A Knight in Shining Armour (51 page)

“She can ride only enough to keep from falling from the horse,” said another man, contempt in his voice.

Awkwardly, and with help, Nicholas got to his feet. “Bind my arm so the bleeding stops, then saddle two horses—with men’s saddles. Do it now,” he said. “Waste no time.” His voice was low, but there was command in it.

“Should I fetch the woman?” another man asked.

Nicholas, his arm held out while a man bound a cloth tightly about it, looked up at the windows of the house. “She will come,” he said with confidence. “We do but wait.”

Hunched over her embroidery frame,
Dougless was listening to one of the ladies telling a juicy story about a woman who’d tried to bed another woman’s husband. Dougless was listening to the story with all her attention when suddenly a fierce, burning pain stabbed her left forearm.

With a cry of pain, Dougless fell back on the stool and landed on the floor. “My arm. Something has hurt my arm.” She cradled her arm to her, tears of pain coming instantly.

Leaping to her feet, Honoria ran to kneel by Dougless. “Rub her hands, do not let her faint,” Honoria commanded as she quickly untied Dougless’s sleeve at the shoulder and slipped it down. Honoria winced at Dougless’s moan of pain as she had to pull Dougless’s arm away from her breast to remove the sleeve. Once the sleeve was off, Honoria pushed the linen undersleeve up to look at Dougless’s arm.

There was nothing wrong with it. The skin was not even reddened.

“I see nothing,” Honoria said, suddenly afraid. She’d grown to care for Dougless, but the woman was very odd. Sir Nicholas accused her of being a witch. Was this pain a manifestation of her witchcraft?

The pain in her arm was blinding, but when Dougless looked down, she saw that there was nothing wrong with her forearm. “It feels as though it’s been cut,” she whispered, “as though someone has cut it deeply with a knife.”

She used her right hand to rub her forearm, but she could barely feel her own touch. “I can feel the cut,” she whispered, trying not to whimper. The women around her were looking at her strangely, as though Dougless weren’t quite sane.

Suddenly, Dougless could hear Nicholas’s voice in her head. They were in bed together and she’d touched the scar on his left forearm. He said he’d been injured on the day Kit had drowned.

Dougless was on her feet instantly. “Where do the men practice swords?” she asked, trying not to sound frantic. Please, God, she prayed, do not let me be too late.

At her remark, the other women seemed to be assured of Dougless’s lack of sanity, but Honoria answered. Nothing Dougless did could surprise her. “To the back, past the maze, through the northeast gate.”

Nodding, Dougless wasted no more time. She grabbed her skirts, thanked heaven for the farthingale that held the skirts away from her legs, then began to run. In the hall she crashed into a man, and when he fell, she leaped over him. A woman in the kitchen was getting something off a high shelf. Crouching, Dougless kept running under her arms. A wagonload of barrels had come untied, and Dougless leaped five barrels, one after another, looking like an oddly dressed Olympic hurdler. She ran past Lady Margaret outside the maze, but when the woman called to her, Dougless didn’t answer. When the gate in the wall at the back of the maze stuck, Dougless lifted her foot and smashed it open.

Once outside the gardens, she ran as fast as she could.

Nicholas, his arm swathed in a bloody bandage, was sitting on a horse and watching her progress toward him.

“Kit!” Dougless screamed, still running. “We have to save Kit.”

Dougless didn’t say any more because a man swooped her into his arms and dumped her onto a horse, and, oh, thank all that was holy, it was a man’s saddle. She jammed her feet into the stirrups, grabbed the reins, and looked at Nicholas.

“We ride!” he shouted as he kicked his horse forward.

The wind in her eyes stung and her arm still hurt, but most of Dougless’s concentration was on following Nicholas. Behind them thundered three men trying to keep up with them.

They ran across plowed fields, through gardens of cabbages and turnips. They ran through the dirty, barren yards of peasants, and for once Dougless gave no thought to equality as their horses’ hooves destroyed crops and even once, a shed. They ran into the woods, tree branches low overhead. Dougless put her head down on the horse’s neck and kept going. Leaving the trail, Nicholas headed into the forest. Even though there was no path, the forest floor was clear of deadfall, for even twigs were needed for firewood, so, except for the overhanging branches, their way was unhampered.

Dougless never thought to question how Nicholas knew where Kit was, but she was sure he did know. Just as he’d known she would come when he hurt his arm, he knew where his brother was.

They broke through the trees into a clearing, and ahead, surrounded by more trees, sparkled a pretty, spring-fed pond. Nicholas was off his horse while it was still running, and Dougless followed him, tearing her heavy, long skirt when it caught on the saddle.

When she reached the pond and looked down, what she saw chilled her. Three men were carrying Kit’s nude, lifeless body out of the water. Kit’s body was facedown, his long dark hair falling forward, his neck limp and lifeless.

Nicholas was staring at his brother. “No,” he said, then, “NO!”

Shoving past Nicholas, Dougless went to the men holding Kit. “Put him down here,” she ordered. “On his back.”

Kit’s men hesitated.

“Obey her!” Nicholas bellowed from close behind her.

“Pray,” she said to the man nearest her as she straddled Kit. “I need all the help I can get. Pray for a miracle.”

Instantly, the men went to their knees, their hands clasped, their heads bowed.

Nicholas knelt before Kit’s inert body and placed his hands on Kit’s wet head. When he looked at Dougless, his eyes showed that he trusted her in whatever she did to his beloved brother’s inert body.

Dougless pushed Kit’s head back to make a straight line of his air ducts, then began to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Nicholas’s eyes widened as he watched, but he did not try to stop her. “Kit, please,” she whispered. “Please live,” then she again forced air into his lungs.

When she was ready to give up hope, Kit coughed, then was silent.

Nicholas’s head came up as he looked at Dougless. “Come on, come on,” she said. “Breathe, damn you!” With Nicholas’s help, she pushed Kit onto his side.

Kit gave another cough, then another, then he vomited water as his lungs cleared.

Rolling off of him, Dougless put her face in her hands and burst into tears.

Nicholas held his brother’s shoulders while Kit got rid of the water. A knight draped his cape about Kit’s bare lower half, while the other men stared down at Dougless. Her hair was down, her dress torn, she’d lost a shoe, and Nicholas’s blood was on one sleeve and the other sleeve was missing.

At last Kit quit coughing and leaned back against his brother. Tiredly, Kit looked at Nicholas’s arm that was wrapped tightly about his chest. His brother’s blood trickled down Kit’s bare, wet chest. Kit looked up at his men, and saw all six of them staring down at the Montgomery woman who was crying softly into her hands.

“This is a fine way to treat a man back from the dead,” Kit managed to croak out. “My brother bleeds on me, and a pretty woman sheds tears. Is no one glad that I yet live?”

If anything, Nicholas’s grip on Kit tightened. Dougless looked up, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and sniffed. A knight handed her a handkerchief. “Thank you,” she murmured, then blew her nose.

“The maid has saved you,” one of the knights said, awe in his voice. “It is a miracle.”

“Witchcraft,” muttered another man.

Nicholas looked up at the man, his eyes black with threat. “You call her witch again and you will not live to repeat the words.”

The men knew that Nicholas meant what he said.

When Dougless looked at Nicholas, she knew that his hatred of her was over, and that now he’d listen to her. She blew her nose again, then tried to stand. When she stumbled, one of the men helped her up, but they were all looking at her as though she were part saint, part demon.

“Oh, heavens,” she said, “stop looking at me like that. This is a common practice in my country. We have lots of water and people are always drowning. Really, what I did was no miracle.”

To her relief, she could see the men believed her, but probably only because they wanted to.

“Now, I want all of you to stop standing around and get busy. Poor Kit must be freezing, and, Nicholas, your arm is a mess. You two help Kit, and you two see if there are any clean bandages for Nicholas’s arm, and you two go see if the horses survived the trip. Now go! Scurry!”

One advantage women throughout time have had is that the little boy in men always remembers a time when women were all-powerful. The men bumped into each other as they ran to do her bidding.

“You have a shrew on your hands, brother,” Kit said happily. Nicholas still held his brother tightly, as though he were afraid Kit would die if he released him. “Perhaps you would fetch my clothes for me,” Kit said softly to Nicholas, then shook his head as Dougless started for Kit’s clothes piled on the bank of the pond.

Slowly, Nicholas released his hold on his brother and started to rise, but he swayed on his feet. The loss of blood, combined with his ride and his fear, had weakened him. Standing to one side, Dougless watched as Nicholas slowly made his way to the bank, picked up Kit’s clothes, then took them back to his brother.

Kit accepted the clothes with the solemnity of a king receiving the crown at his coronation, then he grinned. “Sit down, little brother,” he said.

When Nicholas took a step, he swayed, so Dougless caught him in her arms and led him to sit down; then she sat beside him. Turning, Nicholas put his head on her lap.

Kit laughed. “Now that is more the brother I know.” He looked up as his men came back into the clearing.

Dougless looked down at Nicholas and stroked his sweat-dampened black curls. This was, at long last, her Nicholas. Here again was the man she’d loved and lost.

“Do you grow onion-eyed again?”

His words, so heart-stoppingly familiar, did indeed bring tears to her eyes. “The wind,” she murmured. “Nothing more.” She smiled at him. “Give me your arm. I want to see what you’ve done to it.”

Obediently, he held up his arm, and her stomach lurched. The bandage was saturated with blood and his hand was encrusted, as well as his sleeve above the wrappings.

“How bad is it?” she whispered.

“I do not believe I will lose the arm. The leeches—”

“Leeches!” Dougless said. “You can’t afford more blood loss.” Glancing up, she saw that Kit was now dressed, but he was so weak that he was being supported as the men led him to his horse.

“Nicholas, get up. We’re going back to take care of that arm,” Dougless said.

“Nay,” he said. “I would the two of us stayed here.”

He had that look in his eye, that soft, sexy, hooded look that promised he would make Dougless glad she stayed.

“No,” she said, even as she bent down to kiss him.

“A woman’s ‘no’ pleases me much,” Nicholas said softly, his uninjured arm moving up to her hair.

Their lips didn’t meet.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Dougless said sternly. “Up! I mean it, Nicholas, get up. You aren’t going to sweet-talk me into doing whatever you want while your arm turns to gangrene. We’re going back to the house and clean up the wound; then we’ll get Honoria to sew it back together.”

“Honoria?”

“She can sew better than anyone else.”

He frowned. “The arm does pain me some.” Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his head from her lap, but, as he moved past her lips, he planted a quick, sweet kiss on them.

They rode slowly back to the Stafford house, and as they approached, Dougless tried to straighten her spine and her clothing. But her dress, torn and bloody, was beyond repair. In the wild ride, she’d lost her little pearl-studded cap. As they drew nearer to the house, Dougless remembered running past Lady Margaret and not speaking, and, too, practically before the lady’s face, she’d kicked the gate open. And now here she was, looking like something off the streets, riding astride, her skirts up to her calves.

“I don’t think I can face your mother,” Dougless said to Nicholas.