Read No Other Love for Free Online

of herbs and plants and walked with her in the woods, where Granny searched for wild plants, pointing them out to Nicola and explaining all their uses and dangers. She taught her how to decoct her potions, how to dry and cook and steep and grind, what proportions to use. Nicola diligently wrote down each step of her recipes, adding them to her collection. Granny, who told her that her own daughter had never been interested in learning her secrets, was happy to entrust them to Nicola to use and preserve.
    Granny was wise in many other ways, too, and Nicola often stayed to chat with her over a cup of fragrant tea. She had told her about her father and his death, about her mother, even about the persistent pursuit of the Earl of Exmoor. Granny frowned at this and shook her head.
    “A bad ‘un, that ‘un. Ye best be stayin’ away from him,” she said grimly.
    “Bad?” Nicola looked at her, faintly surprised. Though she had not liked the Earl, she had not attributed it to any sense of evil in the man. “But no one has said that he has done anything wrong.”
    “Mayhap they don’t know it,” Granny pointed out, with a sage nod of her head. “Mayhap he’s good at hiding it from his own sort. But them that works fer him, they see, and they know. There’s no kindness in the man.”
    “Well, I shan’t be marrying him,” Nicola assured her. “No matter what Mother thinks.”
    After that conversation, she was a little embarrassed to tell Granny that she had gone against her own judgment and had been to Tidings as frequently as she had been able to the past two weeks. Besides, she found herself reluctant to reveal her desire to see the groom again. Granny would no doubt find it as odd as any of the people in her own class would; ladies did not mingle with grooms, even ladies as pleasant and down-to-earth as Nicola. Moreover, Nicola found herself reluctant to share anything about the feeling that had swept over her; it was something she had hugged to herself for two weeks.
    As they drank their tea, Nicola noticed that Granny Rose kept glancing out the window with some frequency, and finally she realized that her mentor seemed to be waiting for someone. So Nicola drank a last sip of her tea and rose, taking her leave. Granny smiled and patted her arm, and Nicola thought with a faint sense of hurt that Granny was happy for her to go. She told herself that Granny’s visitor was probably someone who did not wish to be seen visiting the local medicine woman, which also meant that it was probably some member of the local gentry whom Nicola would recognize. The thought made her feel a little bit better.
    She slipped out the front door and started down the path, then stopped abruptly when she realized that there was a man standing beside her horse, running his hand down the animal’s neck and talking to it in a low voice. He turned at the sound of the door closing, and his brows sailed upward in surprise.
    Nicola simply stood, stunned into a breathless silence. The man looking back at her was the groom from Tidings. He was dressed in his Sunday best today, though he had taken off the dark jacket and had it slung over his shoulder. His shirt was white against his browned skin and open at the throat, the sleeves rolled up against the heat of the day.
    He smiled now, the same cocky grin that he had worn the other day, as he sauntered toward her. “Well, now, if it isn’t the lady. And what would such a high-born creature be doing coming out of Granny Rose’s cottage?”
    He stopped only a foot away from her and looked down at her, one eyebrow arching in amusement. His eyes were as dark as she remembered them, the dimple in his cheek just as deep. Nicola suddenly found it difficult to breathe.
    She lifted her chin a little. She was not about to let him know that he had a drastic effect on her. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
    “They usually send their maids…unless, of course, they’re seeking a remedy for something they can’t