The Maiden's Hand

Praise for the novels of #1 New York Times bestselling author
SUSAN WIGGS

“Wiggs is one of our best observers of stories of the heart. Maybe that is because she knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book.”

—Salem Statesman-Journal

“Susan Wiggs is a rare talent! Boisterous, passionate, exciting! The characters leap off the page and into your heart!”

—Literary Times

“[A] lovely, moving novel with an engaging heroine…Readers who like Nora Roberts and Susan Elizabeth Phillips will enjoy Wiggs’s latest. Highly recommended.”

—Library Journal on Just Breathe (starred review)

“Tender and heartbreaking…a beautiful novel.”

—Luanne Rice on Just Breathe

“Another excellent title to [in] her already outstanding body of work.”

—Booklist on Table for Five (starred review)

“With the ease of a master, Wiggs introduces complicated, flesh-and-blood characters into her idyllic but identifiable small-town setting.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Winter Lodge

(starred review, a PW Best Book of 2007)

The Maiden’s Hand
Susan Wiggs

The Tudor Rose Trilogy

Book Two

To my fellow writer

Barbara Dawson Smith,

with love and gratitude for all the years of friendship.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Joyce Bell, Betty Gyenes and Barbara Dawson Smith for generously giving their time and support. Also, thanks to the many members of the GEnie^® Romance Exchange, an electronic bulletin board, for so many interesting discussions.

Special thanks to Trish Jensen and Kathryn van der Pol for their proofreading skills.

I am falser than vows made in wine.

—William Shakespeare

As You Like It, Act III, Scene v

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Oliver de Lacey had died badly. He had gone blubbering and pleading to the hangman’s noose, and his last act as a mortal man had been to piss himself.

That morning, he had arisen in his dank cell in Newgate, begged one last time to sire a child on the warden’s daughter, lied through his teeth to the priest who came to grant him absolution, and vomited up his last breakfast.

Now he was paying the ultimate price for his many sins.

After the hanging, Oliver’s descent into hell was not what he expected. Indeed, it bordered on the peculiar. Darkness, aye, but what were those evil slits of gray light and that creaky, lumbering sound? And if he had left his mortal body behind, why did he feel this damnable pain in his neck? Why did he smell fresh-cut wood?

It was new and particularly awful for a man who had not expected to die by execution as a common criminal, of all things. He had always known he would die young. But he had worked hard to ensure himself a glorious demise. He had dreamed of perishing while fighting a duel, racing horses, perhaps even while bedding another man’s wife.

Not—God forbid—swinging by the neck while a bloodthirsty crowd jeered at him.

At least no one knew it was Lord Oliver de Lacey, Baron Wimberleigh, who had died at dawn. He had been arrested, tried and sentenced in his guise of Oliver Lackey—a bearded, common rapscallion who had incited one riot too many.

Thank heaven for small favors. He had spared his family a great shame. They had all gone abroad until the spring; they would come back to find that Oliver had vanished without a trace.

Ah, what a waste, he thought in disgust as his strange conveyance transported him to eternal damnation. He had wanted to make his mark in his short time on earth. In pursuit of this, he had loved every woman he could find, fought every battle he could join, sampled every delicacy, read every book, embarked on every adventure available to an affable young lord. He had lived fast and hard and voraciously with the knowledge that his illness would one day conquer him.

And this morn, an hour before cock crow, he had died a coward’s death.

“They say he died badly.” The voice penetrated Oliver’s hell-bound chariot. “Did you see?”

God’s light, but it was a horrid, unholy voice.

“I saw.” This voice, in contrast, was as sweet as the trill of a lark at dawn. “He showed no dignity whatsoever. I can’t think why Spencer was so insistent about taking this one.”

Spencer? The devil was called Spencer?

“Spencer,” said the ugly voice, “like the Lord above, works in mysterious ways. Does he know you have come?”

“Of course not,” said the woman. “He thinks I only help with the ciphering. He must never know.”

“Well, pox and pestilence, I don’t like it. Not one bit.”

Amen, thought Oliver. Death was getting stranger by the moment. Descending into hell was an odd business indeed.

The creaking and jangling ceased abruptly.

Now what? Oliver wondered. He braced himself for an onslaught of fire and brimstone.

“Careful, now. Is anyone about?” the man asked.

“Just the chief grave digger in his hut yonder. You did give him plenty of fortified wine?”

“Oh, aye. He won’t stir his bones.”

“But I see a light in the window,” the woman said.

“Right. We’d best put on a good show, then. Move the cart just to the edge of the pit. Let’s get this one out.” The chariot lurched. “Easy now. Easy! Frigging slump-backed nag. Almost backed into the pit. Hand me that chisel. I’ll just pry open this panel.”

A screeching sound rent the air, followed by an equine whinny.

“Shrouds and shambles!” the man hissed. “Mind the box! You’ll spill it.”

A square of light opened at Oliver’s lifeless feet. He began tilting, sliding, until his remains poured down a steep incline. He landed on something dusty and infinitely more noxious than anything he had done inside his canions.

“Oh, no,” whispered the female voice. “Dr. Snipes, what have we done?”

What indeed, Oliver wondered.

“He’s fallen into the pit,” she said as if she’d heard his question.

Ah, thought Oliver. At last it begins to make sense. Hell was a pit, exactly as Messer Dante had described. Except this place was cold. Bone-chillingly cold.

“We’ve got to get him out,” said the man called Snipes.

Yes, yes, please. Oliver tried to speak, but no sound emerged from his brutalized throat.

“Dr. Snipes, look! He’s come around. Sweet mercy, he is saved!”

Saved?

Oliver saw a pair of shadows looming above him, the sky a cloudy dark gray behind them.

“Mr. Lackey? Can you hear me?” the woman called out.

“Yes.” The word came out as a thin wheeze.

“He speaks! God be praised!”

Why did this instrument of the Devil praise God? And why did she address him as Lackey? Surely the Devil knew his true identity.

“Mr. Lackey, we must get you out of there,” Snipes said.

“Where am I?” There. He had spoken. A horrible rasp, to be sure, but his speech was intelligible.

“I, er, that is, you’re near the City ditch across from Greyfriars,” Snipes said. “In a, er, in a pauper’s grave.”

“This isn’t hell?” Oliver asked stupidly.

“Some would say aye,” the woman murmured.

God, he loved her voice. It was particularly the sort of voice he adored in a woman—sweet but not shrill, crisp and precise as a well-tuned gittern.

“Surely it’s not heaven,” he said. “Purgatory, then?”

“Oh, Dr. Snipes,” the woman whispered, “he thinks he is dead.”

“I am dead,” Oliver stated in his raspy voice. The dust and straw stirred as he lifted his fist. He sneezed. “I died badly. You said so yourself.”

He could have sworn he heard stifled mirth. “Sir, you were hanged, but you did not die.”

“Why not?” Oliver felt slightly miffed.

“Because we would not let you. We bribed the hangman to shorten the rope and saw to it you were cut down, pronounced dead and nailed into your box before you died.”

“Oh.” Oliver thought about this for a moment. “Thank you.” Then he groaned. “You mean I begged and humbled and pis—er, disgraced myself for naught?”

“It would seem so.”

A distant cock crowed.

“Come, time is short. We must get you out of there. Can you move?”

Oliver tried to sit up. Jesu, but his limbs were weak! He managed to prop himself up. “This place is all lumpy,” he complained. “What sort of hellhole do I find myself in?”

“Lark told you,” Snipes said. “’Tis a pauper’s grave.”

Lark. Her name was as lovely as her voice.

“You might wish to make haste,” she called. “You could catch a disease from them.”

“From what?” Oliver asked.

“From the corpses. ’Tis a pauper’s grave, sir. There’s a heap of them down there, covered with straw and lime dust. When the grave is full, it will be covered over.”

“All that lime makes for excellent grazing once the grass starts,” Snipes remarked helpfully.

“You mean…?” Bile rose in Oliver’s stomach. He lurched to his feet. “You mean you dumped me into a heap of…of corpses?”

“A most regrettable accident,” said Lark.

Oliver had spent weeks in Newgate, enduring poor food and putrid air. He had been hanged nearly to death. There was no way he should have had the strength to sink his hands into the damp earth and scramble out of the grave.

But he did.

In mere seconds he was sprawled, gasping for breath, on the cold and dewy grass.

“God’s shield, that’s foul.” Wheezing, he rolled over. His saviors bent to peer at him. Snipes wore the black cloak and tunic of an undertaker, and in the uncertain light Oliver could see a withered, twisted arm, a prominent nose and chin, and wispy white hair beneath a flat cap.

“I’ll just go and tell the gravedigger we’ve buried the poor sinner.” Snipes lumbered off into the shadows toward a wattled hut in the distance.

“Have you the strength to rise?” asked Lark.

Oliver looked at her. “My God,” he said, staring at the pale oval of her face, its delicate, dawn-limned features framed by a nimbus of glossy raven hair escaping a plain coif. “My God, you are an angel.”

Her full red lips quirked at the corners. “Hardly.”

“Tis true. I am dead. I have died and gone to heaven, and you are an angel, and I am going to spend eternity with you. Hallelujah!”

“Nonsense.” Her manner became brisk as she stuck out her hand. “Here, I’ll help you up. We must get you to the safe hold.”

She tugged at his hand, and her touch infused him with miraculous strength. When he stood upright, he saw that he towered over her. Just for a moment he felt a sense of deep connection with her. He could not tell if she felt it, too, or if she always wore that wide-eyed, startled expression.

“A safe hold?” he whispered.

“Aye.” She surreptitiously wiped her hand on her apron. “You’ll stay there until your throat is healed.”

“Very well. I have only one more question for you, mistress.”

“Yes?”

He gave her his best smile. The one that women of good breeding said could dim the stars.

She tilted her head to one side, clearly lacking the breeding to be properly dazzled.

“Yes?” she said again.

“Mistress Lark, will you have my baby?”

One

“Spencer, you would not countenance what that yea-forsooth knave said to me.” Lark paced the huge bedchamber of Blackrose Priory. “Of all the effrontery!”

“Said to you?” Spencer Merrifield, earl of Hardstaff, had the most endearing way of lifting one eyebrow so that it resembled a gray question mark. Sitting in his grand tester bed, his thin frame propped against pillows and bolsters, he was bathed in the early-evening light that streamed through the oriel window. “You spoke to him?”

“Yes. I—at the safe hold.” She cringed inwardly at the small lie and studied the pattern of lozenge shapes that tiled the floor. Spencer would object to her being present for the hanging. But the safe hold was run by godly folk whose goals matched Spencer’s own.

“I see. Well, then. What did Oliver de Lacey say to you?”

She frowned and plopped down onto a stool by the bed, tucking her soft, kerseymere skirts between her knees. “I thought his name was Oliver Lackey.”

“That is one of his names. In sooth he is Lord Oliver de Lacey, Baron Wimberleigh, son and heir to the earl of Lynley.”

“He? A noble?” The man had been wearing a stained shirt and plain fustian jerkin over torn and ragged canions and hose. No shoes; those were always appropriated by prison wardens. He had looked as common as a mongrel dog—until he had smiled at her.

Spencer watched her closely as if seeking to peer into her mind. She was familiar with the look. When she was very small, she used to liken Spencer to the Almighty Himself, with all the powers of His station.

“Betimes he goes about incognito,” Spencer explained, “I suppose to spare his family from embarrassment. Now. What did the young lord say to you?”

Will you have my baby?

Lark’s face burned scarlet at the memory. Her response had been a drop-jawed look of astonishment. Then, humiliated to the depths of her prayer-fed soul, she had flounced away, instructing him to hide in the cart until Dr. Snipes joined them and they reached the safe hold.

“I shall lie low,” Oliver had said, “but I should be more content if you were lying beneath me.”

Thank heavens Dr. Snipes had returned and spared her from having to respond.

Now she looked at Spencer and felt such a wave of horror and guilt that her hands trembled. She buried them deep in the folds of her skirts.

“I do not recall his precise words,” she said, lying again. “But he had a most insolent manner.”

“Perhaps his brush with death put him in a foul mood.”

It was an unusually tolerant observation from a man of little tolerance. Lark blinked in surprise. She tried to will her flushed cheeks to cool. “He could use a lesson in manners.”

“Be he rapscallion or man of honor, did he deserve to die?”

“No,” she whispered, instantly contrite. She took Spencer’s hand; his was cool and dry with age and infirmity. “Forgive me. I lack your generosity of spirit.”

His fingers squeezed hers briefly. “A woman cannot be expected to comprehend the matters that move a man to courage.”

She felt a sudden urge to snatch her hand away, then just as quickly buried the impulse. She owed all that she was to Spencer Merrifield. If from time to time his well-meaning comments grated, she should ignore them with good grace.

“And what lofty purpose do you have in mind for Oliver de Lacey?” she asked.

She could see the flame of the dying sun reflected in Spencer’s cloudy gray eyes, which peered all the way through to her soul. Sometimes she feared his wisdom, for he seemed to know her better than she knew herself.

“Spencer?” She touched her stiff gray bodice, wondering if her partlet or coif had come askew.

“I’ve a purpose in mind for the lad. My dear,” he said, “I am sick and getting sicker.”

A lump of dread rose in her throat. “Then we shall seek a new physician, consult—”

He waved her silent. “Death is part of the circle of life, Lark. It’s all around us. I have no fear of the hereafter. But I must make provisions for you. The manor of Evensong is already yours, of course. I intend to leave you all my worldly goods, all my monies. You’ll want for nothing.”

She did take her hand away then and tucked it between her knees, seeking warmth as an unbearable chill swept over her. He spoke so matter-of-factly, when in truth his death would change her life irrevocably.

“You are nineteen,” he observed. “Most women are mothers by the time they reach your age.”

“I have no regrets,” she said stoutly. “Truly, I—”

“Hush. Listen, Lark. When I’m gone, you will be left alone. Worse than alone.”

Worse? She caught her breath, then said, “Wynter.”

“Aye. My son.” The word was a curse on his lips. Wynter Merrifield was Spencer’s son by his first wife, Doña Elena de Dura. Many years ago, before Lark’s birth, the marriage had crumbled beneath the weight of Doña Elena’s scorn for her English husband and her flagrant affairs with other, younger men. Like the Church of England and the Church of Rome, Spencer and Elena had been torn apart, the fissure created by infidelity and hatred.

And Wynter, now a strapping young lord of twenty-five, was the casualty.

When she had left Spencer, Doña Elena had not told him she was expecting a child. While in sanctuary in Scotland, she had given birth and raised Wynter to be as bitter against his father as she was and as devoted to Queen Mary as Elena had been to Catherine of Aragon.

Two and a half years earlier Wynter had come back to Blackrose Priory to hover like a carrion bird over his father’s wasting form. Each day Lark watched him furtively from her chamber window. As slim and darkly handsome as a young god, he rode the length and breadth of the estate, his black horse sweeping along the rich green water meadows by the river or racing up the terraced hills where sheep grazed.

The thought of Wynter made Lark fitful, and she stood and walked to the window. The sun was lowering over the wild Chiltern Hills in the distance, and shadows gathered in the river valley.

“By law,” Spencer said wearily, “Wynter must inherit my estate. It is entailed to my sole male heir.”

“Is he your heir?” she asked baldly, though she did not dare to turn and look at Spencer.

“A sticky matter,” Spencer admitted. “I knew nothing of his existence when I put aside my first wife and had the marriage annulled. But as soon as I learned I had a son, I had him legitimized. How could I not? He did not ask to be born to a woman who would teach him to hate.”

Lark heard the clink of glass as Spencer poured himself more of his medicine. “I should not have asked. Of course he is your son and heir.” She shivered and continued to face the window, battered by a storm of bitter memories. “Your only one.”

“You must help me stop him. Wynter wishes to exalt Queen Mary by reviving a religious house at Blackrose Priory. He’ll turn this place into a hotbed of popish idolatry. The monks who lived here before the Dissolution were voluptuous sinners,” Spencer went on. “I sweated blood into this estate. I need to know it will stay the same after I’m gone. And what will become of you?”

She rushed to the stool by the bed. “I try not to think about life without you. But when I do, I see myself continuing the work of the Samaritans. Dr. Snipes and his wife will look after me.” It had occurred to her that she possessed some degree of cleverness, perhaps even enough to look after herself. She knew better than to point that out to Spencer.

He gestured at the chest at the foot of the bed. “Open that.”

She did as he asked, using a key from the iron ring she wore tied to her waist. She found a stack of books and scrolled documents in the chest. “What is all this?”

“I’m going to disinherit Wynter,” he said. She heard the pain in his voice, saw the flash of regret in his fading eyes.

“How can you?” She closed the lid and rested her elbows on top of the chest. “You do love your son.”

“I cannot trust him. When I see him, I notice a hardness, a cruelty, that sits ill with me.”

She thought of Wynter with his hair and eyes of jet, his lean swordsman’s body, and his mouth that was harsh even when he smiled. He was a man of prodigious good looks and deep secrets. A dangerous combination, as she well knew.

“How will you do this?” she asked without turning around. “How will you deny Wynter his birthright?”

“I shall need your help, dear Lark.”

She turned to him in surprise. “What can I do?”

“Find me a lawyer. I cannot trust anyone else.”

“You would entrust this task to me?” she asked, shocked.

“There is no one else. I shall need you to find someone who is discreet, yet totally lacking in scruples.”

“This is so unlike you—”

“Just do it.” A fit of coughing doubled him over, and she rushed to him, patting his back.

“I shall,” she said in a soothing voice. “I shall find you the most unscrupulous knave in London.”

Lark stood at the grand river entrance of the elegant half-timbered London residence. It was hard to believe Oliver de Lacey lived here, along the Strand, a stretch of riverbank where the great houses of the nobility stood shoulder to shoulder, their terraced gardens running down to the water’s edge.

The door opened, and she found herself facing a plump, elderly woman with a hollowed horn thrust up against her ear. “Is Lord Oliver de Lacey at home?”

“Eh? He ain’t lazy at home.” The woman thumped her blackthorn cane on the floor. “Our dear Oliver can be a right hard worker when he’s of a mind to be wanting something.”

“Not lazy,” Lark called, leaning toward the bell of the trumpet. “De Lacey. Oliver de Lacey.”

The woman grimaced. “You needn’t shout.” She patted her well-worn apron. “Come near the fire, and tell old Nance your will.”

Venturing inside a few more steps, Lark stood speechless. She felt as if she had entered a great clockwork. Everywhere—at the hearth, the foot of the stairs, along the walls—she saw huge toothed flywheels and gears, all connected with cables and chains.

Her heart skipped a beat. This was a chamber of torture! Perhaps the de Laceys were secret Catholics who—

“You look as though you’re scared of your own shadow.” Nance waved her cane. “These be naught but harmless contraptions invented by Lord Oliver’s sire. See here.” She touched a crank at the foot of the wide staircase, and with a great grinding noise a platform slid upward.

In the next few minutes, Lark saw wonders beyond imagining—a moving chair on runners to help the crippled old housekeeper up and down the stairs, an ingenious system to light the great wheeled fixture that hung from the hammer beam ceiling, a clock powered by heat from the embers in the hearth, a bellows worked by a remote system of pulleys.

Nance Harbutt, who proudly called herself the mistress of Wimberleigh House, assured Lark that such conveniences could be found throughout the residence. All were the brainchildren of Stephen de Lacey, the earl of Lynley.

“Come sit.” Nance gestured at a strange couch that looked as if it sat upon sled runners.

Lark sat, and a cry of surprise burst from her. The couch glided back and forth like a swing in a gentle breeze.

Nance sat beside her, fussily arranging several layers of skirts. “His Lordship made this after marrying his second wife, when the babies started coming. He liked to sit with her and rock them to sleep.”

The vision evoked by Nance’s words made Lark feel warm and strange inside. A man holding a babe to his chest, a loving woman beside him…these things were alien to Lark, as alien as the huge dog lazing upon the rushes in front of the hearth. The long-coated animal had the shape of a parchment-thin greyhound, with much longer legs.

A windhound from Russia, Nance explained, called borzoyas in their native land. Lord Oliver bred them, and the handsomest male of each litter was named Pavlo.

Lark forced herself to pay close attention to Nance Harbutt, the oldest retainer of the de Lacey family. The housekeeper had a tendency to ramble and a great dislike for being interrupted, so Lark sat quietly by.

Randall, the groom who had accompanied her from Blackrose Priory, was waiting in the kitchen. By now he would have found the ale or hard cider and would be useless to her. This did not bother her in the least. She and Randall had an agreement. She made no comment on his tippling, and he made no comment on her activities for the Samaritans.

According to Nance, the sun rose and set on Lord Oliver. There was no doubt in the old woman’s mind that he had hung not only the moon, but also the sun and each and every little silver star in the heavens.

“I wish to see him,” Lark said when Nance paused to draw a breath.

“To be him?” Nance frowned.

“To see him,” Lark repeated, speaking directly into the horn.

“Of course you do, dearie.” Nance patted her arm. Then she did a curious thing; she smoothed back the hood of Lark’s black traveling cloak and peered at her.

“Dear God above,” Nance said loudly. She picked up her apron and fanned her face.

“Is something amiss?”

“Nay. For a moment you—that look on your face put me in mind of Lord Stephen’s second wife, the day he brought her home.”

Lark recalled what Spencer had told her of Oliver’s family. Lord Stephen de Lacey, a powerful and eccentric man, had married young. His first wife had perished giving birth to Oliver. The second was a woman of Russian descent, reputed to be a singular beauty. Though flattered by the comparison, Lark thought the elderly retainer’s sight was as weak as her hearing.

“Now then,” Nance said, her manner brisk, “when is the babe due?”

“The babe?” Lark regarded her stupidly.

“The babe, lass! The one Lord Oliver sowed in you. And God be praised that it’s finally happened—”

“Ma’am.” Lark’s ears took fire.

“Weren’t for lack of trying on the part of the dear lordling. “Course, ’twould be preferable to marry first, but Oliver has ever been the—”

“Mistress Harbutt, please.” Lark fairly shouted into the trumpet.

“Eh?” Nance flinched. “Heaven above, lass, I ain’t so deaf as a stone.”

“I’m sorry. You misunderstand. I have no…” She lacked the words to describe how appalled she felt at the very suggestion that she might be a ruined woman carrying a rogue’s bastard. “Lord Oliver and I are not that well acquainted. I wish to speak to him on a matter. Is he at home?”

“Sadly, nay.” Nance blew out her breath. Then she brightened. “I know where he’d be. This time of day he’s always going about important business.”

Lark felt vastly relieved. Perhaps the young nobleman was engaged in lordly matters, serving his turn in Parliament or perhaps doing good works among the poor.

It might prove an unexpected pleasure to encounter him in his lofty pursuits.

Deep in the darkest tavern on the south bank, Oliver de Lacey looked up from the gaming table as the black-cloaked stranger entered. A woman, judging by her slight build and hesitant manner.

“Hell’s bells,” said Clarice, shifting on Oliver’s lap. “Don’t tell me the Puritans are at us again.”

Oliver savored the suggestive movement of her soft buttocks. Clarice was no more than a laced mutton in a leaping house, but she was a woman, and he adored women without prejudice.

More than ever, now that he had been given a second chance at life.

“Ignore her,” he said, nuzzling Clarice’s neck, inhaling the scent of lust. “No doubt she is a dried-up old crone who cannot bear to see people enjoy life. Eh, Kit?”

Christopher Youngblood, who sat across the table from Oliver, grinned. “In sooth you enjoy it too much, my friend. Such constant revelry does rob the savor from it.”

Oliver rolled his eyes and looked to Clarice for sympathy. “Kit’s smitten with my half sister, Belinda. He’s saving his virtue for her.”

Clarice shook her head, making her yellow curls bounce on her bared shoulders. “Such a waste, that.”

The other harlot, Rosie, leaned toward Kit, caught his starched ruff in her fingers and turned him to face her. “Let the lady have his virtue,” she declared. “I’ll take his vice.” She gave him a smacking kiss on his mouth and pounded the table in high good humor as his face turned brick-red.

Laughing uproariously, Oliver called for more ale and summoned Samuel Hollins and Egmont Carper, his favorite betting partners, to a game of mumchance. His spirits lubricated by ale and soft womanhood, he rolled the dice in the bowl.

And won. Lord, how he won. This was his first outing since that unfortunate incident—he refused to call it anything so grim as a hanging—and the luck that had delivered him from death now clung to him like a woman’s sweet perfume.

Lucky as a cat with nine lives, he was, and it never occurred to him to wonder if he deserved it. Nor did it cross his mind that the whole incident had been very unusual indeed. Two strangers had risked their own safety to rescue him.

At a cottage near St. Giles, they had provided him with a basin of hot water, a shaving blade and a set of clean clothing. He had bathed, shorn off his beard, dressed and returned home to sleep ’round the clock.

And he was none the worse for the wear, save for a bruised neck, now artfully concealed by a handsome ruff and some redness in his eyes.

His saviors, Dr. Phineas Snipes and Mistress Lark, had wondered aloud why the mysterious Spencer had singled out Oliver for saving.

Oliver de Lacey did not wonder why. He knew. It was because he was blessed. Blessed with angelic good looks, for which he took no credit but which he used to his utmost advantage. Blessed with a large, loving family whose only fault was that they were too hasty to forgive his every transgression. Blessed with a quick mind and a glib tongue. Blessed with a lust for life.

And cursed, alas, to die young. There was no cure for his sickness. The attacks of asthmatic breathlessness were few and infrequent, but when they came, they struck like a storm. For years he had fought each battle, but he knew in the end the disease would conquer him.

“Ollie?” Clarice tickled his ear with her tongue. “Your turn to cast the dice.”

Like a large dog shaking off water, Oliver rid himself of the thoughts. He made a masterful throw. A perfect seven. Clarice squealed with delight, Carper grudgingly gave up his coin, and Oliver rewarded his woman by tucking a ducat deep into her doughy cleavage.