No Other Love

by Candace Camp

  “It doesn’t matter.” Jack was already crossing the room, grabbing his jacket as he strode past the sofa. He sat and pulled on his boots. “He won’t find me.”

  He stood and cast a long look around the room for any sign of his occupancy, then turned to Nicola. “Can you handle him on your own?”

  “Of course. I don’t like the man, but I don’t think he would dare offer me any harm. I am his employer’s sister-in-law, however little I like Exmoor. But what about you? How are you going to get away? There isn’t a back door.”

  A smile lifted the corners of his mouth, and his eyes sparkled with mischief. It occurred to Nicola with a flash of irritation that he was actually enjoying this. “Ah, but Granny Rose’s house has a secret.” He went to the side of the fireplace and bent down, sliding one of the hearthstones out. Then he reached into the space where the rock had been and twisted a lever. There was a loud click, and Jack reached up and tugged on the rock beside the fireplace. A narrow section of it slid open, revealing a tiny room the size of a narrow cupboard. Jack shoved the rock back into place, concealing the lever.

  “I told you that people always thought her ancestors were witches. They knew they might need protection.”

  There was a jingle and scrape outside. “Hurry!” Nicola looked out the window. “Hurry! He’s getting off his horse!” She ran to the door and shoved home the lock. What fools they had been to leave it unlocked!

  Jack gave her a salute, stepped into the space beside the fireplace, grabbed a handle on the other side of the secret door, and pulled it too. There was nothing, not even a crack to show where the door had been. Nicola went through the room, glancing about to make sure that there was nothing that looked as if two people had been in the house.

  The handle turned on the front door, and Stone shoved against the wood. It rattled but did not move. Nicola went into the kitchen and looked around, quickly putting one teacup and plate back into the cupboard.

  There was a knock at the door. She started toward it, calling, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Stone, Miss Falcourt.”

  “Mr. Stone?” Nicola unlocked the door and opened it, putting a puzzled expression on her face. “What are you doing here? Has something happened to Deborah?”

  “No, miss.” He took off his hat. “I, uh, came to see if you were all right.”

  “All right? Whatever do you mean? Of course I am all right.” She stepped back, allowing him to enter. The sooner he saw that Jack was not here, the sooner he would leave. She didn’t want Jack to have to spend any longer time in the boxlike room than was necessary. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

  “There is a highwayman roaming the area, miss,” Stone reminded her as he walked past her into the room. His eyes darted around the room as he walked to the kitchen.

  Nicola followed him. “Yes, I know. That is why I locked the door. I am quite careful, you see. How did you know where I was?”

  He glanced at her, his face impassive. “His lordship told me to follow you, make sure you were all right.”

  Nicola doubted that those had been exactly his instructions, but she pretended to believe him. “Richard worries too much about me. As you can see, I am perfectly fine. I do not think the highwayman would stop me again. It is obvious when I am riding horseback that I have no jewels or valuables with me.”

  “There are other things a man might want,” he reminded her darkly, striding back through the parlor to the small bedroom. He went to the wardrobe and opened it, peering in.

  Nicola saw with horror that Jack’s mask lay upon the floor. Quickly she kicked it under the bed.

  “You think he’s hiding in the wardrobe?” Nicola asked, putting a tinge of sarcasm in her voice. “Really, Mr. Stone…”

  He lifted his head. “What was that?”

  “What?”

  “I heard a horse.” He turned toward the blank back wall.

  Nicola’s nerves began to jangle. Jack’s horse! He always tethered his horse in back, with the innate caution of those who live outside the law. Thank God there was no window in the back, so Stone could not see the horse, but all he had to do was walk around the house. Once he saw it, he would know that someone else was here, and he might search more thoroughly. Would Granny’s hideaway stand up to a careful search? She had never noticed it, but then, she had never really looked.

  “A horse? Oh, that must be mine.”

  “Yours is in front.”

  “Well, sometimes I don’t tie it well enough, and it roams around. Fortunately, it is a very docile animal and never wanders far.”

  Stone ignored her words and strode quickly through the house and out the front door. Nicola hurried after him, trying desperately to think of some excuse for Jack’s horse being there. Could she say a friend from the village had come here to visit her? But then where would she be?

  Stone glanced over at her horse, which was standing placidly, tail swishing, outside the low fence, where it had been all along. He cast a glance back at her.

  Nicola tried to smile. “Ah, there she is. Then you couldn’t have heard her behind the house. It must have been a trick of sound.”

  “It was a horse.” Stone started through the garden and around the side of the house. Nicola went after him.

  She could admit to secretly meeting a lover here. Perhaps the scandal of the story would distract Stone enough…. No, no one would be fool enough not to question where the man was.

  In front of her, Stone came to a halt. “Damn!”

  Nicola looked at the small area in front of them, behind the house and the hill. There was no horse. Nicola struggled to keep her face blank. Where had the animal gone?

  “You see? There was no horse. It was a trick of sound. That often happens where there are hills, I’ve noticed. You probably heard my horse—or yours—out front, and it sounded as if it were coming from the back.” She realized as she talked that the hidden cupboard must have had a back way out. Jack had meant to leave the house, and she had assumed he was going to hide in the secret room. She had to bite her lip to keep from grinning.

  Stone walked forward a few more feet and squatted down. “There are hoofprints here. There was a horse.”

  “Sometimes I tether my horse back here, and, as I told you, she has gotten loose once or twice and wandered around.”

  Stone paid no attention to her, walking around until he found a set of tracks leading off. Nicola went with him, making sure to scuff through the horse tracks as she walked. The hoofprints led to a patch of ground a few feet away and disappeared.

  “Damn!”

  “Really, Mr. Stone!” Nicola exclaimed, putting on a shocked look. “Your language!”

  “Sorry, miss.” His stormy face looked anything but sorry. He turned, his eyes drilling into her. “Who was here? I know there was someone here. Are you helping to conceal that highwayman? It is a crime, you know, and—”

  “Oh, please, Mr. Stone.” Nicola infused her voice with amused contempt, doing her best to sound like Lady Morrow, a vain, cold Society beauty. “You are becoming infected with Richard’s delusions. He assumes that I am having affairs with every man I meet. I fear he still has not gotten over the fact that I rejected him years ago.” She shrugged elaborately. “However, I can assure you that I would scarcely be dallying with a highwayman. When I take a lover, I stay in my own class.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  ‘Now, I would appreciate it if you would leave. I am afraid that I come here every afternoon for the much more mundane purpose of drying herbs and making infusions and such, and I have work to do. Goodbye.”

  She strode back into the cottage, then watched from the window while Stone mounted his horse and rode off. Nicola presumed he would try to find the tracks where they came out on the other side of the rock, but she was confident that Jack would be far away and would have covered his tracks well enough that Stone would have no success.

  Her first thought was to go home and give Richard a piece of her mind for ha
ving her followed. She was furious—primarily at herself for not having thought about the fact that Richard would wonder about her frequent absences from Tidings—and it would be a great relief to take that anger out on someone she despised as much as Richard.

  However, she soon rejected that notion. In her anger, she just might let something slip that would let Richard know that the highwayman was really Gil. That would only make matters much worse. If he had looked for Jack with intensity before, it would be nothing compared to how he would search for him now. To find out that the highwayman who had made a fool of him and stolen his money was the very same man who had, to his way of thinking, stolen Nicola from him would be the ultimate insult. Nicola had no illusions that Richard had ever really loved her; she did not believe the man was capable of actual love. But he had desired her and had wanted to make her his wife, and she knew that it must have eaten at him all this time that she had preferred a common stable boy to him. Why else would he have gone to such lengths to get rid of Gil?

  Besides, it would probably only confirm his suspicions about her and the highwayman if she reacted with such emotion. It would be better, she reasoned, if she reacted mildly, perhaps even treating it as a joke. Richard hated to be laughed at, and if he thought that she was amused by his actions, he might just stop them. At the least, it ought to give him pause and make him wonder if his suspicions were correct.

  So she packed her things without haste and rode back to Tidings. There, she bathed and changed and avoided Richard until dinner.

  Then, when the three of them were seated, their soup in front of them, she said lightly, “Really, Richard, don’t you think it was a bit…shall we say, deéclassé to have your man follow me this afternoon?”

  “Follow you?” Deborah looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Mr. Stone—you know, that Bow Street Runner—followed me on my afternoon ride.”

  “But why—is that true?” Deborah turned toward her husband, a puzzled expression on her face.

  “Not exactly as Nicola put it,” Richard replied easily. “I have been a trifle concerned about your sister’s safety, since she insists on riding out every afternoon without a groom when there are bandits lurking about. So I did ask Stone to keep an eye on her, make sure no harm came to her.”

  “No doubt that is why he was looking in cupboards and behind doors.”

  “In cupboards?” Deborah repeated. “In cupboards where? What are you talking about?”

  “At Granny Rose’s cottage,” Nicola explained, watching Richard for any sign of reaction at the mention of Gil’s grandmother.

  There was a moment of silence. Richard’s expression did not change, though Nicola thought she saw something flicker in his eyes.

  “Granny Rose!” Deborah exclaimed. “But—but she’s dead, isn’t she? Has been for years.”

  “Yes, she is. Her cottage stands vacant. It was in terrible shape. One day when I was out riding I went there, and when I saw how overgrown it was, I could not bear for it to look like that, so I went back and worked in the yard. That is where I have been the past few days, restoring her herb garden. She has a wonderful little space inside for working with remedies, too, and I have been using that. Making salves, drying herbs, things like that.” She sighed. “I suppose that is ruined now. I shall always be looking over my shoulder, expecting one of Richard’s men to pop in on me.”

  “They won’t harm you. I only want to make sure you’re safe.”

  “Mmm.” Nicola put just a tinge of disbelief in her tone. She turned toward her sister. “I think the truth is, Deborah, that Richard believes I am clandestinely meeting the highwayman. Mr. Stone was terribly disappointed not to find him, I’m afraid.”

  Deborah looked at her blankly. “Why would you be meeting the highwayman?”

  “I am sure I don’t know,” Nicola replied. “I believe it is Richard who thinks that.”

  “I don’t think that,” Richard said, watching her intently. “It is you who brought up the subject.”

  “I don’t understand,” Deborah put in plaintively. “We seem to be talking in circles.”

  “Yes. Rather tiring, isn’t it?” Nicola said carelessly. “Why don’t we speak of something else? How is that lovely blanket you’re knitting coming along?”

  Deborah’s face brightened at the mention of her latest project with Nurse, and she began to chatter animatedly. Nicola responded enough to keep the conversation going and wondered if she had made any headway in deflecting Richard’s suspicions.

  NICOLA KNEW SHE COULD NOT SEE Jack again for a while, not with Stone following her wherever she went. It was, she realized the next morning, a depressing prospect.

  She spent the next day with Deborah and Nurse, working on baby clothes. As she worked and listened to them talk, she remembered exactly why it was that she had decided not to help them but to go clean up Granny’s cottage instead.

  The next afternoon she went back to Granny’s cottage. She knew that Stone would follow her, and she wanted him to see her spend her afternoon working at the cottage alone. If she stayed away from the cottage now, it would rouse Richard’s suspicions even more. She was certain that Jack would not be there. He was far too smart to return after yesterday.

  Somehow, working at the cottage by herself was even worse than staying at Tidings. Here she missed Jack all the time, and everything she saw or did reminded her of him. Pulling up stray weeds that were defiantly poking through the soil again, she remembered him working there, cutting and pulling and chopping the weeds with a hoe. When she brewed tea in the kitchen, she pictured him sitting at the kitchen table, talking and smiling. If she sat on the sofa she thought of them sitting there or lying in front of it, warming themselves by the fire. When she left the cottage a few hours later, shutting the door behind her, she decided that she would not come back for a few days.

  She spent the next morning idling about the house, sitting with Nurse and Deborah for a while, then looking through the library for something to read. Finally she took three books back to her room and settled down. But she found it difficult to concentrate. She kept thinking about Jack and wondering how and when she was going to be able to see him again.

  The knock on the door startled her from a daydream about Jack, and she jumped, the book sliding from her lap onto the floor. A parlormaid entered with a note on a silver tray, and Nicola took it eagerly. Perhaps her aunt needed her for some reason.

  With even greater delight, she recognized the handwriting as that of her friend Penelope. Eagerly, she tore open the note and began to read.

  Dearest Nicola,

  After a long and somewhat harrowing journey, Cousin Marianne, Grandmama, Mama and I have arrived safely at the Dower House.

  Nicola smiled, knowing exactly how harrowing it would have been to have been stuck in a carriage for two days with Penelope’s mother, the vocal, opinionated and domineering Lady Ursula.

  Since Mama insisted on bringing along her lapdog, Fifi, who, you may recall, is rendered nauseous by carriage travel, there were moments when I was not sure that we would make it. When Fifi drooled all over Grandmama’s slippers, she threatened to send Fifi back to London with one of the servants, which put Mama into such a pet that she did not speak to any of us for the next hour. Fortunately, Marianne persuaded Mama that Fifi would be much less sick riding in the open air, so we were able to put her in a basket on top of the coach and let the footman tend to her.

  Now we are safely ensconced at the Dower House. Cousin Alexandra and her husband, as well as Lord Lambeth, delayed their trip a few days—I cannot imagine why, since they could have ridden in caravan with us—and should be arriving with Bucky at Buckminster Hall soon.

  Please come to see us at your first opportunity, as we are all eager to see you.

  Love, Penelope

  It came as no surprise to Nicola that her friends had sent a note rather than coming to call on her and her sister. The Countess had not stepped foot in Tidings since
the day she had moved out more than twenty-two years ago, unable to bear seeing it in the hands of Richard instead of her dead son. Now that they had found out the details of Richard’s treachery all those years ago, the Countess and her family despised him. None of them would think of coming to call on anyone at his house.

  Eagerly Nicola bounced to her feet and hurried to the wardrobe to pull out her riding habit. It seemed like ages since she had seen her friends, and she was bursting with news to tell them. It took her only a few minutes to dress and tell her sister about the Countess’s arrival. Then she flew down the stairs and out to the stables, and soon was on her way to the Dower House to see her friends.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE DOWER HOUSE LAY AT SOME DISTANCE from Tidings, on a separate piece of property from the rest of the Exmoor estate, north of the village and rather closer to both it and Buckminster Hall than to Tidings.

  However, Nicola did not mind the long ride. She was eager to see her friends again. She had not realized until she received Penelope’s note how much she wanted to talk to someone about Jack. She could not say anything to her sister about it. After all, Deborah was married to the Earl, and she could not risk her repeating something to Richard. But Penelope and Marianne were people to whom Nicola felt she could say almost anything.

  She arrived a trifle flushed from the ride, her hair somewhat disarrayed, but she knew that Penelope and Marianne would not mind. Lady Ursula, of course, was another matter, but Nicola had learned long ago to put that overbearing woman’s remarks out of her mind as soon as she heard them.

  She handed over the reins of her horse to one of the grooms and started toward the front door. As she rounded the corner of the garden, a small redheaded form burst out of the bushes, shouting, “Boo!”