A Knight in Shining Armour (41 page)

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.

N
o 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.”

Dougless could see that Lady Margaret was considering this. “I can be very useful,” Dougless said quickly. “I have lots of cold tablets, and I have all sorts of interesting things in my bag. And I . . .” What could she do? “I can tell stories. I know lots of stories.”

“Mother, you cannot consider keeping her here,” Nicholas said. “She is no better than a flirt-gill.”

Dougless guessed that that was a lady of ill repute. She turned angry eyes on him. “Look who’s talking. You and Arabella Sydney can’t keep your hands off one another.”

Nicholas’s face turned purple, and he took a step toward her.

Lady Margaret coughed to cover laughter. “Nicholas, fetch Honoria to me. Go! Now!”

With one more look of anger at Dougless, he obediently left the room.

Lady Margaret looked at Dougless. “You amuse me. You may remain in my care until a messenger can be sent to Lanconia to ask after your uncle.”

Dougless swallowed. “How long will that take?”

“A month or more.” Lady Margaret’s eyes were shrewd. “Do you recant your story?”

“No, of course not. My uncle
is
king of Lanconia.” Or will be, Dougless amended to herself.

“Now the tablet,” Lady Margaret said, leaning back on the pillows. “Then you may go.”

Dougless got a cold tablet from her bag but hesitated. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“My son will tend to you.”

“Your son locked me in a hideous little room, and there were bugs in the bed!”

Judging from the look on Lady Margaret’s face, she didn’t seem to see anything wrong with what her son had done.