No Other Love (9 page)

“Highwayman?” Lydia repeated innocently, and Nicola could almost see her mind racing behind her carefully blank eyes.

“Yes. The highwayman,” Nicola repeated a bit wryly. “He stopped my carriage last night, you know.”

“No!” Mrs. Hinton set down her cup with a clatter, looking genuinely shocked. “Now, he hadn’t ought to have done that, Miss Falcourt. Not to you. I mean, it’s one thing when it’s
his—”
She stopped abruptly, then added lamely, “Well, there’s no call to be stopping a lady like yerself.”

Nicola smiled faintly. “If you are worrying that I might tell the Earl anything you say to me, you needn’t. Exmoor and I are not on the best of terms.”

“It’s clear you haven’t visited them before all these years…” Lydia admitted. “But blood is thicker than water, they say—”

“Exmoor and I share no blood!” Nicola snapped, her gray eyes suddenly silver with emotion. “My sister’s foolish decision to marry the man does not bind
me
to him in any way. I think you know me well enough to know that I have no interest in hurting anyone. Did I ask how young Harry got shotgun pellets in his thigh last month when it was clear as day that he must have been poaching? Did I tell Lord Buckminster or his gamekeeper that I had given him salve after his father had dug out the pellets and left him with a raging infection? I did not. I put it on and bound him up and never said a word to anyone. And Bucky is my dear cousin—if I did not tell him, you can be sure I would never reveal anything detrimental to Lord Exmoor, whom I despise.”

Lydia flushed. “It’s that sorry I am, miss. I know you wouldn’t be tellin’ on anyone. It was just, well, you know, you are livin’ at Tidings now, and your sister is his lady.”

“I know.” Nicola smiled at her. She understood the woman’s innate distrust of a member of the aristocracy. No matter how well one might get along with the common people, there was always the possibility that, when it came to something important, one would revert, would come down on the side of one’s “own kind.” “But I’ll tell you this: even though he robbed me, I did not give a good description of him to the Bow Street Runner.”

“Runner!” the other cried, alarmed.

Nicola nodded. “Yes. The Earl has hired a Runner to investigate the highwayman and his gang. His name is Stone, and I talked to him this morning. He looks a hard man. I did not like him.”

The other woman shook her head. “The Gentleman shouldn’t be taking such risks. I knew he’d go too far one day and his lordship would go after him. The Earl’s not a man to be crossin’, is what I say.”

“No doubt you are right about that,” Nicola agreed. “You sound as if—do you know this man? Have you met him?”

Lydia shifted in her chair, looking uneasy. “I don’t know him, exactly. I’ve, uh, well, he’s
known
around here.”

“I don’t understand.”

Lydia sighed, then straightened, looking Nicola in the eye. “He is liked, miss, that’s what I’m sayin’. He’s done things for people. He helps them out.”

“You mean gives them money?”

Lydia nodded. “Aye, he does. You know Ernest Macken, miss. He’s got a wife and five little ones, and he’s worked in the tin mines all his life. Well, he come up sick and couldn’t go to work for weeks. His lordship let him go, and he owns the house they live in, too, miss, and he was ready to turn them out ‘cause they couldn’t keep up the rent with Ernest not workin’. But one night they hear a thump at the door, and Jenny, she gets up and goes to the door, and there’s a sack lyin’ there, and when she looks inside, it’s got coins in it. Enough to pay their rent for six months and buy food and clothes, too.”

“And it was the highwayman who gave it to them? How do they know?”

“Who else? There’s none around here that has that much money to hand, except for the Earl or the Squire or Lord Buckminster, and none of them were riding about at night droppin’ off sacks of coin.”

“No, I am sure you are right.”

“It has happened to others, too. Some more, some less. Faith Burkitt, when her man died? His lordship would have turned her out, too. She got money at her door, too, but she got a look at the man when he left it, and she said he was dressed all in black, with a mask on his face.”

“He is a sort of Robin Hood?”

Lydia nodded vigorously. “That’s how people round here feel, miss. He helps them out, which is more than you can say for anyone else, and he hurts the Earl only, and there’s none as would cry over
that.
”

“No, I am sure not. I would not imagine that Exmoor is a good landlord or employer.” As the Earl of Exmoor, Richard had inherited not only tin mines but a good deal of the land in the area, both farms and much of the village, as well.

Lydia made a face. “The old Earl wasn’t a bad sort, and they say his father before him was the same. But when the new Earl came in…” She shook her head gloomily. “The wages at the mines are a sin, and that’s God’s own truth, miss. Not long after he got hold of them, he cut the wages. Says they weren’t makin’ enough profit. It was enough profit for the old Earl, now, wasn’t it? Then he raises the rent that the mine workers who live in his houses have to pay. It’s hard enough on the farmers, especially when they have a bad year, but what about the miners? He’s payin’ them less, and they’re havin’ to pay him more. It’s a sin, that’s what it is.”

“Yes, it is,” Nicola agreed. It was this sort of inequity that filled her with righteous indignation and had fueled her venture into charitable projects in the East End. It had also gotten her into enough arguments with others at parties that she was generally termed a radical and a bluestocking by her peers. “It is not surprising that the people have no qualms about his being robbed. Lady Exmoor told me it was mostly his wagons that were preyed upon by the brigands.”

Lydia nodded. “Aye. Oh, a carriage now and then that’s traveling through. But not local people much. Once he stopped the doctor when he was driving in his new gig to see a patient, and when he saw who it was, he just waved him on, didn’t take a cent from him.”

“He sounds like a saint.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s not that, miss. He’s a man, after all, and I’ve never met many of them that were saints. But he’s after the Earl only—there’s no mistakin’ that.”

“I wonder why.”

“Why? After what the Earl’s done? Who better?”

“I’m sure that is true, but thieves are not usually so selective. It sounds as if he has something against the Earl personally. Is he from around here?”

Lydia shook her head. “No. He moved in a few months ago. At first there was just him and the men that came with him, but after a while, some others joined him.”

“You mean local men?”

Lydia nodded, her gaze measuring.

“Oh, dear.” Nicola frowned. “I am afraid of what might happen to them. The Earl is dead set on catching him. Now with the Runner trying to find him…”

“I wouldn’t worry too much, miss. ‘The Gentleman’ is a slick one. There’s none that know where he lives. The local men meet him at a certain place, but that ain’t where he and the outsiders stay. There’s four of them, and they live someplace hidden. He’s never told a soul.”

“What—what is he like?” Nicola looked down at her cup as she spoke, turning it idly.

“Like? I’m not sure, miss. I’ve never seen him but the once.” She edged closer and lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. “One night Ste—that is to say, a man comes to the inn, and he won’t speak to anybody but me Jasper, so Jasper goes down there, and I gets up to see what’s what. So I creeps down to the landing, and I’m sittin’ there in the dark on the stairs, where no one can see me. Well, Ste—this man—says to Jasper that he needs a tot of whiskey for someone outside. It was rainin’ and blowin’ something fierce, not a fit night out for man nor beast. So me Jasper says why can’t the man come inside, it’s a sight dryer, and he says he just can’t, and finally Jasper goes and pours a glass of whiskey. Then I hears the sound of boots and spurs on the stones outside, and the next thing you know, this man steps into the doorway. I next to keeled over with terror, I’ll tell you!”

Mrs. Hinton pantomimed her shock, one hand going to her chest, her eyes widening and her mouth dropping open. “He was a big man, like to fill the doorway, towering over me Jasper and this other man. And he’s dressed all in black, he is, from his head to his toes, and he’s even wearing a black mask over the top half of his face. Well, I knew who he was, of course, as soon as I saw him, and I was that scared for Jasper, because, well, no matter what everybody said about him, you just never know, do you? Then in this elegant voice, he says, ‘Thank you, sir, I won’t trouble you to bring this outside on such a stormy night as this.’ And he took the glass from him and knocked it back—and paid him with a gold coin! I nearly fell off the stairs when I saw that. Then he bids a very polite farewell to Jasper and turns to go, but as he turns, he says, not even looking over at me, ‘And good night to you, too, Mrs. Hinton.’ I couldn’t believe it! He’d spotted me in that little bit of time, but neither of the other two had caught sight of me the whole time they were standing there.”

“So you’ve never seen his face? Has anyone?”

“Not me, miss. Some of the girls in the village say that he’s handsome, but they’re just silly romantic chits. I dare swear they’ve never seen him even in a mask, let alone without it. He stays to himself, he does. I don’t know anyone who knows anything about him—not even where he comes from.”

Nicola was sure that if Mrs. Hinton didn’t know anything, then no one did. “I wonder if he is really a gentleman,” she mused. “He certainly sounded it.”

“His hands aren’t those of a gentleman,” Lydia said decisively, shaking her head. “I saw ’em when he pulled off his gloves to take his drink. They’re big and callused and scarred—the hands of a man who’s worked all his life. Not even a gentleman who rides without his gloves has hands like that.”

“Then how did he learn to speak like that?”

The other woman shrugged. “He’s a mystery, Miss Falcourt, and that’s a fact. Personally, I think he likes it that way. He don’t want people to know about him.”

“Mmm. I suppose that the less anyone knows about him, the less likely anyone would be able to turn him in.”

“Oh, won’t no one turn him in, miss, I’ll tell you that. He’s a hero here.”

“Even if Exmoor offers a reward?” Nicola asked. “There is always someone in a town willing to talk then. I’ll venture that it won’t be long before Richard turns to that. He is determined to capture him. He takes the man’s acts as a personal affront.”

“Well, be that as it may, he’ll have a hard time catchin’ that one. And anyone who does turn him in better watch his backside around here.”

“I hope you’re right. I should hate for any of the locals who ride with him to be caught. It would mean hanging for them, you know.”

“Aye, I know.” Mrs. Hinton looked somber for a moment, but then her ready smile was back. “But they won’t get caught. I’m tellin’ you, he’s canny.”

Having exhausted Mrs. Hinton’s store of knowledge on the subject of the mysterious highwayman, Nicola turned their conversation to other matters. Finally, Mrs. Hinton rose, saying that she’d taken up enough of Nicola’s time.

“But, if you don’t mind, miss,” she asked, knowing the answer as well as Nicola did, “some of the girls complain about their ‘time of the month,’ and Granny Rose used to give them something that fixed them right up. Would you be knowing the recipe?”

“I do indeed. I brought some with me, if you’ll have someone fetch my bag from my horse.”

“Of course, miss. You’re a good woman, if you don’t mind my bein’ so bold as to say that. Granny Rose would be proud of you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hinton. That makes me very pleased.”

So for the rest of the afternoon Nicola stayed in the private parlor of the inn, listening to the ills of first the servants, then various other townspeople who had heard that she was there and dropped in to seek her help. She dispensed advice and remedies, and when she did not have the decoction that she thought would best cure an ill, she made a note of it and promised to send something to them the next day. Several people came for loved ones who were ill at home, and these Nicola accompanied back to their houses to see the patients and take note of their symptoms herself.

The afternoon lengthened, then died away, and it was growing dark when she turned away from Tom Jeffers’s house, where she had gone to see his mother, who lay frail and shriveled in her bed, slowly drifting away from life. Nicola had known at once that there was nothing she could do for the woman except give her a tonic to ease the pain the old woman was suffering.

She walked back down the street toward the inn to retrieve her horse, but before she reached it, she saw a man’s figure hurrying down a side street toward her, and instinctively she knew that he came for her.

“Miss! Miss!” he gasped, short of breath. “Wait! Don’t go.”

She stopped, letting him catch up to her. “Why, Frank.” She smiled at the man, whom she recognized now as the husband of one of the former housemaids at Buckminster. The couple had been married five years now and had four children. “How are you?”

“Not good, Miss Falcourt, not good.” He stopped, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry, miss. We just heard you was here. It’s the baby—he’s sick. He don’t sound good, like he can hardly breathe. Lucy was up all night with him, but he just keeps getting worse. Can you come? Lucy fair brightened up when she heard you was here. ‘The young lady can fix him,’ she says. Can you, miss?”