by Susan Wiggs
“I don’t understand,” said Lark. “Why did you live here and not at the manor house?”
Oliver spun a geared iron device attached to a quern, and the round stones grated against each other. “I was ill and not expected to live.”
“What?” She wanted to run to him, but he was withdrawn now, half turned from her.
“Sickly children die.” He shrugged and stopped working the quern. “It happens. My father thought it best to keep me away from the perils of everyday life.”
He spoke matter-of-factly, yet the revelation chilled her. At last she began to understand why he seemed to live his life so recklessly, so voraciously. “What illness was this?”
“Asthmatic fever. An inflammation of the lungs.” He walked to the hearth and fingered a bundle of greenish twigs hanging from the rafter. “The attacks of breathlessness came and went. Nothing seemed to help until Juliana arrived. The Gypsies brought this herb with them from the distant east. It’s called ephedra. Boiled in tea, it eases the breathing.”
“Then you recovered,” she said.
He looked away. Just for a moment, just for a heartbeat, his face went dark and unreadable. Then he grinned and spread his arms. “Tell me, do I look like a man about to keel over of a mortal illness?”
She could not help but laugh. “Marry, my lord, you are the picture of health.” Yet she could not forget that, for a moment, he had not met her eyes.
Discomfited, she strolled through the hall, pausing to examine a few books stacked in a cupboard. Books on gardening and husbandry, a child’s hornbook on a paddle, religious tracts.
“We both had rather strange, sheltered childhoods,” she said.
“Aye. Yours turned you into a sober, solemn woman dedicated to doing the Lord’s work, and denying herself anything that might smack of pleasure.”
She flushed. His summation was correct. She felt compelled to reply. “And you turned out to be a rogue who would not dream of denying himself any amusement.”
“Touché, sweetheart,” he said in a low voice. “I am a vain and shallow man. No doubt I’ll suffer the torments of the damned one day.” He crossed the room and pulled her against him. “All the more reason to take pleasure where I find it, eh?”
Despite what he had said about her piety, Lark felt anything but pious when she was in his arms. To distract him, she indicated a narrow, winding set of open wooden stairs. “What is up there?”
“I thought you would never ask,” he said with a wink. He brought her up the stairs to a narrow gallery with a ceiling so low that he had to stoop. He ducked into one of the two rooms, and she found herself in a tiny bedchamber with a low bedstead and a basin on the windowsill. Once again, she saw a shadow pass over Oliver’s face as if he were the sun with a cloud briefly obscuring his radiance.
Then he grinned in that way of his that made her melt inside. “The sight of a bed always has such a profound effect on me.”
She shivered.
“You, too?” He lifted her coif and removed the pins from her hair. “Did anyone ever tell you that you have the most lovely hair?”
“No. Of course not.” She knotted her hands in front of her and stared at the warped wood of the floor. “It would be immodest for me to listen to such talk. “Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity.”
He walked in a slow circle around her like a warden unsure of what to do with a recalcitrant prisoner. “‘If a woman have long hair,’” he countered, “‘it is a glory to her.’” He brought the heavy masses of her hair down around her shoulders. “Isn’t that how the proverb reads? “For her hair is given her for a covering.’ That said, my darling,” he whispered, freeing her of oversleeves and bodice at the tug of a lace, “what need have you of clothes?”
“I had no idea you could quote scripture.”
“Your virtue is rubbing off on me.” There was magic in his touch, she thought, and she had no power to break the spell. God help her, she wanted to resist him. Somewhere deep in her mind, a voice cried out that she should not allow desire to rule her will.
But the voice was very faint, quickly drowned by the roar of passion in her ears.
And so she stood unresisting as he removed her clothes, item by item, setting the garments on a box chair. His leisurely pace nearly maddened her. She wanted to tear at her stockings, her chemise, her shift, urging him to hurry before she burned to ashes.
But she bore it all, endured his tender ministrations because he had taught her that anticipation only honed the pleasure later. They had never made love in so private a place before. The little cottage was an intimate bower deep in a forest where no one could reach them.
He took both her hands in his and pulled her toward him. She came willingly, expecting him to crush her in an embrace. Instead he bent slightly and pressed a chaste kiss to her brow. There was a strange, golden purity in the moment, and she had a fearful thought. To Oliver, this seemed a certain form of worship.
“I cannot help but feel afraid sometimes,” she said.
He lifted her hands and pressed her palm against his chest. “Afraid? Of me?”
“Of everything but you.” The pounding of his heart beneath her hand raised an answering pulse deep within her. “I worry that we won’t be allowed to stay like this. Content. Free of worries.”
He threaded his hands through her hair and took her mouth in a kiss that was decidedly unchaste. “My dear, the only people I know who are free of worries are dead.”
He laughed at her expression and kissed her again, deeply but not as hard as she wanted him to. With a faint whimper in the back of her throat, she tiptoed high and crushed herself closer. She dared to look upon him with a bold, exploring eye. Dared to mold her hands to the shape of him—arms and shoulders, hips and buttocks. Dared to touch her mouth to his and slip her tongue inside.
A groan of pleasure rumbled from him, and he fell back on the bedstead, bringing her with him. The bedclothes were soft with age, faintly perfumed with lavender. Their kiss was the sharing of one breath, one heartbeat, one moment in time. It was a wordless, intimate communion, and although she never consciously formed the thought, her heart told her the truth.
She loved him.
The shattering certainty urged her to boldness; she wanted to devour him, to inhale him, to show him that her robust hunger matched his perfectly. Their warm breath mingled and fused, and her heart rose, for she felt a magic in the moment. Their souls were merging, becoming one; she was losing a part of herself yet at the same time gaining something precious and new.
“Come to me, Lark,” Oliver whispered in her ear. “Be with me.”
She lifted herself above him and for a moment, let the exquisite torment of anticipation linger. Radiance bathed the room, the bed, the moment, and at last she joined their bodies with a slow, settling movement of her hips.
She cried out, feeling his touch in places he wasn’t even touching. She was in control, and yet she was not. With his hands and mouth he took her will from her, and she surrendered it willingly, voluptuously, wantonly.
Though it was too soon for Oliver to notice, her breasts were heavier. More sensitive. When he fondled them, she moved restlessly until a rhythm began.
And there, bathed in glowing afternoon light, on an old bed that smelled of autumns past, Lark discovered a new side of herself. She broke free of the bonds of her upbringing, the tenets and strictures that condemned her to feeble obedience. Oliver coaxed the aggressor from her, and she was soaring at last, exactly as he had once promised she would.
Afterward, she felt sweetly drowsy and lethargic, lying in his arms, her chin propped upon his chest as she studied his face.
He sent her a smile, one of the soft ones that touched her heart. “You seem different.”
She forced herself not to look away. “In what way?”
He toyed idly with her long hair, spreading it out across his chest and stroking it with his open hand. “You seem less worried. Less trussed up by ideas o
f what’s proper. Less old.”
“Less me,” she said, trying to hide her relief.
He misinterpreted her wandering gaze, and with his fingers under her chin he brought her back to him. “That’s not true,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically fierce. “You are becoming more like yourself each day, and less like the gloomy and bitter little creature you used to be.”
“I think I’m insulted.”
“You know better than to take offense. I love you, Lark. I would never hurt you.”
The lancelike rays of sunlight through the window touched her bare back and shoulders. She spoke her most heartfelt fear. “You love easily, Oliver.”
“And why should I not? The members of my family, the friends I have made, inspire affection. It feeds my soul to love.”
“And to be loved,” she said.
“That is true.”
Tell him, urged her inner voice. Tell him that you love him.
“Oliver.”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
She changed her mind, decided to wait until her feelings did not bleed like raw wounds.
She wanted to be more than food for his greedy soul. She wanted him to look upon her and feel the same silent exultation she felt when she gazed at him. She wanted him to feel the same helpless wonder that nothing, no one, would ever mean as much to him as she did.
“We had best start back,” she said, improvising. “Now that I am feeling well, your parents have invited guests to dine with us at Lynacre.”
He blew out a reluctant sigh. “I’d nearly forgotten. All the tenants and townspeople. Also Algernon Basset, earl of Havelock. And Kit’s father, Sir Jonathan Youngblood.”
“You know them well?”
“Very well indeed. Havelock is the most prolific gossip in all England. No doubt he’ll have plenty to say about our hasty marriage. He has probably set the date for the birth of our first child. A pity he’ll be disappointed.”
Maybe not, thought Lark. Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Do you look forward to that? To our first child?”
He chuckled, sitting up to don his blousy chemise. “In sooth, I had not thought that far ahead.” He kissed her briefly, letting her taste their spent passion. “I rarely think past tomorrow.”
“So I’ve noticed.” She had made the right choice in not telling him.
“I want you all to myself, sweetheart.” With lascivious glee, he fondled her breasts. “I can’t imagine sharing you.”
She blushed and gathered up her clothes.
He laughed and continued dressing. “You will be proud to learn that my father and I have determined a way to smuggle Richard Speed out of England.”
She poked her head through the neck opening of her shift. “Is it safe?”
“It shall be an adventure. We’ll travel to London. The Mermaid, one of my father’s Russian fleet, will be arriving to dock at the Galley Key in London late in the summer. After its cargo is offloaded, the ship will be careened and repaired. Then it will return to St. Petersburg by way of the White Sea. Calling, of course, at Amsterdam.”
She clasped her hands together. “Where Richard can be put into the hands of Dutch Protestants.” The southern Low Countries suffered under Spanish domination, but in the north, amid the icy seas and tidal islands, the Dutch fought for their freedom.
“Aye, that is the plan.”
Half-clad, she rushed across the room and threw her arms around him, covering his face with kisses.
He staggered back in surprise. “If I’d known it would mean that much to you, I would have told you sooner.”
She laughed and picked up her petticoat, shaking it out. “The safety of the Reverend Speed means everything to me.”
“Does it? Why?”
“Because of what he stands for. The work he does.” She frowned, trying to twist around to tie on her skirts. Oliver stepped behind to help. Lark went on, speaking over her shoulder. “Richard has the power to affect many, and the grace to use his power to do good. To save souls. To question authority and preserve freedom.”
“It is that power that the men of the Church fear,” Oliver pointed out. Accomplished as any lady’s maid, he helped her don her bodice and lace up her oversleeves.
She reached for her coif. Before she put it on, he turned her to face him and plunged his hands into her hair. “Such a pity to hide it.”
His flattery warmed her face, and she kissed him. “You give me sinful vanities.”
“A little vanity is healthy.” He kissed her back. “I do love you.”
She raked back her hair and slid the coif in place. “That’s because it’s easy for you to love. If it were difficult, you would not bother.”
“Wench,” he said, clutching his chest as if wounded. “Your tongue is a rapier. One day you’ll find a better use for it.”
He was charming and incorrigible. Hardly the qualities for a good father. If only she could be certain he would not grow restless, eager for the next adventure, she would confess all to him, about the baby, and even about the secrets in her past.
“Oliver?”
“My love, I have an idea.” He seemed not to have heard the question in her voice. “Let us go abroad with Richard Speed.”
Her heart sank. Their problems loomed before her, insurmountable as an icy mountain. “Oliver, I am committed to helping the Samaritans with their work here.”
“You’ve served them well, Lark, but think of yourself for once. Think of it! We’d have the most splendid time, sailing the churning seas, eluding the Spanish navy, perhaps engaging in a battle or two.” Laughing, he drew an invisible sword and assumed a fighting stance.
Lark turned away to hide the wistfulness in her eyes. She looked at the gardens, where the late-afternoon sunlight lay softly upon the hedges and lawns, and stifled a sigh. Just when she was preparing to settle down, he wished to go off on yet another adventure—as if the past few months had not been adventure enough.
And that, she realized, was the wall between them. He lived from one reckless exploit to the next, little caring for the grinding labor and distant rewards of less dazzling pursuits. The excitement of playing husband and father would likely pall for a man like Oliver.
Thirteen
“She thinks I love her because it’s easy,” Oliver complained to Richard Speed at supper that night. In honor of Oliver’s marriage, a great banquet had been set up on one of the broad greens of Lynacre. The elaborate food and entertainments had drawn a boisterous crowd of merrymakers from town and country alike.
Speed offered no sympathy, merely gazed with longing at Natalya, who watched the dancing on the torch-lit tennis court. “She thinks I love her not at all,” said Speed.
Kit, who had arrived that afternoon, made calf eyes at Belinda. Peculiar as ever, Oliver’s sister ignored her suitor. The celebration had given her a chance to indulge her dearest passion—setting off explosives. “She thinks I love her too much.”
Oliver filled their goblets with dark claret. “What a miserable lot we are.” He glared across the lawn at Lark, who sat in earnest conversation with his stepmother. “Why do we let them do this to us?”
“Because our brains are in our—” Kit caught himself. “Sorry, Reverend.”
“Do not apologize. I am beginning to despair of ever wearing a codpiece again.” His gaze held a world of torment. Peculiar in her own right, Natalya was pacing up and down, practicing a sermon under her breath.
“’Tis good to see you’re human, at least,” Oliver said. “I was beginning to think you were above matters of the heart.”
“I was,” Richard said with a desultory tug at his starched ruff. He had no choice but to stay in disguise; news had come from Essex that four men had been burned just a week earlier. Bishop Bonner’s attacks on Protestants were escalating in frequency and viciousness. Kit’s report from London was that the authorities had been thoroughly humiliated by Speed’s escape.
“Until I met Natalya,” he concluded, wat
ching her gesticulate to make a point in her sermon. He lifted his eyes heavenward. “By all that’s holy, what right has she to be so lovely? So dainty and sweet? She gives me no encouragement at all, yet I yearn for her.”
Oliver thought of his sister’s bovine glances and wondered how Speed could be so blind.
“Does it help to pray?” Kit asked. His attention was fixed on Belinda. She had climbed to the top of a rise in the middle of a formal knot garden. There, she and her assistant, Brock the Alchemist from Bath, set their charges. The display of flying fire would culminate the evening’s entertainment.
“It helps some.” Richard scowled. “But not when I see her sitting there, nattering away while I malinger here imprisoned by this ridiculous costume.” Glumly he kicked at the hem of his gown. “I can’t even ask her to dance.”
“Patience, Richard,” Oliver cautioned him. “Havelock would have a scold’s day at the gossip mill if he knew we harbored a fugitive Protestant.”
Speed glared at the earl, a pretty man of middle years. An hour earlier, Havelock had entered talking and had yet to pause. Like a stream in a spring melt, he brimmed and overflowed with gossip.
In December of the previous year, the English garrison at Calais had failed to defend itself; England’s last foothold in France was lost. Those who dared, Havelock said with bitterness, blamed the queen’s husband, Philip of Spain.
In March the queen went to Greenwich to await the birth of her child. Despite her stubborn delusions about the false pregnancy and the state of her own health, she made out a new will. Frightening business, that, for the document made Philip regent of England.
Recently, seditious pamphlets had flurried like a storm over London, declaring the queen a raging madwoman and cruelly jeering at her sad, fruitless marriage.
Havelock had related all this with an uncustomary lack of relish. He did love gossip but preferred the sort that titillated one’s sense of the ridiculous. The current tidings simply filled men of reason with bleak despair.
Oliver had absorbed the news silently, thoughtfully. Not with his usual firebrand flare of temper. Of late he had learned to smolder slowly, to conserve his righteous anger.