Susan Wiggs - The Maiden's Hand

“Oh, honestly—”

“It is a warmth that travels upward and outward, like a flame. Like this.”

She sat transfixed as his hands brushed over the tops of her breasts, covered by a thin lawn partlet. His fingers grazed her throat, then her chin and lips. She thought wildly of the oarsmen and Bodkin at the helm, yet even as a horrible embarrassment crept over her, she stayed very still, transfixed by Oliver.

“A true smile does not end here, at your mouth.” He watched her closely. “But in your eyes, like a candle piercing the darkness.”

“Oh, dear,” she heard herself whisper. “I am not certain I can do that.”

“Of course you can, sweet Lark. But it does take practice.”

Somehow, his lips were mere inches from hers. And hers tingled with a hunger that took her by surprise. She wanted to feel his mouth on hers, to discover the shape and texture of his lips. She had been lectured into a stupor about the evils of fleshly desires, she thought she had done battle with temptation, but no one had ever warned her about the seductive power of a man like Oliver de Lacey.

Closing her eyes, she swayed toward him, toward his warmth, toward the scents of tavern and river that clung to him.

“I am touching you again,” he said, and she heard the whispered laughter in his voice. “Please forgive me.” He dropped his hands and drew away.

Her eyes flew open. He lay half sprawled on the tasseled cushions, one leg drawn up and one hand trailing in the water. “A rather cold day, is it not, Mistress Lark?”

She resisted the urge to make certain her partlet was in place. “Indeed it is, my lord.” She was not used to being teased. And she was definitely not used to bold, handsome men who flung out jests and insincere compliments as if they were alms to the poor.

It mattered not, she told herself. Spencer claimed he needed Oliver de Lacey. For Spencer’s sake she would endure the young lord’s insolent charm. Certainly not for her own pleasure.

“Will you listen now?” she asked. “I have come a very long way to see you.”

“Nell!” he roared, causing the barge to list as he leaned out from under the canopy. “Nell Buxley!” He waved at a shallop proceeding downstream, aimed toward Southwark. “I made heaven in your lap last time we met!”

“Good morrow to you, my bed-swerving lord,” brayed a wine-roughened female voice. A grinning woman in a yellow wig leaned out from the shallop. “Who’s that with you? Have you ransacked her honor yet?”

With a moan of futility, Lark slumped back against the cushions and yanked her hood over her head.

“This is another place of iniquity!” Lark dug in her heels. “Why have you brought me here?”

Oliver chuckled. “’Tis Newgate Market, my love. You’ve never been?”

She stared at the swarm of humanity pushing through the narrow byways, crowding around stalls or pausing to observe the antics of a monkey here, a dancing dog there. “Of course not. I generally try to avoid places frequented by vagrants, cutpurses, and no-account young lords.”

Even as she spoke, she saw a lad dart up behind a portly gentleman. The child tickled the man’s ear with a feather, and when the man reached up to scratch, the little rogue cut his purse and slipped away with the prize.

Lark clapped one hand to her chest and pointed with the other. “That child! He…he…”

“And a good job he made of it, too.”

“He stole that man’s purse.”

Oliver began strolling down the lane. “Life is brutish and short for some people. Let the lad go.”

She did not want to follow Oliver into the raucous crowd, nor did she wish to stand alone, vulnerable to the evils that could befall her. Despite his devil-may-care manner, Oliver, with his prodigious height and confident swagger, made her feel protected.

“Watch this,” he said, sidling up to the dancing monkey. A few people in the crowd moved aside to let him pass. Lark fancied she could feel the heat of the sly, appreciative feminine glances that slid his way.

When the little monkey, garbed in doublet and hat, spied Oliver, it leaped excitedly over its chain. The keeper laughed. “My lord, we have missed you these weeks past.”

Oliver bowed from the waist. “And I have missed you and young Luther.”

Lark caught her breath. It seemed decidedly impious to name a monkey after the great reformer.

“Luther is a chap of strong convictions, are you not?” Oliver asked.

The creature bared its teeth.

“He is loyal to the Princess Elizabeth.”

At the sound of the name, the ape leaped in a frenzy, back and forth over its chain.

“He has his doubts about King Philip.”

As soon as Oliver named Queen Mary’s hated Spanish husband, Luther lay sullenly on the dirt path and refused to move. Oliver guffawed, tossed a coin to the keeper and strolled on while the crowd applauded.

“You are too bold,” Lark said, hurrying to match his long strides.

He sent her a lopsided grin. “You think that was bold? You, who have been known to steal out in the night to save the lives of condemned criminals?”

“That’s different.”

“I see.”

She knew he was laughing at her. Before she could scold him, he stopped at a stall surrounded by long canvas draperies.

“Come see the show of nature’s oddities,” a woman called. “We’ve a badger that plays the tambour.” Reaching out, she grasped Oliver’s shoulder.

Patting her hand, he pulled away. “No, thank you.”

“A goose that counts?” the hawker offered.

Oliver smiled and shook his head.

“A two-headed lamb? A five-legged calf?”

Oliver prepared to move off. The woman leaned close and said in a loud whisper, “A bull with two pizzles.”

Oliver de Lacey froze in his tracks. “This,” he said, pressing a coin into her palm, “I have got to see.”

He made Lark come with him, but she steadfastly refused to look. She stood in a corner of the stall, her eyes clamped shut and her nostrils filled with the ripe scent of manure. Several minutes passed, and she closed her ears to the whistles and catcalls mingling with the animal noises.

At last Oliver returned to her side and drew her out into the bright light. His eyes were wide with juvenile wonder.

“Well?” Lark asked.

“I feel quite strung with emotion,” he said earnestly. “Also cheated by nature.”

Lark shook her head in disgust. For once, Spencer was wrong. This crude, ribald man could not possibly be the paragon of honor Spencer thought him to be. “‘An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations,’” she muttered, “‘feet that be swift in running to mischief.’”

“I beg your pardon?” Oliver weighed his purse in his hand.

“Proverbs,” she said.

“Why, thank you, my lady Righteous.” With an insolent swagger, he plunged down yet another narrow lane, and Lark had no choice but to follow or be left alone in the crowd. They passed flower sellers and cloth traders, booths selling roast pork and gingermen. Oliver laughed at puppets beating each other over the head. He dispensed coins to beggars as easily as if he were passing out bits of chaff.

After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the boundary of the fair. In the distance they could see the horse fair at Smithfield.

“We’ll venture no farther.” Oliver’s face paled a shade. “I mislike the burning grounds.”

She followed him obligingly from the area. Though the blackened stakes and sand pits were not yet visible, she felt their proximity like the brush of a cobweb against her cheek.

“That is the first sensible thing I have heard you say,” she announced. “Think of the condemned Protestants who have been martyred here.”