No Other Love by Candace Camp

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