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

reluctance for her sake.
    “This will hurt,” she said. “The fabric of your shirt clings to the wound.”
    “I’ll try not to scream when you remove it.”
    “Truly, you are never serious.” Gingerly she worked the caked lawn fabric from the gash in his side. He felt a burn, then a hot trickle as he began bleeding anew, but he’d be damned if he’d say anything. Compassionate man indeed!
    She lifted the shirt over his head and removed it. Her exclamation was high-pitched, feminine and wholly welcome to Oliver’s ears.
    “I do so love it when a woman cries out at the sight of my bare chest,” he said.
    “Tis a terrible wound,” she said.
    “Nay, just bloody. Clean it up and bandage it, and I’ll be good as new.”
    He was hoping that as she worked she would notice his chest was broad and deep, nicely furred with golden hair a shade darker than that on his head. But the silly witling had no appreciation whatever for his physique. His male beauty was lost on her. He wondered what the devil she was thinking.
     
    Determined to keep her wits about her, Lark concentrated on her task. But her thoughts kept wandering. She could barely keep from staring. She caught her lip firmlyin her teeth and tried to think only of cleansing the wound, not of the magnificent body of the man sitting on the table.
    He was right about the gash just beneath his arm. It was shallow and should heal well. His thick doublet had protected him from the worst of his opponent’s blade.
    “’Tis clean now,” she said, rinsing her hands in the water basin. She pressed a folded cloth to the cut. “Hold this, please, and I’ll bind it.”
    “This is such an honor.”
    He was the most obliging man she had ever met. Perhaps that was why Spencer had chosen him.
    “I shall have to wrap you snugly to keep the pad in place,” she said.
    “Wrap away, mistress. I’m all yours.”
    This proved to be the most awkwardly intimate part of the whole business. She leaned close, practically pressing her cheek to his naked chest as she passed the strip of cloth around behind him.
    She could feel the warmth and smoothness of his skin. Could hear his heart beat. Its rhythm quickened.
    Nonsense. She was plain as a wood wren, and he was as beautiful as a god.
    A god, aye, but he smelled like a man.
    In truth, the scent was as exotic to her as the perfumes of Araby. Yet some primal instinct inside her, some wayward feminine impulse Spencer had failed to suppress, recognized the scent of a man. Sweat and horse, perhaps a tinge of saddle leather and woodsmoke. Individually these smells provoked no reaction, but taken as a whole they made a heady bouquet.
    She gritted her teeth and tried to keep from fumbling with the bandage. In one day she had seen and heard andfelt more of the world than she had in all her nineteen years, and she did not like being thrust into such a feast of voluptuousness.
    What she liked was life at Blackrose Priory. The quiet hours of study and prayer. The sober, steady rhythm of spinning and weaving. The safety. The solitude.
    One day with Oliver de Lacey had snatched her out of that protective cocoon, and she wanted to go back in. To tamp down the wildness growing inside her, to deny that she had ever felt such a thing as excitement.
    “Lark?” he whispered in her ear, and his breath was a tender caress.
    “Yes?” She braced herself, wondering if he’d ask her again to have his child.
    “My dear, you have bound me like a Maypole.”
    “What?” Lark asked stupidly.
    “While I’m not averse to bondage in some situations, I think several yards of cloth is sufficient.”
    Startled, she stepped back. The makeshift bandage did indeed wrap him like ribbons round a Maypole. A strangled sound escaped her.
    A giggle. Lark had never giggled in her life.
    Oliver released a long-suffering sigh. “Had I known it was so easy to make you laugh, I would have gotten myself wounded much earlier in the day.”
    She sobered instantly. “You must