Nicholas went to the window and looked out. “They are gone now, but they have left your capcases on the ground. We are well rid of them.”
Dougless didn’t look up. How did she get herself in these messes? She couldn’t even go away on a vacation without something awful happening to her. Why couldn’t she have a normal, ordinary relationship with a man? She’d meet a man in a classroom somewhere, he’d ask her out, then they’d go on simple dates to movies or to play miniature golf. After a few dates, he’d propose marriage over a bottle of wine. They’d have a nice wedding, a nice house, two nice kids. Her whole life would be simple and ordinary.
Instead, she met guys who had been in jail or were about to be taken off to jail, guys who were ruled by their obnoxious daughters, or men who were from the sixteenth century. Honestly, she didn’t know any other woman who’d ever had as much trouble with men as she?
??d had.
“What is wrong with me?” she whispered, burying her face in her hands.
Kneeling before her, Nicholas pulled her hands away from her face. “I find I am most tired. Mayhap you will come upstairs and read to me so I may rest.”
Like a dumb animal, she let Nicholas take her hand and lead her upstairs. But once upstairs, he didn’t expect her to read to him. Instead he told her to stretch out on the bed, which she did, while he sat beside her on the bed and began to sing to her. He sang a soft, sweet lullaby that she doubted anyone else in this century had ever heard before. Gradually, she drifted off into sleep.
NINE
When she was asleep, Nicholas leaned back against the headboard and stroked her hair. God, but how much he wanted to touch her! He wanted to put his hands in her thick hair of that glorious dark red. He wanted to run his hands over her pale skin, wanted to feel those legs of hers wrapped around him. He wanted to kiss away her tears, then kiss her mouth. He wanted to kiss her all over until she smiled and laughed and was happy.
She slept bonelessly, like a child, but there was a catch in her breathing as though she’d been weeping. He’d never seen a woman cry as often as she did, he thought. But then, he’d never seen any woman who was like her. She wanted love so very much.
He had asked her about marriage in this strange new world, and the answers did not please him. In his mind, marriage should be a contract, something made as an alliance, made to breed a suitable heir. But it seemed that in this new century marriage partners chose each other for love.
Love! Nicholas thought. The emotion was a waste of a man’s energy. Too many times he had seen men who’d lost all because of the “love” of some woman.
He touched Dougless’s temple, stroked the soft hair there, and looked down at her beautiful body of full breasts and slim legs. Look what this girl had suffered for “love,” he thought. With a smile, Nicholas thought of what his mother would have said to the idea of marrying for love. Lady Margaret Stafford had had four husbands, and she’d never considered loving any of them.
But as Nicholas looked down at this modern woman, he felt a softness inside him that he’d never felt before. She wore her heart on the outside of her body, ready to give it to anyone who was kind to her. As far as he could tell, she had no ulterior motives for the help she gave, for the warmth she gave. She didn’t ask for money. Nor did she try to take advantage of his constant confusion in this century. No, she gave help because someone needed her help.
He put his hand to her cheek, and in her sleep, she snuggled her face against his hand.
What bond had brought them together? And what bond held them? He had not told her, as she did not seem to experience it, but he could feel her pain. From the first day, when she felt pain, so did he. That first day, outside the church, she had made what he now knew was a telephone call to her sister. He’d had no idea what she was doing, but he’d sensed that she was hurt.
Today, he’d been directing the driver with the bags when, suddenly, he had sensed a feeling of great despair, and he knew it was coming from her. His first sight of the lover who had abandoned her was such a shock to him that he’d had difficulty understanding the words.
At first his only thought had been that Dougless was going to leave him. How would he find the key to returning if she left him? But more than that, what would he do without her? Without her smiles and teasings? Without her innocence and her laughter?
It was still difficult for him to understand the modern speech, but he understood that her ex-lover wanted her to go with him, and he could see that Dougless was having difficulty deciding what to do. When Nicholas threw the man out, he had reacted out of a primitive instinct. How could Dougless consider leaving with a man who gave his daughter precedence over a woman? If for no other reason, Dougless deserved respect because she was older. What manner of country was this that worshiped children to the extent that they were treated as royalty?
Now, as she lay beside him, Nicholas touched her shoulder, then ran his hand down Dougless’s arm. Three days, he thought. Three days ago he had never seen her before, but now he found himself doing whatever he could to make her smile. She was so easy to please. All it took was a kind word, a gift, or even a smile.
Leaning over her, he softly kissed her hair. The woman needed caring for, he thought. She needed someone to watch over her. She was like a rosebud that needed a little sunshine to make it open into a full blossom. She needed . . .
Abruptly, Nicholas pulled away from her, then got off the bed and went to stand by the window. Her needs were not his concern, he told himself. Even if he could somehow take her back with him, he could do no more than make her his mistress. He gave a one-sided smile. He did not think the soft Dougless would make a very good mistress. She would never ask her master for a thing, and what she had she’d give to any child who had no shoes.
Nicholas ran his hand over his eyes as though to clear his vision. There was more in this twentieth century that he did not understand than machines that produced light and pictures. He did not understand their philosophy. Yesterday he had seen an outrageous thing called a movie. It had taken him some time to be able to see it, as the people were so large, and the concept of flat giants who looked so round was difficult for him to understand. Dougless had told him the people were normal size, but, like a person could be drawn small, one could be photographed large. After he got over his horror of the pictures themselves, he found that he did not understand the story. A young girl was to marry a perfectly suitable man of means, but she had thrown him over for a penniless young man who had nothing more than a fine pair of legs.
Afterward, Dougless had told him she thought the story “wonderful” and “romantic.” He did not understand this philosophy. If his mother had had a daughter and that daughter had refused to honor a good marriage contract, Lady Margaret would have beaten the girl until her arm grew tired; then his mother would have directed the strongest groom to beat the girl some more. But in this age it seemed that disobedience in children was to be encouraged.
He looked back at her, asleep on the bed, her knees tucked up, her hand under her face.
If he remained in this age, he thought, then perhaps he could remain with her. It would be pleasant to live with such a soft female, a woman who put his needs before her own, a woman who held him when his dreams were bad. A woman who did not want him because he was an earl or because he had money. Yes, life with her could be pleasant.
No! he thought, then turned away from her to look out the window. He thought back to that hideous beldame at Bellwood, that hag who had laughed at the memory of Nicholas Stafford. If he remained in this time with Dougless, he would never change how he was remembered. The woman at Bellwood had said that after Nicholas’s death, Queen Elizabeth had taken the Stafford estates, and later most of them had been destroyed in the Civil War. Only four of his many estates now remained—and none of them belonged to a Stafford.
Honor, Nicholas thought. People of this age seemed to think little of honor. Dougless did not really understand what he meant by honor. She thought the story of Lady Arabella was amusing. Even the idea of what a man’s execution for treason did to his family did not bother her. “It was so long ago,” she’d said. “Who rememberers what happened so many years ago?”
But it wasn’t long ago to Nicholas. To him, just three days ago he had been in the White Tower, trying to save his family’s honor, and his own head as well.
This changing of time had happened to him for a reason. He was sure that God was giving him a second chance. He was convinced that somewhere in this century was the answer to who had hated him enough to want him killed. Who had benefitted by his death? And who so had the queen’s ear that she would believe this person completely?