“This Robert will come for jewels but not for the woman he loves?”
“Of course he’s coming for me!” she snapped. “The bracelet is . . . It’s just that Gloria is a brat and she lied, but she’s his daughter so of course Robert believed her. And stop looking at me like that! Robert is a fine man. At least he’ll be remembered for what he did on an operating table instead of on a—” She stopped at the look on Nicholas’s face.
Turning, he strode ahead of her.
“Nicholas, I’m sorry,” she said, running after him. “I didn’t mean it. I was just angry, that’s all. It’s not your fault you’re remembered for Arabella; it’s our fault. We see too much TV, read too much National Enquirer. Our lives are filled with too much sensationalism. Colin, please.” She stopped where she was. Was he going to walk away and leave her too?
Her head was down, so she wasn’t aware that he’d walked back to her. Companionably, he put his arm around her shoulders. “Do they sell ice cream in this place?”
When she smiled at that, he tipped her chin up and wiped away a single tear. “Are you onion-eyed again?” he asked softly.
She shook her head, afraid to trust her voice.
“Then come,” he said. “If I remember rightly, there is a pearl in that box as big as my thumb.”
“Really?” she asked. She had forgotten all about the box. “Anything else?”
“Tea first,” he said. “Tea and scones and ice cream. Then I shall show you the box.”
They walked together out of the unrestored rooms, past the next tour, and out the In, which the guides did not like at all.
In the tea shop, this time, Nicholas took over. Dougless sat at a table and waited for him as he talked to a woman behind the counter. The woman was shaking her head about something Nicholas was asking, but Dougless had an idea that he’d get whatever it was that he wanted.
Minutes later, he motioned for her to come with him. He led her outside, then down stone stairs, across an acre of garden, to at last stop under the dappled shade of a yew tree with bright red berries. When Dougless turned around, she saw a woman and a man carrying two large trays filled with tea, pastries, little sandwiches with no crusts, and Nicholas’s beloved scones.
Nicholas ignored the two people as they spread a cloth on the ground and set out the tea things. “There was my knot garden,” he said, pointing, his voice heavy with sadness. “And there was a mound.”
After the people left, Nicholas held out his hand to help her sit on the cloth. She poured his tea, added milk, filled a plate full of food for him, then said, “Now?”
He smiled. “Now.”
Dougless dove into the tote bag and pulled out the old, fragile ivory box, then slowly, with breath held, opened it.
Inside were two rings of exquisite loveliness, one an emerald, one a ruby, the gold mountings cast into intricate forms of dragons and snakes. Nicholas took the rings and, smiling at her, slipped them onto his fingers, where, she wasn’t surprised to see, they fit perfectly.
On the bottom of the box was a bit of old, cracked velvet, and she could see that it was wrapped around something. Gingerly, Dougless removed the velvet and slowly opened it.
In her hand lay a brooch, oval, with little gold figures of . . . She looked up at Nicholas. “What are they doing?”
“It’s the martyrdom of Saint Barbara,” he said, his tone implying that she knew nothing.
Dougless had guessed it was a martyrdom because it looked as if the gold man was about to cut off the head of the tiny gold woman. Encircling the figures was an abstract enamel design, and around the edges were tiny pearls and diamonds. Hanging from a loop below the brooch was indeed a pearl as large as a man’s thumb. It was a baroque pearl, indented, even lumpy, but with a luster that no years could dim.
“It’s lovely,” she whispered.
“It is yours,” Nicholas said.
A wave of avarice shot through Dougless. “I cannot,” she said, even as her hand closed over the jewel.
Nicholas laughed. “It is a woman’s bauble. You may keep it.”
“I can’t. It’s too valuable. This pin is worth too much and it’s too old. It should be in a museum. It should—”
Taking the jewel from her hand, he pinned it between the collar points of her blouse.
Dougless took her compact from her purse, opened the mirror, and looked at the brooch. She also looked at her face. “I have to go to the rest room,” she said, making Nicholas laugh as she rose.
Alone in the rest room, she had some time to really look at the pin, and only left when someone else entered. On her way back to Nicholas, she couldn’t resist slipping into the gift shop to look at the postcards. It took her a moment to see what Nicholas had not wanted her to see. There, on the bottom of a rack, was a postcard of a portrait of the notorious Lady Arabella. Dougless took one.
As she was paying, Dougless asked the cashier if there was anything in any of the books for sale about Nicholas Stafford.
The woman smiled in a patronizing way. “All the young ladies ask after him. We usually have cards of his portrait, but we’re out right now.”
“There’s nothing written about him? About his accomplishments other than . . . than with women?” Dougless asked.
Again there was that little smirk. “I don’t believe Lord Nicholas accomplished anything. The only thing of importance that he did was to raise an army against the queen, and he was sentenced to be executed for that. If he hadn’t died beforehand, he would have been beheaded. He was quite a scoundrel of a young man.”
Dougless took the single postcard and started to leave, but she turned back. “What happened to Lord Nicholas’s mother after he died?”
The woman brightened. “Lady Margaret? Now there was a grand lady. Let me see, I believe she married again. What was his name? Oh, yes, Harewood. She married Lord Richard Harewood.”
“Do you know if she left any papers behind?”
“Oh, my, no, I have no idea of that.”
“All the Stafford papers are at Goshawk Hall,” came a voice from the door. It was the guide whose tour she and Nicholas had so rudely interrupted.
“Where is Goshawk Hall?” Dougless asked, feeling embarrassed.
“Near the village of Thornwyck,” the woman said.
“Thornwyck,” Dougless said, and nearly gave a whoop of joy, but caught herself. It was all she could do to thank the women before she ran from the shop into the garden. Nicholas lay stretched out on the cloth, sipping tea and finishing the scones.
“Your mother married Richard, ah . . . Harewood,” she said breathlessly, “and all the papers are at . . .” She couldn’t remember the name.
“Goshawk Hall?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s it! It’s near Thornwyck.”
He turned away from her. “My mother married Harewood?”
Dougless watched the back of him. If he’d died accused of treason, had his mother, in her poverty, been forced to marry some despicable despot? Had his old, frail mother been forced to endure some man who treated her as no more than property?
When Nicholas’s shoulders began to shake, Dougless put her hand on his arm. “Nicholas, it’s not your fault. You were dead, you couldn’t help her.” What am I saying? she thought.
But when Nicholas turned around, she saw that he was . . . laughing. “I should have known she would land on her feet,” he said. “Harewood! She married Dickie Harewood.” He could hardly speak for laughing so hard.
“Tell me everything,” Dougless urged, eyes alight.
“Dickie Harewood is a tardy-gaited, unhaired pajock.”
Dougless frowned, not understanding.
“An ass, madam,” Nicholas explained. “But a rich one. Aye, he’s very rich.” He leaned back, smiling. “It is good to know she was not left one-trunk-inheriting.”
Still smiling, he poured Dougless a cup of tea, and as she took it, he picked up her little paper bag and opened it.
“No” she began,
but he was already looking at the postcard of Lady Arabella’s portrait.
He looked up at her with such a knowing look that she wanted to dump the tea over his head. “Did they not have a picture of the table too?” he mocked.
“I have no idea what you mean,” she said haughtily, not looking at his face as she snatched the card out of his hands and put it back into the bag. “The picture is for research. It might help us . . .” For the life of her, she couldn’t think what a picture of the mother of Nicholas’s illegitimate child could possibly help them find out. “Did you eat all the scones? You really can be a pig sometimes.”
Nicholas gave a snort of laughter.
After a moment he said, “What say you we stay in this town this night? On the morrow I shall purchase Armant and Rafe.”
It took Dougless a moment to understand what he meant, but then she remembered the American magazines he’d seen. “Georgio Armani and Ralph Lauren?” she asked.
“Aye,” he said. “Clothing of your time. When I return to my house in Thornwyck, I will not be one-trunk-inheriting either.”
Dougless bit into a little sandwich. Unless she found Robert and got her suitcases back soon, she was going to have to buy more clothes too.
She looked at Nicholas, his hands behind his head. Tomorrow they’d go shopping, then the next day they’d go to Thornwyck, where they’d try to find out who had betrayed him to the queen.
But tonight, she thought. Tonight they’d once again spend alone in a hotel room.
EIGHT
Dougless sat in the back of the big black taxi, luggage all around her. This is where I came in, she thought, remembering being in the back of Robert’s rental car and trying to get comfortable around Gloria’s luggage. But now, sprawled beside her, his long legs stretched out, was Nicholas. He was absorbed in a battery-powered video game that they’d purchased this morning.
Putting her head back, Dougless closed her eyes and thought about the last several hours. After tea at Bellwood yesterday, she had called a taxi and asked to be taken to a nice hotel in Bath. The driver had taken them to a lovely eighteenth-century building where she was able to get a double room for the night. Neither she nor Nicholas mentioned asking for separate rooms. It was a beautiful room done in yellow chintz and flowered wallpaper, with white bedspreads piped in yellow on the two beds. Nicholas ran his hand over the wallpaper and vowed that when he got home, he was going to have someone paint the walls of his house with lilies and roses.
After they checked in, they went walking to look in the windows of the wonderful shops in Bath. It was near dinnertime when Dougless saw a movie house called the American Cinema.
“We could always go to a movie and eat hot dogs and popcorn for dinner,” she said, making a joke.
But Nicholas had been so intrigued that he’d started asking questions, so Dougless bought tickets. She thought it was a bit ironic that an “American” Cinema was playing an English movie—Room With a View—but they did have American hot dogs, popcorn, Cokes, and Reese’s peanut butter cups. Knowing Nicholas’s appetite, Dougless bought so much of everything that they could hardly waddle down the aisle for the load they were carrying.
Nicholas loved the popcorn, choked on the Coke, thought the hot dog had possibilities, and nearly cried in delight over the peanut butter and chocolate. Before the movie started, Dougless tried to explain what a movie was, and how very large the people would look. But Nicholas was too interested in what was going on in his mouth to listen very carefully.
He was fascinated when the lights went down, then nearly jumped out of his seat when the music came on. At the first sight of the enormous people, the expression on his face was so horrified that Dougless nearly dropped her popcorn.
Throughout the film, watching Nicholas was much more interesting than watching the movie—which Dougless had already seen twice before anyway.
As they walked back to the hotel after the film was over, he was full of questions. He’d been so enamored with the technical aspect of the movie that he could hardly follow the story. Also, he couldn’t understand the clothes. It took some explaining to make him understand that Edwardian was “old.”
In the hotel, they shared the toiletries Dougless had in her handbag, and what was in the little basket in the hotel. Dougless meant to sleep in her underwear so, after a shower, she wrapped herself in the robe supplied by the hotel. She’d planned to go straight to bed, but Nicholas wanted her to read to him, so she took her Agatha Christie from her bag, sat on a chair by him, and read until he fell asleep.
Before she turned out the light, she stood over him for a moment, looking down at his soft black hair against the crisp white sheets. On impulse, she lightly kissed his forehead. “Good night, my prince,” she whispered.
Without opening his eyes, Nicholas clasped her fingers. “I am but a mere earl,” he said softly, not opening his eyes, “but my thankings for the tribute.”
Embarrassed but smiling, she pulled away from him and went to her own bed. But, tired as she was, she lay awake for a long while, listening carefully for any sounds from him, wondering if he’d have bad dreams as he had the night before. But when he was silent, she at last drifted off. When she awoke, it was morning and he was already up and in the bathroom. Her first feeling was one of disappointment that she’d not slept cuddled in his arms, but she reprimanded herself. She was in love with Robert, wasn’t she? She couldn’t be so frivolous as to have fallen out of love in just a few days, could she? Not over one argument?
And she couldn’t possibly imagine herself to be in love with a man who was not and never could be hers, could she? She could never love a man who at any minute could go up in a puff of smoke and leave as quickly as he had arrived. Could she?
Nicholas came out of the bathroom, barefoot and barechested, wearing only his trousers, and toweling his wet hair. There were much worse sights in the morning than the broad, nude chest of a beautiful man, she thought. Dougless lay back against the pillows and sighed.
At her sigh, Nicholas looked at her and frowned. “Do you waste the day? We must find me a barber to shave this,” he said as he ran his hand over the growing whiskers.
“It’s quite fashionable now to have black stubble. Movie stars go to formal ceremonies with five o’clock shadow,” she said. But Nicholas didn’t like that idea. He said it was a beard or bare and “naught between.” In the end, she used the razor and tiny can of lather furnished by the hotel to show him how to shave. Unfortunately, before she could stop him, he ran his fingertips over the blade of the razor and sliced them. He laughed at Dougless for the to-do she made over such a little cut.
Later, dressed, fortified with a hearty English breakfast, they went shopping. Dougless was becoming accustomed to helping Nicholas do the most ordinary of things, but, this time, when he shopped for clothes, he knew exactly what he wanted. Dougless was amazed at how much he’d learned from an evening of looking at fashion magazines.
This time in an exclusive shop, Nicholas the earl took over, while Dougless merely stood in the background and watched. The English clerks seemed to recognize that they were dealing with aristocracy because it was “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” to him right and left.
Now, in the taxi, around Dougless’s feet were piled shopping bags filled with shirts, trousers, socks, belts, a marvelous coat of waxed cloth, caps, two Italian silk jackets, a luscious leather jacket, ties, and even a full set of evening clothes. It was as they were leaving the fifth store that Dougless had begun making moans of fatigue, especially now that they had several heavy bags to carry. Nicholas had given her a look of disdain, as though she were a real wimp. A moment later he gave a piercing whistle and a taxi stopped. He learns quickly, Dougless thought. Without her help, Nicholas arranged for the taxi to follow them for the rest of the morning as he purchased more clothes. Dougless paid for them while the driver hauled the bags out to the taxi.
At one o’clock she was wilted and ready to suggest lunch when he stopped
before a lovely window display of women’s clothes. He looked at the display, then at Dougless, then half-shoved her into the shop, ahead of him. It was truly amazing how her energy revived! Nicholas was as generous as he was good at choosing clothing. He sent three young women clerks scurrying as he demanded that he be shown the best they had to offer. Dougless spent an hour and a half in the dressing room in her underwear, pulling clothes on and off. When they left, three bags full of new clothes for her were added to what Nicholas had bought for himself.
Finally, the only clothing he still needed was shoes. Nicholas had come to enjoy the comfort of modern clothes, but he hated the hard leather of modern shoes. The shoes he liked best were soft leather bedroom slippers. After three stores Dougless persuaded him to purchase two pairs of Italian shoes that were frightfully expensive. He told Dougless she must buy new shoes also, but when he pulled four pair—dress boots, pumps, walking shoes, and loafers—off the shelves, she said he’d already spent too much on her. Nicholas threatened to wear the terry cloth bedroom slippers from the hotel unless she purchased all four. Laughing, she agreed.
They made one last stop to buy luggage to pack everything into. Nicholas wanted leather luggage, but as there was little money left, Dougless talked him into some blue canvas bags with belting leather trim.
By the time they were done shopping, it was three P.M. and all the lunch shops were closed. They purchased bread and cheese, meat pies, and a bottle of wine, then ate in the back of the taxi as it drove them back to the bed-and-breakfast in Ashburton. And since eating while traveling went against Nicholas’s aristocratic ideas of etiquette, she’d had to talk him into it. But she couldn’t move him about the train. Dougless had said they should take the train back, as it was much cheaper than a taxi. But Nicholas had scoffed at her idea that he handle luggage, so they were being driven all the way back to the hotel.
On the return trip Nicholas got his first sight of the six-lane English motorways. She didn’t know how he felt about the speed of the cars around him, but it terrified her. The slow lane traveled at seventy miles per hour, so she couldn’t imagine what the fast, outside lane was doing.
A Knight in Shining Armor Page 13