The Maiden's Hand

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.