A Knight in Shining Armor

  “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?”

  “Yes,” Dougless said through a closed throat. “Unbelievable.” She paused. “What of Lady Margaret?”

  “Neither Lettice nor Sydney had any idea the old woman knew what they’d done. No doubt they’d have killed her if they’d known, but she was a clever old broad and kept her mouth shut. Maybe she realized she couldn’t prove anything. The queen confiscated everything she owned, so Sydney stepped in and offered her a choice between the pauper’s farm or marrying his ex-father-in-law, Lord Harewood. Of course Sydney had an ulterior motive. Since he had three kids of Arabella’s still alive, Lady Margaret’s marriage made them obscurely related. It isn’t much of a relationship by our standards today, but back then it was enough that Queen Elizabeth gave Sydney two of the Stafford estates.”

  He took a sip of his beer. “After Lady Margaret married Harewood, she wrote everything down, put it in an iron chest, had some faithful old servant knock out part of a wall, and hid the box in there. As an afterthought, she put her letters in a chest and hid them too. Then the wall was sealed up.”

  He paused. “It was a good thing she did it when she did. According to a letter that’s survived that was written by a friend of hers, two weeks later Lady Margaret was found dead at the bottom of a staircase, her neck broken. I guess after Mr. and Mrs. Sydney got the two Stafford estates, they had all they needed from her.”

  Dougless leaned back against the booth and was silent for a while. “What happened to them? To . . . Lettice and Robert Sydney?” She could hardly bear to say the names.

  “Roasted in hell, I imagine. But actually, I don’t know. I know that since they never had any kids, their estates passed into the hands of his nephew, who was a dissolute little bastard. In one generation the little creep managed to bankrupt the Sydney estates. It’ll take more research to find out specifically what happened to Lettice and her husband. Historians haven’t been too interested in them.” He smiled. “Up to now, that is. History will change after I write my book.”

&nb
sp; “To change history,” Dougless whispered. That’s what Nicholas had wanted to do, but all they’d managed was to make his execution happen. “I have to go,” she said abruptly.

  “Where are you staying? I’ll walk you there.”

  “I don’t have reservations.” Her head came up. “But I plan to stay at Thornwyck Castle.”

  “Yeah, don’t we all? You have to book a year in advance to get into that place. Wait a minute, don’t look so sad. I’ll call.” He walked away and minutes later returned, grinning. “You are one lucky devil. They had a cancellation, so you can check in now. I’ll walk you there.”

  “No,” Dougless said. “I need to be alone. Thanks for dinner, and thanks for telling me. And I’ll see that you get your chair at an Ivy League school.” She put out her hand to shake his, then turned and left the pub.

  TWENTY

  At Thornwyck no one remembered Nicholas. Dougless looked back through the guest register, and where Nicholas had signed the book, an unfamiliar hand had written “Miss Dougless Montgomery.” Listlessly, she put her tote bag in the single room, then went outside to look at the unfinished part of the castle. This time, it had never been finished because Nicholas had been executed.

  As she looked at the roofless walls, at the vines hanging down them, she remembered every word of what Nicholas had told her about what he’d planned for this place. A center of learning, he’d said. Yet all his plans had come to nothing.

  When he’d left her yesterday, had he gone back to his cell? she wondered. Had he gone back to the time when he’d been writing his mother and trying to find out who had betrayed him? What had he done in those three days before his execution? Would no one listen to him when he told them of Robert Sydney’s lies?

  Wearily, she leaned back against a wall. Whom had he told about Robert Sydney? Lettice? Had his beloved wife come to visit him? Had he told her what he knew and asked for her help?

  Irony, Dougless thought. Lee had said all of it was ironic. The true irony was that Nicholas had died because he was good. He’d refused to commit treason with his wife, refused to even consider it—and he’d died for it. Not a quick, honorable death, but a death that was public and meant to ridicule him. He’d lost his life, his honor, his name, his estates, and the respect of future generations, all because he’d refused to conspire with a power-mad woman.

  “It is wrong!” Dougless said aloud. “What happened was wrong.”

  Slowly, she walked back to the hotel, and as though in a trance, she showered, put on her nightgown, then went to bed. She lay awake for a long time, anger not allowing her to sleep. Irony, she thought. Treason. Betrayal. Blackmail. The words tumbled about in her head.

  Toward dawn she fell into a fitful sleep, and when she awoke, she felt worse than she had before she went to bed. Feeling a thousand pounds heavier and very old, she dressed and went downstairs to breakfast.

  Nicholas had been given a second chance, and he had asked her, Dougless, for help, but she had failed him. She had been so jealous of Arabella that she’d lost sight of the true purpose of why they’d been at the Harewoods. When she should have been searching for information, she had been worrying about whether Nicholas and Arabella were touching each other. Well, no one was going to touch Nicholas now—not in the twentieth century or in the sixteenth.

  She ate, she checked out, and she walked to the train station and boarded a train going back to Ashburton. Somewhere during that train ride her failures stopped plaguing her and she began to ask herself what could be done now. Would the publication of Lee’s book help to clear Nicholas’s name? Perhaps if she volunteered her services as his secretary and helped him research, she could somewhat make up for how she’d failed to help Nicholas when he was in the twentieth century.

  She leaned her head against the train window. If only she had it to do over again, she wouldn’t be jealous and she wouldn’t waste their precious time together. When she was at Goshawk Hall, why hadn’t she asked Lee if there were any other secrets hidden behind the wall? Why hadn’t she looked? Why hadn’t she torn down that wall with her own bare hands?!! Why hadn’t she—

  When the sign for Ashburton appeared out the window, she got off the train. As she walked, she realized that there was nothing she could do. The time to help was past. Lee could write his book himself and she was sure he’d do a great job of it. Robert had his daughter, so he didn’t need Dougless. Nicholas had been the one who needed her, but she’d failed him.

  There was nothing more for her to do but go home.

  Leaving the train station, she started toward the hotel. She would call the airlines and see if she could get a flight home immediately. Perhaps if she returned to familiar surroundings, she could begin to forgive herself.

  As she walked, she went past the church that contained Nicholas’s tomb and her feet seemed to turn toward the gate of their own accord. The church was empty inside, the sunlight streaming down through the stained-glass windows to gently touch Nicholas’s tomb. The pale white of the marble looked cold and dead.

  Slowly, Dougless walked toward the tomb. Perhaps if she prayed, Nicholas would return. Perhaps if she begged God, He’d let Nicholas come back to her. If she could just see him for five minutes, she thought. That’s all she’d need to tell Nicholas of his wife’s treachery.

  But as she touched the cold marble cheek, she knew it wouldn’t work. What had happened was a once-in-a-century happening. She’d been given a chance to save a man’s life and she’d failed.

  “Nicholas,” she whispered, and for the first time since he’d gone, tears came to her eyes. They were hot, thick tears that blurred her vision.

  “I am onion-eyed again,” she said, almost smiling. “I am so sorry for failing you, my darling Nicholas. But I don’t seem to be much good at anything. But before now I never had anyone die because of my shortcomings.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, then turned around to sit on the edge of the tomb. “How do I live with your blood on my hands?”

  She unzipped her bag that was still hanging from her shoulder and rummaged inside for a tissue. She pulled out a soft travel pack, then took out a tissue. As she blew her nose, she saw a piece of paper fall from the tissue pack to the floor. Bending, she picked it up and looked at it.

  It was the note Nicholas had written and slipped under her door.

  “The note,” she said, standing up straight. It was the note written in Nicholas’s own hand! It was something that he had touched, something that was . . . that was proof, she thought.

  “Oh, Nicholas,” she said, and the tears began in earnest then, real tears, deep, deep tears of grief. Her legs gave way beneath her and she slid slowly to the stone floor, the note held to her cheek. “I am sorry, Nicholas,” she cried. “Very, very sorry that I failed you.”

  She leaned her forehead against the cold marble tomb, her body huddled in a knot. “Dear God,” she whispered, “please help me to forgive myself.”

  Dougless, in her grief, was unaware of the way the light came in through the stained glass and touched her hair. The window depicted an angel kneeling and praying, and the light came through the angel’s halo to touch Dougless’s hair, and as a cloud moved, the sunlight touched Nicholas’s marble hand.

  “Please,” Dougless whispered, “please.”

  It was at that moment that Dougless heard laughter. Not just any laughter, but Nicholas’s laughter.

  “Nicholas?” she whispered, then lifted her head, blinking to clear her vision. There was no one in the church.

  Awkwardly, she rose. “Nicholas?” she said louder, then turned abruptly when she heard the laughter again, this time behind her. She reached out her hand, but there was no one, nothing, there.

  “Yes,” she said, standing up straight; then louder, “Yes.” She raised her face to the sunlight and to the angel in the window. Closing her eyes, she put her head back. “Yes,” she whispered.

  Suddenly, Dougless felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach. Do
ubled over in pain, she fell forward onto her knees on the stone floor. When she tried to get up, she felt dizzy and as though she were going to throw up. She had to get to a rest room, she thought. She couldn’t befoul the church.

  But when she tried to move, nothing happened. It was as though her body were no longer obeying her brain. “Nicholas,” she whispered, then reached out her hand toward his tomb, but the next moment everything went black and she collapsed to the floor.

  TWENTY - ONE

  When she awoke, she felt dizzy and weak and wasn’t sure where she was. She opened her eyes to see blue sky overhead and a leafy tree nearby.

  “Now what?” she whispered. Had she wandered out of the church? But the sight of the sky and the tree had calmed her. For the first time in days she didn’t feel frantic.

  She closed her eyes again. She was so weak she felt like staying where she was and taking a nap. She would figure out where she was later.

  As she began to doze, she was vaguely aware of a feminine giggle nearby. Kids, she thought. Children playing.

  But at the sound of a male’s responding laughter, her eyes opened. “Nicholas?” Slowly, still feeling disoriented, she sat up and looked around. She was sitting on the grass under a tree in a pretty part of the English countryside. Turning about, she tried to get her bearings. When had she left the church?

  Dougless stopped turning when she saw a man in a field. He was far away and difficult to distinguish, but he seemed to be wearing a sort of short brown robe and he was plowing a field with an ox. Dougless blinked her eyes, but the vision didn’t change. Rural England was indeed rural.

  Behind her came the woman’s giggle again. “Sir Nicholas,” the woman said in a dreamy sort of way.

  Dougless didn’t think about what she did; she merely reacted. Leaping to her feet, she went to the bushes behind her and shoved her way through them.