No Other Love (22 page)

The next thing she knew, light was streaming through the window and she was awakening with a jerk. She sat for a moment, blinking and trying to orient herself. A glance at Perry’s face reminded her where she was. It was morning, and obviously she had fallen asleep sitting by his bed. Guiltily, she reached out and touched his arm. It was cooler, and he was sleeping deeply, his breathing calm and even. He was better, his body healing itself in blessed sleep.

Nicola sat up stiffly. Her arm, upon which her head had been resting, had gone numb, and now tingles were shooting through it. Her neck, bent at an odd angle, was stiff, as was her back, and she stood up slowly, rolling her head and bending this way and that.

She looked across the bed. Jack was still there, seated on the other side. He, too, was asleep, leaning against the high back of the chair, his face relaxed and vulnerable. Nicola stood for a moment, watching him. Outside the birds twittered and chased one another. She heard a man’s voice and the closing of a door.

Perry was doing well enough now that one of the others could watch him, she thought. Indeed, he had been doing well enough on his own the past few hours, with her and Jack sound asleep. She could call to one of Jack’s men and instruct him to watch Perry, and she could go to her room for a few needed hours of sleep. She thought with deep satisfaction of stretching out on a soft bed for the next few hours.

She looked back at Jack, thinking that she should wake him, as well. He needed sleep just as much as she did. She thought again, as she had yesterday afternoon, that he was even more handsome in the daylight, for the lines of his face were clean and strong. Her eyes flickered over the neatly trimmed goatee and mustache, and the firm, wide mouth that centered them. His jaw was shadowed by a night’s stubble, as black as the curling hair on his head. Her eyes roamed upward, taking in the straight nose and the high curve of his cheekbones, disappearing beneath the black mask. She wondered, as always, what the mask hid and why, and as she stood there watching him, it occurred to her that while he slept, she could push up the mask and see the features he kept hidden.

Curiosity filled her, drowning out a faint voice of guilt that objected to this invasion of his privacy. She tiptoed around the edge of the bed, her heart pounding. Trepidation and eagerness swelled within her, setting her fingers trembling and her pulse pounding. Quietly, she stretched out her hand to him. Her fingers brushed the lower edge of his mask.

Suddenly his eyes flew open and his hand wrapped around her wrist like a steel band, imprisoning it. “Don’t.”

His voice was even harder than his touch, and his eyes glittered darkly through the mask. Nicola let out a little squeak of surprise, a flush rising in her cheeks at being caught in such an ignominious position. She tried to straighten up, but he would not let her. For an instant, they stood locked in the tableau. Then, as quickly as a snake striking, he jerked her down into his lap, his other arm going out to encircle her, and his lips fastened on hers.

Nicola did not know what she had expected—anger, jokes, recriminations—but it was not this. Desire exploded within her at the touch of his mouth, hot, hard and demanding. She felt the same passion bolt through him, and her body flared with heat. Thoughts of resistance—indeed, thought altogether—fled from her mind, and she trembled, pressing into him with equal fervor.

They kissed until they were breathless, consumed with flame. Jack stood up abruptly, sweeping her up into his arms, and started toward the door. Nicola made a feeble resistance, waving in the general direction of Perry’s bed and murmuring, “Wait. What about—”

He closed her mouth with a brief, hard kiss and flung open the door. Striding down the hall with her in his arms, he bellowed, “Saunders! See to Perry!”

Then they were inside his room, and he kicked the door shut behind him, setting Nicola down so that he could pull her into his arms once again. Hungrily they kissed, his hands sliding over her body, as they inched their way toward his bed. All the touches, the looks, the teasing flickers of desire that had occurred over the past two days, flamed into life now, sending a consuming fire roaring through them. Nicola trembled, her hands curling into his shirt.

“Nicola,” he murmured as his hand found and cupped her breast. “God, it’s been so long. Sweet Nicky.”

Pain lanced through Nicola at his use of the nickname Gil had often called her. She jerked away. “No! Oh, no!” She turned away blindly, her hands going to her face. “No, I cannot.”

“Bloody hell!” He reached out and grasped her wrist, whipping her back around to face him. “What sort of game are you playing? You want me—I felt it in you. Do you want to drive me mad? Make me beg for you?”

“No!” Nicola started to cry. “I am sorry. Truly. I did not mean—I swore I would not let anything happen. I don’t know what is the matter with me!” She looked at him, her eyes wide and filled with unshed tears. “But I cannot do this with you. I cannot be unfaithful.”

A red light flared in his eyes, and his grip tightened painfully on her arm. “Unfaithful!” he thundered. “What do you mean, unfaithful? You said you were not married.”

“I’m not! I never have been.”

“Then what—”

“I was in love! I love him still.”

“Who?” His voice was quiet now, and more chilling than the rage. “Who owns your heart?”

“A boy. He is dead. He died long ago.” The tears spilled out of her eyes and down her cheeks, and she looked up at him pleadingly. “I don’t know why I feel this—this
lust
for you. But it is not enough. I will not break faith with him.”

He dropped her arm, and his voice was filled with scorn. “You expect me to believe that? That you remain true to your former lover? A man who has been dead for years?”

“Yes!” Nicola straightened her shoulders and glared at him. “Why shouldn’t you believe it? It is the truth. I loved Gil. I’ll never love another.”

“Gil,” he repeated, his face as hard and unreadable as stone. “You have had no other man since him.”

“No, of course not. He was all in all to me.” Her voice caught on a sob.

“A very pretty tale.”

“’Tis not a tale!” Nicola retorted hotly. “How dare you—”

He reached up behind his head and pulled at the ribbons of his mask, untying it. His hand dropped, taking down the mask and revealing his face for the first time. He looked at Nicola unwaveringly.

Nicola stared back at him. Suddenly there seemed to be no air to breathe, and noise roared in her ears. She crumpled to the floor in a faint.

“N
ICOLA
?”

She heard a voice saying her name, and slowly her eyes fluttered open. A man knelt beside her, his face looming above her, dearly familiar and yet very different, too. It was Gil’s face, but older, with sun lines around his eyes and a goatee and mustache obscuring his chin, as well as a small scar on his cheek that had not been there before.

“Gil!” Joy rushed up in Nicola, and she sat up, throwing her arms around his neck. “Oh, Gil, it’s you! You’re alive!”

She began to cry, a reaction more of nerves than any sort of sadness, and she said his name again and again, punctuating it with little kisses all over his face. She reached his mouth, and this kiss was long and deep. It was him, and it was Jack, and suddenly she understood her immediate, intense response to this man. Her heart and body had recognized him, even though her mind had been too rational to even consider the possibility. She cried harder, clinging to him.

“I can’t believe it! How could I not have known?” She leaned back, grasping his shoulders, and looked up into his face. “But—you are taller! And bigger. And your voice—no, I suppose that was just the different way you talked, the gentlemanly accent.”

“I grew another couple of inches. I was only twenty, after all. And I filled out as I got older. It happens.”

“But why did you hide from me?” In her instantaneous joy and excitement, the thought had not occurred to her at first. But now pain lanced through her as she realized that Gil had purposely hidden himself from her, worn a mask so that she could not see his face and recognize him. “Why didn’t you come to me? Tell me who you were? Why did you wear that mask?”

She pulled back from him, questions flooding in on her. “For that matter, where have you been? Why haven’t you let me know where you were? It’s been ten years, Jack! Gil. You see, I don’t even know who you are anymore!”

“Everyone calls me Jack now. I am used to it. I stopped using my name ten years ago.”

“But why? Why didn’t you write me? Why didn’t you tell me you were alive all those years? Don’t you know how I worried? Didn’t you care?”

Nicola was swept with cold as she realized the implications of his years of silence, and suddenly she felt quite remote, even numb. “You didn’t love me.”

“Didn’t love you!” Jack rose in a swift, angry motion. “Good God, woman, do not try to turn this around on me! I am no longer a love-blinded fool whom you can twist around her finger. Why should I write you? Why in the hell would I think you would want to know whether I was still alive? So you could tell Exmoor?”

“Exmoor! Why would I tell Exmoor?” she asked, confused and frustrated by his words. “Why are you acting like this? What happened to you?”

“You happened to me! One betrayal was enough. I am not slow to learn.”

“Betrayal! What are you talking about? Are you saying that I betrayed—” She stopped abruptly, her mind going back to something the highwayman had told her about his past. “Are you saying—was what you told me the truth? Exmoor had a press gang kidnap you and put you on a naval ship?”

“Of course. Did you not know how he got rid of me? Perhaps you didn’t care to know the details as long as the problem was removed.”

Nicola stared at him, bereft of speech for a moment. “And that girl you told me about, the one who soured you on women—that was me? The one you said betrayed you to your enemy?”

He looked at her oddly. “Of course. I was rather surprised you did not recognize your own story.”

“My own—what are you talking about? I never betrayed you.”

He grimaced. “Don’t bother lying, Nicola. There is no way you can talk your way out of this. You told Richard where I was, asked him to get rid of me so that I would not plague you anymore.”

“What?” Nicola rose to her feet, her hands going to her head as though to hold inside the tumult of thoughts rushing around her brain. “Have you run mad? How could I have betrayed you to Richard? I didn’t know where you were. I didn’t even know you were alive! You went off the Falls, and we searched and searched for you, but we couldn’t find you. I never heard from you again. I thought you were dead!”

“I sent you a letter. I am not mad. I know what I did. What you did. I sent you a letter, telling you how a farmer had found me, half in, half out of the river, clinging to a tree root. I told you where I was so that you could come to me. So we could marry and leave this place. Imagine my surprise when who should show up? Not you, my ‘beloved’…” His voice was thick with scorn. “But the Earl of Exmoor himself. You had sent him, he said, because you had realized what a fool you had been—how you had lowered yourself by dallying with a peasant. You could see that I would be a problem for you, and you wanted to be rid of me, so you had told him where I was and asked him to ‘take care of the problem.’”

“And you believed
him?
” Nicola asked, anger rushing up through her chest. “The man who had just come to fisticuffs with you? Who had let you slip off the Falls?”

“Let me slip?” Jack snorted. “He pushed me.”

“Even worse! You knew he had tried to kill you, yet you believed what
he
told you? You did not even think to check with me?”

“There was no need to ‘check’!” Jack retorted, his eyes blazing. “How else could he have known where I was? Only you—and that farmer’s family—knew. And since the farmer and his family knew neither you, me, nor the Earl of Exmoor, I doubt that they went straight to him with the news.”

“Someone else had to know!” Nicola insisted. “You sent the letter to me somehow. You entrusted someone with it. They betrayed you, not me.”

His face was like granite. “Don’t lie to me, Nicola. You cannot squirm out of this. I sent the farmer’s son with the letter. As I told you, he would have had no idea to take it to Exmoor. Those living at Exmoor thought I had fallen off the Falls, and I did not enlighten them. I thought the less they knew, the better for them.”

“Then Richard must have somehow intercepted it, taken it from the boy. I never received it.”

“The boy told me he delivered it,” Jack replied, his voice laced with contempt.

“Not to me!”

“No, not to you,” Jack admitted grimly. “I put your letter inside another letter, which he delivered, and he brought me back a note from her saying she had received it and would give your letter to you. I sent it to Granny Rose.” He looked at her with bitter eyes. “Do you think Granny Rose betrayed me?”

Nicola stared back at him. She felt as if the ground had suddenly turned to quicksand beneath her feet.
Had he gone mad? Had she?

“No,” she replied, her voice shaky. “Of course not.” He was Granny Rose’s grandson; she had loved him more than life itself. One might as well believe that pigs could fly as that Granny Rose would have told Gil’s enemy where he was.

She sat down on the bed, her knees suddenly weak beneath her. Her whole life had been turned upside down the past few minutes, so that she no longer knew what to think—or even what she felt.

“But something must have happened,” she protested faintly. “I got no letter. Did Granny Rose know that Exmoor had tried to kill you? Perhaps he went there, hoping to find you, and she told him—not thinking that—”

“For God’s sake, Nicola!” Jack exploded. “Of course I told her he shoved me off the Falls. She knew. She had always known him for the blackguard he was. Why do you keep up this pretense? We both know that you sent Exmoor. You might as well admit it.”

“No,” Nicola said, struggling to keep her voice even. “We don’t
both
know that. I don’t know what happened, or how Richard came upon that information. But I never got that letter. Why won’t you believe me?”

“Why would I? You were a Judas before. I would be a fool to trust what you tell me now.”

“You talk in circles.” Nicola jumped to her feet, her arms stiff at her sides, her hands fisting. “You say that I lie now when I tell you I did not betray you, and your proof is that you think I betrayed you back then!”

“This is absurd!”

“Yes, I suppose it is.” Nicola struggled to hold down the sobs rising in her throat, the scalding tears battering her eyes. “To think that I loved you all these years, held my heart locked away from other men, because I knew I would never love anyone but you. But you did not love me enough to trust me, as you loved and trusted Granny Rose. You knew it could not have been she who betrayed you. Why did you not believe the same thing about me?”

He stared back at her, his face suddenly blank.

Nicola turned away, her voice raw with unshed tears. “Go away. I cannot bear to look at you.”

N
ICOLA AWAKENED FEELING AS IF
she had hardly slept, even though she could tell from the way the sun slanted through the window that it had been several hours since she had fallen asleep. Slowly she sat up, pushing her tangled hair back from her face. She had given way to a long storm of crying after closing herself in her room, with the result that her head ached and her eyes were swollen. Her heart felt equally battered. The onslaught of emotions earlier, swinging from the heights of joy, when she realized that Gil was still alive, to the depths of pain as it dawned on her that he had hated her for years, had left her numbed and bruised. She wasn’t sure what she felt, besides a pervasive sadness.

She crossed to the small dresser, where the few toiletry articles she had brought with her sat. One look in the mirror confirmed the swollen, blotchy state of her face after a bout of tears. She washed her face in the basin, then began the laborious process of brushing out her hair. When she had it free from tangles, she pulled it back and coiled it up on the back of her neck in a simple style. Finally, she slipped off her wrinkled dress, which she had slept in, having thrown herself across the bed in a paroxysm of tears, then fallen asleep as she lay. A quick wash and fresh clothing made her feel a trifle better, and when she looked in the small mirror above the dresser, she thought that she looked presentable. At least she did not look like a wild woman who had spent the morning crying.

Crossing the room, she opened the door and peered out into the hall. It was empty, though downstairs she could hear the sound of a woman singing and the clatter of dishes. Her heart was pounding in her ribs. Drawing a deep breath, Nicola walked down the hall toward the sickroom. With every step, she was tinglingly aware that she might run into Jack, and she didn’t know what she would do if that happened. But she had to see her patient, didn’t she? she argued to herself.

She opened the door to Perry’s room and stepped inside. Perry lay asleep in the bed, propped up slightly by pillows. Jack sat beside the bed. He had shaved off his goatee and mustache, she saw, and he looked even more like his old self. Nicola stopped, her heart jumping up into her throat.

Why had she thought that she was numb?
At the sight of Jack, she was filled with such rushing, conflicting emotions that she thought she might explode. She wanted to look at him forever, drinking in each feature, finding all the achingly familiar things like the dark arch of his eyebrow or the curve of his cheekbone, examining all those things that were different, like the small arc of a scar high on his cheek or the deeper lines that fanned out from his eyes. She wanted to cling to him, and at the same time, she was aware of a very strong urge to slap him. Thrilled, appalled, giddy, furious, she ached with love, desire and hurt. He had sent her world crashing, and now everything she knew or felt lay in shards on the ground, splintered, scattered and mixed-up.

He stood up as she entered the room, his eyes searching her face, and for a long moment they simply looked at each other. Finally Nicola cleared her throat nervously and came forward a few more steps.

“Why didn’t you send for me?” she asked. A thousand questions and recriminations vied for release, twisting her stomach into knots, and so she asked only the simplest, least meaningful question that came to mind.

“You were sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb you. And Perry was doing all right. I stayed with him. I would have called you if anything seemed amiss.”

“Then you must be very tired,” Nicola said, speaking almost as she would to a stranger. She walked around the bed to stand on the opposite side, near the foot. “I can relieve you now so that you can get some sleep, too.”

He hesitated, then said, “All right. Thank you. I will be down the hall if you need me. His temperature has been much cooler, and he has not been so restless. I gave him some meadowsweet tea a while ago. He was awake and drank it with only a little support from me. He was weak but rational.”

“Good. It sounds as if he is past the worst, then.”

“Yes, I hope so.” He paused. “Nicola…”

She looked at him with a clear, cool gaze, her eyebrows raised slightly, much the way she might deflect the questions of an impudent stranger. “Yes?”

He started to speak, then stopped, shaking his head. “Nothing.”

Jack turned and walked out of the room, and when he had closed the door behind him, Nicola sank down into her chair with a shaky sigh of relief.

“So he told you.” A voice spoke weakly but clearly, and Nicola jumped, startled, and looked at the bed. Her patient lay with his eyes open, watching her. He was wan and obviously weak, but there was an undeniable spark of interest in his pale blue eyes.