The Maiden's Hand

by Susan Wiggs

  “If there’s a question in your mind, Lark, then I doubt it.”

  Frustration seared her like a flame. “You will never grow up! Never take responsibility for a wife, a family.” She picked up the clay jug. “This is your wife, your refuge. You made many promises, Oliver, but I understand you now. Your promises mean nothing.”

  She thrust the jug at him. It slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor. The dark liquid bled into the rushes and the cracks between the flagstones. Shards of pottery littered the floor around her bare feet.

  Oliver swore. In one swift motion that belied his drunken state, he swept her up in his arms. With pottery crunching beneath his boots, he stalked to the bed and deposited her there.

  “So you don’t trust me to honor vows made in wine?” he asked with a cocky grin. “Marry, I should hope not. I suppose you will only believe in me when I ink a vow in blood.”

  “Get out of here. I never want to see you again!”

  Lark hurled herself facedown in the pillows. She held back her sobs until she heard him stumble out and shut the door.

  Hours later Oliver crept back into the bedchamber. He stood by the bed, holding a candle and gazing down at his wife. She had cried herself to sleep. Misty tracks of dried tears marked her cheeks.

  She had believed his wastrel lie, as he had planned. He just hadn’t planned on hurting her.

  A magnificent sense of irony gripped him. Tonight, while concealing his weakness under raw wine and cheap perfume, he had stumbled across an opportunity to transform himself from knave to hero. For some weeks he had been aware that he was being watched, followed, spied upon, though he had said nothing to Lark.

  The trouble with informants, he thought sarcastically, is that they trusted one another too easily. It had not taken him long to find one whose tongue could be oiled by fine claret and whose purse welcomed a sovereign or two.

  The news was bad. Bishop Bonner’s informants were certain Speed would soon attempt to escape aboard a ship. All that remained was to locate the rebel and condemn him and his collaborators.

  “I’ve thought of a way to work this,” he whispered to his sleeping wife. “For you, Lark. And for Richard and even for poor Dickon.” Tiptoeing from the room, he made his way to his office, found parchment, quill and ink.

  He set the candle in a holder, pushed back his sleeves and, because he expected that his role in the escape would be the death of him, began to write a love letter to his unborn child.

  Onto the page he poured his thoughts, trying to record all those things a father needed to say to a child, in case he was not here to say them. After a time he put a sheaf of papers into a drawer and penned several letters.

  By dawn Oliver had managed to throw Bonner’s hounds off the scent for a few more days, perhaps. He must use his time well. He must, he thought with a self-mocking smile, be a hero even if it killed him.

  Fourteen

  “What does the message say?” Richard Speed asked, impatiently pushing a lock of hair back under his coif. In the past weeks his hair had, to his great shame, grown quite long and curly.

  Lark scowled at the smudged page. “Give me a moment. This cipher is a new one.”

  Feeling groggy from too much wine, too little sleep, a brush with death and a risky conspiracy, Oliver crossed his arms on the gallery table and lowered his head. He had nearly died the previous day. He had slain Lark’s regard for him the previous night. But the arrival of the letter from an agent of the Samaritans made his own concerns seem small.

  Unbeknownst to Lark and Richard, Oliver had spurred the Samaritans to action, for he alone knew that time was running out. A hatter from London Bridge had sent pearled kid gloves and a swan feather cap to Lark. Though she possessed less vanity than one of the borzoya dogs, she professed delight in the gift. Then, when the messenger had departed, she had unfolded a tiny, pleated bit of parchment from one of the fingers of the gloves.

  Now she frowned in concentration at the communiqué. Oliver rested his chin on his forearm and stared at her.

  A baby. She was going to have a baby. His baby.

  She looked no different from the day before, when he had wallowed in blissful ignorance of her condition. She was still his pale, dark-haired wife whose beauty was obvious only to those who loved her.

  And, by God’s holy light, how he loved her.

  A moan of despair slipped out before he could stop it.

  Lark and Speed looked at him. Both their gazes held a detached, impersonal concern that made Oliver want to scream.

  “Are you ill?” Lark inquired.

  “Ill with wanting you,” he said, just to make her mad.

  But this time she did not get angry. She simply cleared her throat, said, “Indeed,” and picked up her quill to continue working on the cipher.

  He watched them, the man of God and his pale disciple, and he thought how well suited they were to one another. Spencer should have chosen someone like Speed for Lark’s husband.

  Not a shallow, self-serving profligate who was doomed to die young.

  There was a pendulum clock in the gallery. Oliver’s father had designed the timepiece, a handsome affair with polished brass weights and a moon face. It ticked off the seconds like heartbeats, accentuating the tense, concentrated silence.

  At last Lark set down her quill. “I’ve got it.”

  “Well done!” Speed exclaimed, covering her hand with his.

  Oliver forced himself to pretend that it did not matter. “So?” he said in a bored voice, pretending he had no idea what the message said.

  “Tonight,” said Lark. “We’re to meet Dr. Snipes at the Galley Key. Reverend Speed is to board the Mermaid. He’ll sail with the midnight tide.”

  More silence. More mechanical pulse beats from the clock. Speed left the table and went to the broad oriel windows that overlooked the garden and river.

  He bowed his head, and Oliver could see him speaking silently to the Lord. Lark sat with her hands clasped, her eyes closed. Oliver wondered what it was like to have a faith so pure and unshakable. He was beginning to think he might need a faith like that.

  The only time he felt that purity of purpose was when he was making love to Lark. Which in itself was probably blasphemous enough to damn him to hell.

  “You’ll soon be a free man,” Oliver said heartily, crossing the room to clasp hands with Richard.

  Speed’s beatific face, pretty as any bridegroom’s, softened into a smile. “Some men yearn for freedom. Others have no idea what to do with it. I fear I am of the latter sort. I’m so used to running and hiding, to secret sermons in shadowy places, I won’t be used to liberty.”

  Oliver grinned. “Were you a man of lesser virtue, I would have plenty of suggestions.”

  Behind him, he heard a self-righteous sniff from Lark.

  “You could write sermons and memoirs,” Oliver suggested innocently. “I know that is what I would do.”

  Speed chuckled. “Indeed, my lord. So now I must go collect my belongings.” But he didn’t leave right away. His face grew solemn. “I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you properly. And Lady Lark, as well. Few would be so selfless and daring as to snatch a man from the flames at Smithfield and then to flee with him, to hide and shelter him for months. Thank you.”

  Oliver did not have the heart to tell Speed he had embarked on the adventure because he had been bored with life and lusting after Lark. At first that had been his sole driving force. Later he had found a deeper satisfaction in working against injustice. He smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”

  Speed hugged him hard and fast, and Oliver couldn’t bring himself to speak, even to tease the reverend about his skirts. Just for a moment Oliver thought of Dickon, the brother he had never known.

  Dickon, who had died because he could not breathe.

  Oliver obviously thought she had not noticed his affection for Richard Speed. Lark watched them as they hurried down to the water steps. The two had grown as close as brot
hers. Different as they were, they shared a rare, luminous friendship that sometimes made her yearn for a friendship of her own.

  It was deep night, the sky a black velvet canopy over the Thames. London lay sleeping, with only the gurgle of river and the occasional call of a bellman to disturb the silence.

  Lark could not stop thinking about Oliver. When he and Richard had embraced that afternoon, she’d had the strange sensation of looking into her husband’s mind. He claimed he did not take life seriously, that his own pleasure was more important than great matters of church and state. Yet he had, for a moment, looked utterly stricken. For once, he’d revealed a pain and depth that made her ache for him.

  She shivered, not so much from the night air as from a feeling that she was drawing closer and closer to a man she was not certain she should love.

  They reached the water steps, and Speed placed his small bundle of belongings in the wherry. They would use no river pilots for this voyage.

  From the corner of her eyes, Lark saw a shadow move. She froze and grabbed Oliver’s arm. The touch must have conveyed her urgency, for he fell still.

  “There,” she whispered, nodding in the direction of an arbor of espaliered yew trees flanking a garden path.

  His rapier hissed from its sheath as he stole toward the shadows. Though Lark could not see him clearly, she watched his broad shoulders square off in determination, and a cold fear squeezed her stomach.

  Oliver rushed toward the arbor. “Who’s there?” he demanded.

  A branch moved, black and jagged against the blacker sky.

  Oliver disappeared behind the arbor.

  Lark pressed her palms together and tried to pray, but no words would come. Instead she could only whisper, “I can’t lose him. I can’t lose him.” A terrible rustling sound from the arbor spurred her into action. She yanked her small dagger from its sheath. She wore Juliana’s gift at all times, but she had never expected to use it.

  “Out of there, you lurking knave!” Oliver shouted. Even in danger he retained his sense of drama; she could hear the excitement in his voice.

  A thud and a moan issued from the darkness. Oliver burst onto the path, dragging a small, struggling figure with him.

  “Christ on a crutch!” he spat. “What are you doing here?” Even as he spoke, he sheathed his blade.

  Lark expelled the long breath she had been holding. She and Richard Speed drew together on the river landing and waited.

  Shoving the intruder in front of him, Oliver returned, sputtering all the while. “Oh, mistress of calamity! God’s truth, you are the most vexing, vile, villainous little ronyon—”

  “My love!” Richard Speed sprang up the water steps and grabbed the captive in his arms. “Somehow, I knew you’d come. I had faith.”

  Lark stumbled back against the stone wall. “Natalya?”

  “—bird-witted, infinite and endless wretch—”

  “Do hush up, Oliver,” Natalya said, nestling her cheek against Richard’s chest. She was dressed all in black, wearing a man’s tunic and hose under a plain fustian jacket. “I could not let you leave without me.”

  “What are you doing here?” Speed asked.

  “I grew tired of waiting for news, so I came to London.”

  “None but the three of us and Dr. Snipes are supposed to know of the plan.”

  She kissed him on the nose. “I saw your name on the ship’s manifest.”

  “My name!”

  “Madame Vitesse.” Natalya brushed past Oliver and settled herself in the wherry. “Is that not French for Speed?”

  Oliver’s oath was as blue and as cold as ice. “Lord preserve me from scholarly women.”

  “I’m going with him,” Natalya announced.

  “Over my rotting corpse, you saucy little giglet. You can’t go.” He turned to Lark. “Tell her she can’t go.”

  Lark studied Natalya’s implacable face. “She’s going.”

  Oliver swore again and wheeled on Richard. “Tell her she can’t go.”

  Speed boarded the wherry and helped Natalya in. “She’s going.”

  Oliver lifted his face as if to howl at the moon. “Have the wits left all but me?” He paced up and down the narrow landing. “Richard, she is my sister, damn your benighted eyes! De Lacey women do not run off with fugitives! I’ll not see Natalya shamed, her reputation ruined.”

  It was strange and rather endearing to see him condemn her for the very behavior he himself reveled in, Lark reflected.

  “For godly shame! Nails and shackles! Disgrace, thy name is Natalya! God’s lid, that she should gad about like—”

  “Oliver, there is something you should know,” Natalya said calmly.

  “—like some hefty wharfside mutton—”

  “We’re married,” said Richard Speed.

  “My sister is a woman of honor! She deserves better than—” Oliver broke off and went as stiff as a pike. “What?” he roared.

  “Married,” Natalya said simply. “We wed in secret at Lynacre. I knew Papa would fret, so we told no one.”

  Oliver deflated against the stone wall. “Married.”

  “We are,” Richard assured him.

  “You unbolted rogue!” With jerky motions, Oliver rolled up his sleeves. “How dare you—”

  “I insisted,” Natalya said. “He wanted me to wait for him, but I refused.”

  “You’ll wait, by God, until your teeth fall out!”

  Natalya regarded him with a steely conviction that reminded Lark of Juliana. “My brother, you do me honor with your concern. But this is my life. It is what I want. I’m going with my husband.”

  Oliver dropped his arms to his sides. Slowly, sadly, his sleeves unfurled. “You want to flee in the night with an outlaw.”

  “Yes.”

  “Journey to a foreign land and live in exile.”

  “Yes.”

  “For God’s sake, why?”

  “Because I love him.” Natalya’s voice grew husky with emotion. “Can you understand that, Oliver? Do you know what it is like to love so truly that you would hazard all? Your reputation, your wealth, your family?”

  Oliver stood silent for a long time. Lark held her breath. Here was a love that would not be easy; it demanded risk and promised nothing in return. She yearned to hear Oliver concede, to say that he, too, had learned to love in that all-giving way.

  Instead he treated them to several more minutes of fine invective, helped Lark into the wherry and cast off down the Thames.

  Hours later, dawn tinged the spires of London and traced a long gold filament on the calm waters of the Thames. The wherry bumped against the water steps of Wimberleigh House.

  “So they’re off, then.” Oliver ruffled his hair with a weary hand.

  “It was decent of you to wish them godspeed,” said Lark.

  “My father will nail my ears to the stocks,” he muttered, mooring the boat.

  “Why do you suppose Dr. Snipes was not there?”

  Oliver still bent over the mooring cleat, yet his hands stopped moving. She saw him take a deep breath; then he said, “I do not know.”

  Lark stood, and the craft listed. Oliver caught her against him. With effortless grace he set her on the landing and stepped out. His touch lingered. He held her close for a moment, inhaling deeply, his face buried in her hair. His hand cupped her cheek. “You’re tired, love. Are you all right?”

  They were the first tender words he had spoken to her since she had told him about the baby. Foolish tears burned her eyes, and she looked away, burying her face against his shoulder.

  A lump had been lodged in her throat from the moment they had bade farewell to Richard and Natalya. Seeing them face their perilous future with such fortitude had touched her heart.

  She had tried to give Juliana’s brooch to Natalya as a talisman. Natalya had refused. “Mother gave it to you for a reason. Keep it well,” Natalya had said.

  “I shall be all right,” she told Oliver.

  “I th
ought that in your…delicate state…” His voice trailed off.

  “You cannot even say it, can you?” she whispered. “You cannot even admit that I am going to have your baby.”

  “Because it scares me,” he said fiercely. “There. I’ve spoken the truth. The idea that you will be in agony and danger scares me!” He pressed her cheek to his chest. “My mother died giving me life.”

  His stark honesty stunned her for a moment. “I didn’t know,” she said.

  “Now you do.”

  She stepped back, catching his hands in hers. “I cannot change what is. I cannot stop being with child. I’m afraid, too, Oliver. I had no mother, no woman to instruct me in the ways of a wife or a mother.”

  “Lark.” Her name sounded hollow as it echoed off the water. “Lark, I will change. You’ll see. I’ll prove to you—”

  “Don’t you understand?” She touched her fingers to his lips. “You should not have to prove anything. If you feel you must, then you should blame me. What happened with Wynter—”

  “You made it clear you wish to forget that. I’ll honor that, Lark. I swear I will. I’ll be different, I—”

  “Hush. You talk too much.” A vast tenderness, mingling with relief, washed over her. “I want to go to bed.”

  “Of course. You’re tired. You’ve been out all night.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” she announced baldly. It was true. Seeing Richard and Natalya embark on their dangerous voyage had reminded her of the fleeting quality of joy and the necessity of capturing happiness when one could.

  “Then what do you want to do?”

  “Oh, Oliver. Are you going to force me to say it?”

  “My sweet, sweet Lark!” Laughing, he swept her up into his arms with a motion that made her heart soar.

  She knew she would always remember this moment. It was a small, sparkling treasure she would keep in a secret place in her heart like a perfect rose pressed between old parchment pages. Many years later the memory would still stir her, like the subtle perfume and soft magic of the preserved rose.

  She drank in every detail, the way the dawn light mingled with river mist to give the quiet gardens a dreamlike splendor. The lilting notes of a bird’s morning song trilling in the dew-clad trees. The aroma of river and wind that clung to Oliver’s hair. The mellow sadness of his smile. The thud of his heart. The promises he whispered in her ear.