Oliver paced back and forth in the master’s chamber, a long, narrow room with a bank of shrouded windows at one end and a fireplace at the other. Spencer Merrifield, earl of Hardstaff, had banished everyone save Oliver from his bedside. But even the old lord’s imperious command failed to evict the shadows that haunted the deep corners. Oliver guessed it had once been the abbot’s lodgings. The draperies over the tall windows held the sunlight at bay and cloaked the chamber in mystery.
“You move like a caged wolf,” Spencer observed in a calm voice from his bed.
Oliver forced himself to slow down. Spencer could not know it, but the darkness and the stale, lifeless smells of the sickroom were all too familiar to him. He had spent the first seven miserable years of his life in such a place, exiled there by the superstitions of his doctors and by the impotent grief of his father. It took the unexpected love of a most unusual woman to induce Stephen de Lacey to bring his ailing son into the light.
“Could I open the draperies?” Oliver asked.
“If you like.” Spencer stirred, making a vague sweep of his arm. “My physician claims sunlight is noxious, but I feel equally ill in light or in dark.”
Oliver parted the curtains. For a moment he savored the view, a beautiful valley cleaved by the silvery river, a patchwork of fields and meadows, all embraced by the forested hills.
Then he turned to get his first good look at the man who had saved him from hanging and then summoned him from a perfectly good day of gaming and wenching. Afternoon light showered through the lozenge-shaped panes of glass, making shifting patterns of black and gold on the flagged floor. Long, dappled shafts fell on a frail man whose skin hung loose upon his skeletal frame. He had wispy hair that might have been black at one time, proud aquiline features and keen eyes.
He hardly looked the hero or the crusader, yet there was something about him. The aura of a powerful mind that had outlived its useless body.
“Why did you tell Kit to leave the room, my lord?” asked Oliver.
“We’ll need him, but not yet. Do sit down.”
Spencer had a pleasant way of giving orders. He was, taken as a whole, a rather pleasant man. The fact that Oliver owed his life to the earl made it easy to like him.
“I should thank you,” he said. “I thought I was done for, that it would all end at the gallows. My lord, I am in your debt.”
Spencer nodded. “The life of an innocent man is payment enough. Still, I do need your help.”
“What is it, my lord? What can I do to repay you?”
Spencer stared at the foot of the bed, where a great chest with an arched lid stood. “The deed is possibly illegal. At best, it’s a manipulation of the law.”
Oliver grinned. “I’ve been known to break a statute or two in my time. In sooth, Oliver Lackey was not wholly innocent. I did indeed incite riots and mayhem when the mood took me. Tell me more of this task.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“My forte.”
“It involves a great deal of record searching.”
Oliver’s spirits fell, for such work bored him. “Not my forte.”
“That is why we’ll need your friend Kit.”
Oliver was suddenly impatient with the whole affair. He resisted the urge to start pacing again. Even in sunlight the room held the dank promise of death. Blackrose Priory was a strange place indeed, peopled with strange inhabitants, not the least of whom was Mistress Lark. He much preferred the rollicking atmosphere of London.
“My lord,” he said, “I cannot help but wonder what you require. Mistress Lark went to a great deal of trouble to find me and bring me here.”
Spencer clutched the tapestried counterpane as if he wished to leave his bed. “You gave her trouble?”
The ferocity of the question took Oliver aback. “No, my lord. But I do confess I wasn’t sitting at home waiting for her to come calling. She found me—” he dropped his voice to a mumble “—at a Bankside tavern.”
“God’s shield,” Spencer snapped. “I expected better from you.”
He sounded like someone’s father, Oliver thought. “She is incredibly loyal to you, my lord,” he observed, hoping to turn the subject.
“Of course she is,” Spencer grumbled. “I have raised her from infancy. Given her every advantage, taught her a woman’s duties—”
“A woman’s duties? And what might they be, my lord?” Oliver had a few ideas of his own, but he wanted to hear Spencer’s answer.
“Obedience. That above all things.”
“Ah.” Oliver had to remind himself that Spencer was his host and responsible for saving his life. He had to content himself with the mildest comment he could muster. “My lord, I have never subscribed to the view that women are inherently sinful and need to be brought to heel like mongrel puppies.”
Spencer wheezed out a long-suffering sigh. “You still do not understand, do you, my lord? You believe I summoned you here to help me. It’s Lark, you jolt-head. I brought you here to help Lark.”
“He wants us to what?” Kit demanded.
They strolled in the parkland north of the old priory. The forest in the distance covered the rising hills with skeletal gray trees. Archery butts and a quintain, long idle, rose from the yellowed lawn amid a tangle of wild ivy. An abandoned well, surrounded by rubble, stood amid the disarray. A broken stone pedestal lay near the well, where doubtless some saint or other had once reigned in serenity.
“Break the entail on this estate,” Oliver explained. “He doesn’t want Wynter to inherit.”
“Wynter must inherit, since you say he’s the eldest—and 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.