The Maiden's Hand by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online

taller than Lark and her aim was low, and when it connected, Oliver winced just from watching.
    The man doubled up, unable to speak. Then, clutching himself, he half limped and half ran into the woods beyond the road.
    Kit’s opponent, bleeding now, backed away. Swearing, he leapfrogged onto one of the horses, cut the traces and galloped off.
    Oliver raced toward the third soldier. This one fled toward the remaining horse, but Lark planted herself in his path.
    “No!” Oliver screamed, picturing her mown down like a sheaf of wheat. But as Lark’s hands grasped at the mercenary’s untidy tunic, he merely shoved her aside, mounted, spurred and was gone.
    “Lark!” Oliver said, rushing forward. She lay like abroken bird in the path. “Dear God, Lark! Are you hurt—” He broke off.
    It struck just then. The dark, silent enemy that had stalked Oliver all his life. The tightening of his chest muscles. The absolute impossibility of emptying his lungs. The utter certainty that this was the attack that would kill him.
    The physicians called it asthma. Aye, they had a name for it, but no cure.
    The world seemed to catch fire at the edges, a familiar warning sign. He saw Lark climb to her feet. Kit seemed to tilt as if he bent to pick something up. Lark moved her mouth, but Oliver could not hear her over the thunder of blood rushing in his ears.
    God, not now. But he felt himself stagger.
    “Ahhhh.” The thin sound escaped him. Shamed to the very toes of his Cordovan riding boots, Oliver de Lacey staggered back and fell, arms wheeling, fingers grasping at empty air.

Three
    “ I ’ve never stayed at an inn before,” Lark confessed to Kit as she cut a strip of bandage.
    Oliver leaned against the scrubbed pine table in the large kitchen and tried to appear nonchalant, when in fact he was doing his best to keep from sliding into a heap on the floor.
    What was it about Lark, he wondered, that so arrested the eye and took hold of the heart?
    Perhaps it was the childlike sense of wonder with which she regarded the world. Or perhaps her complete lack of vanity, as if she were not even aware of herself as a woman. Or maybe, just maybe, it was her sweet nature, which made him want to hold her in his arms and taste her lips, to be the object of her earnest devotion.
    “Oliver and I know every inn and ivybush ’twixt London and Wiltshire,” Kit was saying. Discreetly he sidled over to the table beside Oliver.
    To catch me if I fall, Oliver thought, feeling both gratitude and resentment. Cursed with his baffling illness, he had lived a peculiar and isolated boyhood. When he hadfinally emerged from his shell of seclusion, Kit had been there with his brotherly advice, his ready sword arm and a fierce protective instinct that surfaced even now, when Oliver had grown a handspan taller than his friend.
    Kit held out his hand and clenched his teeth as Lark washed the grit from his wound. She worked neatly, her movements deft as she applied the bandage. Oliver noticed that her nails were chewed, and he liked that about her, for it was evidence that she suffered unease like anyone else.
    She wasted no missish sympathy on Kit but confronted his injury with matter-of-fact compassion and an unexpected hint of humor. “Try to avoid battles for a few days, Kit. You should give this gash a chance to heal.”
    “I wonder what the devil those bast—er, rude scoundrels were after,” Kit said. “They didn’t even attempt to rob us.”
    “Perhaps they were planning to kill us first.” Oliver had become rather casual about his brushes with death. Long ago he had decided to defy fortune. He refused to let the weakness of his lungs conquer him. He meant to die his own way. Thus far, the pursuit had been amusing.
    “Thank you, mistress.” Kit pressed his bandaged hand to his chest. “I feel much better now. But I would still dearly like to know what those arse—er, wayward marls were about. Ah! I just remembered something.” With his good