by Candace Camp
Nicola gasped, her hand going to her heart, then smiled as the young girl before her burst into a fit of giggles.
“Did I scare you?” Rosalind asked, her dark blue eyes gleaming. Rosalind was Marianne’s nine-year-old daughter, and she had her mother’s coloring and tall, graceful body. Nicola had no doubt that one day Rosalind would be one of the great beauties of the Ton. Right now, however, she was an engaging hoyden.
“Rather,” Nicola said emphatically, knowing that Rosalind would be delighted to hear it. “Didn’t you know that you are supposed to treat us older people with respect?”
Rosalind giggled again. “You aren’t old. Grandmama is old. But she is very beautiful, don’t you think?”
Nicola nodded. Rosalind’s grandmother, the Countess of Exmoor, was in her seventies, and her tall frame was becoming a trifle bent with age, but there was no mistaking the beauty in her face. “Yes, I do. Is your mother at home?”
“Yes. They sent me outside with my governess.”
“Your governess?” Nicola made a great show of looking about and seeing no one. “Where is this personage? Is she invisible? What a remarkable woman!”
“No. She’s down at the other end of the garden.”
“Looking for you?” Nicola tried to look severe, but it was spoiled by a smile.
Rosalind nodded. “Mama says I should be kinder to Miss Northcutt. I try, I really do, but she is such a gabster! And she never talks about anything interesting. Just boring old kings and things. Did you know that she said the mark of a great lady is the way she sits! Do you think that’s true?”
“Not really,” Nicola admitted. “I would think it is her character.”
“I thought it was a silly thing to say, myself. Although—” Rosalind considered the matter “—Grandmama does sit awfully straight.”
Nicola smiled. “That is true. But I think there are probably a good number of other women who sit equally straight but haven’t half the Countess’s character. You really like your new grandmother, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. She’s ever so interesting. She lets me look through her jewels sometimes, and she tells me stories about them, how they came into the family and everything. Of course, she’s not like Gran,” Rosalind said, referring to the eldest woman of Marianne’s former and quite unusual “family.” “Grandmama doesn’t know how to mark an ace, and I can beat her at whist lots and lots of the time. Still, I have fun with her.”
“It’s nice that your grandmothers are different,” Nicola replied, seeing the child’s vague expression of guilt. “It wouldn’t be much fun if they were just alike. You and Gran can do some things together, and you and your Grandmama can do others.”
“That’s true.” Rosalind skipped ahead of her and darted up the front steps to grab the door knocker and send it crashing into the door three times in quick succession. She grinned at Nicola. “I always go in the kitchen door, but you must come in the front because you are company. I’m glad. I haven’t been able to use that knocker since I got here.”
A footman opened the door to them almost immediately. “Miss Falcourt. Miss Rosalind.” He delighted the child by bowing to her as gravely as he did to Nicola. “If you will sit down, I will tell Miss Castlereigh that you are here.”
He ushered them into a pleasant drawing room, decorated in dark mahogany furniture and accented with blue in the drapes and chair cushions. Rosalind, plopping down on one of the brocade-cushioned chairs, offered to stay to keep Nicola company.
“That is very kind of you.”
Rosalind nodded, bouncing on the cushion. “Mama will make me leave,” she said without rancor. “She says I am unkind to poor Miss Northcutt. But don’t you think Miss Northcutt could make a bit of push to be more fun?”
“Mmm. Perhaps. But you must remember that sometimes people are nervous when they first know one. She may be afraid that you and your mother will be disappointed in her. Maybe she wants to make sure you realize that she knows a lot of things.”
“Afraid?”
“Why, yes. If she lost this job, it would probably be very difficult for her.”
Rosalind considered this. “Oh.” After a moment, she slid off the chair. “Perhaps I had better go down to the end of the garden and find Miss Northcutt. I truly didn’t mean to worry her.”
“Of course not. That would be nice of you.”
Rosalind flounced out of the room, intent on her new good deed.
Almost immediately afterward, Rosalind’s mother swept into the room, followed by her cousin Penelope, both of them beaming and reaching out to Nicola. The contrast between the two women was striking. Marianne was tall and voluptuous, with flaming red hair and dark, midnight-blue eyes. She was, Nicola thought, the most beautiful woman she had ever met—except for her sister Alexandra, whose vibrant dark looks were equally arresting. Penelope, on the other hand, was small, slender and pale, the sort of woman who generally receded into the background wherever she was. Penelope had, however, blossomed the past few months. There was now a glow to her cheeks and a gleam in her eyes, brought about largely, Nicola knew, by her newfound love.
Even though Nicola had known Marianne for only a few months, in some ways she felt closer to her than to any of the aristocrats with whom Nicola had lived for years. Because Marianne had spent her youth in an orphanage and had even gone into service when she left that institution, completely unaware of her noble family, she did not have the snobbery and class consciousness of many of Nicola’s peers. She found Nicola’s work among the poor women of London admirable, without expressing even a tinge of distaste. She had entered into Nicola’s endeavors, donating some of her newfound wealth and, perhaps more important, several days of her time to assisting at Nicola’s charitable house.
Marianne had a ready, warm sense of humor and was fiercely loyal to those whom she loved. She enjoyed a good shopping spree with Nicola, but she was equally happy discussing books with Penelope. There were times when Nicola felt as if she had known her for years instead of only a few months, and she was one of the few people on whom Nicola felt she could rely.
“Nicola!” both women cried joyfully, and Nicola stepped forward to hug each of them.
“It seems as if it’s been months, not weeks, since you left London,” Penelope told her. “We persuaded Grandmama to come down here early.” Lowering her voice, she added, “Mama, too.”
Nicola could not imagine Penelope’s mother letting even the smallest of wedding details go on without her. She suspected from the rather harried look in Penelope’s eyes that Ursula was causing a good bit of disruption.
“Disagreements over wedding plans?” she asked lightly.
Marianne rolled her eyes expressively. “There have been moments when I thought that Grandmama and Aunt Ursula might come to fisticuffs.”
Penelope giggled. “Grandmama did start banging her cane on the floor one day. I don’t think I have ever seen her do that before.”
Nicola felt sure that if anyone could drive the dignified Countess into slamming her cane, it would be her opinionated daughter.
“It is fortunate that it is a double wedding, actually,” Marianne said. “When Aunt Ursula is causing too much of a disruption in the plans, Lambeth will turn very future duke-ish and say that that is the way it is done in his family.” Even as she arranged her face in a turned-up, snobbish pose, there was a light that warmed her eyes at the thought of her fiancé.
“That’s true,” Penelope agreed. “Mama has always been a trifle in awe of Lambeth.”
The three of them sat down in a cozy cluster on a small sofa and a matching chair at right angles to it and proceeded to catch up on the most recent gossip. After a few snippets of what new lover Lady Armbruster had taken and what lord’s son had fallen in with cardsharps and who had lost a fortune at White’s on a bet over a race between bugs, Marianne paused, looking at Nicola thoughtfully.
“I don’t think you are terribly interested in this, are you?” she asked, her eyes narrowi
ng.
“No, of course I am,” Nicola protested without much conviction.
Penelope laughed at her tone. “Marianne’s right. I am surprised I didn’t see it.” She leaned forward, looking into her old friend’s eyes. “There’s something going on with you. What is it?”
Nicola smiled. “Well…yes, there is. I—I don’t know where to begin.”
“You are in love!” Marianne exclaimed.
“No! Nicola, is that true?”
“How did you know?” Nicola asked, startled.
“Then it is true!” Penelope cried in delight. “Marianne, you’re so clever. How did you guess?”
The lovely redhead shrugged. “Just something about her face.” She turned to Nicola. “You are always beautiful, but I don’t recall ever seeing such a glow on your face.” She paused, smiling, then added, “It is the way I feel inside.”
Nicola chuckled. “You are right. I am in love. But I don’t know whether he loves me, and it—oh, it’s all such a tangled mess. I don’t know what to do.”
“That sounds like love,” Marianne said wryly. “Tell us all about it.” The two women edged closer to her.
“I shall try. Do you remember when I told you that Richard had killed the man I loved years ago?”
“Yes, of course,” Marianne replied. “You said you thought it was an accident at the time, but you were no longer so sure.”
Nicola nodded. “I have found out since that it definitely was not an accident.”
“That man is wicked!” Penelope cried out, clenching her small fists. “If only there were some way to expose him! What did he do?”
Nicola told them about her love for the Tidings stable boy and how Richard had found out and struggled with him atop Lady Falls, finally sending Gil over the edge. Penelope, who had heard most of the story over the years, nodded, while Marianne listened in rapt silence.
“Then, about two weeks ago, I found out that he didn’t murder him. Gil didn’t die. He came back.”
Both her friends listened, slack-jawed, as she told them what Gil had revealed to her about Richard and how he had had Gil impressed into the navy.
“But that is almost as good as a death sentence!” Marianne exclaimed.
“It’s typical of Richard,” Penelope added bitterly. “Look at what he did to you. He doesn’t usually have the courage to kill, but he ruins people’s lives without compunction. He has no heart.”
“I think you’re right,” Nicola agreed. “I despise him. I wish to God my sister were not married to him! But what about Gil? How could he have loved me and still believe what Richard said about me?”
Penelope frowned. “I don’t know. How did he explain it?”
“I don’t know that he did, really. I don’t think even yet that he is sure I didn’t turn him over to Richard. We don’t know how Richard got hold of his letter to me. Gil’s grandmother would not have given it to him, but I never received it.”
“I imagine he is afraid to believe you,” Penelope said shrewdly. “If he admits that you did not get the letter, he has to face the fact that he threw away the last ten years for both of you because his faith in you wasn’t strong enough.”
“I don’t know that it was his faith in Nicola,” Marianne put in. “No matter how much he loved you, he knew that there was this practically unbridgeable gap between the two of you. You probably don’t understand that part of how he felt, but I do. I grew up a servant, you know, and the ruling class was so far away from us. It was absurd to think that one of them might love you, marry you. The nobility may use us—may, on occasion, even love us—but they don’t marry us. It was your background, your status, that he distrusted, not you.”
“Maybe so, but how can we go on if he cannot trust me, even yet? Will he always be questioning me, distrusting me? Will every little mistake I make be seen as some betrayal of him?” Nicola sighed. “Yet when I am with him…we are so happy. We don’t talk about any of that, and everything is…blissful.”
Marianne smiled. “That is what I see in your face.”
“But you have not heard the worst of it,” Nicola continued.
“There’s more?” Marianne asked, startled. “There’s worse?”
Nicola nodded. “He didn’t just come back here to live. He—he is a highwayman. He has been stealing from Richard for months.”
There was a long silence as the other two women stared at her.
“You see?” Nicola said unhappily. “I told you it was a terrible tangle. As if it weren’t enough that I am in love with a man whom I’m not sure loves me, he is also a criminal and likely to be seized and hanged at any moment. I have to sneak around to see him so that Richard and his man Stone won’t find out. I am a fool, aren’t I?”
“But a very intriguing one,” Penelope teased. “I think your story tops even Alexandra’s or Marianne’s.”
“But this highwayman…” Marianne said. “Is he our highwayman? The one who saved Justin and me—you remember, when Fuquay made the mine cave in on us, a mysterious man dressed all in black dug us out. And Lambeth felt sure he was the highwayman everyone had been talking about, that he probably had some of his goods stored in the mine entrance.”
“That’s right!” Penelope exclaimed. “I remember. Don’t you, Nicola?”
“I’m not sure I ever knew who it was that saved you. So much happened right after that, with the other attacks on your life and then finding out who you really were. Did he tell you his name? He calls himself Jack Moore now.”
“Yes! Jack! That’s it,” Marianne said, nodding. “Well, he isn’t your typical highwayman, I can tell you that. Justin and I owe him our lives.”
“I know. He is a good man, really. It is only that he despises Richard—it is almost always things related to Richard that Jack seizes. But they will hang him for it, anyway, if he is caught.”
“Won’t he stop?” Penelope asked. “I mean, now that you and he are—”
“I don’t know what we are. And I’m not sure whether he will stop, either. Getting revenge on Richard seems to have driven him for the past ten years. I don’t know that he can give it up now.”
“If he loves you, he will,” Marianne said quietly. “You cannot hope for a life together as long as he continues to be a highwayman.”
“I know.” Sudden tears sparkled in Nicola’s eyes. “I suppose that that is the only way that I can learn if he still loves me. If he gives up his attacks on Richard so that we can be together.” She looked from one woman to the other. “A pretty clear-cut test, isn’t it? What does he want more—me or revenge?”
THE NEXT MORNING, NICOLA WAS in her sister’s sitting room describing Penelope’s and Marianne’s wedding plans to Deborah and Nurse—though not as all-consuming a topic as babies, weddings were always of major interest—when they were interrupted by the quiet entrance of one of the footmen.
“There is a…person, my lady, at the kitchen door asking to speak to Miss Falcourt.”
“Me?” Nicola looked up. “Who is it?”
“A lad from the village, I believe.” The footman’s tone clearly expressed his low opinion of sorts such as village boys turning up asking to talk to one of the ladies of the house.
“Oh. Someone must be sick.”
“Yes, miss. I believe that is what the boy said.”
“I’ll see him in the kitchen.” Nicola excused herself to Deborah and hurried through the hallway after the footman into the vast kitchen of Tidings.
A boy of about ten whom she had seen before but could not place was seated on the hearth beside the great kitchen fire, looking with awe all around him. At Nicola’s approach, he jumped up, twisting his cap in his hand.
“Miss? Maggie Falkner sent me. Her babe is sick, and she’s fair discombobbled about it. She says you’d know what to do. Will you come, then?” He finished his little speech and visibly relaxed his shoulders.
“Yes, of course I shall come. I just have to gather my remedies. Do you know what ails the child?�
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“Me mam says ‘tis only colic and Maggie’s too green to know, but Maggie, she’s worried somethin’ sick about it.”
“Well, we’ll see. Run back and tell her I am coming.”
The child left, visibly relieved to escape the grandeur of the great house, and Nicola went upstairs to change into her riding habit and get her bag. No matter what the boy’s mother said, Nicola could not imagine Maggie Falkner, a steady-headed young woman if ever there was one, would be calling for her help for nothing more than colic. She felt sure it was imperative to get there as soon as she could.
She hurried down to the stables, where they saddled the horse she had been riding since she came to Tidings, and soon she was on her way. She did not glance back to see if Stone was following her. She assumed he was, and, indeed, she rather hoped so. Let him spend an afternoon standing out in the cold watching the Falkners’ house.
She made good time to the village. She imagined that she had beaten the neighbor boy back, in fact, even though the way by foot was shorter than taking the road, as she had. She dismounted, and Maggie’s husband hurried out to take her horse and tie it for her.
“How is the baby?”
Falkner nodded his head. “We’ll all be fine, miss, now that ye are here.”
Nicola went into the house, calling out softly as she stepped inside, “Maggie?”
The young mother came bustling toward her. “Upstairs, miss.” She motioned for Nicola to go before her up the narrow, twisting little stairs that led to two small rooms. Nicola went lightly up the stairs, wondering at Maggie’s attitude. She looked far less worried than Nicola would have imagined.
“What is wrong with the baby?” she asked, twisting back to look at Maggie. “What is she doing?”
“Ye’ll see, miss. I can’t explain it that well.” She pointed to the door in front of them. “Go on in.”
Nicola turned the knob and walked into the room. In the instant that her mind registered that there were only a bed and a chest in the room, with no cradle or baby in sight, the door slammed shut behind her. Nicola jumped, letting out a squeak of surprise, and an arm wrapped around her waist and a hand came up to cover her mouth.