“If you’ll come back,” she whispered, “I’ll make you an American lunch: fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs and a chocolate cake. While I’m cooking, you can . . .” She thought. “You can look at plastic wrap and aluminum foil and Tupperware—if they have it in England. Please, please, please return, Nicholas.”
FOURTEEN
Nicholas’s head came up. Arabella’s arms were about his neck, her abundant breasts pressed against his bare chest. They were in a private glade where he and a past Arabella had spent an energetic afternoon. But today Nicholas had little interest in the woman. She had told him she wanted to discuss what she’d found out about his ancestor. She’d said she had new information, facts that had never been published before.
Her words were a lure to him, and to find out what she knew, he’d pay any price, so he’d followed her to the secluded spot.
Arabella pulled Nicholas’s head back down.
“Do you hear it?” Nicholas asked.
“There’s nothing, darling,” Arabella whispered. “I hear only you.”
Nicholas pulled away from her. “I must go.”
Seeing anger flood her haughty face, Nicholas knew he did not want to enrage her. “Someone comes,” he said, “and you are too lovely to share with the prying eyes of anyone. I would keep your beauties to myself.”
This seemed to mollify her enough that she began fastening her clothes. “I’ve never met a man who was more of a gentleman than you. Tonight then?”
“Tonight,” he said, then left her.
For the most part the hunters had driven Land Rovers, but there were a half dozen horses tied near the cars. Nicholas took the best one, rode it back to the house, then mounted the stairs two at a time. He flung open the door to his bedroom.
Dougless wasn’t surprised, really, when Nicholas appeared in the doorway.
For a moment, he stood there staring at her. Her face and her body showed her wanting of him. It was the most difficult thing Nicholas had ever done, but he looked away. He could not, would not, touch her. If he did . . . If he did, he was not sure he would want to return to his own time.
“What do you want of me?” he asked harshly.
“I want you?” she asked, angry. She’d seen the way he’d turned away from her. “It looks as though someone else wanted you, not me.”
Nicholas looked up at the mirror in the wardrobe door and saw that his shirt was buttoned wrong. “The guns are good,” he said, refastening his shirt. “With those we could beat the Spanish.”
“England beats everyone and without modern guns. Next thing, you’ll be telling me you want bombs to take back with you. Did the guns unbutton your shirt?”
He looked at her in the mirror. “Your jealousy brightens your eyes.”
Dougless’s anger dissolved. “Cad!” she said. “Did it ever occur to you that you’re making a fool of yourself a second time around? History has loved the story of you and Arabella, and now here you are doing it again.”
“She knows what I do not.”
“I’ll bet she does,” Dougless muttered. “Probably more experienced.”
Nicholas chucked her under the chin. “I doubt so. Is that food I smell? I am hungry.”
Dougless smiled. “I promised you an American lunch. Come on, let’s go see Mrs. Anderson.”
They walked arm in arm to the kitchen. The hunters had taken lunch with them in baskets, so the kitchen was not being used now except for a pudding steaming on the back burner of the Aga.
After getting Mrs. Anderson’s permission, Dougless set to work, putting potatoes and eggs on to boil, then starting on the cake, but she decided on chewy, pecan-filled brownies instead. Nicholas sat at the big table and experimented with plastic wrap and aluminum foil and opened and closed plastic containers until Dougles
s said the “whooshing” sound was driving her crazy, so she gave him eggs and potatoes to peel. He wouldn’t chop onions, though.
“Did you help Lettice cook?” she asked, trying to sound innocent.
Nicholas’s laugh was the only answer he would give.
When the food was ready, Dougless cleaned the kitchen—Nicholas refused to help—and packed everything in a big basket along with a thermos of lemonade. Nicholas carried it for her out to a little walled garden, where they sat under elm trees and ate.