No Other Love by Candace Camp

Author:Candace Camp [Camp, Candace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical romance
ISBN: 9780263849561
Published: 2006-07-06T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jack watched Nicola walk away, something hard and heavy forming in the area of his chest. He had been in a turmoil all day. He kept seeing Nicola's face when he took off his mask, the utter and complete shock that had pervaded her features. He had known she would be startled, but he had not expected her to faint Then there had been the flash of joy when she opened her eyes and saw him. He remembered the way she had cried out his name and thrown her arms around him, kissing him ecstatically. He thought of the things she had said, the questions she had asked, her initial cry that he was alive. How could any of that have been feigned?But if she was not pretending her reaction, that meant that everything he had believed for the past ten years had been wrong. And that was equally impossible. Jack thought about the night when Richard and his men burst into the farmer's house and dragged him out of bed. He had been asleep, content despite his bruises from being dragged along the stony River Lyd, because he knew that soon Nicola would come to him and they would leave for a new life together.

Then Richard had stormed in, and all his rosy dreams had come crashing down. Richard had looked at him, his face stamped with contempt.

"What? Surprised to see me? Who were you expecting? Miss Falcourt, perhaps?" His laugh was scornful. "Did you really think that she would marry you, you worm? It's all very well to dally with a peasant, but marriage? I can see her now, living in a hovel, a babe on one hip and another in her belly, sweating over a mess of gruel. You are a fool."

"What are you doing here?" Jack had gasped out, dazed and struggling to sit up from where they had thrown him on the ground. "How did you know?”

"Trifle slow, aren't you? Good gad, what did Nicola see in you? How do you think I knew? Nicola told me. She showed me your pathetic little letter, driveling on about marrying and going to live in blissful poverty. Thank God she has more sense than you. She knows that she will marry a peer, an equal. It is the life she knows, the life she expects to lead. She would never throw herself away on the likes of you. Of course, when she read your letter, she could see that getting rid of you would be a problem, so she came to me, asking me to send you away. Which is precisely what I intend to do, as I plan to be the peer she marries."

Jack remembered the slashing pain that had pierced him at the Earl's words, worse than any physical pain that Richard's men had inflicted on him as they tied him and gagged him and tossed him callously in the back of a wagon. At first he had struggled against the truth, refusing to acknowledge that Nicola could have betrayed him.

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