No Other Love (33 page)

“Stop it! How dare you say that I helped you?” Nicola cried out. “I would as soon help a snake!” She whipped back around, saying, “Jack, please…”

“Take me out of here, Constable,” Jack said, looking away from her. “I cannot stand the stench of treachery in this room.”

Nicola felt as if her heart had died within her. Jack did not believe her. Once again he was lost to her, hated her. Even worse, she
had
betrayed him to his enemies, however unknowingly. He had every right to hate her. She had been foolish and impulsive, so driven by her fear for him that she had not stopped to think. She had been an easy pawn for Exmoor to use. And now…now Jack would die because of her mistake.

She watched in horror as the constable and the hired men led Jack and the others out the door. More men were coming toward them from the small building in back, and another man walked with them, hands tied. Nicola walked to the doorway and stood, watching numbly, as another man led out several horses. Jack and his men were mounted, hands tied behind their backs. Richard strode past her and got on his horse. The procession started out, with Richard and the constable in front. Only Nicola remained behind, standing on the front stoop, watching Jack disappear from her life again, hating her.

The tears began to flow in earnest, and she could not stop them. She sank down onto the stoop, sobbing.

A
FTER HER BOUT OF TEARS
,
Nicola went inside the small house and wandered upstairs. She went into Jack’s room and sat down on his bed, closing her eyes. She could sense him all around her. There was the faint scent of him on his pillow, a shirt that he had worn thrown across a chair, the rumpled, turned-back bed that he had hastily left.

Nicola swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut. She had indulged her tears, and she refused to do so again. She had to do something. She thought for some time and finally rose with renewed purpose. She was not going to let Jack rot in gaol, much less hang. Whatever it took, she would get him out.

She rode to Buckminster Hall. Penelope had said that Bucky and the others were planning to arrive the evening before. She hoped that they had. When she arrived at Buckminster Hall, it was the middle of the night, and it took a long, steady pounding of the door knocker to finally bring a sleepy-eyed footman to the door. His powdered footman’s wig was clapped crookedly on his head, and he had misbuttoned his livery jacket. He stared at her for a long moment.

“Miss Falcourt?” he asked finally.

“Yes. I have come to see my cousin. Is he here?”

“Lord Buckminster? Why, yes, miss, he rode in last night, him and Lord Lambeth. Lord and Lady Thorpe came, too, in a carriage.”

“I have to talk to Lord Buckminster.”

“Now, miss?”

“Yes, of course now.” Nicola gave him a level, commanding look. “Are you going to keep me on the step or let me in?”

“Oh, miss, I’m that sorry.” He stepped back, looking alarmed and contrite. “I’m not thinking well. Please come in. But, miss, did you know it was three o’clock in the morning? His lordship’s been in bed these two hours.”

“I wouldn’t have thought him that easily accustomed to country hours. I am sorry, but you will have to wake him up. I must speak to him. It is urgent. Or, if you like, I will wake him myself. I know where his room is.”

“Miss!” The bewigged young man looked shocked. “That would never do. I will tell him you are here.”

She cooled her heels in the entryway for a good fifteen minutes before Bucky appeared, dressing gown thrown over a nightshirt and billowing out behind him as he walked. He was frowning anxiously.

“Nicola! What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Everything.” Nicola rose to meet him. “I must talk to you. I did a terrible thing tonight, and I sincerely hope that you can make it right. I need for you to go to the magistrate and see him about a prisoner.”

“Prisoner!” He looked dumbfounded. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“It’s the highwayman. The constable arrested him and his men tonight, and it was all my fault. Richard tricked me into it, and I was too stupid to see that it was a trick.”

“I am afraid you have lost me. What does Richard have to do with all this? Now that I think of it, what do you?”

“I told you, it was my fault that he was arrested.” Quickly she explained how Richard had tricked her, getting her to lead his men to the outlaw’s hideout.

“But who is this chap? Why do you know him?” Bucky asked.

Nicola hesitated. No matter how kind and good her cousin was, Bucky was still an aristocrat and a male relative, and she did not think that he would be overjoyed to hear that she was in love with a highwayman. Finally she said, “He is Granny Rose’s grandson. Do you remember her?”

“The old woman who cured people? By Jove, yes, sent my valet to her for one of my colds once, and she fixed me right up. Weren’t you forever going over to her house?”

“Yes. I was very fond of her, and she of me. She taught me so many things, and—and I cannot let her only grandchild be hanged. Please, Bucky, I beg of you. Use your influence. The magistrate is good friends with your mother, and I know he would do you a favor.”

“I suppose he would.”

“Jack will leave here and never return. I am sure he will promise that. He would even agree to leave the country if necessary. He has lived in the United States the last few years.”

“Then what the devil is he doing here, being a highwayman?” Bucky asked reasonably.

“It is much too complicated to explain. But, believe me, he does not deserve to hang. He doesn’t even deserve to be in gaol. I swear to you that he has harmed no one—well, except Richard, and that was only financial. Richard, of course, talks as if he is the most dangerous highwayman since Dick Turpin, but he is a good man. Really.”

“I shall talk to the Squire.” Bucky referred to Squire Halsey, the local magistrate. “Tomorrow morning,” he added hastily. “Wouldn’t do to wake him up, you know.”

“Yes, you’re right.” Nicola had to admit the logic of that, even though she wished that he would get dressed and ride to the magistrate’s house right now and haul him out of bed.

“Best if you stayed here and went to bed, too, you know,” Bucky pointed out. “Not the thing to be tearing about in the middle of the night.”

Nicola knew that he was right. She did not feel in the least sleepy, but she knew that there was nothing that she could accomplish in the middle of the night. Nor could she return to Tidings right now. She wanted to see Richard, but no doubt he had gone to bed, and no amount of bullying would get him awakened as it had her cousin. She refused to sleep another night under his roof. So, finally, she agreed to stay in her old room at Buckminster Hall.

She slept little, however, too troubled and unhappy to give way to sleep. Early the next morning, she dressed in the same habit she had worn the night before and started back to Tidings.

Although it was early, Richard and Deborah were up. Nicola could hear the sound of their raised voices coming from the dining room, and she turned in that direction. She paused in the doorway. Exmoor and her sister were standing, quarreling, their food ignored on the grand table beside them.

“But you cannot leave her alone there!” Deborah was saying with some heat, her cheeks flushed with anger.

“She’s lucky I didn’t have her arrested, too, for aiding and abetting a criminal!”

“She has a kind heart.”

“She has a meddlesome nature and an unnatural proclivity for the lowest sorts of people.”

Nicola stepped into the room, saying, “She is right here.”

Richard and Deborah swung around to face her.

“Nicola!” Deborah cried, starting toward her, arms outstretched. “I was so worried about you!”

“Did you know his plan?” Nicola asked coldly, stopping her sister with a look. “Did you tell me that about the trap because he told you to?”

Deborah looked hurt, and her hand came up to her chest. “No! Nicola, how could you think that I would send you into danger like that? I had no idea. I overheard them talking, so I went to you.”

“I am sorry.” Nicola went to her sister, opening her arms, too. It occurred to her that now she understood some of what Jack had felt ten years earlier when Richard had said Nicola had betrayed him. She had been doubting her sister from the moment the real trap was sprung. All night, beneath her distress, was the disturbing fear that Deborah had helped Richard to trick her.

Thankfully, she drew her into a hug now. “I know you would not hurt me,” she whispered to her sister. “I just—I scarcely know what to think right now.”

“I know. You must be exhausted. Where have you been?”

Nicola shook her head. “It’s not important.”

“You should go to bed. Come, I’ll go up with you.”

“No. I came to talk to Richard.” Nicola straightened, releasing her sister and turning grimly toward Exmoor. “I have come to beg you to let him go.”

“Let him go?” Richard gaped at her. “You must be joking.”

“I have never been more serious. You do not need to do this. He was about to leave the area, anyway.” Nicola moved closer to him.

“Of course he was.” Richard sneered and turned away.

“Haven’t you done enough to him?” Nicola cried, tears springing to her eyes. “I know you recognized him. You know what you did to him ten years ago. You ruined his life. Is it any wonder that he hated you? That he wanted some vengeance on you?”

“What are you talking about?” Deborah asked. “I don’t understand. Richard
knows
this man?”

“Yes, he knows him. ‘The Gentleman’ is Gil Martin.”

“Gil Martin?” Deborah repeated blankly.

“Yes. Granny Rose’s grandson.”

Deborah drew in her breath sharply. “No! Gil? The boy that Mother—”

She stopped abruptly. Nicola turned to her, curiosity aroused. “That Mother what? What did Mother ever have to do with Gil?”

Deborah looked uncomfortable, and she glanced toward her husband. He simply folded his arms and gazed back at her sardonically.

“Yes, Deborah, why don’t you tell your sister about what your mother had to do with Gil? What you had to do with it.”

“You?” Nicola took a step toward Deborah, her hand going to her sister’s arm. “You had something to do with Gil? And Mother? Tell me, Deborah.”

Deborah looked away. “I…you were locked in your room, and one of the maids, Mary Broughton—you know, the girl you usually used as your personal maid—brought a letter to me. She said you wouldn’t answer her, and Granny Rose had given her this letter for you. Granny Rose had come to Buckminster Hall to see you—with this letter.”

“What—what did you do with it?”

“I didn’t know what to do with it, so finally I—I read it.” She blushed and looked at Nicola a little defiantly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what was in it, and I thought I would see if it was something important, something you would want to be disturbed for, or just some little something Granny Rose wanted of you. Then I—I saw that the letter was really from Granny’s grandson and—and it scared me. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid that you would run away and marry a stable boy! It would have been a terrible scandal and I would never have seen you again. I knew Mother would go into a horrid decline. The family would have been disgraced.” She looked away and added softly, “I knew that no one would ever want to marry me, with a scandal attached to our name.”

“No one? You mean Richard.”

Deborah nodded, looking wretched. “I am sorry, Nicola. I was young and—and I had no idea. You had never spoken of him.”

“Of course not. I knew how you and Mother would have reacted.”

“But I didn’t know how much you loved him. I thought it was just calf love. Shallow and quickly gone. I didn’t know that you would never marry. That you would be so unhappy and go off to London to live. And then…when I saw how you felt, I was afraid to tell you.”

“So you gave the letter to Mother?”

“Yes. She sent a note to Richard, and he came around. They talked. I didn’t hear what was said. But Richard left, and we never heard from Gil Martin again.”

“No. You wouldn’t have. Richard gave him to a press gang, and they threw him into the hold of a naval ship.”

Deborah’s eyes widened. “No! Oh, Nicola…”

“Yes. A rather severe punishment, don’t you think, for loving someone above his station. But, then, that wasn’t the reason, was it, Richard?” Nicola swung back to him, her face hard and her eyes fiery. “You put him into servitude in the navy because he had taken the woman you wanted for yourself. Isn’t that right? He had thwarted you. So you punished him—and punished him further by telling him that
I
was the one who had turned him over to you. You weren’t content with sending him into hell. You had to break his heart, as well.”

“Did you honestly think I would let him have you?” Richard thundered. “That I would let that—that scum touch you? Possess you? You were mine!”

“I was
never
yours!” Nicola shot back. “You would have known that if you hadn’t been so arrogant. I never gave you the least encouragement. I let you know in a hundred different ways that I did not want you, but you would never acknowledge them.”