A Knight in Shining Armor Read online

  “Miss Montgomery,” she said in a cold voice.

  “Miss Montgomery,” he said just as coolly, “see that my capcases are sent up. I plan to look at my house.”

  “Shall I accompany you?”

  “Nay, I want no hellkite with me,” he said angrily, then left the room.

  Dougless saw that the suitcases were brought up, then asked the clerk where the local library was. Feeling very efficient, she set off through the little village, notebook and pens in hand, but as she neared the library, her steps slowed.

  Don’t think about your life, she told herself. Being dropped by one man and immediately finding another one—a good one—was all a dream, an impossible, unreachable dream. Cold, she thought, I have to remain cold. Think of Antarctica. Siberia. Do your job and remain cool to him. He belongs to another woman and to another time.

  It was easy finding what the librarian called the “Stafford Collection.” “Many of the visitors to our village ask after the Staffords, especially the guests staying at Thornwyck Castle,” the librarian said.

  “I’m especially interested in the last earl, Nicholas Stafford.”

  “Oh, yes, poor man, condemned to be beheaded, then dying before the execution. It’s believed he was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned by whom?” Dougless asked eagerly as she followed the woman into the stacks.

  “By the person who accused him of treason, of course,” she said, looking at Dougless as though she didn’t understand even simple things. “It’s believed that Lord Nicholas built Thornwyck Castle. A local historian says that he believes Lord Nicholas may have even designed it, but no one can prove it. No one has found drawings with his name on them. Well, here we are, all the books on this shelf have something in them about the Staffords.”

  After the librarian left, Dougless took out each book, searched the index for any mention of Nicholas or his mother, and began reading.

  One of the first things she did was look for the name Nicholas had given her of the man he said had had a grudge against him. It was the name he had been writing to his mother when he’d heard Dougless crying. “Land disputes,” Nicholas had said, by way of explaining the grudge. But after only ten minutes of searching, Dougless had found the man’s name. He had died six months before Nicholas had been arrested, so he couldn’t have been the one who told the queen Nicholas was raising an army.

  What little she could find on Nicholas was told in a derogatory way.

  His older brother, Christopher, had been made earl when he was twenty-two, and the books raved about how Christopher had taken the failing Stafford fortunes and rebuilt them. Nicholas, only a year younger, was portrayed as frivolous, spending vast amounts on horses and women. He had been the earl for only four years before he was tried for treason.

  “He hasn’t changed,” Dougless said aloud, opening another book. This one was even more unflattering. It told at length the story of Lady Arabella and the table. It seems that two servants were in the room when Nicholas and Arabella entered, and they ducked into a closet when they heard the lord and lady. Later the servants told everyone what they’d seen, and a clerk by the name of John Wilfred had put the whole story down in his diary—a diary that had survived until the present.

  The third book was more serious. It told of Christopher’s great accomplishments, then added that his wastrel of a younger brother had squandered everything on a foolhardy attempt to put Mary Queen of Scots on Elizabeth’s throne.

  Dougless slammed the book shut and looked at her watch. It was time for tea. She left the library and made her way to a pretty little tea shop. After she had been served tea and a plate of scones, she began reading her notes.

  “I have sought you most earnestly.”

  She looked up to see Nicholas standing over her. “Should I rise until you are seated, my lord?”

  “No, Miss Montgomery, a mere kiss of my toes will be sufficient.”

  Dougless almost smiled, but she didn’t. He got himself a tray of tea, but Dougless had to pay for it, as he still carried no money.

  “What is it you read?”

  Coolly, she told him what she had found out, sparing him no details of what history had recorded about him. Except for a slight flush around his collar, he didn’t seem to react.

  “There is no mention in your history books that I was chamberlain to my brother?”

  “None. It says you bought horses and fooled around with women.” And she’d thought she could love such a man! But then, it seemed that a lot of women had thought so.

  Nicholas ate a scone and drank his tea. “When I return, I will change your history books.”

  “You can’t change history. History is fact; it’s already made. And you certainly can’t change what the history books say. They’re already printed.”

  He didn’t answer her. “What did your book say of my family after my death?”

  “I didn’t look that far. I only read about your brother and you.”

  He gave her a cool look. “You read only of the bad about me?”

  “That’s all there was.”

  “What of my design of Thornwyck? When the queen saw my plan, she hailed it as a monument of greatness.”

  “There is no record that you designed it. The librarian said some people believed you did, but there was no proof.”

  Nicholas put down his half-eaten scone. “Come,” he said angrily. “I will show you what I did. I will show you the great work I left behind me.”

  As he strode out of the tea room, the unfinished scone was testimony to how upset he was. He walked ahead of her with long, angry strides, and Dougless had difficulty keeping up with him as they went back to the hotel.

  To Dougless the hotel was beautiful, but to Nicholas it was mostly ruins. To the left of the entrance were what she’d assumed were stone fences, but he showed her that they were walls to what would have been nearly half of the house. Now there was grass underfoot and vines growing down the walls. He told her of the beauty of these rooms if they had been built as he designed them: paneling, stained glass, carved marble fireplaces. He pointed high on one wall to a stone face, worn by rain and time. “My brother,” he said. “I had the likeness carved of him.”

  As they walked down long avenues of roofless rooms and Nicholas talked, Dougless began to see what he had planned. She could almost hear the lutes in the music room.

  “And now it is this,” he said at last. “A place for cows and goats and . . . yeomen.”

  “And their daughters,” Dougless said, including herself in his derogatory description.

  Turning, he looked at her with cool contempt. “You believe what these fools have written about me,” he said. “You believe my life was naught but horses and women.”

  “I didn’t say that, the books did, my lord,” she answered him in the same tone.

  “On the morrow we will begin to find what the books do not say.”

  ELEVEN

  In the morning they were both at the library when the door was unlocked. After spending twenty minutes explaining the free library system to Nicholas, Dougless got five of the books on the Staffords from the shelves and began to read. Nicholas sat across from her, staring at the pages of a book, and frowning in consternation. After thirty minutes of watching him struggle, Dougless took pity on him.

  “Perhaps, sir,” she said softly, “in the evenings I might teach you to read.”

  “Teach me to read?” he asked.

  “In America I teach school, and I’ve had quite a bit of experience teaching children to read. I’m sure you could learn,” she said gently.

  “Could I?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. He didn’t say any more, but got up, went to the librarian, and asked her a few questions, which Dougless couldn’t hear. Smiling, the librarian nodded, left the desk for a moment, then returned and handed him several books.

  Nicholas put the books on the table in front of Dougless and opened the top one. “There, Miss Montgomery, read that to me.”