No Other Love (35 page)

“But, miss, ladies don’t come here.”

“I do.”

“But, miss…it just ain’t proper, like.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about the proprieties, Constable?” Nicola said with a cool smile. “Just take me to the prisoner.”

The constable glanced around the room as if seeking help, then sighed and said, “Yes, miss.”

Picking up the large key ring that sat on the gaoler’s desk, he led her to the back of the gaol, where a barred door separated the cells from the front part of the building. One large key on the ring opened the door, and the constable passed through it. Nicola followed on his heels. He turned, startled, then sighed again and walked the rest of the way to Jack’s cell.

There were four barred cells in the small gaol, and all of them were occupied by Jack and his men. Jack’s men stood up as they walked by. Nicola glanced at Perry, and he winked, which raised her spirits a trifle. They stopped in front of the last cell. Jack was seated on the narrow bed, his back against the stone wall, legs stretched out in front of him. He sprang to his feet when he saw the constable, with Nicola at his shoulder.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he burst out. “Bloody hell! What did you let her in for?” He strode to the barred door to confront the constable, who stepped back a foot even though bars separated them.

“Uh, the lady is here to see you.”

“I don’t want to see her,” Jack retorted, not looking at Nicola. “Take her away.”

“Jack, please…just listen to me….”

“I am through listening to you!” He turned to her, his eyes blazing. “I refuse to listen any longer. Go away. I don’t want to see you.”

Pain slashed through Nicola’s chest like a knife. “No. I didn’t mean to harm you. You must believe me.”

“I don’t know what game you are playing,” Jack said coldly. “If you are trying to get more information from me for your brother-in-law or what. But I have been tricked enough by you and your kind. I know how you and the Earl colluded to capture me. I’m not a fool. Even that day at Granny Rose’s cottage, you had set me up for Stone to catch. You just hadn’t counted on my knowing an escape route.”

“No!” Nicola cried, aghast.

“Shut up!” Jack roared, overriding her words. “Get her out of here. I won’t speak to her. I won’t see her. Even a prisoner has some rights, doesn’t he? I don’t have to be plagued by her.”

“Jack…” Nicola whispered. Her insides were as cold as ice; she wasn’t sure if she could move or even if her lungs would continue to work. Clearly Jack hated her. There was no way she could convince him that she had not betrayed him to Richard. “I’m sorry.” Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over, coursing down her cheeks.

“Save your tears for someone who is more naive,” Jack told her bitingly, and turned away, walking back to his cot.

Nicola whirled and ran back down the hall.

T
HE TWO WOMEN SHIFTED IN THE
seat of the gig. It was late that afternoon, and it was growing dark. It was almost time for their charade to begin. Marianne lifted the opened pocket watch from her lap and looked at it again.

“That is the fifth time in the last two minutes that you have looked at that thing,” Alexandra remarked, a faint smile curving her mobile mouth. She arched an eyebrow at her sister. “It’s hard to imagine you being a thief, given your nerves.”

“I’ll match my courage against yours any day,” Marianne shot back, but her smile took any sting from the words. “Just because I like to do everything right doesn’t mean—”

“I know,” Alexandra replied, regarding her sister with affection. “I didn’t mean that. I meant that you must have suffered more than you enjoyed it.”

“You’re right about that,” Marianne agreed. “Frankly, I am just as glad to leave a life of crime behind me,” she said, referring to the years she had spent living with a family of thieves. She reached over to squeeze Alexandra’s hand, “I’m also very glad to have found a sister.”

“I am, too.” Alexandra grasped her hand tightly.

They were silent for a moment. Marianne steadfastly did not look at her watch. It was Alexandra who broke first, saying, “All right. I give in. Is it time yet?”

With some relief, Marianne picked up the watch and looked at it. “One minute. Justin, Sebastian and Nicola should be leaving now.”

They thought of the men they loved and the woman who was their friend, riding toward the edge of town to wait in darkness for Alexandra and Marianne to do their job. Alexandra shivered, and Marianne thought she saw her lips move in a silent prayer.

“They will be all right,” she said with more assurance than she felt.

“As long as we do our part well,” Alexandra agreed, her jaw setting. It would, Marianne thought, take more than one poor gaoler to stop Alexandra when Sebastian’s life was at stake.

“We will.” Marianne straightened, the dancing nerves in her stomach giving way to the familiar excitement as the moment of action drew near. It had always been this way: she would be sick with nerves beforehand, but when the game began, she would be filled with confidence, excited but focused coolly on her objective. “Let’s go.”

Alexandra picked up the reins, which had been lying loosely in her lap, and slapped them over the horse’s back. The animal stepped out smartly, opening up into a trot, then a run, at Alexandra’s urging. They flew down the road at a smart pace. Marianne gripped the rail at the side of her seat and held on tightly as they whipped around a curve in the road. Alexandra had driven her own vehicle for years, she said, and her husband had been instructing her in the finer points of handling a team. Marianne felt sure she was an excellent driver. However, she was not so accustomed as her sister to this rapid form of conveyance and, frankly, her heart felt as if it were in her throat.

As if sensing Marianne’s thought, Alexandra turned to her and grinned, her eyes sparkling with excitement. The wind caught her bonnet as she turned back and tore it from her head, sending it skittering down the road behind them. Alexandra laughed, unconcerned, as her hair began to tumble down. They were, after all, supposed to look as if they had been terrified by thieves. However, she pulled back on the reins, slowing the horse. It was dusk and growing increasingly dark, and she would not risk injuring her horse for the sake of an exhilarating ride.

She pulled him to a stop at the edge of town, and the two women got out of the carriage. The village, as she had expected, was quiet, with no one on the streets. It was dark, and all good citizens would be home enjoying their suppers. That was why they had planned it this way.

Alexandra’s cheeks glowed pink from the ride and excitement, and her thick, curling black hair tumbled around her shoulders. She looked beautiful and faintly exotic as she grinned at her sister and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her dress, exposing an impressive cleavage.

“Are you ready?” Marianne cast an expressive eye at Alexandra’s décolletage. “Did you stuff your chemise?”

“Nicola said we must distract them,” Alexandra pointed out, her grin widened. “But I didn’t stuff. Penelope, of all people, showed me a way to wrap a binding down and around and tie it, and
voilà!
”

“
Voilà
indeed,” Marianne commented dryly.

“It isn’t exactly as if you are unendowed,” Alexandra pointed out as Marianne pushed the sides of her cloak back, exposing a low-cut evening dress over which the tops of her soft white breasts spilled.

“I know.” Marianne glanced down and had to giggle. “I pinned my dress in the back so it was too tight. It has been bloody difficult to breathe, I’ll tell you.”

“But well worth it,” Alexandra said. “Here, take that off. We want him to see all that glorious fiery hair, after all.” She reached over and pushed Marianne’s hat back, so that it fell off and hung dangling behind her by its ribbons. “There. I think we look perfect. Ready?”

Marianne nodded, and the sisters climbed out of the gig. Going to the horse’s head, Alexandra backed him up, talking soothingly to him, until the left wheel of the little conveyance was hanging perilously in open air over the ditch. Another few steps and the vehicle would probably tumble over. Marianne ran to stick a rock under the other wheel to lock it so that that very thing would not happen. They needed a disabled vehicle, but also one that they could leave in quickly. Alexandra tied the reins around the nearby railing of a fence to keep the horse on a short lead.

Having secured things as best they could, Marianne and Alexandra looked at each other, lifted their skirts and started running down the street. They ran to the gaol, not a long distance, but carefully out of sight of the gig. They threw open the door to the gaol and staggered dramatically into the room, shrieking.

The gaoler, a middle-aged man of bovine appearance, sat at a desk across the room, in the midst of eating a cold supper. He looked up at the sudden entrance of the two women, and his jaw dropped. He stared dumbly, adding to his resemblance to a cow.

Alexandra, who had kept her skirts clutched up to expose the lower part of her legs, dropped them and lurched forward, her hand going to her breast like an amateur thespian in the throes of great emotion.

“Oh, sir!” she cried, her husky voice reverberating through the room. “You must help us! We have been attacked!”

“Attacked!” She would not have thought it possible, but the man’s eyes grew even larger and rounder.

“Yes!” Marianne added her voice to the scene, and she and Alexandra rushed toward the gaoler, their hands extended. “By highwaymen. It was awful! Awful!”

“Highwaymen! But there ain’t any highwaymen now,” the gaoler protested, looking confused. “They’re all locked up.”

“I tell you they attacked us!” Alexandra cried, reaching out and seizing the man’s hand. She took a step closer to him, her bosom heaving. The gaoler’s eyes went immediately down to her breasts and fastened there.

“Uh…mmm…that is…”

“You must help us,” Marianne said, stepped up beside him and laying her hand entreatingly on his arm. “Lambeth will be furious when he hears about this.”

“Lambeth?” The name caught his attention. The gaoler turned to look at her.

“Yes. The Marquess of Lambeth, my fiancé.”

“The Duke of Storbridge’s son,” Alexandra added for emphasis.

“Sweet Lord,” the beleaguered man breathed. “Then you—you’re the one staying with the Countess? Her granddaughter, they say?”

“Yes. And I am her other granddaughter, Lady Thorpe,” Alexandra supplied.

The gaoler looked thoroughly stunned now, reeling from the double blows of their titles and their amply exposed bosoms.

“You must help us,” Alexandra repeated, impatience beginning to creep into her voice.

“Yes, you must!” Marianne hooked her hand beneath the gaoler’s arm and started propelling him toward the door. “You must come with us.”

“Where?”

“The scene of the crime, of course,” Alexandra explained, linking her arm through the gaoler’s other arm.

“Oh, of course. But best I fetch the constable,” he said, stopping, his brow furrowing in thought. “And the magistrate.”

“What good can the magistrate do?” Alexandra exclaimed. “We need help now! And we need someone young and strong.”

“Yes, we must hurry,” Marianne urged, pulling him forward. “We might still be able to catch them.”

“What?” The gaoler came to a dead stop again, his face paling. “Catch them!”

“Don’t be silly, Marianne,” Alexandra said quickly, seeing the man’s expression. “The thieves won’t have hung around for us to bring help. They are long gone, I am sure. But we must get the gig out of the ditch.”

The gaoler looked relieved. “Oh, aye. Wait—I nearly forgot. The keys.” He turned back to the desk, on which lay a large ring of keys.

Alexandra let out a gusty sigh, rolled her eyes and flopped over against his chest.

“Oh, no, she fainted!” Marianne cried. “Oh, dear! What shall we do? Lord Thorpe will be furious with me. It was all my idea to take a turn in the gig this afternoon, you see, but then we waited too long, and dusk came, and…”

Marianne continued to chatter while the gaoler looked around, obviously at a loss as to what to do with a member of the nobility fainting in his arms. Finally he lowered Alexandra to the floor and looked up at Marianne for guidance.

“Get some water,” she suggested, and the man took off at a shambling run. Marianne dropped to her knees beside Alexandra, and Alexandra opened one eye.

“Is he gone?” she hissed, and Marianne nodded. “We cannot let him take those keys with him!”

“I know. If he does get them, just faint again, and I’ll sneak them off his belt. Da taught me a few tricks.”

She pulled a vial out of her reticule as she spoke, and Alexandra eyed it suspiciously. “What’s that? Not smelling salts!”

Marianne grimaced. “No. I’ve never fainted in my life. It’s a little bottle of perfume, but I’m going to pretend it’s smelling salts. Else we’ll have that man tossing a glass of water in your face.”

“Oh, Lord!” Alexandra grabbed the vial from her and held it to her nose, letting out a loud moan. “Oh, my! What happened?” she asked, sitting up, just as the gaoler came pelting back, carrying a cup from which water sloshed with every step he took.