“Look at this,” Dougless said, “a Bang and Olufsen TV. I’ve never seen one before. I hope you don’t mind, but I really wanted to see the late news. Ah, here’s the remote control.” She sat on the edge of the bed, turned on the big color TV, then began flipping channels. Behind her she felt Nicholas sit up.
“A movie,” he whispered.
“Naw, just TV.” She handed him the remote control. “See, here’s the on and off. This is volume, and these are channels. Look at that! It’s an old movie about Queen Elizabeth.” She flipped off the TV, put the remote control on the bedside table near Nicholas, yawned, then stood up. “I just remembered that I do have some pins after all. Thanks, though, Lady Arabella. Hope I didn’t disturb you too much.”
Dougless had to run to the door because Arabella was coming after her, her hands made into claws. Dougless barely made it out the door before it slammed on her heels. Standing outside, she listened to what went on inside the room. After a moment she heard the unmistakable sounds of a TV western; then Arabella screeched, “Turn that off!” But the next sound was Bette Davis’s voice in her role as Queen Elizabeth the First. Clever man, Dougless thought, smiling; he had found the channel. Still smiling, Dougless went back to her room, and this time, she had no trouble going to sleep.
In the morning, Lee met her for breakfast. “I thought you were going to come by my room last night,” he said. “I was going to read the letters to you.”
“Planning to tell me who betrayed Nicholas Stafford?”
“Mmm,” was all Lee would say; so after breakfast Dougless followed him up the stairs. If he told her the name, would Nicholas immediately return to the sixteenth century?
But she saw right away that getting Lee to tell her anything was going to be a problem.
“I was trying to remember. Wasn’t your father on the board of directors at Yale? Maybe he’d be interested in reading my findings.”
“I’d sure be glad to tell him about them. I’d especially like to tell him who betrayed Lord Nicholas,” she said.
Lee stepped very close to her. “I’d tell you if perhaps you made a little call.”
“My father’s staying in the wilds of Maine right now and can’t be reached.”
“Oh,” he said, turning away. “I guess I can’t tell you then.”
“You little extortionist,” Dougless seethed before she thought. “You’re playing with a career, but the name of this traitor means a man’s life!”
He turned to her with a look of astonishment. “How can some sixteenth-century papers mean someone’s life?”
There was no way she could explain to him. “I’ll talk to my father. In fact, I’ll write him a letter today. I’ll even let you see the letter, and I’ll make sure that he gets it the minute he returns home.”
Lee looked at her, frowning. “Why do you want this name so much? There’s something fishy about all this. Who is Lord Stafford anyway? You two don’t act much like secretary and boss. You act more like—”
It was at that moment that the door flew open and Nicholas entered the dining room. He was wearing his Elizabethan clothes, his legs showing all their muscularity in the tight hose, his silver and gold armor flashing in the sunlight. He held his sword straight out and pointed it at Lee’s throat.
“Just what is this?” Lee demanded. He pushed the sword away, then gasped when the sharp blade cut the side of his hand.
Nicholas advanced on him, the tip of the lethal weapon at Lee’s throat.
“Dougless, go get some help,” Lee said, backing up. “He’s gone mad.”
When Lee was pinned against the wall, Nicholas spoke. “Who betrayed me to the q
ueen?”
“Betrayed you? You’re crazy. Dougless, get some help before this lunatic does something we’ll both regret.”
“Say his name,” Nicholas said, pushing the sword tip deeper into Lee’s throat.
“All right,” Lee said, exasperated. “It was a man named—”
“Wait!” Dougless cried as she looked at Nicholas. “If he tells, you might go. Oh, Nicholas, I might never see you again.”
Still holding the sword at Lee’s throat, Nicholas held his arm out to Dougless, and she ran to him, her mouth to his before their bodies touched. She kissed him with all the longing, all the pent-up desire she felt. Her hands clutched his hair, pulling his head down as she kissed him. For all that Dougless thought he didn’t desire her, the passion she felt coming from Nicholas made her feet come off the floor as he lifted her with one arm.
He broke away first. “Go,” he ordered her.
Tears were blurring Dougless’s eyes, but she could swear there were tears forming in Nicholas’s eyes too.