A Knight in Shining Armor (Montgomery/Taggart #15)

A Knight in Shining Armor (Montgomery/Taggart #15) Page 24

At the tone in his voice, Dougless forgot her jealousy. “I can’t read them.”

“Oh?” he said, lifting one eyebrow. “I might teach you to read. In the evenings. I believe you could learn.”

Dougless laughed. “Okay, you’ve made your point. Now sit down and read.”

“And him?” Nicholas pointed with his sword at the sleeping Lee.

“He’s out of it for the night.”

Nicholas put his sword across the table and began to read the letter. Since Dougless could be of no help, she sat quietly and watched him. If he was so in love with his wife, why was he jealous when another man looked at her, Dougless? And why was he fooling around with Arabella?

“Nicholas?” she said softly. “Have you ever considered what would happen if you didn’t return to your time?”

“No,” he answered, scanning a letter. “I must return.”

“But what if you don’t? What if you stay here forever?”

“I have been sent here to find answers. A wrong has been done my family as well as me. I have been sent here to right that wrong.”

Dougless was playing with the hilt of his sword, rolling it so the jewels reflected in the table lamp. “But what if you were sent here for another reason? A reason that had nothing to do with your being accused of treason?”

“And what would be that reason?”

“I don’t know,” she said, but she thought, love.

He looked at her. “For this love you speak of?” he asked, almost reading her mind. “Perhaps God thinks as a woman and cares more for love than for honor.” He was making fun of her.

“For your information, there are many people who believe God is a woman.”

Nicholas gave her a look that let her know how absurd he thought that idea was.

“No, really,” Dougless said. “What if you don’t go back? What if you find out what you need to know, but you still stay here? Like say for a year or more?”

“I will not,” Nicholas said, but he looked up at Dougless. Four hundred years had not changed Arabella, he thought. She was the same. She still wanted one man after another in her bed, still had a heart of stone. But this girl who made him laugh, who helped him, who looked at him with big eyes that showed everything she felt, this woman could almost make him want to stay. “I must return,” he said sternly, then looked back at the letters.

“I know that what happened to your family is fiercely important, but then it did happen a long time ago, and, all in all, everything seems to have worked out all right. Your mother married a rich man and lived out her days in luxury. It wasn’t as though she were tossed out in the snow. And I know your family lost the Stafford estates, but, really, who was left to inherit them? You said you had no children, and your brother died childless, so who did you deprive? The estates went to Queen Elizabeth and she built England into a great country, so maybe your money helped your country. Maybe—”

“Cease!” Nicholas said angrily. “You do not understand honor. My memory is ridiculed. Arabella says she has read about me, and your world remembers only what a clerk recorded. I know that man. He was ugly and no woman would have him.”

“So he wrote about you. Nicholas, I’m sorry, but it really is done. It’s over. Maybe history can’t be changed. I was just wondering what you’d do if you had to stay, if you weren’t called back.”

Nicholas didn’t want to think about that. Would he tell Dougless that he’d marry her and run with her to bed? He didn’t want to tell her that Arabella, once so very, very appealing, was now a bore to him.

“Montgomery, do you fall in love with me again?” he asked, smiling at her. “Come, we will take these letters to my bedchamber. I will let you make love to me.”

“Drop dead,” Dougless said, rising. “Stay here and read. I don’t care what happens to you, whether you stay in the twentieth century or go back to the sixteenth century, or to the eighth, for all I care.” She left the room, shutting the door so hard Lee stirred on the bed.

Falling in love with him, indeed, she thought as she made her way back to her dreadful little room. She might as well fall in love with a ghost. He had about as much substance as a ghost. And, besides, if he did stay in the twentieth century, he’d be a great nuisance. Always, she’d have to explain things to him. Imagine trying to teach him to drive a car! Horrendous thought. And if he did stay, what would he do? What could he do? All he seemed capable of was riding mean horses, handling a sword, and . . .

And making love to women, she thought. He seemed to be awfully good at that.

As she made her way downstairs to her dreary little room, she told herself she’d be quite glad to get rid of him. His poor wife. She had a great deal to put up with. Arabella was the only one of his women Dougless knew about. There were probably hundreds of women the poor ugly little clerk had known nothing about, so the twentieth century knew nothing about all those women.

Yes, Dougless thought as she put on her nightgown, she would be well rid of him when the time came. But as she climbed into bed, she couldn’t imagine not seeing Nicholas every day, not watching his delight over things she took for granted. She couldn’t imagine not seeing his smile or having him tease her.

It took her a long time before she slept and when she did, she slept fitfully.

In the morning, feeling absolutely rotten, Dougless went into the kitchen and found Mrs. Anderson and another woman staring at the worktable. It was covered with opened tin cans, somewhere between twenty and thirty of them.

“What happened?” Dougless asked.

“I’m not sure,” the cook said. “I opened a tin of pineapple, then left the room for a moment. When I returned, someone had opened all these tins.”

Dougless stood frowning for a moment, then looked at Mrs. Anderson. “Did anyone see you open the can of pineapple?”

“Now that you mention it, there was someone here. Lord Nicholas came through to go to the stables. He stopped and spoke to me. Very nice man, that.”

Dougless tried to hide her smile. Nicholas had no doubt seen the marvel of a can opener and decided to try it out. At that moment a maid came running into the kitchen carrying a vacuum cleaner hose.

“I need a broom handle,” the maid said, sounding as though she were about to cry. “Lord Nicholas asked me to show him how the Hoover worked, and he sucked up all of Lady Arabella’s jewelry. I’ll be discharged when she finds out.”

Dougless left the kitchen feeling a great deal better than she had when she got up that morning.

She didn’t know where she was supposed to eat breakfast, but she wandered into the empty dining room and found a sideboard covered with silver chafing dishes. Feeling a little defiant, she filled a plate and sat down.

“Good morning,” Lee said, entering the room. He filled a plate and sat across from her. “Ah . . . sorry about last night,” he said. “I guess I sort of passed out. Did you see the letters?”

“I did, but I couldn’t read them,” she said honestly, then leaned forward. “Have you read enough to find out who betrayed Nicholas Stafford to the queen?”

“Oh, heavens, yes. I found that out the first time I opened the trunk, and I have that letter hidden.”

“Who?” she asked under her breath.

Lee opened his mouth to speak, but then Nicholas entered the room, and Lee shut up.

“Montgomery,” Nicholas said sternly. “I would see you in the library.” He turned and left the room.

Lee grunted. “What’s wrong with him? Get out on the wrong side of Arabella’s bed?”

Dougless threw down her napkin, glared at Lee, then went to the library. She closed the door behind her. “Do you know what you just did? Lee was about to tell me who betrayed you when you walked in and stopped him.”

Nicholas had circles under his eyes, but instead of making him look bad, they made him look even more darkly romantic, rather like Heathcliff. “I read the letters,” he said as he sat down in a leather-upholstered chair and stared out the window. “There is no naming of who betrayed me.”

Something was making him sad. Dougless went to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “What is it? Did the letters upset you?”

“The letters tell,” he said softly, “of what my mother suffered after my death. She tells of . . .” He stopped, took her hand, and held on to her fingers. “She tells of the ridicule of the Stafford name.”

Dougless couldn’t bear the pain in his voice. Moving to the front of the chair, she knelt before him and put her hands on his knees. “We’ll find out who lied about you,” Dougless said. “If Lee knows, I’ll find out. And when we do find out, you can return and change things. Your being here means you’re being given a second chance.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then cupped her face in his big hands. “Do you always give hope? Do you never believe there is no hope?”

She smiled. “I’m almost always optimistic. That’s why I keep falling in love with thugs and hoping one of them will turn into my Knight in Shining—Oh, Colin,” she said, and started to pull away.

But Nicholas pulled her up from the floor and into his arms; then he kissed her. He’d kissed her before, but then he’d merely desired her, now he wanted more from her. Now he wanted her sweetness and her loving heart. He wanted the way she looked at him, the way she was so eager to please.

“Dougless,” he whispered, holding her, kissing her neck.

It was when the thought crossed his mind that he didn’t want to leave that he shoved her from him. “Go,” he murmured in the tone of a man under great stress.

Dougless stood up, but anger filled her. “I don’t understand you. You kiss any woman who can reach your face, you never push any of them away, but with me you act like I have some contagious disease. What is it? Do I have terminal bad breath? I’m too short for you? My hair isn’t the right color?”

When Nicholas looked at her, all his desire for her, all his longing, was flaming in his eyes.

Dougless stepped back from him, as a person might step back from a fire that was too hot. She put her hand to her throat, and for a long moment they just looked at each other.

The door flew open and Arabella burst into the room. She was wearing what was obviously a designer-made English outdoor outfit. “Nicholas, where have you been?” She looked from Nicholas to Dougless and back again, and she didn’t seem to like what she saw.

Dougless turned away, for she could no longer bear to look in Nicholas’s eyes.

“Nicholas,” Arabella demanded. “We are waiting. The guns are loaded.”

“Guns?” Dougless asked, turning around, trying to compose herself.

Arabella looked Dougless up and down, and obviously found her wanting. Tall women often seemed to feel like that about small women, Dougless thought, and was awfully glad men didn’t feel the same way.

“We hunt duck,” Nicholas said, but he wasn’t looking at Dougless. “Dickie has promised to show me what a shotgun is.”

“Great,” Dougless said, “go shoot pretty little ducks. I’ll manage.” Hurrying past Arabella, she ran out the door. Later, from an upstairs window, she looked down on the courtyard as Nicholas got into a Land Rover and Arabella drove him away.

Turning away, Dougless realized that she had nothing to do. She didn’t feel free to explore Arabella’s house, and she didn’t want to walk in Arabella’s gardens. She asked a passing servant where Lee was, but was told that he was locked in his room with the letters and had left instructions that he was not to be disturbed.

“But he left a book for you in the library,” the servant said.

Dougless went back to the library and there on the desk was a small volume with a note attached. “Thought you might enjoy this. Lee,” the note read. She picked up the book.

At first sight she knew what it was: it was the diary of John Wilfred, the ugly little clerk who wrote of Nicholas and Arabella-on-the table. The forward said the book had been found hidden in a cubbyhole behind a wall when one of Nicholas’s houses had been torn down in the nineteen fifties.

Dougless took the book and settled down on a big sofa to read it. Within twenty pages she knew it was the diary of a lovesick young man—and he loved Nicholas’s wife, Lettice. According to John Wilfred, his mistress could do no wrong and his master no right. Pages that listed Nicholas’s shortcomings were followed by pages listing Lettice’s glories. According to this drooling clerk, Lettice was beautiful beyond pearls, wise, virtuous, kind, talented . . . On and on he went, until Dougless wanted to throw up.

The clerk had nothing good to say about Nicholas. According to the book, Nicholas spent his time fornicating, blaspheming, and making the lives of everyone around him hell. Other than the snide, spiteful story about Arabella and the table, there were no specific stories about what Nicholas had done to deserve the animosity of all (if Wilfred was to be believed) his household.

When Dougless finished the book, she slammed it shut. Because of the false accusation of treason against Nicholas, his estates had been destroyed, and with them the true story of his life. Lost to the future was the true story of how he’d managed the estates owned by his brother and how he’d designed a beautiful mansion. All that was left of him were the spiteful yearnings of a whining man. Yet people today believed this.

She stood up, her anger making her fists clench. Nicholas was right: he had to return to his own time to right the wrong done him. She’d tell him about the book, and when he returned to the sixteenth century, he could kick ol’ John Wilfred out of his house. Or, Dougless thought, smiling, he could send the ugly little clerk off with the perfect Lettice.

Taking the book, Dougless left the library and asked a servant where Lord Nicholas’s room was. She thought she’d leave the book for him to see. He was beginning to be able to read modern print now, and she was sure he’d have enough interest to read this book.

His room was next to one that a maid said was Lady Arabella’s. It would be, Dougless thought angrily.

Once in his room, her anger left her. It was done in shades of blue, with a four-poster bed draped with rich blue silk. In the bathroom were Nicholas’s toiletries, all the things she’d chosen for him. Putting out her hand, she touched the shaving cream, the toothpaste, and his razor.

Quite suddenly, it hit her how much she missed him. Since he’d appeared they’d been together almost constantly. They’d shared a bedroom and a bathroom; they’d shared meals and jokes. Turning, she looked at the tub, saw that there was no showerhead above it, and wondered how he was dealing with the lack of a shower. Were there other things in his room that he didn’t understand yet had no one to ask about?