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

Dougless felt as though she wanted to put her hands over her ears. Between the people in Ashburton not remembering Nicholas and now history being the same, it almost made her doubt whether any of what she remembered had happened. Was she crazy, just as Robert said? When she’d so frantically asked the people of Ashburton if they’d seen Nicholas, they had looked at her as though she were insane.

“Alas,” the guide was saying, “poor, charming Nick was executed for treason on the ninth of September, 1564. Now, if you’ll step through here, we’ll see the south drawing room.”

Dougless’s head shot up. Executed? No, Nicholas was found dead, slumped over his mother’s letter.

Dougless made her way to the guide, who looked down her nose at Dougless. “Ah, the door opener,” she said.

“I didn’t open the door, Ni . . .” She halted. There was no use in explaining if this woman remembered her, not Nicholas, opening and closing the alarmed door. “You said that Lord Nicholas Stafford was executed. I heard that three days before the execution was to take place, he was found dead, slumped over a letter he was writing to his mother.”

“He was not,” the woman said emphatically. “He was sentenced to death, and the sentence was carried out on schedule. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a tour to conduct.”

Dougless stood where she was for a moment, staring up at the portrait of Nicholas hanging over the fireplace. Executed? Beheaded? Something was deeply, sincerely wrong.

Turning, she started to leave, but on her way out she stopped at the door with the NO ADMITTANCE sign on it. Behind that door, down a few corridors, was the room that held the secret cabinet and in it the ivory box. Could she find the room and the cupboard door? She put out her hand to the knob.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” someone behind her said.

Dougless turned to see one of the guides, an unfriendly look on her face.

“A few days ago some tourists went in there. We’ve had to put a lock and an alarm on the door since then.”

“Oh,” Dougless murmured. “I thought it was a rest room.” Turning away, she made her way out of the house, the guides outside frowning because she once again went out the entrance door.

She went to the gift shop and asked to buy anything they had on Nicholas Stafford.

“There’s a bit on him in the tour book but nowhere else. He didn’t live long enough to accomplish much,” the cashier said.

She asked if they’d yet received postcards of his portrait, but they hadn’t. Dougless bought the tour book, then went outside to the gardens. Finding the place where she and Nicholas had sat down to tea, that heavenly day when he’d given her the pin, she began to read.

In the fat, beautifully illustrated book, Nicholas rated only a short paragraph, and that was about the women and how he’d raised an army against the queen and been executed for it.

Dougless leaned back against the tree. Even knowing the name of the man who’d betrayed him hadn’t helped. Nicholas still hadn’t been able to persuade the queen of his innocence. And he hadn’t even been able to destroy the diary written by that nasty little clerk that had left Nicholas’s name blotted for all time. And, too, it seemed that now no one doubted Nicholas’s guilt. The guidebook description, as brief as it was, portrayed Nicholas as a power-mad womanizer. And the tour group had chuckled when they’d been told of Nicholas’s execution.

Dougless closed her eyes and thought of her beautiful, proud, sweet Nicholas mounting the steps to a wide platform. Would it have been like in the movies, with a muscular man dressed in black leather holding a hideous-looking ax?

Her eyes flew open. She could not think of that. Could not think of Nicholas’s beautiful head rolling across a wooden floor.

She stood up, picked up her heavy tote bag, left the grounds, and walked the two miles to the train station, where she bought a ticket to Thornwyck. Perhaps there, in the library, in their collection of books on the Stafford family, she’d find some answers.

The librarian in Thornwyck welcomed her back, and in answer to Dougless’s question, said she’d never seen Dougless with a man. Dispirited, Dougless went to the Stafford books and began to read. Each and every book told of Nicholas’s execution. No more did they tell of his dying before the execution and poison being suspected. And every book was as disdainful of Nicholas as it had been before. The notorious earl. The wastrel. The man who had everything and threw it away.

The librarian came to tell her the library was closing, so Dougless shut the last book and stood. She felt dizzy and swayed, catching herself against the table.

“Are you all right?” the librarian asked.

Dougless looked at the woman. The man she loved had just had his head cut off. No, she was far from all right. “Yes, I’m fine,” Dougless murmured. “I’m just tired and maybe a little hungry.” She gave the woman a weak smile; then went outside.

Dougless stood in front of the library for a moment. She knew she should get a room somewhere, and she should eat something, but it didn’t seem to matter. Over and over and over, she kept seeing Nicholas climbing the stairs to meet an executioner. Would his hands be tied behind his back? Would he have a priest with him? No, 1564 was after Henry the Eighth had abolished Catholicism. Who would have been with him?

She sat down on an iron bench and put her head in her hands. He had come to her and loved her and left her. For what? He had returned to a scaffolding and a bloody ax.

“Dougless? Is that you?”

She looked up to see Lee Nolman standing over her.

“I thought that was you. Nobody else has hair that color. I thought you left town.”

When she stood up, she swayed against the bench.

“Are you all right? You look terrible.”

“Just a little tired.”

He looked at her closely, at the circles under her eyes and the gray tinge to her skin. “And hungry, too, is my guess.” Taking her arm firmly in his, he shouldered her bag. “There’s a pub around the corner. Let’s get something to eat.”

Dougless allowed him to lead her down the street. What did she care what happened to her?

Inside the pub, he escorted her to a booth and ordered a couple of beers and some food. One sip of her beer and it went to her head, and Dougless realized she hadn’t eaten since yesterday, when she’d had breakfast with Nicholas—and they’d made love on the floor.

“So what have you been doing since you left Thornwyck last week?” Lee asked.

“Nicholas and I went to Ashburton,” she said, watching him.

“He somebody you met?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And what about you?”

He smiled in a Cheshire cat way, as though he knew something very important. “The day after you left, Lord Harewood had the wall in Lady Margaret Stafford’s room repaired, and guess what we found?”

“Rats,” Dougless said, not caring about anything.

Lee leaned across the table conspiratorily. “A little iron box, and in it Lady Margaret’s story of the truth of why Lord Nicholas was executed. I tell you, Dougless, what was in that box is going to establish my reputation forever. It’ll be like solving a four-hundred-year-old murder mystery.”

It took a while for his words to penetrate Dougless’s misery. “Tell me,” she whispered.

Lee leaned back against the booth. “Oh, no, you don’t. You coaxed Robert Sydney’s name out of me, but not this story. If you want to know the whole story, you’ll have to wait for the book.”

Dougless started to speak, but the waitress appeared with their food. She didn’t look at her cottage pie, but when she and Lee were again alone, she leaned across the table toward him. With an intensity Lee had never seen before in human eyes, Dougless said softly, “I don’t know if you know about my family, but the Montgomerys are one of the richest families in the world. On my thirty-fifth birthday I will inherit millions. If you will tell me what Lady Margaret wrote, I will this minute sign one million dollars over to you.”

Lee was too stunned to speak. He hadn’t known about the wealth of her family, but he believed her. Nobody could have the look on her face that she did and be lying. He knew she wanted this information—look how she’d pestered him for Robert Sydney’s name—but he didn’t feel like asking her why. If she was willing to offer a million dollars for the story, and if her family had as much money and power as she said, then it was rather like having a genie offer you one wish.

“I want a chair in the history department of an Ivy League school,” he said quietly.

“Done,” Dougless answered, sounding like an auctioneer. She’d donate a wing or a building to a college if she had to.

“All right,” Lee said, “settle back and eat. This is a great story. I may be able to sell it to the movies. The story starts years before poor ol’ Nick was executed. He—”

“Nicholas,” Dougless said. “He doesn’t like to be called Nick.”

“Sure, okay, Nicholas then. What I’d never read in any book—I guess no historian thought it important—was that the Stafford family had an obscure claim to the throne through Henry the Sixth. They were descended directly through the male line, while Queen Elizabeth was considered by some to be a bastard and, being a woman as well, therefore unfit to rule. You know that for years her throne was not exactly secure?”

Dougless nodded.

“If the historians forgot that the Staffords were related to kings, there was someone who didn’t. A woman named Lettice Culpin.”

“Nicholas’s wife?”

“You do know your history,” Lee said. “Yes, the beautiful Lettice. It seems that her family also had some claim to the throne of England, a claim even more obscure than the Staffords’. Lady Margaret believed that Lettice was a very ambitious young woman. Her plan was to marry a Stafford, produce an heir, and put the child on the throne.”

Dougless considered this. “But why Nicholas? Why not the older brother? It seems like she’d want to marry the man who was earl.”

Lee smiled. “I have to keep on my toes with you, don’t I? You’re going to have to tell me where you learned so much about the Staffords. The eldest brother . . . ah . . .”

“Christopher.”

“Yes, Christopher was engaged to marry a very rich French heiress who happened to be only twelve years old. I guess he decided he’d rather have the money from the heiress than have Lettice, no matter how beautiful she was.”

“But Kit died and Nicholas became the earl,” Dougless said softly.

“Lady Margaret hinted that her eldest son’s death might not have been an accident. He drowned, but Lady Margaret said he was a strong swimmer. Anyway, she never knew for sure, she just guessed.”

“So Lettice married the man who was to become the earl.”

“Yes,” Lee said, “but things didn’t go the way Lettice planned. It seems Nicholas wasn’t interested in furthering himself at court, or in talking conspiracy and trying to find someone who’d back him if he tried for the throne. Nicholas was mostly interested in women.”

“And learning,” Dougless shot at him. “He commissioned monks to copy books. He designed Thornwyck Castle. He—” She stopped.

Lee’s eyes widened. “That’s true. Lady Margaret wrote all that, but how did you know?”

“It doesn’t matter. What happened after Nicholas married . . . her?”

“You sound as though you’re jealous. Okay, okay. After they were married—and Lettice seems to have quickly realized Nicholas wasn’t going to do what she wanted him to—she began to look around for some way to get rid of him.”

“As she had Christopher.”

“That was never proven. It may have been a fortunate accident—fortunate for Lettice anyway. Lady Margaret admitted that most of this was speculation, but after Lettice married Nicholas, he had some very close calls. A stirrup broke, a—”

“And he cut his calf,” Dougless whispered, “when he fell from the horse.”

“I don’t know where he was hurt, Lady Margaret didn’t say. Dougless, are you sure you’re all right?”

She glared at him.

“Anyway, Nicholas proved much harder to kill than Christopher had been, so Lettice began to look for someone to help her.”

“And she found Robert Sydney.”

Lee smiled. “I bet you’re great with detective novels, always figuring out the ending.

“Yes, Lettice found Robert Sydney. He was Arabella Harewood’s husband, and he must have been pretty mad about all of England laughing about Stafford and his wife on the table. To make matters worse, nine months later, Arabella presented him with a black-haired son.”

“And the child and Arabella died.”

“Right. Lady Margaret thinks Sydney had a hand in those deaths.”

Dougless took a breath. “So Lettice and Robert Sydney contrived to get Nicholas accused and executed for treason.”

“Yes. Lady Margaret thinks Lettice just waited for an opportunity to get Nicholas for something, so when Stafford started gathering men to protect his Welsh estates, she informed Sydney, who rode hell-bent-for-leather to the queen. In a way, it’s understandable that Elizabeth believed Sydney. Just months before, Mary Queen of Scots had declared herself queen of England as well as Scotland, and here was the earl of Thornwyck raising an army. Elizabeth just clapped Stafford in chains, had a mock trial with “secret” evidence, then whacked off Stafford’s head.”

Dougless winced. “So Lettice and Robert Sydney went free.”

Lee smiled. “Sort of. Actually, what happened after Stafford’s execution was one of the great ironies of life. It seems that Lettice, who had planned everything so carefully, hadn’t considered Robert Sydney’s ambition. Lady Margaret thought Lettice planned to marry some English duke who was Elizabeth’s cousin and start all over again, but Sydney had other plans. He threatened to tell the queen everything if Lettice didn’t marry him. He wanted to put his kid on the throne.”

“Blackmail,” Dougless whispered.

“Right. Blackmail. I told you this was like a movie. Or a best-seller. Maybe I should fictionalize this. Anyway, she was forced to marry Sydney.” Lee gave a snort of laughter. “What’s really ironic about this whole story is that Lettice was barren. She never conceived at all, not even to miscarry. So she sent her first husband to the blade because of what she wanted for the child she planned to have; then she couldn’t have children. Unbelievable, isn’t it?”