“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 the bench, and her startlingly shapely backside thrust out and upward in a way that brought the devil to life in Oliver.
Wisps of dark hair escaped the detestable coif, and the locks curled softly around her pale face. The hunt for a loophole in the law seemed to animate her, causing her eyes to dance and her lips to curve into an artless smile. Even better, the angle of her pose allowed Oliver to peer unobstructed into the bodice of her dress. It was a beautiful bosom indeed—what he could see of it. High, rounded breasts, the skin like satin or pearls, and if he craned his neck, he fancied he could just barely make out a shadow where her skin darkened—
“Are you ill?” she asked.
Oliver blinked. He shifted on the bench. He glanced down at his codpiece. Other than being too tightly trussed, he felt fine. “No. Why do you ask?”
“You were looking at me rather strangely.”
He laughed. “That, my darling, was lust.”
“Oh.” Her gaze dropped to the page. Something told Oliver that she had little experience with lust.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I assure you, I can control my base impulses.”
“Perhaps.” She drummed her fingers on the page. “’Tis true, I sense no danger when I’m with you. Yet at the same time, I feel as defenseless as a fledgling fallen from the nest.” A single crease of bafflement appeared between her brows.
He touched the tip of her nose. “That’s because I threaten the most vulnerable part of you, my pet. Your heart.” He gave her no chance to ponder that, but forged on. “Now. What is it you keep reading on that page?”
“It’s about the disbursement and recovery of—”
“That’s it!” Oliver jumped to his feet. He strode to her side of the table, leaned down and skimmed the page. Even as his eyes absorbed the printed words, he noticed her scent of fresh laundry and femininity.
“What’s it?” Lark blinked at him.
He lifted her bodily from the bench. He wanted to share his exuberance, to show her the clean, effervescent joy of a puzzle solved. While she gaped at him as if he’d gone mad, he planted a brief, noisy kiss on her mouth, then spun her around, throwing his head back and laughing.
“Lark, you have the wit of a scholar!” he cried.
“I can’t.” The spinning seemed to render her breathless, so he stopped and held her by both hands.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Well.” She looked up at him with heartbreaking earnestness. “Because I’m a woman.”
“So was Eleanor of Aquitaine. Christine de Pisan. Perkin Warbeck.”
“Perkin Warbeck was a pretender to the throne,” she stated. “And he was a boy.”
“Don’t be so certain.” He couldn’t help himself. Such sweetness as he saw in her face should be outlawed as a strong intoxicant. He tipped up her chin and brushed his knuckles along her jawline. “Why in God’s name do you believe such humble ideas?”
She tried to look away. He held her chin again, his touch gentle yet compelling. “The most learned men of the age have made a great study of the minds of women. They have proven that women are weaker.”
“Learned men also once claimed the world was flat. Lark, you just gave me the key to breaking Spencer’s entail.”
“I did?” For a moment sheer joy transformed her face into a vision of loveliness. He had no idea how she could seem so plain and lifeless one moment, so glowingly beautiful the next. She presented a far greater puzzle than English law, a far more interesting one, too.
“The Common Recovery,” he said with satisfaction. “I never thought of it until you suggested it. You’ve a fine mind, Lark, and the man who says otherwise is a fool.” He smiled down at her, his hands cradling her cheeks. “I could kiss you.”
“You’ve already done that, thank you very much,” she said. “How does it work?”
He found himself staring at her face. Candlelight had such a happy effect at moments like this. The warm glow healed her pallor, brought out the elegant shape of her nose and cheekbones, and flickered in the velvety depths of her eyes.
“How does it work?” he repeated, mindless now with desire. “Well.” He pulled her toward him, passing one hand around to the back of her waist. She gasped, and he smiled.
“It would help if you were not so stiff in your upper body.”
“My lord—”
“And you should hold on with both hands—just so.” He took her hands and brought them to his shoulders, then around behind his neck.
“But—”
“And for Christ’s sake, don’t talk. That spoils everything.”
“What I meant was—”
“You talked. Disobedient wench.” He cut her short with a kiss. When he had kissed her in the tavern, he had been woozy from his attack. He was recovered now, and he meant to prove to himself that he could control his desire for her. That she was no different from the dozens of other women he had wooed and won. He wanted to obliterate that one frightening moment when she had made him feel deeply.