The Maiden's Hand

His hesitation cost him a victory. The soldier leaped away and in seconds had one arm hooked around Lark from behind.

“I’ll break her neck,” the burly man vowed. “Take one step closer, and I’ll snap it like a chicken bone.” Stooping, he snatched up his fallen sword.

“Don’t harm the girl!” one of the other soldiers cried.

“Divinity of Satan,” Oliver bellowed in a fury. “I should have sent you to hell when I had the chance.”

Glaring at Oliver, Lark’s captor drew back his sword arm.

“Thou shalt not kill, either,” Lark stated. As Oliver watched, astonished, she brought up her foot and slammed it down hard on the soldier’s instep. At the same time her pointed little elbow jabbed backward. Hard. If the blow had met his ribs, it would have left him breathless. But he was much taller than Lark and her aim was low, and when it connected, Oliver winced just from watching.

The man doubled up, unable to speak. Then, clutching himself, he half limped and half ran into the woods beyond the road.

Kit’s opponent, bleeding now, backed away. Swearing, he leapfrogged onto one of the horses, cut the traces and galloped off.

Oliver raced toward the third soldier. This one fled toward the remaining horse, but Lark planted herself in his path.

“No!” Oliver screamed, picturing her mown down like a sheaf of wheat. But as Lark’s hands grasped at the mercenary’s untidy tunic, he merely shoved her aside, mounted, spurred and was gone.

“Lark!” Oliver said, rushing forward. She lay like a broken bird in the path. “Dear God, Lark! Are you hurt—” He broke off.

It struck just then. The dark, silent enemy that had stalked Oliver all his life. The tightening of his chest muscles. The absolute impossibility of emptying his lungs. The utter certainty that this was the attack that would kill him.

The physicians called it asthma. Aye, they had a name for it, but no cure.

The world seemed to catch fire at the edges, a familiar warning sign. He saw Lark climb to her feet. Kit seemed to tilt as if he bent to pick something up. Lark moved her mouth, but Oliver could not hear her over the thunder of blood rushing in his ears.

God, not now. But he felt himself stagger.

“Ahhhh.” The thin sound escaped him. Shamed to the very toes of his Cordovan riding boots, Oliver de Lacey staggered back and fell, arms wheeling, fingers grasping at empty air.

Three

“I’ve never stayed at an inn before,” Lark confessed to Kit as she cut a strip of bandage.

Oliver leaned against the scrubbed pine table in the large kitchen and tried to appear nonchalant, when in fact he was doing his best to keep from sliding into a heap on the floor.

What was it about Lark, he wondered, that so arrested the eye and took hold of the heart?

Perhaps it was the childlike sense of wonder with which she regarded the world. Or perhaps her complete lack of vanity, as if she were not even aware of herself as a woman. Or maybe, just maybe, it was her sweet nature, which made him want to hold her in his arms and taste her lips, to be the object of her earnest devotion.

“Oliver and I know every inn and ivybush ’twixt London and Wiltshire,” Kit was saying. Discreetly he sidled over to the table beside Oliver.

To catch me if I fall, Oliver thought, feeling both gratitude and resentment. Cursed with his baffling illness, he had lived a peculiar and isolated boyhood. When he had finally emerged from his shell of seclusion, Kit had been there with his brotherly advice, his ready sword arm and a fierce protective instinct that surfaced even now, when Oliver had grown a handspan taller than his friend.

Kit held out his hand and clenched his teeth as Lark washed the grit from his wound. She worked neatly, her movements deft as she applied the bandage. Oliver noticed that her nails were chewed, and he liked that about her, for it was evidence that she suffered unease like anyone else.

She wasted no missish sympathy on Kit but confronted his injury with matter-of-fact compassion and an unexpected hint of humor. “Try to avoid battles for a few days, Kit. You should give this gash a chance to heal.”

“I wonder what the devil those bast—er, rude scoundrels were after,” Kit said. “They didn’t even attempt to rob us.”

“Perhaps they were planning to kill us first.” Oliver had become rather casual about his brushes with death. Long ago he had decided to defy fortune. He refused to let the weakness of his lungs conquer him. He meant to die his own way. Thus far, the pursuit had been amusing.

“Thank you, mistress.” Kit pressed his bandaged hand to his chest. “I feel much better now. But I would still dearly like to know what those arse—er, wayward marls were about. Ah! I just remembered something.” With his good hand he reached into the cuff of his boot and pulled out a coin. “I did find this when we searched the coach.”

Both Oliver and Lark leaned forward to study the coin. Their foreheads touched, and as one they drew back in chagrin.

“Curious,” said Kit, angling the coin toward the waning light through the kitchen window. “Tis silver. An antique shilling?”

“Nay, look. ’Tis marked with a cross.” Cocking his head, Oliver read the motto inscribed around the edge of the piece. “‘Deo favente.’”

“With God’s favor,” Lark translated.

Oliver discovered a useful fact about Mistress Lark. She was incapable of keeping her counsel. Like an accused criminal in a witness box, she turned pale and ducked her head with guilt.

Damn the wench. She knew something.

“Who were they, Lark?” Oliver demanded.

“I know not.” She flung up her chin and glared at him. Oliver wondered if it was just a trick of the sinking light or if he truly saw the glint of fear in her eyes.

“I’ll keep this and make some inquiries.” Kit left the kitchen through a passageway to the taproom.

Oliver grinned and spread his arms wide. “Alone at last.”

She rolled her eyes. “Take off your doublet and shirt.”

He sighed giddily. “I love a wench who knows her own mind and is forthright in her desires.”

“My only desire is to find the source of all this blood.” She pointed to the dark, sticky stain seeping through his clothing.

“Your barbed tongue?” he suggested.

“If I could inflict such damage, my lord, I’d have no need of a protector, would I?” She patted the tabletop. “Sit here so I don’t have to stoop to examine you.”

He hoisted himself up. Without hesitation, she drew on first one lace point attaching his sleeve to his doublet and then the other. His bare, sun-bronzed arms seemed to stir her not at all. Did she not see how smooth and well muscled they were? How strong and shapely?

“Now the doublet,” she said, “or shall I remove that, as well?”

“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.