Susan Wiggs - The Maiden's Hand

“I’ve been trying not to.” As they walked past the fringes of the fair, Oliver heaved a great sigh. “I have failed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wanted to make you laugh and smile, and you have not. Where did I go wrong?”

“Well, you could start with our near drowning while shooting the bridge.”

“I thought you’d find that exhilarating.”

“I found it foolish and unnecessary. As was your greeting to the woman called Nell.” Lark lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “Heaven in her lap?”

He had the grace to blush. “She’s an old friend.”

“What about your treasonous little exchange with a monkey?” Lark continued, enumerating the outrages. “And your prurient interest in a bull’s, er, his two…”

“Pizzles,” Oliver supplied helpfully.

“Hardly a cause for great mirth from me.”

“I know.” He had a rare gift for looking both sulky and charming at once. “I’ve failed you. I—” He broke off, glancing over her shoulder. The sulkiness disappeared, and his face glowed with sheer delight. “Come, Mistress Lark. Here is something you’ll like.”

Pulled along in the wake of his enthusiasm, she found herself at the stall of a bird seller. Wooden crates of burbling doves, huddled robins and moth-eaten gulls were stacked about haphazardly.

“How much?” Oliver asked the man.

“For which one, sir?”

“For all of them.”

The man’s jaw dropped. Oliver grabbed his hand and dumped a small fortune of coins into it. “That should keep you in your cups a good while.”

“My lord,” Lark said, “there are hundreds of birds here. How will you—”

“Watch.” He drew a silver eating knife from the leather sheath attached to his belt and pried open each cage. With a flourish he removed each little door.

“Oliver!” Lark barely noticed that she had used his Christian name. The bird seller uttered a blue oath.

Like a great, winged cloud, the once-captive birds rose. The sound of beating and whirring feathers filled the sky above the fair. It was an awesome sight, darkening the sun for a moment, then turning light as the flock of liberated birds dispersed.

Oohs and aahs issued from nearby fairgoers.

“‘The stars compel the soul to look upward,”’ Oliver de Lacey recited, “‘and lead us from this world to another.’ Plato.”

“I know.” She squinted up at the birds, now mere specks in an endless field of marbled blue. And against her will, a smile unfurled on her lips.

“Eureka!” Oliver spread out one arm like a seasoned showman. “She smiles. Eureka! Archimedes. When he first said ‘Eureka,’ he went running naked through the streets.”

“That,” she said, “I did not know.”

“It is said he made his discovery about the displacement of water while in his bath. The insight so aroused him that he forgot to dress himself before running to tell his colleagues.” Oliver lifted his face to the winter sun as the last of the birds disappeared. “There, you see, my angel. They can soar. I have set them all free.”

“All of them,” she agreed, feeling strangely content.

“Well, not quite.”

She peered at the cages. Not a single bird remained. The bird seller was already stacking his crates in a two-wheeled cart.

Oliver slipped one arm around her waist, and his other hand rested on her bodice, the fingers drumming on the stiff corset of boiled leather.

“There is still one little lark in a cage, eh?”

His barb hit home with a sting of unexpected pain. She tried to look imperious. “Sir, I am insulted. Unhand me.”

He bent low to whisper in her ear. “I could free you, Lark. I could teach you to soar.”

Heat swept from her toes to her nose, and she could not suppress a shiver as his warm breath caressed her ear. Alarmed, she broke away and stepped back. “I do not want you to teach me anything of the sort. I simply want help with a certain matter. You have refused to listen. You have dragged me from pillar to post on a fool’s errand. If you will not help me, I wish you would tell me now so I can be shed of you.”

“You wear outrage like an angel wears a halo.” He sighed dramatically, then lounged against a stone hitch post.

All her life she had been taught that men were strong and prudent, endowed with qualities a mere woman lacked. Oliver de Lacey was a reckless contradiction to that rule. Furious, she marched blindly down the road. She hoped the way led to the river.

With easy strides he caught up with her. “I’ll help you, Mistress Lark. I was born to help you. Only say what it is you require. Your smallest desire is my command.”

She stopped and looked up into his sunny, impossibly wonderful face. “Why do I think,” she said, “that I shall live to regret our association?”

“I cannot understand why you agreed to this,” Kit Youngblood muttered to Oliver. He glared at the prim, straight-backed figure who rode in the fore. They were on the Oxford road leading away from the city, on an errand Oliver had embraced with good heart. The ride was enjoyable, for he loved his horse. She was a silver Neapolitan mare bred from his father’s best stock. Big-boned and graceful as a dancer was Delilah, the envy of all his friends.

“Keep your voice down,” he whispered, his gaze glued to Lark’s gray-clad form. He had always found the sight of a woman riding sidesaddle particularly arousing. “I owe her my life.”

“I owe her nothing,” Kit grumbled. “Why drag me along?”

“She needs a lawyer. For what purpose, she has yet to disclose.”

“You know as much about the law as I do.”

“True, but it would be unseemly for me to practice a profession.” Oliver feigned a look of horror. “People might think me dull and unimaginative, not to mention common.”

“Forgive me for suggesting it, Your Highness. Far better for you to follow your lordly pursuits of drinking and gaming.”

“And wenching,” Oliver added. “Pray do not forget wenching.”

“How did the woman know where to find you?”

“She went to my residence. Nance Harbutt directed her to my favorite gaming house.”

“Hunted you down, eh? And what have you done to the poor woman? She’s barely spoken since we left the City.”

“I took her to Newgate Market.” Closing his eyes, Oliver recalled the rapt expression on her small, pale face when he had set the birds free. “She loved it.”

“You’ve ever been the perfect host,” Kit said. “I do not know why I put up with you.”

“I wish I could say that it’s because you find me charming. But alas, ’tis because you’re in love with my half sister, Belinda.”

“Hah! Faithless baggage. I’ve not heard from her in a year.”

“The kingdom of Muscovy is not exactly the next shire. Fear not. She and the rest of my family will return before long.”

“She’s probably grown thin and sallow and peevish on her travels.”

Oliver chuckled. “She is Juliana’s daughter,” he reminded Kit, picturing his matchless stepmother. “Do you really think such a lass could grow ugly?”

“I almost wish she would. Suitors will be on her like flies on honey. She’ll take no notice of me, the landless son of a knight. A common solicitor.”

“If you believe that, then the game is up before it’s started. You—” Oliver broke off, scanning the road in the distance. “What’s that, a coach?”

Lark twisted around in her saddle. “It looks as if it’s gotten mired.” She made a straight seam of her mouth. “You would have noticed minutes ago if you had not been so busy yammering with Mr. Youngblood.”

“Mistress Gamehen,” Oliver said with a smile, “one day you will peck some poor husband to the bone.”