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matter. You have refused to listen. You have dragged me from pillar to post on a fool’s errand. If you will not help me, I wish you would tell me now so I can be shed of you.”
    “You wear outrage like an angel wears a halo.” He sighed dramatically, then lounged against a stone hitch post.
    All her life she had been taught that men were strong and prudent, endowed with qualities a mere woman lacked. Oliver de Lacey was a reckless contradiction to that rule. Furious, she marched blindly down the road. She hoped the way led to the river.
    With easy strides he caught up with her. “I’ll help you, Mistress Lark. I was born to help you. Only say what it is you require. Your smallest desire is my command.”
    She stopped and looked up into his sunny, impossibly wonderful face. “Why do I think,” she said, “that I shall live to regret our association?”
     
    “I cannot understand why you agreed to this,” Kit Youngblood muttered to Oliver. He glared at the prim, straight-backed figure who rode in the fore. They were on the Oxford road leading away from the city, on an errand Oliver had embraced with good heart. The ride was enjoyable, for he loved his horse. She was a silver Neapolitan mare bred from his father’s best stock. Big-boned and graceful as a dancer was Delilah, the envy of all his friends.
    “Keep your voice down,” he whispered, his gaze glued to Lark’s gray-clad form. He had always found the sight of a woman riding sidesaddle particularly arousing. “I owe her my life.”
    “I owe her nothing,” Kit grumbled. “Why drag me along?”
    “She needs a lawyer. For what purpose, she has yet to disclose.”
    “You know as much about the law as I do.”
    “True, but it would be unseemly for me to practice a profession.” Oliver feigned a look of horror. “People might think me dull and unimaginative, not to mention common.”
    “Forgive me for suggesting it, Your Highness. Far better for you to follow your lordly pursuits of drinking and gaming.”
    “And wenching,” Oliver added. “Pray do not forget wenching.”
    “How did the woman know where to find you?”
    “She went to my residence. Nance Harbutt directed her to my favorite gaming house.”
    “Hunted you down, eh? And what have you done to the poor woman? She’s barely spoken since we left the City.”
    “I took her to Newgate Market.” Closing his eyes, Oliver recalled the rapt expression on her small, pale face when he had set the birds free. “She loved it.”
    “You’ve ever been the perfect host,” Kit said. “I do not know why I put up with you.”
    “I wish I could say that it’s because you find me charming. But alas, ’tis because you’re in love with my half sister, Belinda.”
    “Hah! Faithless baggage. I’ve not heard from her in a year.”
    “The kingdom of Muscovy is not exactly the next shire. Fear not. She and the rest of my family will return before long.”
    “She’s probably grown thin and sallow and peevish on her travels.”
    Oliver chuckled. “She is Juliana’s daughter,” he reminded Kit, picturing his matchless stepmother. “Do you really think such a lass could grow ugly?”
    “I almost wish she would. Suitors will be on her like flies on honey. She’ll take no notice of me, the landless son of a knight. A common solicitor.”
    “If you believe that, then the game is up before it’s started. You—” Oliver broke off, scanning the road in the distance. “What’s that, a coach?”
    Lark twisted around in her saddle. “It looks as if it’s gotten mired.” She made a straight seam of her mouth. “You would have noticed minutes ago if you had not been so busy yammering with Mr. Youngblood.”
    “Mistress Gamehen,” Oliver said with a smile, “one day you will peck some poor husband to the bone.”
    She tossed her head, the dark coif fluttering behind her. With a squeeze of his legs, Oliver guided his horse past her to investigate the distressed travelers.
    The boxy coach had