Free The Maiden's Hand by Susan Wiggs

only—son.” Kit picked up a rock and tossed it at the ragged target. It hit dead center, tearing a gaping hole in the weather-worn leather. “Unless he’s been declared illegitimate. There’s always that. Wasn’t Spencer’s marriage to Wynter’s mother annulled?”
    “Yes, but Spencer refuses to declare Wynter a bastard.” He grinned. “Legally, that is. According to the old man, Wynter is not trustworthy. I gather the lordling’s a bit too Catholic for his very reformed father.”
    “Then the old man should have raised him in the Reformed faith.”
    Oliver watched a flock of rooks take flight from the trees that fringed the park, black wings beating the pure white of the winter clouds.
    Ah, but he did like Kit. Simple, solid as the earth beneath his feet. In Kit’s mind there was no question as to what was right and what was wrong. Kit knew.
    “I expect Spencer would have done just that,” Oliver said. “But Wynter’s mother had other ideas, and did her utmost to instill them in her son. She was Spanish.”
    The one word explained all, and Kit nodded. “A servant of the queen, was she?”
    “Aye, one of Catherine of Aragon’s ladies. Passed away a year ago, but she’s having her revenge on Spencer now. She lives on in Wynter. Apparently her devotion to Queen Catherine is reflected in Wynter’s allegiance to Queen Mary. If he inherits this place—” Oliver swept his arm to encompass the rambling priory “—Spencer fears it will once again become a Catholic stronghold, perhaps placed at the disposal of Bishop Bonner.” He winked. “Perhaps given back to the Bonshommes, the religious order that once inhabited Blackrose. I understand they were a naughty lot.”
    Kit shuddered. “Bonner. Just the thought of him clouds a sunny day.” He picked up another stone and hurled it, hitting the archery butt again. “Lord Spencer does not wish his property to fall to his son. Where shall it go, then? To Lark?”
    “Yes. To Lark. He claims it is a fairly simple legal procedure.”
    “When legal procedures become simple, people will no longer need my services,” Kit said. “But why you? Why us? There are a thousand London lawyers he could have chosen.”
    “I pointed that out. He claims to know my father. Claims I inherited his deep sense of honor.” Oliver bowed with a mocking flourish.
    Kit laughed. “Little does our host know.”
    Just for the smallest fraction of a second, the comment bothered Oliver. He recovered instantly. “It matters not. He arranged for me to be saved from the gallows. He needs our help. So we’ll help him.”
    “We?”
    “You and I, dear Kit.”
    “I haven’t agreed to anything.”
    Oliver crossed his arms over his chest. “You will.”
    “I won’t.”
    A bell sounded.
    “Let’s go in to supper,” Oliver said, striding toward the priory.
    He ignored Kit’s protests all the way to the dining hall. Sparsely furnished, it was a cavernous room with a hammer beam ceiling and painted hangings on the walls. Not exactly a warm, relaxing place in which to take supper.
    More chilly than the room were the two people who waited to dine with them.
    Oliver had not thought it possible that there could exist a gown plainer than the one Lark had been wearing earlier. Yet she had managed to find one. It was dyed unevenly in shades of black and ash-gray. The bodice was flat and unadorned, the sleeves so narrow and tight he wondered how she managed to move her arms.
    Yet it was her face that disturbed him most. Framed by the ugliest of coifs, it was stone-cold, the light gray eyes empty, the mouth stiff.
    Oliver strode across the room and snatched her hand. As he sank to one knee and bent to brush his lips over her chillyfingers, he whispered, “Where did she go, the woman of fire and spirit who all but dragged me from London?”
    He was beginning to fear she was not Lark, but a cold, look-alike stranger. Then he felt it: the profound connection he had experienced the first time she