket, propping herself on her elbows. “Ask away,” she sang out. “Dissect me like a cadaver of the Royal College. I have no more secrets. Though I can’t think why my life would interest you.”

  Nothing could have made him feel more guilty. But he well knew how to ignore guilt. “You see—” he cleared his throat “—I have come to care about you.”

  She regarded him with a twinkle of suspicion in her half-lidded eyes. “No doubt.”

  He hated it that she did not believe him. But then, why should she? Spencer had been telling her for years that he had wed her out of duty, not love.

  Oliver’s frustration escalated to anger. He pressed her back against the blanket, their position—if not their attitude—that of two lovers. He could feel the firmness of her flesh beneath his fingers, could smell her scent of perfume and wine. An overpowering desire flared through him, and he wanted to punish her for making him want her so badly, for being the woman he could not have.

  “What was it like?” he demanded.

  “Let go of me.” She wrenched herself away and sat up on her knees. “You have no right—”

  “Did he raise you to his particular tastes?” Oliver couldn’t help himself. He chose each word as a dart, dipping its point in poison. “Did he wait until you had your first monthly, or did he simply bed you from the time you could walk—”

  Her slap, when it struck, was powered by a surprising force. One of passion and rage.

  Oliver felt a curious sort of relief. She was not always totally in control. And she knew how to stop him when he got carried away.

  He poked his tongue at the lining of his lip and tasted blood. “On my troth, you’ve a good arm.”

  She held out her hand, staring at it as if it belonged to someone else. “What right have you to ask such questions?”

  “Because I feel betrayed.”

  “You’re the only person I’ve ever hit.” She glared in fierce accusation. “But then, you’re the only person who has ever been so impertinent.”

  Oliver grabbed the wine and refilled the two goblets. “It was stupid of me to ask.” He drained his glass, flinching as the wine stung his lip. “Stupid, for I do know the answer.”

  She gulped back her wine and sent him a lopsided grin. “Do you?” She rolled over on her stomach on the blanket and cupped her chin in her palm. Slapping him had evidently drained all the anger from her, and now she was an amiable drunk.

  The night had begun to yield its dense shadows to the coming dawn, and the soft early light bathed her, gilded her, transformed her from woman to sprite. He saw her then for what she truly was, a girl raised by a stern yet good-hearted man, taught to loathe passion and physical need, untouched by any man—save Oliver de Lacey.

  He knew this as well as he knew how to load a pair of dice. He should not have made such ugly accusations. “Ah, Lark.” He caught a silky lock of her hair in his fingers. “Spencer has been father to you, not husband.”

  She tilted her head to one side, nuzzling her cheek into her palm. “I shall always be grateful to him.”

  He knew she meant the words. He knew Spencer deserved her gratitude and loyalty. “He had risked his reputation to take in an orphan, had forfeited any chance of taking a true wife.

  “I’m grateful to him also,” Oliver said. “If he had not made such an unconventional marriage to you, then by now you would have been snatched up by some randy young buck.”

  Just for a moment, the light died in her eyes. She turned her head away. “And that would disturb you?”

  “Aye.”

  She caught her breath, and it sounded like a sob. Oliver had a horror of weeping women, so he braced himself for a storm.

  Then she surprised him by laughing softly. “You are a wicked and thoroughly likable man, my lord. I need more wine.”

  He loved the effect it was having on her. The glow it lent her cheeks, the gentle languor of her limbs, the soft curve of her mouth, no longer pruned in disapproval but moist and relaxed. He gladly refilled both their goblets.

  She sat up, stopping him just as he raised his to his lips. “Wait. What shall we drink to? Long life and happiness?”

  A shadow passed over his heart. He covered the chill he felt with a jaunty grin. “Long life, my lady? Why not simply happiness?”

  “To happiness, then.” She touched the rim of her glass to his.

  They sipped their wine, and she frowned. “In sooth we cannot be happy, not so long as the people of England are chained by intolerance and superstition.”

  “Then let us drink to breaking those bonds.”

  The sun rose higher, its pink radiance speeding up over the gentle swells of the Chiltern Hills. Her laughter chimed like a song, and without warning Oliver thought of the words Zara had spoken earlier. The circle was begun before you were born, and will endure long after you are gone. Somehow his fate had become linked with the one woman he could not have.

  Leaving the Gypsies in the river-fed hills to await the springtime, the three travelers rode southeastward toward sanctuary. Richard Speed was thin and bruised, yet in good humor. His companions were bleary-eyed as a pair of Sauce Lane tipplers.

  “You never said it would be like this.” Lark held the reins in one hand, her head in the other, and moaned.

  Oliver sat on his mare, as if he had never ridden before. “My lady, all pleasure has its price.”

  She pressed her lips into a grim line. “Is he not profound, Reverend Speed?”

  “All men are profound if you pour enough wine into them.” Speed, blond and lovely as a painted icon, smiled at them both. “How much farther to our destination?”

  “We’ll be there by dusk. I hope to make Gravesend the day after that,” Oliver said, mussing his hair with a restless hand. “At Gravesend, you’ll board a ship bound for the Netherlands and eventually make your way to Switzerland.”

  Richard’s smile melted into sadness. “I never thought I should see a day when I would leave my beloved England.”
<
br />   Lark’s throat burned to hear him speak so. “Your exile is only temporary. Queen Mary cannot reign forever.” She hated herself for wishing her sovereign ill. But Mary allowed Bishop Bonner to abuse and murder innocent men.

  “True,” Speed admitted, “but suppose she gives birth. One is always hearing that she is expecting. Then, even if she dies, Philip of Spain will rule as regent. What hope have we then?”

  Lark had no answer. She was silent for a time, remembering the night before, the way Oliver had shown her the meaning of temptation, their stormy quarrel, their truce, the vows with which they had greeted the dawn.

  Oliver de Lacey was a strange, wonderful and reckless man. Suddenly afraid for him, she spoke her thoughts aloud. “I think you should go into exile with Reverend Speed.”

  He snorted. “I?”

  “Yes, you. What if someone discovers you cheated the hangman?”

  Dry humor rustled in his throat. “Not likely, madam. Surely you remember my disguise. They hanged a bearded commoner called Oliver Lackey. A stranger. No one knows that the poor sod was pulled from the pit of death and revived by an angel of mercy.”

  No one save me knows what you said that night, Lark thought, then chided herself for dwelling on his reckless, romantic words.

  “Let Oliver Lackey rest in peace,” he said. “I see no reason for me to leave England.”

  She couldn’t help herself. She said, “I do.”

  “Ah.” Understanding hardened his features. To her mortification, he spoke his mind despite the presence of Richard Speed. “You want me as far from you as possible so I don’t remind you that you’re a woman. A healthy young woman with healthy desires—”

  “Enough!” she shouted, kicking her horse so that it trotted ahead.

  As she rode away from her tormentor, she heard him say, “You’re a learned man, Reverend Speed. What would you do in my situation?”

  Lark pretended to ignore the holy man’s reply, but she could not mask her shock at what he said.

  “My lord, were I in your predicament, I would first pray for guidance. And then I’d probably tup the wench.”

  The manor house was surrounded by a broad lawn, stone walls and iron gates. A gruff guard challenged the travelers, and Lark began to fear that her trust in Oliver’s plan had been mislaid.

  She held fast to her horse’s reins, expecting any moment to be arrested. “Where are we?” she whispered to Oliver.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” he whispered back. Then he fixed a look of lordly disdain on his face, glared at the gatekeeper and announced his name and title.

  “You may pass within,” the guard said, stepping back from the gate. “The grooms will see to your horses.”

  A light, icy rain had started, and they hastened to a torch-lit hall. Lark was finally recovering from the effects of her binge the previous night, but she knew she looked a sorry mess. Her gown was wrinkled, the skirts and shoes spattered with mud from the road churned up by her plodding horse. Her hair was damp, and when she removed her coif, curls sprang awry like unbaled wool.

  Aside from feeling gritty and tired, she was in a foul temper with both of her traveling companions. With Oliver for making her quite weak with desire and with Richard Speed for sympathizing rather than sermonizing.

  Perhaps that was the way with all men. Fleshly desires had the power to blur the line between right and wrong.

  Even now the two of them were happily clinking their ale mugs and tearing into a crusty loaf of fresh bread.

  Incensed, Lark cleared her throat. Both men stopped, uneaten bread in their unwashed paws. Pointedly she clasped her hands and took a deliberately long time asking the blessing. At the end she added, “Thank you, Lord, for our safe deliverance. Give us the strength to revere you with our faith, our devotion, our sobriety, our chastity—”

  “We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen,” Richard Speed interrupted.

  “Amen,” echoed Oliver, his mouth already full of bread.

  Lark scowled at them both. A servitor brought forth a platter and lifted the lid to reveal a succulent roast capon. At the same moment, a small, slim woman entered the hall, speaking in a ringing voice.

  “As I recall, you never eat capon, do you, my lord?”

  The remarkable flame-haired creature stopped and fixed Oliver with a dazzling smile. He leaped from his bench. She held out her arms. “I, on the other hand, find capon the daintiest of delights. Come now, dear Oliver. Greet me.”

  With a gut-deep twist of some emotion she did not recognize, Lark watched them. She had never seen Oliver look so awestruck and worshipful as he took the woman in his arms and said, “Bess. It’s been a long time.”

  A long time since what? Lark wanted to demand.

  “Too long,” the striking woman said, dealing him a playful slap to the cheek. “If you weren’t so pretty to look at, I’d have you punished.”

  “And I’d endure it with pride.”

  Lark rolled her eyes.

  “My companions,” Oliver said, bringing Bess to the table. Both Richard Speed and Lark stood. “And this is—”

  “My friends call me Bess,” the woman said.

  Up close, she lost none of her stunning presence. She was neither tall nor beautiful, yet she bore herself like one who was both. She held out a slender hand to Reverend Speed, who bowed and kissed it while Lark curtsied.

  Throughout the meal, Bess held all of Oliver’s attention. He hung on her every word, cut her food into dainty bits, tasted it himself with old-fashioned gallantry, and fed her morsels from his own fingers.

  He loved women, Lark told herself, wishing the knot in her stomach would loosen. He had said so from the start. And Bess was obviously a special woman.

  His lover?

  Finally Lark recognized the emotion that had been gnawing at her since Bess had entered the room. For the first time in her life, she felt the sharp stab of jealousy. It was a small, evil death inside her, unbidden, unwanted, yet out of her control. She felt actual pain in the area around her heart.

  “And from where do you hail, my lady?” Bess asked, favoring her with a controlled smile. It was impossible to tell whether she was genuinely interested or merely being polite.

  “Hertfordshire,” Lark replied. “At Blackrose Pri—”

  “I do so love the hills there, do you not, my lord?” Bess turned to Oliver. “Such fine hunting to be had.”

  There goes civility, Lark realized. She began to appreciate the wisdom in Spencer’s approach to rearing her. It was less painful by far to keep one’s feelings in check. To hold others at a distance. What sane person would want to feel the wild thump of desire, the sharp bite of envy?

  “…the usual court gossip,” Bess was saying.

  Lark forced herself to listen. There was no point in tormenting herself.

  “The queen fancies herself with child—again,” Bess stated, dipping into her finger bowl. She seemed to have no need of another voice in the conversation. “A false hope, alas.”

  Lark held her breath and looked, goggle-eyed, from Bess to Richard Speed. She had heard such talk from the Gypsies, but they were not likely to attract the attention of the court. Bess, on the other hand, was a gentlewoman. She should know better.

  The reverend sat pale and still, doubtless as shocked as Lark. No one, no one, said such things about the queen and lived.

  “Do you think so?” Seeming to lack Lark’s concern, Oliver filled a wine goblet and handed it to Bess.

  “Of course. She is past her fortieth year, her husband has gone abroad, and she is ill.” Bess put aside the finger bowl and held out her hand, studying the back of it. She nodded as if satisfied with its perfection. “I assure you, Reverend Speed, I am quite the innocent maiden, but even I am aware that, under those circumstances, the likelihood of a child is slim.”

  Lark darted a glance at Oliver. Did the woman’s treasonous talk not affect him in the least? Nay, he continued to worship Bess with his big, soft, blu
e eyes.

  No wonder Bess possessed such confidence. A man’s affection and regard were potent indeed. Powerful enough, Lark knew now, to lure her from her life of unquestioning obedience. Powerful enough to reawaken the dreams she held in her heart.

  Without warning, Lark recalled the day Oliver had freed the caged birds at the market. I could teach you to soar.

  A wave of realization washed over her. It was true. Oliver de Lacey possessed some sort of gift that made people want to push at the edges of life, to pound on the doors at its boundaries, to demand more than they should, to expect more than they deserved. She had seen Oliver affect people that way—Kit and perfect strangers and Gypsies and Bess…and now her.

  She toyed with her food. When is my turn? she wondered. When do I get to soar?

  “Don’t you think so, mistress?” Bess’s voice startled Lark.

  “I do indeed,” Lark said firmly, having no idea what she was agreeing to.

  Richard Speed caught his breath, and his cheeks reddened. “Perhaps Lady Lark did not understand the comment.”

  Bess sent him a brazen wink. “I said, no expectant mother in England is safe so long as Queen Mary desires a child.” She belted out a hearty laugh, clapped her hands and called for a chessboard to be brought.

  “Do you play?” she asked Lark.

  “A little,” Lark murmured, still reeling with shock at Bess’s latest comment.

  “Excellent.” With a wave of her hand, Bess dismissed Oliver and Richard, and five minutes later she had captured three of Lark’s pawns.

  “Did you ever wonder why the queen is the most powerful piece on the chessboard?” Bess asked.

  “To protect the king,” said Lark. “And in sooth I’ve heard it said that long ago, the queen was actually a minister of sorts.” As she spoke, she took one of Bess’s knights.

  “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.