No Other Love by Candace Camp

below. Finally, she turned away, and as she did so, a flash of gold just below the rim of the gorge caught her eye. She looked again, her eyes focusing on the small, thorny bush that grew out of the cliffside less than a foot below the edge. She spotted the wink of gold again, and she dropped down onto her knees at the edge of the cliff, her heart beginning to pound. There, caught in the thorny foliage, was the ring Gil had given her. When Richard had torn it from her neck and tossed it away, it must have fallen into this bush and caught. It had been here for all these weeks, just waiting for her!
    Almost sick at the thought that she had almost missed the ring, Nicola lay down flat on the ground and inched forward, reaching down over the edge of the cliff until she could reach the little bush. Her fingers closed around the ring, and she wriggled backward, clutching it in her hand. This much, at least, she had of Gil; she would always have it.
    She had pocketed the ring, her heart less heavy than before, and had ridden back to Buckminster. The next day she had gone to London with her aunt.
     
    N ICOLA TURNED AND WALKED AWAY from the Falls, her hand going unconsciously to her pocket, where the ring lay. It had been her habit through the years to wear the ring hidden from the eyes of others on a long chain underneath her dress, except when she wore a dress, as she did today, that would have revealed the ring. At first it had served as a kind of talisman, a reminder of Gil that comforted and strengthened her, helped her through the worst days of sorrow and pain. Now she had worn it so long that it had become almost second nature, something she rarely thought about.
    Leading her horse to a rock, she mounted and rode away from the Falls. She turned toward the village, riding cross-country until she reached the country lane that led to the village from the south. She stopped at the vicarage first, politely calling on the vicar’s wife. But she kept her visit short, know that the amiable, gentle vicar’s wife would have no answers to any of the questions she was filled with.
    As she was leaving, the housekeeper came around the side of the house to intercept her. It seemed that the cook had come down with catarrh, and the scullery maid had a bad case of chilblains. Nicola went around to the side door and gave the cook a tonic containing hyssop and elder flowers, and the maid a small tin of arnica cream.
    “Yer a sweet girl, Miss Falcourt, and that’s the God’s truth,” the housekeeper said, smiling broadly. “Me sister Em told me how you cured the itchin’ on her feet for her last month, and I told Cook as soon as I saw ye this afternoon that ye’d do the same for her.”
    “Your sister Em?” Nicola asked. “Are you Mrs. Potson’s sister?”
    Nicola wouldn’t have thought it possible that the woman’s smile could broaden any more, but it did. “That’s right! Ain’t you the downy one?”
    “How is your sister?”
    “Feeling pretty well these days, though she gets down in her back sometimes, but that comes from lifting too much. I tell her, time and time again, to let that girl of hers do more of the work, but she lets that Sally twist her round her little finger, she does. Ah, well…” She shrugged expressively. “There’s no tellin’ her.”
    Nicola smiled. She wouldn’t have thought anyone could twist the redoubtable Mrs. Potson around her finger. She certainly ran her large, quiet husband and the rest of the household, as far as Nicola could see.
    Her first stop after the vicarage was the inn. It was owned by Jasper Hinton, a man as thin and small as his wife was tall and large. They were unalike in most every other way, as well, he being a nearly silent man with more liking for numbers than for people, and his wife Lydia a gregarious soul who would rather talk than eat—and it was obvious that she enjoyed her food a good deal. The inn and adjoining tavern were a natural location for local gossip and