The Maiden's Hand (12 page)

Oliver bowed deeply before her. “Aye, it makes me happy indeed to learn that I have led the saintly Mistress Lark into temptation.”

S
he was glad for the shadowy darkness, for her cheeks were on fire with humiliation. “You are the first man I’ve met who considered causing me discomfort a worthy deed.”

“You are wrong, my lady Righteous.” He stopped just in front of her, so close she could feel the heat of his body and recognize his unique scent. A heady, shockingly familiar essence.

She knew he meant to intimidate, to make her quail in awe like…like…

Like the helpless, smitten sinner she was.

“I meant no insult,” he said in a rich, intimate whisper. “’Tis only that I had feared you were made of stone.”

“I?” Incensed, she spun away and stalked back and forth along the bank of the river. “I—made of stone? Just because I don’t drool over a conceited Lord—Lord
Worm
like you? I care about the poor and infirm,” she declared. “I love God with tenderness and reverence. I—”

“Indeed.” Clearly unmoved by her tirade, he handed her a dipper of water from the stream. “Cool your tongue, Mistress Firebrand, lest you sear someone with it.”

She stopped and took a drink of the fresh, chill water. On her second swallow she realized she was obeying him, spat out the water, and simply glared at him. She always did as she was told. Lately that had not been much of a virtue.

“It is admirable to care about the poor and to love God.” Oliver lounged against the trunk of a tree, his face in shadow, his voice betraying sardonic amusement. “But where in the scripture is it written that a woman should not be human, should not feel the desires and yearnings of a healthy young body?”

“A good Christian is chaste in thought and deed.” Even as she spoke the words, she knew they were not her own. Spencer had taught them to her. Spencer had taught her everything.

Oliver de Lacey made her doubt long-held beliefs when it was so much easier accepting them as fact.

“A good Christian,” he countered, “is one who can tell good from ill. One who can confront and conquer temptation.”

“I can tell good from evil.”

“Then what am I, Lark? Am I good? Or evil?”

His bald question startled her. “I was never meant to judge you, my lord.”

“Oh no?” He pushed away from the tree, detaching himself from the concealing shadows. For the first time Lark realized he was angry. Truly angry, and he was barely in control. With his shoulders taut, his prowling gait restrained, he reminded her of a predator about to strike.

“Never meant to judge me, were you?” His mocking tone cut like a blade. “My dear Countess of Contempt. My dear, pious, holier-than-a-nun’s-arsehole Lady Lark.” He grasped her by the upper arms and forced her to look up
into his face. “Since the moment you pulled me out of a pauper’s grave, you have done nothing but judge me.”

She flinched, though his hold did not hurt. “You were insolent to me that night! You asked me to have your baby!” She had not meant to remind him. She wished she could take it back. Mortified, she twisted herself out of his grip.

“Which some women would take as a compliment,” he shot back.

“Well,
I
did not.”

“And from that moment on, you considered me a flesh-loving beast.”

“When have you shown me otherwise?” She was shouting now, but she was past caring. “I sought your help, only to find you in a gambling den draped with a—with a—”

“With a ha’penny whore,” he filled in for her. “And a jolly good day it was, until
you
came along with your big black cloak and your little pinched face and your ‘burn in hell’ attitude.”

“Which you promptly proceeded to scorn.” She poked her finger at his chest for emphasis. “You all but drowned me in the Thames. You dragged me to a fair I did not wish to attend. You—”

“Enough!” He caught her finger in his fist. “You win. I am the blackest of sinners.” The raw, pained note in his voice made her want to cover her ears, to run and hide. “The fact that I braved an attack by brigands for your sake, that I roused a crowd to riot so you could rescue Richard Speed, were only temporary lapses into virtue.”

She did not want to think of him as a man who could be hurt. “It’s not that I’m ungrateful.” Her voice was soft and low-pitched.

He put one finger beneath her chin and stared into her
eyes. “Am I truly that repulsive to you, Lark? So odious, so tainted by evil, that you would pray on your knees to escape me?”

“I was praying for my own sake, not yours.” How had he done it? How had he managed to turn things around and make her feel guilty for something she said in private prayer?

“Begging for release from temptation, were you?”

She didn’t answer. She avoided his gaze.

“Temptation!” he roared, grabbing her again. “You do not even know the meaning of the word.”

She winced, and he took a deep breath. “I have never met a woman who could so easily arouse me. To anger,” he added quickly. His hands began to ride slowly up and down her arms. “Lark, I don’t claim to be an expert in theology like the most holy Mr. Speed, but I have learned something about temptation. Something I can teach you.”

His gentle caresses soothed her. “Yes?”

“I know you think you should banish me from your presence, from your thoughts, from your life if need be, in order to triumph over temptation.”

It was exactly what she had been thinking. “Go on.”

“That would be no victory at all. True triumph and true grace come from confronting temptation.”

“Confronting it?”

“Aye, and exploring it at its deepest level within yourself. And ultimately, sweet Lark, finding the strength to resist.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She felt light-headed now, lulled by fatigue and by the tender stroking of his hands on her arms, up and down, shoulder to elbow.

“Let me show you,” he whispered. “When I lean down and touch your ear—like so—
that
is temptation.”

The moist flick of his tongue on her earlobe nearly set her aflame. She knew she should run—far away, to a place where he could not find her—but instead she stayed riveted and spellbound by the sorcery of his touch.

“When I slide my hands down your back—” he demonstrated “—and then cup you against me—” He pulled her so close, she could feel the entire length of his body. “
That
is temptation.”

He brought his hand up, smoothly removing the fabric partlet that covered her décolletage. “When I caress you here, where your breasts rise against your bodice,
that
is temptation.”

She was truly on fire now, and the worst of it was, she did not care. All the reliable old proverbs and cautions flew out of her mind.

He bent to skim his lips over her bared flesh, then lifted his head, pressing his brow against hers and staring into her eyes. His mouth hovered close, tantalizing, its shape imprinted on her senses, its texture and taste evoking forbidden memories of other moments.

“And when you kiss me?” she heard herself ask boldly. “Is that temptation?”

“Oh, yes, my love. Of the sweetest sort.” He bent his head, his lips coming closer and closer. “Yes indeed.” He paused when his mouth came nearer still, a mere breath away. She could almost feel his kiss. The hunger to experience it flared out of control. Passion was contrary to all of her training, all of her hard-won self-control. Lessons and lectures burned away like so much kindling on a bonfire.

“What are you feeling, Lark?” he asked in the softest of whispers. “Tell me. Describe it.”

“I feel…” She wanted to grasp him and press his mouth
down over hers, to punish herself with sinful yearning. “Overly warm.”

“Where?”

“I…Everywhere,” she replied, taken aback.

She felt the soft hum of his mirth as he chuckled. “Can you be more specific?”

“I could. But there are certain things I do not…I cannot name.”

True warmth flowed through his laughter then, and genuine affection radiated from him as he slid his arms around her and pressed her cheek to his chest. “Dear Lark. You do have much to learn.”

She realized that he referred to the act of physical love. The old guilty horror crept over her, and she shuddered. “Suppose I don’t wish to learn?”

“There is no shame in naming body parts and knowing how they work. Trust me.” Before she could stop him, he let his hand stray. “Now, this is a—”

“No!” She clapped her hands over her ears. “That is vulgar.”

He lifted her hand and spoke into her ear. “Then what about—”

“Stop that!” Yet even as she spoke, she was intrigued by his game and by the strangely liberating feeling it gave her to speak frankly of things she had been taught to keep secret. She felt both shame and curiosity, wanting to know what a real wife knew. Curiosity won out, grinding the last flicker of guilt beneath its heel. “I shall listen if you promise to whisper.”

“Of course,” he said, all seriousness.

“And if you swear you won’t use those horrid low German terms.”

“Very well.”

They settled—he with vast amusement, she with uncomfortable fascination—on terms more suited to animal husbandry than lovemaking. Although her cheeks burned, she was an avid listener, forgetting her shame as he described a world of sensation, of temptation, of ravishing sensuality. It was nothing like the world she knew. It was brighter, bolder and infinitely seductive.

“Now then,” she said with false briskness when he finished, “I have confessed to what I feel. I am ready to be tempted.” She raised herself on tiptoe, so eager now for his kiss that she almost wept when he held her off once again.

“Patience, Lark. I’m not convinced that you’ve truly confronted temptation.”

“But I told you about the heat. I even told you where I felt it.”

“What else, Lark?” His hands continued to tease and torment her, massaging her shoulder blades, meandering around—just barely, to touch the fullness of her breasts.

As though I shall die if you don’t kiss me, she thought.

“I feel strange, in a pleasant way,” she confessed. “As if I could know something, see a new world, if I let myself. Have you ever stood at the edge of a cliff in the dark and wondered what lay below?”

“It’s a hard decision, is it not?” He did something new and shocking with his tongue, and shivers passed through her body, starting in the place she had just learned the name of and radiating out to the tips of her toes, her fingers, her breasts.

“Aye,” she whispered helplessly. “A hard decision.”

“So what shall it be, Lark?” His warm lips touched the pulse in her neck. “Stay where you are, in tedious safety, or fling yourself off the cliff to see what awaits you?”

“A great danger might await me.”

“Or something wonderful.”

She clutched at the front of his shirt. “It is easy for you, Oliver. You are a born cliff jumper. You have no obligations. No commitments. No responsibilities. No one expects anything from you. You can afford to take risks.”

“In other words, the world cares not whether Oliver de Lacey lives or dies, is that it?”

He spoke quietly, but she heard the venom in his voice.

“It would not be so if you would become a responsible man.” She wanted to lash out at him for making her experience this yearning, this vulnerability, this passion she had no right to feel. And for not kissing her when she needed it more than air.

“Like your precious Richard Speed. He can move the masses to tears, Lark. But can he make you feel like this?”

Oliver turned her, pressing her back against the tree, and finally, just before she screamed in frustration, he kissed her.

Truly kissed her. Deeply. Wickedly.

She responded with an ardor she knew she would be ashamed of later. But she could not help herself. That was the worst of it. The loss of control. The stripping away of her will until there was nothing left but the wanting, the ache.

His tongue slid in and out of her mouth. Slowly. Rhythmically. To her shock, she felt the echo in her newly named body part.

Her fists tightened on his shirt, then went slack and slid downward. The shape of his chest was fascinating. His midsection was still bandaged, but lower she discovered interesting ripples on his stomach. Good Lord, he was wonderfully put together!

When her fingers brushed the tops of his blousy canions, she froze. The dark time reared in her mind, but she shied from thinking about that now.

“Ah, sweetheart,” he murmured against her mouth, “we’ve barely begun.”

“We must stop.” Tears burned her eyes. She did not know if the tears sprang from grief or frustration.

“Nay.” He cupped his hand around the back of her head. “Lark, we can’t stop.”

“I thought your purpose was to teach me the true meaning of temptation so I could resist it.”

“I lied.”

“You did?”

“My true purpose was to seduce you.”

She ducked beneath his arm and stepped away so she was no longer pressed between him and the ancient tree.