“‘Vaudeville’? ‘Routine’? I do not believe Lady Hallet will—”
“Lucy”—Dougless took the girl’s hands in hers—“something that I’ve found that hasn’t changed over time is that if you want the man, you have to fight for him. Now, what you want is for Kit to notice you, and what you need is a little self-confidence. You also need to trust your own judgment and not someone else’s. So maybe we can accomplish a few of these things by putting on a show. Kit will see that you’re no longer a little girl—and so will Lady Hallet, for that matter—and we’ll both have a good time. So how about it?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I . . .”
“What did one duke say to the other duke?”
Lucy looked blank.
“‘That was no lady, that was my wife.’”
Lucy’s mouth opened in shock; then she giggled.
“Where does a three-hundred-pound canary sit?” Dougless paused. “Anywhere he wants to.”
Lucy laughed harder.
“You’ll do,” Dougless said. “You’ll do very well. Now, let’s plan. When can we rehearse? No excuses. You’re the heiress, remember, and Lady Hallet works for you.”
By the time Dougless got back to the house, it was full daylight. She knew that many people had an idea of what she was doing each morning, for there were no secrets in the household, but everyone politely refrained from asking her point-blank.
In the mornings Lady Margaret was too busy to want any new games, so Dougless wandered into the gardens and soon found herself drawing the ABCs in the dirt for three children who worked in the kitchen. Before she realized it, it was time for dinner.
Neither Nicholas nor Kit came to dinner. Dougless vowed that after the meal she would look for Nicholas and again try to talk to him. At least now that she knew that Kit hadn’t shown Nicholas the secret door at Bellwood, she knew Kit’s “accident” was not imminent.
Smiling, she left the table and allowed Honoria to again try to teach her how to make lace from a bit of linen. Honoria was making a beautiful cuff with the word Dougless in it, surrounded by odd little birds and animals.
Bent over her embroidery frame, Dougless felt at peace. She was going to be able to help Lucy, and yesterday Nicholas had remembered something about their time in the twentieth century. She glanced at the big emerald ring on her thumb. Now that his memory had been jogged, surely he’d soon remember more. She was going to be able to accomplish what she had failed to do the first time.
TWENTY - SEVEN
Nicholas’s head hurt, and he didn’t feel too steady on his feet. He’d seen no more images after he stopped sleeping last night, but this morning he was still haunted by the dreams. “What if you are wrong?” he kept hearing in the woman’s voice. Wrong about what? About her being a witch? The images she’d put into his head were proof that he was right.
Groggily, he went downstairs to sword practice. He lunged with his sword at the man before him, not seeing the startled look on the knight’s face. Nicholas wasn’t usually aggressive in sword practice, but today, what with his head pounding and his anger, he felt aggressive. Again and again he lunged. The knight stepped back, his sword at his side.
“Sir?” the man said, astonished.
“Do you mean to give me a good fight or not?” Nicholas challenged, then lunged again. Perhaps if he was tired enough, he wouldn’t be able to hear the woman or see her inside his mind.
Nicholas wore out three men before a fourth, fresh man brought him low. Nicholas went right when he should have gone left, and the man’s blade neatly sliced his left forearm open almost to the bone. While Nicholas stood there staring at his bleeding arm, an image came to him. But this image was different, he didn’t just see it, he was in the dream.
He was walking beside the red-haired woman in a strange place, and they stopped before a building with glass windows, but windows such as he’d never dreamed existed, with glass so clear it was as though it were not there. A machine, a big, strange machine with wheels went by, but he didn’t seem to be interested in it. Instead, he was intent only on talking to the woman and telling her of the scar on his arm. He was telling her that Kit had drowned on the day he’d hurt his arm at sword practice.
He came out of the dream as abruptly as he went into it, and when he returned to the present, he was lying on the ground, his men hovering anxiously over him, one of them trying to stop the flow of blood.
Nicholas had no time to give over to pain. “Saddle two horses,” he said quietly, “one with a woman’s saddle.”
“Ride?” asked one man. “You mean to ride with a woman? But, my lord, your arm—”
Nicholas turned to him with cold eyes. “For the Montgomery woman, she—”
“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.”