No Other Love (42 page)

“The ring means nothing,” Richard snapped. “Anyone could have found it anywhere. Even if it is the precious Montford family ring, it scarcely proves that the person holding it is Chilton’s son. You haven’t said anything that would stand up in a court of law.”

“No?” The Countess stood up, a smile of triumph on her lips. “I think this will, though. John Montford had a birthmark. It is noted in the family records. It was brown and shaped something like a crescent moon. It is located on his back, on the right shoulder blade. I have seen it. I can identify it.” She started toward Jack, saying, “I am afraid you will have to take off your shirt. I’m sorry.”

Jack stared at her with a stunned expression on his face. He turned and unbuttoned his shirt as she bade him to, exposing his broad back. There on his right shoulder blade was a small, crescent-shaped birthmark.

“By Jove!” Squire Halsey exclaimed.

“John!” the Countess said, her eyes swimming with tears. “Oh, Johnny, you’ve come home.” She reached up a trembling hand to cup his cheek.

Everyone’s eyes were on the Countess and Jack, even Lambeth’s and Thorpe’s. Richard whirled and ran for the door, knocking the Squire out of his way. Lambeth whipped around and raised his pistol, but Jack was already across the room, a feral, wordless cry erupting from his lips. He threw himself the last few feet and crashed into Richard, knocking him down.

The two men rolled across the floor, punching and grappling, crashing into tables and chairs and sending knickknacks flying. Richard managed to struggle to his feet, and he landed a kick in Jack’s side, but Jack lashed out with his hand, grabbing the other man’s ankle and sending him crashing to the ground. Jack crawled across the floor after him and finished him off with a right upper cut to Richard’s jaw. Richard went limp.

Jack staggered to his feet, breathing heavily, and Nicola ran to his side. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

But Nicola was not satisfied, alternating between examining each cut and red mark and hugging and kissing him. They turned and began to walk back toward the Countess.

Everyone was babbling excitedly as they watched Jack and Nicola cross the room toward the Countess, so no one noticed when Richard twitched, then moved on the floor. He raised his head and glanced around. His eyes fastened on Jack, whose back was to him, his hand linked with Nicola’s. Richard’s eyes narrowed, and he made a noise low in his throat. Stealthily he stood up, lunged toward the pistol that Alexandra had abandoned earlier on one of the tables, and grabbed it.

Penelope saw him move and let out a shriek. Everyone turned, including Jack and Nicola. No one was close enough to reach Richard in time to take the gun away, though Sebastian and Justin both ran toward him. Richard and Jack simply stared into each other’s eyes, the moment frozen in time. Then Richard raised his hand and aimed.

A shot rang out, and Richard jerked backward, a look of astonishment on his features as a red stain blossomed across the front of his white shirt. He crumpled to the ground, dead. Everyone whirled around. The Countess stood there, slim and elegant, holding Sebastian’s pistol in her hand.

“May you rot in hell,” she said quietly, and dropped the pistol to the floor.

N
ICOLA FLUFFED OUT
P
ENELOPE’S VEIL AND
stepped back to admire her handiwork. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

Penelope smiled. “Thank you.”

They turned to Marianne, who was equally radiant in her wedding gown. Her sister, Alexandra, was adjusting her veil, tears in her eyes. Alexandra smiled at Nicola.

“In two months we shall be doing this for you,” Alexandra said. “Won’t that be grand? We shall all be sisters.”

“You know, a few months ago,” Marianne mused, “I had no family at all. Now I have a grandmother, a brother, sister, cousins, aunts—and soon a sister-in-law.” She reached out and took both Nicola’s hands in hers. “I am so happy.”

“I am, too.”

It had been a month since Richard died, and much had changed since then. All charges had been dropped against Jack. The man who had pressed charges was dead, and, moreover, no one found it reasonable to charge a man with stealing property that turned out to be, by rights, his own.

Jack was now living at Tidings, along with the Countess and Ursula, who expected to remain until his wedding to Nicola in two months. He had been spending the last month correcting the abuses against the Exmoor tenants and workers that Richard had perpetrated. It would take some time before he would have everything the way it should be, but he was enjoying the work, and the people of the area loved him. He had brought Perry and his other men back to Tidings, where they now worked for him in more legitimate endeavors. Perry was now managing the mine for Jack.

“It’s like going from hell to heaven,” Maidie Thompson had told Nicola the last time she had been in the village, bringing old Mr. Holliwell tea for his rheumatism.

Nicola smiled to herself. The past month had been like going from hell to heaven for her, too. The love that had been snatched from her ten years earlier had been restored, and she was blissfully happy. Soon she would marry Jack and become part of a warm family whom she loved. Life could not, she thought, be more perfect.

“Well,” said the Countess from where she sat, surveying the process of dressing the brides, “you are both lovely. I think that my life is complete. To watch two of my granddaughters marry today. To have you back with me after all these years…” Her eyes filled with tears.

Nicola reflected that the aristocratic old woman had never uttered one word of regret for shooting Richard, at least not in Nicola’s hearing. She suspected she never would.

In truth, there were few people who mourned Richard’s passing. Only Deborah had loved him, but even her sadness had eased over the past month, and she had, out from under his dominance, begun to blossom and glow in a way she never had before. Some of that glow, Nicola thought privately, was due to the fact that Jack’s friend Perry had returned to the area after Richard’s death and had begun to visit the mother-to-be with some frequency. She was also further along now in her pregnancy, and she was increasingly hopeful that this baby, at last, would be brought to full term. It certainly would, Nicola knew, if Nurse had anything to do with it.

“Time to go.” Aunt Ursula bustled in. “The carriages are waiting, and I’m sure the church is full by now.”

The women had dressed at Tidings, and now carriages would take them to the church in the village. They left the bedroom where they had changed and swept down the staircase to the grand entryway below.

Jack stood waiting for them at the bottom of the staircase, and he swept them an elegant bow. “I definitely have the most beautiful family in the world,” he said with a grin. “You, Grandmama, are the loveliest of them all.”

“Dear boy.” The Countess pinched his cheek lightly and smiled. “I always knew you would turn out to be a charmer.”

She moved past him toward the door, her daughter and granddaughters walking with her. Jack turned to Nicola. He smiled, his eyes caressing her face. He reached out and took her hand and brought it tenderly to his lips.

“I’m not sure I can wait two months,” he said, turning her hand over to kiss her palm. “I never get to see you enough.” He leaned close to her, murmuring, “I want to go to sleep with you at night and wake up beside you in the morning.”

“I want that, too,” Nicola confessed, a little catch in her voice. “But we will have that for the rest of our lives.”

“I am counting on it,” Jack replied, and bent to kiss her.

Nicola leaned into him, losing herself, as she always did, in the pleasure of his mouth. Finally he raised his head, looking down into her starry eyes.

“It’s been grand, suddenly being an earl, having a family, all that,” he said quietly, his eyes serious for once.

“But the best thing that has happened to me since I came here is finding your love again.”

“Time to go!” Aunt Ursula trumpeted from the front door.

Jack and Nicola grinned at each other. She slipped her hand in his, and together they started forward.