Free The Maiden's Hand by Susan Wiggs Page B

distaste for the main dish, Oliver felt queasy. “No, thank you. I never eat capon.”
    Kit smothered a laugh.
    Lark tipped her head to one side. “Whyever not?”
    “It’s a castrated cock, that’s why. Gives me a bad feeling.”
    He expected her to be shocked by his bluntness. Instead he saw a faint spark of amusement in her eyes.
    “I take it you’d never ride a gelded horse, either,” she said.
    “I ride only mares.” God, he liked her. She stood for everything he hated, everything he found tiresome, and he liked her immensely.
    “I have no qualms about eating capon.” Kit wrenched a leg from the roasted bird and bit into it. Wynter took the other leg. Oliver held out his goblet for more wine.
    “How is the weaving coming along, Lark?” Wynter asked quite cordially.
    “Well enough,” she said without looking at him.
    He lifted an eyebrow. “Is it, then? It appeared to me that you’ve been neglectful of late. I’ve seen no progress on the tapestry you’ve been weaving.”
    “I didn’t realize I was under your scrutiny.”
    “One can’t help but notice when a woman neglects her duties to go traipsing off to London.”
    Oliver looked from one to the other as if they were engaged in a tennis match. What an extraordinary pair they made, despising each other with such civility.
    “And what have you done with yourself, Wynter?” Lark’s voice was low, yet dripping with venom. In contrast to the servile spaniel who had first entered the room, she seemed to be coming out of herself, brandishing words like a sharp blade. “Turned in any heretics lately?”
    Wynter smiled. “Dear Lark. You are always so full of pointed humor.” His hand clenched around the ivory handle of his knife.
    When Spencer did finally die, Oliver knew Lark would have to beware Wynter Merrifield.
     
    “Wardens’ Temporal Act…Treasonable Offences by Rank Villains’…. None of these will do.” Kit frowned at the thick, heavy tome on the long library table.
    Lark knelt on the bench beside him and dragged a fat, smoking candle closer. “What about this one?” She pointed to an entry on another page of the huge tome. “An Acte for the Disbursement and Recovery of Real Property.”
    Oliver rubbed his weary eyes. Midnight was but a vague memory, and they had been in Spencer’s amazingly huge library since sunset, poring over law books and legal tracts.
    “We’ll have to go to London. We’ll never find what we’re looking for here.” Kit closed the huge book with a thud.
    “Ouch!” Lark said. “You’ve closed my finger in it!” She yanked the book open.
    Oliver’s mind kept toying with what she had said earlier. “Disbursement,” he said to himself. “Recovery…” As a youth fleeing the boredom of polite nobility, he had gone to St. John’s at Cambridge to hear shockingly reformed ideas on the law. Unfortunately his memories of that time were obscured by a pleasant mist of women, gambling, drinking and general mischief.
    Kit took a sip from the wine jug. “You carry on the search. I’m but a common lawyer. A very weary common lawyer.” Yawning, he left the library.
    “Is he really a commoner?” Lark asked.
    Common. Oliver’s mind clung to the word for a moment. “His father was a knight who had eleven sons. Kit fostered with my father.” The recollection plunged Oliver into the past. There had been a time, long ago, when his father had barely acknowledged Oliver’s existence. Kit had been the substitute son, the golden lad who learned to ride and hunt and fence at Stephen de Lacey’s side.
    If there were wounds from that time, they had healed nicely, Oliver decided. He adored both Kit and his father.
    He brought his thoughts to the present and looked at Lark. The pale stranger at supper had given way to the lively maid who had braved a Bankside tavern to find him.
    What a charming scholar she made, so sweetly unaware of her provocative pose. She had her elbows planted on the heavy tome, her knees on