A Knight in Shining Armor Read online

  An hour later, Dougless had removed her torn and dirty gown, as well as her steel corset, and now she sat before a warm fire, wearing a pretty ruby red brocade robe. Every few minutes she put her hand to Nicholas’s forehead. It was warm, but he didn’t seem to be running more than a few degrees of temperature.

  TWENTY - EIGHT

  The shadows in the room lengthened and still Nicholas slept. A maid brought Dougless food on a tray, but Nicholas did not waken. As night fell, she lit candles and looked down at him, so peaceful on the bed, his dark curls vivid against his pale skin. For hours she’d done nothing but watch him, but when she saw no signs of fever, she began to relax and look about her.

  Nicholas’s room was adorned richly, as befitted a son of the house. His mantelpiece had several plates and goblets of gold and silver on it, and Dougless smiled when she looked at them. She’d come to understand what Nicholas had meant when he’d said his wealth was in his house. Since there were no banks to hold the wealth of a great family like the Staffords, all they had was put into gold and silver and jewels, which were formed into beautiful objects. Smiling, she touched a pitcher and thought that her family’s wealth would be a lot more enjoyable if their stocks and bonds were turned into gold dishes.

  Beside the fireplace was a long row of tiny oval portraits, all done in exquisite colors. Most of them were people she didn’t know, but one of them had to be Lady Margaret as a young woman. There was a hint of Nicholas’s eyes in hers. There was an older man who had the shape of Nicholas’s jaw. His father? she wondered. There was a miniature oil of Kit. And on the bottom was Nicholas.

  She took the portrait from the wall, held it a moment and caressed it. What had happened to these portraits in the twentieth century? she wondered. Were they hanging on some museum wall with “Unknown Man” on a card beside them?

  Still holding the portrait, she walked about the room. There was a cushioned seat beneath the window, and Dougless went to it. She knew the top lifted and she wondered what Nicholas kept inside. Glancing at him to make sure he was asleep, she put the portrait on a shelf, then lifted the seat. It creaked but not too loudly.

  Inside the seat were rolls of paper tied with pieces of yarn. She took one, untied the string, then unrolled it out on a table. It was a sketch of a house, and Dougless knew instantly that the house was Thornwyck Castle.

  “Do you pry?” Nicholas asked from the bed, making Dougless jump.

  She went to him and felt his forehead. “How do you feel?”

  “Less well than if there were not a woman invading my private goods.”

  Dougless thought he sounded just like a little boy whose mother had looked inside his secret box. She picked up the plan. “Have you shown these to anyone besides me?”

  “I have not shown them to you,” he said as he made a lunge for the corner of the paper, but Dougless moved away. Weakly, he lay back against the pillows.

  Dougless put the plan down. “Hungry?” She ladled soup into a silver bowl from a pan on the hearth, which had been set there to keep the soup warm. Sitting beside Nicholas, she began to feed him. At first he protested that he could feed himself but, like all men, he soon adjusted to being pampered.

  “You have looked long at the drawings?” he asked between bites.

  “I had just opened the one. When do you plan to start building?”

  “It is merely foolishness. Kit will—” He broke off, then smiled.

  Dougless knew what he was thinking, that he’d come so very close to losing Kit.

  “My brother is well?” Nicholas asked.

  “Perfectly healthy. Better than you. He didn’t lose enough blood to flood a river.” When she wiped his lips with a napkin, he caught her fingertips and kissed them.

  “If I live, then I owe you my life as well as my brother’s. What can I do to repay you?”

  Love me, Dougless almost said. Fall in love with me again, just as you did before. Look at me with eyes of love. I’ll stay in the sixteenth century forever, if you’ll love me. I would give up cars and dentists and proper bathrooms if you’d love me again. “I don’t want anything,” she said. “I just want both of you to be well and for history to come out all right.” She put the empty bowl on a table. “You should sleep more. Your arm needs to heal.”

  “I have slept all I need. Stay and entertain me.”

  Dougless grimaced. “I’ve run out of entertainments. There isn’t a game I ever played or a song I ever heard that I haven’t dredged out of my memory. I’m just about played out.”

  Nicholas smiled at her. Sometimes he didn’t understand her words, but he nearly always got the meaning.

  “Why don’t you entertain me?” She picked up his sketch. “Why don’t you tell me about this?”

  “Nay,” he said quickly. “Put those away!” He started to sit up, but Dougless pushed him back to the pillows.

  “Nicholas, please don’t tear your stitches. You must be still. And stop glowering at me! I know all about your love of architecture. When you came to me in the future, you had already started building Thornwyck Castle.” She almost laughed at the expression on his face.

  “How did you know I planned this for Thornwyck?”

  “I told you. When you came to me, it was four years from now and you’d already done it. Actually you’d only started it. It was never finished because you . . . you . . .”

  “Were executed,” he said, and for the first time he really thought about her words. “I wish you to tell me all.”

  “From the beginning?” Dougless asked. “It will take a long time.”

  “Now that Kit is safe, I have time.”

  Until Lettice gets hold of you, she thought. “I was in a church in Ashburton, and I was crying,” she said, “and—”

  “Why did you weep? Why were you in Ashburton? And you cannot stand and tell me this long story. No, do not sit there. Here.”

  He patted the empty half of the bed beside him.

  “Nicholas, I can’t get in bed with you.” Just the thought of being so near him made her heart beat faster.

  Opening his eyes, he smiled at her. “I saw a . . . a dream of you. You were in a white box of sorts, water was pouring on you, and you wore no clothes.” He looked her up and down, as though he could see through the voluminous robe. “I do not believe you have always been so shy of me.”

  “No,” she said hoarsely, remembering being in the shower stall with him, the “white box” of his dream. “One night we were not shy of each other, and the next morning you were taken away from me. I’m afraid now that if I touch you, I’ll be returned to my own time, and I can’t go yet. There is more for me to do.”

  “More?” he asked. “You know of others who die? My mother? Is Kit not yet safe?”

  She smiled at him. Her Nicholas. Her lovely Nicholas who thought of others before himself. “You are the one who is in danger.”

  He smiled in relief. “I can care for myself.”

  “In a pig’s eye you can! If I hadn’t been here, you’d probably have lost your arm or died from the wound. One of those idiots you call a physician had only to touch that cut with his filthy hands and presto! you’re a goner.” Of course that hadn’t happened the first time he’d cut his arm, but . . .

  Nicholas blinked at her. “You do talk most strangely. Come, sit by me and tell me all.” When Dougless didn’t move, he sighed. “I swear to you on my honor I will not touch you.”

  “All right,” she said. Truthfully, she felt that she could trust him more than she could trust herself. Moving to the other side of the bed, she climbed up on it, for it was a few feet off the floor, then sank into the feather mattress.

  “Why did you cry in the church?” he asked softly.

  If Dougless could say nothing else about Nicholas, he was a good listener. He was more than a good listener, since he pulled from her things that she didn’t want to tell him. In the end, she told him everything about Robert.

  “You lived with him without marriage? Di