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

A Knight in Shining Armor (Montgomery/Taggart #15) Page 51

“Something wrong with your fork?” she asked.

“Fork?” Dougless couldn’t think what the woman was talking about. The waitress continued to stare at Dougless until she looked down at her empty plate. There beside it lay an unused fork. Dougless had eaten her meal with a spoon and a knife. “It’s all right. I just—” She couldn’t think of what to say, so she gave the woman a weak smile and looked at the bill. The amount—enough to buy a hundred medieval dinners—made her blanch, but she paid it.

And before she left, she asked the waitress what day of the week it was—something she couldn’t remember—and was pleased to find out that it was Wednesday.

Outside again, she didn’t allow herself to stand still. If she stayed in one place too long, she knew that she’d start to think; she’d think about Nicholas, about losing him, and about never seeing him again.

She practically ran to the train station to catch the first train to Bellwood. She had to see what had changed. On the train ride she made herself read the guidebook, anything to fill her mind.

By now she knew the way to Bellwood from the train station very well. According to twentieth-century time, she had visited the house only the day before—the day when she’d heard of Nicholas’s execution. The guide hadn’t been very pleasant. After all, she remembered Dougless as having opened and closed the alarmed door and disturbing her tour.

Dougless bought her ticket and guidebook for the tour, and when she got in line, the same guide was at the head.

In the house, Dougless, who had once thought it was so beautiful, now saw it as bare and drab and lifeless. There were no plates of gold and silver on the hearths, no exquisite needlework on the tables, no cushions on the chairs. But most of all there were no richly dressed people moving about, no people laughing, and no music anywhere.

They were at Nicholas’s room before Dougless could recover from her distaste for the barren house. She stood to one side, looked up at Nicholas’s portrait, and listened to the guide. The story was different now—very, very different.

The guide could not use enough superlatives when describing Nicholas.

“He was a true Renaissance man,” the guide told them, “the epitome of what his era hoped to achieve. He designed beautiful houses that were a hundred years ahead of his time. He made great advances in the field of medicine, even writing a book on disease prevention that, had it been adhered to, would have saved thousands of lives.”

“What did the book say?” Dougless asked.

The guide gave her a hard look, obviously remembering the door-opening incident. “Basically, Lord Nicholas talked of cleanliness and said that doctors and midwives must wash their hands before touching a patient. Now, if you’ll follow me, we shall see—”

Dougless left the tour after that, went out the entrance, and walked to the village library.

She spent the afternoon reading the history books. Every scrap of information was different now. She saw the names of people she had known and come to love. They were just names in history books to other readers, but to her they were flesh and blood people.

After three husbands, Lady Margaret never married again, and lived into her seventies.

Kit had married little Lucy, and one book said Lucy had come to be a great benefactress who encouraged musicians and artists. Kit had run the Stafford estates well until he died of a stomach ailment at age forty-two. Since he and Lucy had had no children, the earldom and estates went to Nicholas.

As she read about Nicholas, she touched the printed words, as though they could make him seem closer. When she read that Nicholas had never married, quick tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them away.

Nicholas had lived to the grand old age of sixty-two, and during his life he had done many great things. The books went into detail about the beauty and creativity of the buildings he had designed. “His use of glass was far ahead of its time,” one author wrote.

One book told of Nicholas’s ideas about medicine, how he had crusaded for cleanliness. “Had his advice been taken,” the author said, “modern medicine would have had its start hundreds of years earlier.”

“Far ahead of his time,” the books said again and again.

She leaned back in her chair. No Arabella-on-the-table. No diary being found that told of what a womanizer Nicholas was. No betrayal. No conspiracy between his wife and his friend. And, most important, no execution.

She left when the library closed, walked to the station, and took a train back to Ashburton. She still had a room at the hotel and her clothes were there.

Once in her hotel room, she had difficulty adjusting to the modernness of it, especially the bathroom. She took a shower, but couldn’t bear the hot water or the hard, sharp forcefulness of the showerhead. She turned the knobs until the water was a lukewarm drizzle and felt more at home.

The flushing of the toilet seemed like a waste of water to her, and she kept staring at the big mirror in wonder.

After a room service supper, she put on her flimsy nightgown and felt like a lewd woman. And when she went to bed, she felt lonely without Honoria beside her.

Surprisingly, she went to sleep immediately, and if she dreamed, she did not remember doing so.

In the morning she had difficulty with the hotel when she asked for beef and beer for breakfast, but the English, better than any other people on earth, understood eccentrics.

She reached Thornwyck Castle by ten A.M., just as the gates were opening. She bought a ticket and started on the tour. The guide talked at length about the Stafford family, some of whose members still owned the house, and especially about their brilliant ancestor, Nicholas Stafford.

“He never married,” the guide said with twinkling eyes, “but he had a son named James. When Nicholas’s older brother died and left no children, Nicholas inherited, and when Nicholas died, the Stafford estates went to James.”

Dougless smiled, remembering the sweet little boy she had played with.

The guide continued. “James made a brilliant marriage and tripled the family fortunes. It was through James that the Stafford family really made its money.”

And he would have died if Dougless had not intervened.

The guide went on to the next generation of the family and the next room, but Dougless slipped away. When she’d seen Thornwyck before, it had been half in ruins, but Nicholas had shown her the corbel with Kit’s face high on the wall of what would have been the second floor. Unfortunately, the second floor was not open to the public.

But Dougless had been through too much to allow anything to stop her. She opened a door that said NO ADMITTANCE, and found herself in a small sitting room furnished in English chintz. Feeling like a spy, but also knowing that she had to do what she did, she went to the doorway and peered out. The hall was clear, so she tiptoed down it, thinking that carpet on the floor made sneaking much easier than noisy rushes.

She found a staircase and went up to the second floor. Twice she had to hide when she heard footsteps, but no one saw her. In Nicholas’s time there would have been so many servants running about that it would have been impossible for an intruder to get to the second floor unnoticed, but those days were long gone.

Once on the second floor, she had trouble orienting herself as she tried to remember just where the corbel would be. She searched three rooms before she entered a bedroom and saw it, high up above a beautiful walnut dresser.

She plastered herself between the dresser and the wall as a maid walked out of the adjoining bath. Dougless held her breath as the maid straightened the bedspread, then left the room.

Alone again, Dougless went to work. She pulled a heavy chair beside the dresser, climbed on it, then, after three tries, managed to climb on top of the dresser. She had just put her hand on the old stone corbel when the door opened. Dougless flattened herself against the wall.

The maid came in again, this time with an armload of towels that blocked her from seeing Dougless. She didn’t breathe until the woman left.

When the door closed, Dougless turned and touched Kit’s stone face. The stonework looked to be solid and she wished she’d had the foresight to bring a screwdriver or small crowbar. She pulled and tugged at the face and was almost ready to give up when the stone moved in her hand.

She broke her nails and skinned her knuckles, but she was at last able to pull the face away. A long piece of stone protruded from the back of the face and fit neatly into the corbel.

Standing on tiptoe, Dougless looked behind the head. Inside a hollowed-out place was a small cloth-wrapped package. Quickly, she took the package, slipped it into her pocket, then shoved the corbel back into place and climbed down. She didn’t take the time to put the chair back as she hurried from the room.

She made it, without being seen, back to the tour just as the group was in the last room.

“And here we have the lace display,” the guide was saying. “Most of the lace is Victorian, but we do have a very special piece of lace from the sixteenth century.”

Dougless gave the guide all of her attention.

“It seems that although Lord Nicholas Stafford of the sixteenth century never married, there was a mysterious woman in his past. On his deathbed he asked to be buried with this piece of lace, but there was some confusion and Lord Nicholas went to his grave without the lace. His son, James, said the lace was always to be kept in a place of honor in the family, since it had meant so much to his beloved father.”

Dougless had to wait for the other tourists to move before she could see into the case. There, under glass, yellowed now and wornlooking, was the lace cuff Honoria had been making for her. The name Dougless was worked into it.

“‘Dougless’?” a tourist said, laughing. “That’s a man’s name. Maybe ol’ Nick didn’t marry because he was a little”—he waved his hand—“you know.”

Dougless spoke before the guide could. “For your information, ‘Dougless’ was a woman’s name in the sixteenth century, and I can assure you that Lord Nicholas Stafford was not a little”—she glared at him— “‘you know.’” Storming past him, she left the house.

She walked into the gardens, and while other tourists exclaimed over their beauty, Dougless thought they looked messy and neglected. She went to a quiet corner, sat on a bench, then took the package from her pocket.

Slowly, she unwrapped it. Touching the waxed cloth bindings that had last been touched by Nicholas so long ago, made her fingers tremble.

The miniature portrait of Nicholas came to light, as rich and bright as the day it had been painted. “Nicholas,” she whispered as she put her fingertips on the painting. “Oh, Nicholas, have I truly lost you completely? Are you gone from me forever?”

She looked at the miniature, touched it, and when she turned it over, she saw something engraved on the back. Holding it up to the light, she read the inscription.

Time has no meaning

Love will endure

He had signed it with an N, a D over the top of it.

Leaning back against the old stone wall, she blinked away tears. “Nicholas, come back to me,” she whispered. “Please come back to me.”

She sat there for a long time before she rose. She’d missed lunch, so she went to the tea shop and sat down with a plate of scones and a pot of strong black tea. She’d bought a guidebook at Bellwood and one at Thornwyck, and as she ate and drank, she read.

With every word she read, she told herself that what had happened had been worth the pain of losing the man she loved. What did the love between two people matter when, by giving up their love, they had changed history? Kit had lived, Lady Margaret had lived, James had lived—and Nicholas had lived. And with their lives, the family honor had been saved, so that today a Stafford was a duke and part of the royal family.

Against all that, what did one piddling little love affair mean?

She left the tea shop and walked to the train station. She could go home now, she thought, home to America, home to her family. No more would she be an outsider, and never again would she have to pretend to be someone she was not.

On the train ride back to Ashburton, she told herself that she should be jubilant. She and Nicholas had accomplished so much. How many other people had had the good fortune to be able to change history? Yet Dougless had been given that opportunity. Through her efforts the Stafford family was doing well. There were beautiful buildings standing because she had encouraged Nicholas to use his talent for designing. There were . . .

Her thoughts trailed off. It was no use telling herself what she should feel, because what she did feel was miserable.

In Ashburton she slowly walked back to the hotel. She’d need to call the airlines and make reservations.

In the lobby, Robert and Gloria were waiting for her. At the moment she didn’t think she could handle a confrontation. She hardly looked at Robert. “I’ll get the bracelet,” she said, then turned away before he could speak.

Catching her arm, he halted her. “Dougless, could we talk?”

She stiffened, preparing herself for his abuse. “I told you I’d get the bracelet for you, and I apologize for keeping it.”

“Please,” he said, and his eyes were soft.

Dougless looked at Gloria. Gone from the girl’s face was the smug, I’m-going-to-get-you look. Wary, Dougless went to sit on a chair across from father and daughter. Lucy, and Robert Sydney, Dougless thought. How much Gloria looked like Kit’s bride-to-be and how much this Robert resembled a sixteenth-century Robert. Dougless thought of how she and Nicholas had changed the lives of both of those people. Robert Sydney had been given no reason to hate Nicholas because Arabella had not been impregnated on a table. And Dougless had helped Lucy gain some self-confidence.

Robert cleared his throat, then spoke. “Gloria and I have been talking, and we, well, we decided that maybe we weren’t quite fair to you.”

Dougless stared at him, her eyes wide. At one point in her life she had looked at Robert while wearing a blindfold. She saw only what she’d wanted to see; she had endowed him with characteristics that he didn’t have. Now, looking back at their life together, she saw that he’d never loved her. “What do you want from me?” she asked tiredly.

“We just wanted to apologize,” Robert said, “and we’d like for you to join us on the rest of the trip.”

“You can sit in front,” Gloria said.

Dougless looked from one to the other, puzzled, not by their words, for Robert would often apologize to get her to do what he wanted, but by the sincere looks on their faces. It was almost as though they really meant what they were saying. “No,” she said softly, “I’m going home tomorrow.”