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

When she was down, the servant opened the gate and Nicholas went through it, seeming to expect Dougless to follow him. She hurried after him, down a brick path, up a flight of stairs, across a brick terrace, and into the house.

A solemn-faced servant stood inside, waiting to take Nicholas’s cloak and wet hat. When Dougless closed the umbrella, Nicholas took it from her and looked inside, obviously trying to figure out how it worked. After the way he’d been treating her, she wasn’t about to tell him. She snatched the umbrella from his hands and gave it to the wide-eyed servant. “This is mine,” she said to the servant. “Remember that, and don’t let anyone else have it.”

Looking at her, Nicholas snorted. Dougless hitched her bag onto her shoulder and glared back at him. She was beginning to believe that he was not the man she’d fallen in love with. Her Nicholas wouldn’t have made a woman ride on the back of a horse.

Turning away, he started up the stairs, and Dougless, dripping and cold, followed him. She had only a brief glimpse of the house, but it didn’t look like the Elizabethan houses she’d seen on guided tours. For one thing, the wood wasn’t darkened from being four hundred years old. The walls were paneled in golden oak, and everywhere there was color. The plaster above the panels was painted with scenes of people in a meadow. There were bright, pretty new tapestries and painted cloths hanging on the walls. There were silver plates gleaming from tabletops. And under her feet, oddly enough, there seemed to be straw. Upstairs there were carved pieces of furniture in the hall, looking as new as though they’d been made last week. On one table was a tall pitcher that had beautiful, deep fluting on it. It was of a yellow metal that could only be gold.

Before Dougless could ask about the pitcher, Nicholas opened a door and strode inside.

“I have brought the witch,” she heard Nicholas say.

“Now, just a minute,” Dougless said, then, hurrying into the room behind him, she stopped. She had entered a beautiful room. It was large, with tall ceilings, the walls paneled with more of the beautiful oak, the plaster above painted with colorful birds, butterflies, and animals. The furniture, the window seat, and the enormous bed were draped with hangings of brilliant silk, and dotted with cushions, all of it embroidered in gold and silver and brightly colored thread. Everything in the room, from cups and pitchers, to a mirror and comb, seemed to be a precious object, made of gold or silver, encrusted with jewels. The whole room glittered beautifully.

“My goodness,” Dougless said in awe.

“Bring her to me,” said an imperious voice.

Dougless pulled her eyes away from the room to look at the bed. Behind its exquisitely carved posts, behind scarlet silk hangings that twinkled with flowers embroidered in gold thread, lay a stern-looking woman wearing a white nightgown with black embroidery on the cuffs and ruffled neck. About her eyes Dougless could see a resemblance to Nicholas.

“Come here,” she commanded, and Dougless moved closer.

The woman’s voice, for all its command, sounded tired and stuffy, as though she had a cold.

It was when Dougless was closer to the foot of the bed that she saw that the woman had her left arm stretched across a pillow, and a man, wearing a long, voluminous robe of black velvet, was bending over her and tending to . . .

“Are those leeches?” Dougless gasped. Slimy little black worms seemed to be stuck on the woman’s arm.

Dougless didn’t see Lady Margaret exchange looks with her son.

“I have been told you are a witch, that you make fire from your fingertips.”

Dougless couldn’t take her eyes off the leeches. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Aye, it hurts,” the woman said in dismissal. “I would see this magic of fire.”

The distaste Dougless felt at seeing the leeches on the woman’s arm overrode her fear of being called a witch. She walked to the side of the bed and put her tote bag on top of a table, pushing aside a pretty silver box that had emeralds across the top. “You shouldn’t let that man do that to you. It sounds to me like you just have a bad cold. Headache? Sneezing? Tired?”

Wide-eyed, the woman stared at her and nodded.

“That’s what I thought.” She rummaged in her bag. “If you’ll make that man take those nasty things away, I’ll fix your cold. Ah, here they are. Cold tablets.” She held up the package.

“Mother,” Nicholas said, stepping forward, “you cannot—”

“Be still, Nicholas,” Lady Margaret said. “And remove those from my arm,” she ordered the physician.

The man pulled the leeches from Lady Margaret’s arm, dropped them into a little leather-bound box, then stepped away from the bed.

“You’ll need a glass of water.”

“Wine!” Lady Margaret commanded, and Nicholas handed her a tall silver goblet studded with rough-cut jewels.

Dougless was aware of the unnatural hush in the room, and suddenly she realized how brave Lady Margaret was. Or how dumb, she couldn’t help thinking, since she was taking medicine from a stranger. Dougless handed her a cold tablet. “Swallow it and in about twenty minutes it should work.”

“Mother,” Nicholas began, but Lady Margaret waved him away as she swallowed the capsule.

“If she is harmed, you will pay,” Nicholas said into Dougless’s ear, and Dougless swallowed. What if the Elizabethan body wasn’t ready for cold tablets? What if Lady Margaret was allergic?

Dougless stood where she was, still dripping water and beginning to shiver from cold. Her hair was plastered to her head, but no one had offered her a towel. No one in the room seemed to breathe as they looked at Lady Margaret lying against the embroidered pillows. Shifting nervously, Dougless became aware of another person in the room. Near the bed curtains was another woman. Dougless could just see the shape of her in a dress with a tight bodice above a full skirt.

When Dougless coughed, Nicholas, at the foot of the bed, gave her a sharp look.

It was the longest twenty minutes of Dougless’s life as she stood there, cold and nervous, and waited for the pill to take effect. When it did work, it worked quickly. Lady Margaret’s sinuses cleared and she lost that awful stuffy feeling of having a cold.

Lady Margaret sat up straighter, her eyes wide. “I am cured,” she said.

“Not really,” Dougless answered. “The pills just mask the symptoms. You should stay in bed and drink lots of orange juice . . . or whatever.”

The woman behind Dougless came bustling from the shadows, leaned over Lady Margaret, and tucked the covers around her.

“I am well, I tell you,” Lady Margaret said. “You! Go!” she said to the physician, and he backed out of the room. “Nicholas, take her, feed her, dry her, clothe her, and bring her to me on the morrow. Early.”

“I?” Nicholas said haughtily. “I?”

“You have found her, you are responsible for her. Now go.”

When Nicholas looked at Dougless, he curled his upper lip. “Come,” he said, and there was anger as well as distaste in his voice.

She followed him out of the room, and once they were in the hall, she said, “Nicholas, we must talk.”

He turned on her, still wearing that expression of distaste. “Nay, madam, we do not talk.” He arched one eyebrow. “And I am Sir Nicholas, Knight of the Realm.” Turning on his heel, he walked away.

“Sir Nicholas?” she asked. “Not Lord Nicholas?”

“I am but a knight. My brother is lord.”

Dougless stopped walking. “Brother? You mean Kit? Kit is alive?”

When Nicholas turned toward her, his face was distorted with rage. “I do not know who you are or how you come to know of my family, but I warn you, witch, you harm one person—should a hair on my mother’s head change color—and you will forfeit your life in payment. And do not think to use your witchcraft on my brother.”

He turned again and started walking. Dougless followed, but she didn’t say anything. Great, just great, she thought. She’d come all the way back across four hundred years to save Nicholas’s head, and all he could do was threaten to kill her. How was she going to make him listen?

They went upstairs to the top floor, and Nicholas threw open a door. “You sleep here.”

She stepped inside. This was no pretty room filled with treasures. It was a cell with one tiny window high up on the wall, and little more than a lumpy mattress in a corner, with a filthy wool blanket on top. “I can’t stay here,” Dougless said, horrified. But when she turned, she saw that Nicholas had left the room and shut the door behind him. She heard a key turn in a lock.

She yelled and pounded on the heavy door, but he didn’t open it. “You bastard!” she shouted, then slid down the door to the floor. “You rotten bastard,” she whispered, alone in the dark room.

TWENTY - TWO

No one came to release Dougless that night or the next morning. She had no water, no food, and very little light. There was an old wooden bucket in a corner, and she assumed this was to relieve herself in. She tried lying on the mattress, but within minutes she felt little things crawling on her skin. Clawing herself, she jumped out of the bed and pressed herself against the cold stone wall.

She could tell when morning came only because the room changed to a lighter shade of gloom. During the long night she’d scratched at whatever was on her skin so much that places were bleeding. Expectantly, she waited for someone to release her. Lady Margaret had said she wanted to see Dougless early. But no one came.

By holding her arm up to a narrow ray of light coming in through the window, she could see her wristwatch, and if it was set correctly for Elizabethan time, at noon still no one had come to release her.

She tried to keep her mind active and not give in to despair, so she repeatedly went over everything Lee had told her about the events leading up to Nicholas’s execution. Somehow she had to warn Nicholas. Somehow she had to prevent Lettice and Robert Sydney from using Nicholas.

But how could she do anything when she was locked away in a dark, flea-ridden room? And not only wouldn’t Nicholas listen to her, he seemed to hate her. She tried to remember what she’d said when she’d first seen him yesterday that had so offended him. Was it her references to his beloved Lettice?

It was cold in the room, and Dougless shivered as she scratched at her itching scalp. In the twentieth century she had always had the Montgomery name and money to fall back on. Even though she was years from inheriting, she’d always known the money was there, that she could offer a million dollars for information she desperately needed.

But here in the sixteenth century she had nothing, was nothing. All she had was a travel bag full of modern wonders. And she had her knowledge of what was to come. And somehow she had to persuade these people that they couldn’t just toss her into a prison and leave her to rot. The first time Nicholas had come to her, she’d failed to find the information needed to stop his execution, but this time she would not fail. This time she was going to succeed no matter what she had to do.

As she thought of these things, energy began to replace her lethargy. Her father loved to tell his daughters stories of their ancestors, of the Montgomerys in Scotland, in England, and in early America. There was one story after another of heroic deeds and near escapes.

“If they can do it, so can I,” Dougless said aloud. “Nicholas,” she said firmly, “come release me from this hideous place.” Closing her eyes, she concentrated, imagining Nicholas coming to her.

It didn’t seem to take long for him to “hear” her. When he flung open the door, his face was dark with anger.

“Nicholas, I want to talk to you,” she said.

He turned away from her. “My mother asks for you.”

She stumbled after him, her legs weak from lack of use, her eyes not adjusted to the light in the hall. “You came because I called you,” she said. “There is a bond between us, and if you’d let me explain—”

Halting, he glared at her. “I wish to hear naught that you say.”

“Will you tell me what you’re so angry at me about? What have I done?”

He looked her up and down in an insolent way. “You accuse me of treason. You frighten the villagers. You besmirch the name of the woman I am to marry. You bewitch my mother. You . . .” His voice lowered. “You come into my head.”

Reaching out, she put her hand on his arm. “Nicholas, I know I must seem strange to you, but if you’d just listen to me and let me explain—”

“Nay,” he said, moving away from her touch. “I have petitioned my brother to cast you out. The villagers will see to you.”

“See to me?” she whispered, then shuddered as she remembered those filthy women in that little clump of houses. No doubt those rotten-toothed hags would stone her if given the chance. “You would do that to me? After the way I helped you when you came to me?” Her voice was rising. “After all I did for you when you came forward, you’d throw me out? After the way I’ve come back across four hundred years to save you, you’d just throw me into the streets?”

He glared at her. “My brother decides.” Turning, he started down the stairs.

Dougless stayed close behind him and tried to control her anger enough to think. First, she had to figure out a way to keep from being tossed out of the relative safety of the house and into the muck of the streets. And Lady Margaret seemed to be the answer to that problem.

Lady Margaret was again in bed, and Dougless could see that the twelve-hour cold capsule had worn off.

“You will give me another of the magic tablets,” she said, leaning back against the pillows.

In spite of being hungry, tired, filthy, and frightened, Dougless knew that now was the moment when she had to use her wits. “Lady Margaret, I am not a witch. I am merely a poor humble princess set upon by thieves, and I must appeal to you for help until my uncle the king can come to me.”

“Princess?” Lady Margaret said.

“King?” Nicholas half-shouted. “Mother, I—”

Lady Margaret put up her hand to silence him. “Who is your uncle?”

Dougless took a deep breath. “He is the king of Lanconia.”

“I have heard of this place,” Lady Margaret said thoughtfully.

“She is no princess,” Nicholas said. “Look you at her.”

“This happens to be the style of dress in my country,” she snapped at him. “Are you going to throw me in the street and risk a king’s wrath?” She looked back at Lady Margaret. “My uncle would be very generous to anyone who protected me.”