No Other Love

by Candace Camp

  “You, too, Stone.”

  With an oath, the Bow Street Runner set down his musket on the table. The Squire let out a little moan and plopped into a chair, mopping his brow.

  “Oh, dear,” he murmured. “Oh, dear.”

  “Do stop dithering, Henry,” Lady Ursula said impatiently to the Squire. “And try to act like a representative of the Crown. You are the legal representative here, and I think you had better listen.”

  The Squire, like most people, straightened at Lady Ursula’s tone of command. “Yes, of course, Lady Castlereigh. It is just—what am I listening to?”

  “You will see.” The lady turned her gimlet eye toward the roughly dressed men standing uncertainly in the doorway, their weapons dangling at their sides. “Well, what are you lot standing about for? Get out of this house this instant.”

  Thorpe, a smile playing at his lips, said, “She’s right. I suggest that you throw down your arms and leave.”

  The men glanced uncertainly toward Stone, then the Earl, obviously at a loss. Lambeth cocked his pistol, saying, “Richard…you know I am an impatient man.”

  “Yes, all right!” Exmoor snapped. “Do as they say. Stone, take the men and leave.”

  Shrugging, the men dropped their weapons and trooped out, Stone shepherding them. Bucky walked to the door, closed it and turned the lock. “There! Now perhaps we can have a little privacy.”

  “Go on, my lady,” Thorpe told the Countess. “You were asking Jack a few pertinent questions.”

  “Yes.” The Countess moved back to her seat. “Now, Jack, you were saying that your mother told you stories about your childhood. What sort of stories?”

  Jack shifted uncomfortably, glancing toward Richard. “Why, fairy-tale sort of things, about how my father was a rich, powerful man, much admired. Sometimes he was a king or a prince, other times he was a warrior. They were fanciful stories.”

  “Did she say how he died?”

  “There were many different ways. Sometimes he died in battle, sometimes she said that treachery brought him down.” A wry smile touched his lips. “But, whatever it was, he always died bravely.”

  “Think carefully, now. She never said a name or gave a hint as to who he was?”

  Jack looked at the Countess, puzzled. “My lady, I don’t understand. Why are you so interested in this ring? Or in my mother’s stories?”

  “Please, indulge me. This is exceedingly important to me.”

  Nicola looked at the Countess, whose eyes were bright, her whole body tense, then over at Lady Ursula and on to Alexandra, whose attention was riveted on Jack. Suddenly she understood what was going on. She pressed her lips together to hold back a gasp, and she turned to look wonderingly at Jack. Was it possible? Suddenly things began to fall into place.

  “All right,” Jack said, and it seemed as if he braced himself. “Frankly, my lady, I do not think that my mother knew who my father was. After I was grown, some of the whispers I heard—well, I believe that she was not as virtuous as she should have been.”

  Exmoor let out a derisive snort.

  “I think she wove those stories because she wanted to believe that my father was a great man, not just someone in a tavern to whom she had given her favors,” Jack continued, his cheeks blazing red. “There is even some possibility that it is worse.”

  “Worse? How?”

  “When she lay dying, she told me that I should seek my fortune, that I had a ‘heritage.’ She was delirious much of the time. She kept crying and saying she had wronged me, assuring me that she loved me. I tried to calm her down, telling her that she had been a good mother, but she only said that she thought she was keeping me safe, but perhaps it was that she wanted what she could not have. It was…rather unintelligible much of the time, but finally she said that I was the earl’s son. I—when I came to live with my grandmother after Mother’s death, I asked her what she had meant, and Gran told me not to talk about it. She said it was better if I let it drop. I think—” he glanced again toward Richard, then away, finishing in a rush “—well, it is possible that I am Exmoor’s by-blow.” His mouth twisted grimly. “It is not a heritage I desire to have.”

  “Ha!” Richard’s voice cracked out contemptuously. “As if I would have touched that doxy!”

  Jack started toward the other man, his eyes blazing, but Nicola caught his arm and held on. “Jack! No. Forget him. You need to finish this. It’s…very important.”

  “She—she said you were the earl’s son?” The Countess looked suddenly much older and frailer.

  “I think so. Or perhaps it was the earl’s heir. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “Oh, Grandmama!” Alexandra cried, her face lighting up, and she hurried over to where they stood. “It is he! It must be!”

  Jack looked at Alexandra as if seeing her for the first time, and the blood drained from his face.

  “What is it?” the Countess asked, her eyes on Jack like a hawk. “You looked—”

  “I—I am sorry. It—for a moment I felt quite queasy. Forgive me, my lady, perhaps I am coming down ill. I have felt very strange the last few hours.”

  “Strange in what way?”

  Jack frowned, searching for words to describe the peculiar thoughts and emotions that had been impinging on him ever since he came into the house. “I’m not sure. Almost…sick. Yet happy and excited, in a way. And sad, too, all at the same time.”

  “And what did you feel when you looked at Alexandra just now?” the Countess pressed.

  “I’m not sure. Startled…and shaken. I have met the lady before, but suddenly, seeing her in this room—it was as if something flashed through my head, but I could not catch it.”

  “And what did you feel when you looked at Ursula?” the Countess asked, motioning toward her daughter. “I saw your face when you looked at her earlier. A very odd expression appeared on your countenance.”

  Jack looked hounded and embarrassed. “It was absurd.”

  “Please tell me.” The old woman looked at him entreatingly.

  “A thought popped into my mind. ‘I didn’t break it.’”

  “What?”

  Jack shrugged. “That’s what I thought. ‘I didn’t break it.’”

  “Break what?”

  “A little glass horse.” If possible, Jack looked even more uncomfortable than before. “I am sorry—” he began, but Lady Ursula stood up, her sharp voice cutting him off.

  “My God!”

  Everyone turned to look at Ursula, who was staring wildly at Jack. “The unicorn. It was a unicorn. A crystal unicorn. I brought it for the baby. I showed it to Simone, then we went upstairs and left it sitting on the table here. In this room. And later I found it broken. I was—I was certain John was playing with it and dropped it. But he kept protesting that he did not do it. And Chilton—” She stopped, tears pooling in her eyes. “Chilton said that if his son said he did not break it, he didn’t break it.”

  The room was filled with stunned silence. The Countess looked as if she might faint, and suddenly her shoulders shook and tears began to run down her face. “It is you. Johnny. You’re alive.”

  Suddenly the room was filled with excited voices. Much to Jack’s astonishment, Alexandra threw her arms around him, followed a moment later by Marianne, both of them crying.

  “What nonsense!” Richard exclaimed, his voice cutting across the babble.

  “Wait. Stop! Just a moment. Delightful as it is to have two beautiful women hugging me, I am afraid I haven’t a clue what’s going on.”

  “You are my brother!” Alexandra exclaimed. “Our brother. Marianne’s and mine. We thought you were dead, but…”

  Jack gaped at her as if she had lost her mind. “I beg your pardon.” He turned toward the Countess and saw in the quiet, tear-streaked happiness on her face confirmation of Alexandra’s words. “My lady…no. It isn’t possible. This is absurd!”

  “For once he has spoken the truth,” Richard said sarcastically. “This man could not po
ssibly be John Montford, returned from the dead. He is merely a local boy, raised by a witch and a tavern wench. No doubt he heard the local stories about Chilton and his children, and he came up with this intriguing story to get your sympathy and support, my lady.”

  “You have no voice in this matter,” the Countess told him coldly. “Anyway, Jack is not the one telling the story,” she pointed out. “I think it is quite clear that he knows nothing about what we are saying.”

  “But, Countess…” Squire Halsey spoke up for the first time, his interest overriding his earlier discomfort. “I’m not sure I understand what’s going on. Are you saying you think ‘The Gentleman’is your grandson—the one that was killed by the Mob in Paris twenty-some-odd years ago?”

  “He wasn’t killed. None of the children were. Don’t you remember how two months ago we discovered that Marianne was my granddaughter? It was after that party at Lord Buckminster’s.”

  “I remember the turnup at the ball,” Halsey allowed. “And all the to-do afterward. But I thought everybody said that the boy had died.”

  “That is what we thought. But I think now that they were wrong. We were all wrong. I don’t know if you remember, but my son, Chilton, lived in this house from the time that John was about two. John lived here for five years. It was his home. As you heard my daughter recount, there was a contretemps right in this room over whether he had broken a crystal unicorn. It turned out later that a careless maid had knocked it over.” Her mouth quivered, but she pressed on. “And this man remembered that incident. He just told us about it.”

  “No doubt one of the others fed him the information,” Richard sneered. “This proves nothing except that he is a good actor.”

  “This proves something!” the Countess exclaimed, holding up the ring Nicola had handed her. “You recognize it, don’t you, Richard? The ancestral ring of the Montfords?” She turned to Jack, saying, “This ring was my son’s. It has been in the Montford family for generations. It is by tradition worn by the heir to the title—in this case, my son. It would have been his son’s when Chilton died. And you have the ring.”

  Jack looked stunned. “But—but it’s impossible. How could I be your grandson? My mother was a tavern wench.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alexandra said. “I know we aren’t explaining this well.” She launched into the story of the Countess’s family, how they had been caught in the French revolution and how all of them had been believed killed, and how only recently it had come to light that the children had escaped the riots and been carried safely back to London, by their mother’s friend, Rhea Ward, only to be whisked away and kept secret from their grandmother, the Countess of Exmoor.

  “It fits, don’t you see?” Marianne added excitedly. “The man who took me to the orphanage was not essentially a bad man. It was just that Richard forced him to get rid of the children.”

  “That is not true!” Richard shouted, starting forward, but Sebastian waved his gun at him as a reminder, and he stopped. “You are making slanderous statements, and I warn you—”

  “It isn’t slander if it’s true,” Lambeth pointed out.

  “You have absolutely no proof of any of the things you’re saying.”

  “Mrs. Ward told me that she gave Marianne and John to my companion, Willa,” the countess said. “And Willa told us that she gave the two children to you.”

  “The word of a lunatic and that of a dead woman. That is certainly impressive.”

  “Rhea Ward was not mad!” Alexandra exclaimed, her dark eyes flashing.

  “Isn’t it convenient how everyone who could testify against you dies?” Lambeth added. “The way Mr. Fuquay died—at your hand. Before he could tell us anything.” There was a soft gasp from the direction of Deborah, but no one paid any attention, including her husband. He merely rolled his eyes and said, “This is nonsense. There is no proof whatsoever.”

  “What about the jewelry?” Penelope asked, surprising everyone.

  “What?” Marianne asked.

  “The jewelry that your mother gave to Alexandra’s mother when she gave her the children. You remember, Mrs. Ward said that Lady Chilton gave her several of the Montford family jewels, as well as some of the jewelry Lord Chilton had bought for her.”

  “That’s right,” Alexandra agreed, her eyes lighting up. “Mama said that she gave the jewelry to Willa. I suspect Willa turned the jewelry over to Richard, too.”

  “If that jewelry is in Richard’s possession, that would go to show that he took the children, as well,” Sebastian agreed. “What were the jewels, Alex?”

  “A sapphire pendant,” the Countess answered for her. “I remember when Chilton gave it to Simone. A diamond choker. A string of large, lustrous pearls that had been in the family since the fourth earl. An emerald brooch…jet earrings.”

  “A topaz ring,” Deborah said suddenly, standing up, and everyone in the room turned to look at her. “A parure of rubies? An enameled bracelet of blue and gold?”

  “Yes!” Lady Ursula exclaimed, astonished. “All those things were Simone’s. How did you know?”

  “Because I saw them,” Deborah said. She looked straight at her husband, speaking to him rather than the others. “I saw you take them out and look at them one night. You thought I was upstairs asleep, but I wasn’t. I saw you pore over them, then hide them back away in your safe. I was curious, so I went back one time when you were gone to London and I took them out.”

  “Shut up, Deborah!” Richard exclaimed. “Don’t be a fool.”

  “I am not a fool, though you have always thought me one. No doubt you thought I was so stupid that I didn’t know where you hid the key to your safe or even where the safe was. But I knew. I saw many more things than you ever realized. I took out the box, and I went through it. It was full of jewels, beautiful jewels. I was devastated because you had never given them to me, never allowed me to wear them. I had no idea that it was because—”

  All the color drained from Richard’s face as she spoke. “That proves nothing,” he protested feebly.

  “It proves that what my mother said was true,” Alexandra said in a hard voice. “That what Willa said was true. She gave you the children and the jewels.”

  “You told Mr. Fuquay to kill me, didn’t you?” Marianne said to Richard. “But he didn’t have the heart. Perhaps he was supposed to kill John, too, but instead he decided to give John to someone. The boy was very sick. Fuquay could have thought that he would ease out of the responsibility for his death—leave it to fate, so to speak. What if he gave him to Jack’s mother? I mean, the woman who reared Jack.”

  “But…” Jack raked his hands back through his hair, looking shaken.

  “Don’t you see? It makes sense,” Nicola said, putting her hand on Jack’s arm. “You were ill, just like the Countess’s grandson. The fever and illness no doubt burned away your memory. Or perhaps it was all too horrible to remember. All your memories come from after that time. Yet you knew this house when you came here tonight. Remember how you knew the way to the attic and where the nursery was? It is no wonder—it was once your home. And your mother—Helen, I mean—when Fuquay gave you to her, she took you home to her mother, knowing that if anyone could heal a child so ill, it would be Granny Rose. And she did heal you.”

  “But surely this man would have come back. Or Exmoor. They would have found out I was still alive,” Jack protested.

  “Not if she told them that you were dead,” Alexandra supplied. “She must have suspected that Fuquay was up to something havey-cavey. Why would a single gentleman be foisting a desperately ill child onto someone? Perhaps she even figured out who you were. I mean, they—we—lived close by. She could have seen you before, known who you were. She would have known, too, what sort of man Richard is. Perhaps Fuquay even told her that Richard wanted you dead. So if she wanted to keep you safe, what better way than to tell them that you were dead?”

  “No doubt that is why she moved away,” Nicola added. “To make sure that Rich
ard never saw you, because he might suspect the truth. So when you were well, she took you and left Granny Rose’s. It always seemed an odd thing for her to have done, but now it makes sense.”

  “But why didn’t she take me to the Countess and tell her who I was? The Countess would have recognized me.”

  “She was poor and ignorant,” Marianne pointed out. “She would not have had the money to travel to London, and how could she have gotten in to see the Countess? No doubt she was scared of Exmoor and his power, afraid that he would find out who you were and harm you. The easiest thing would have been to hide you from him.”

  “And perhaps she did not want to give you up,” Nicola added gently. “You remember how you said she talked about having done wrong by you? And do you remember how Exmoor acted when he found you and me together?” Nicola turned to Richard. “I assumed you were jealous. Maybe you were. But you became truly enraged only when you saw Jack’s ring hanging from the chain around my neck. You grabbed it and jerked it from my neck and threw it away. You realized then who he was, didn’t you? That is the real reason you tried to kill Jack. When that didn’t work, you had him impressed into the navy, which, if it did not kill him, would certainly have ensured that he would never return to Dartmoor. And now…” She paused, a smug smile tugging at her lips. “Now you must be absolutely frantic, knowing that Jack is alive and free. No wonder you were so eager to have him thrown in gaol and hanged.”

  “You think I am scared of a stable lad? Or of that ring? It proves nothing.”

  “No? Then why did you break into my room to search for it?”

  “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do. Remember when someone mysteriously broke into my room one night? It was so odd—the intruder was searching through my vanity. But now it makes sense. It was you, looking for my ring. I always suspected you—I knew it wasn’t Jack, as you said, and the man was your height and build. You had easy access to any room in the house. But I couldn’t understand why you would have done that. Now it’s clear. You must have seen the ring around my neck at some point, and you were trying to steal it. But you could not find it because I wear it around my neck. Always.”