After she was past his many questions about her relationship to Robert, she was able to continue. She told of crying on his tomb and of his suddenly being there and of her not believing who he was. She told of his walking in front of a bus.
She didn’t get far after that because Nicholas started asking questions. It seemed he’d had a vision of her on a two-wheeled vehicle and he wanted her to explain what it was. He wanted to know what a bus was. When she said she’d called her sister, he wanted her to explain how a telephone worked.
Dougless couldn’t describe all he wanted to know, so she got off the bed and got her tote bag. She pulled out her three magazines and started looking for photographs.
Once she showed him the magazines, there was no hope of continuing with her story. There was an Elizabethan saying, “Better unborn than untaught,” and Nicholas seemed to epitomize that belief. He was insatiable in his curiosity, and he asked questions faster than Dougless could answer them.
When she couldn’t find pictures to show him, she pulled out a spiral notebook, colored felt-tips, and began to draw. The pens and paper caused more questions.
Dougless was beginning to be exasperated because she couldn’t continue her story, but then she realized that now that he believed her, she’d have time in the future to tell him everything. “You know,” she said, “when I saw Thornwyck Castle, the tower on the left looked different than you drew it. And where are those curved windows?”
“Curved windows?”
“Like this.” Dougless began to sketch, but she wasn’t very good at architectural rendering.
Rolling onto his side, Nicholas took the pen and made a beautiful perspective sketch of the windows. “This is like the windows?”
“Yes, exactly. We stayed in one of those rooms, and we could see the garden below. The church is just next door, and the guidebook said there used to be a wooden walkway from the church to the house.”
Leaning back, Nicholas began to sketch. “I have told no one of my plans, but you say that this was half built before I . . . before I was . . .”
“Right. Yes. After Kit died and you were the earl, you had complete freedom to do what you wanted. I guess now that Kit’s alive, you’ll have to get his approval to build this place.”
“I am no master builder,” Nicholas said, looking at his sketch. “Were Kit to need a new house, he would hire someone.”
“Hire someone? Why? You can do it. These are beautiful drawings, and I’ve seen Thornwyck Castle and happen to know it’s beautiful.”
“I to be a tradesman?” he asked, one eyebrow aloft haughtily.
“Nicholas,” she said sternly, “there are many things I like about your century, but your class system and your sumptuary laws aren’t part of what I like. In my century everyone works. It’s embarrassing to be ‘idle rich.’ In England even royalty works. Princess Diana goes all over the world raising money for one charity after another. And the Princess Royal, well, I get tired just reading her schedule. Prince Andrew takes pictures; Princess Michael writes books. Prince Charles tries to keep England from looking like a Dallas office complex, and—”
Nicholas chuckled. “It is not so rare now that royalty works. Do you think our lovely new queen sits idle?”
Suddenly Dougless remembered having read that one of the reasons Nicholas was executed was that some people were worried that he might go to court and seduce the young Queen Elizabeth. “Nicholas, you aren’t thinking of going to court, are you? You wouldn’t want to be one of her courtiers, would you?”
“One of her—” Nicholas asked, aghast. “What do you know of this woman who is queen? Some say Mary of Scotland is the true queen and that the Staffords should join forces with others to put her on the throne.”
“Don’t do that! Whatever you do, don’t put your money on anyone but Elizabeth.” As she spoke, Dougless wondered if she was changing history. If the Staffords and all their money had been put at Mary’s disposal, would she have taken the throne? If Elizabeth weren’t queen, would there have been a time when England was the reigning world power? If England weren’t a world power that sent settlers to America, would America be speaking English? “Heavy,” she said under her breath, mocking a young cousin of hers.
“Who will Elizabeth marry?” Nicholas asked. “Who will she put on the throne beside her?”
“No one, and don’t start on me, because we’ve already had this argument. Elizabeth marries no one, and she does a super job of running the country and a lot of the world with it. Now, are you going to let me tell you the rest of our story, or are you going to keep telling me that what did happen didn’t?”
He grinned at her. “You gave yourself to a man for free and I came to save you. Yes, please continue.”
“That’s not exactly what happened, but . . .” Trailing off, she looked at him. He had saved her. He’d appeared in that church, sunlight flashing off his armor, taken her away from a man who didn’t love her, and shown her the true give-and-take of love. With Nicholas she could be herself. She never had to think about having to please him; she just seemed to naturally please him. When she was growing up, she’d tried so hard to be as perfect as her older sisters. But it seemed that every schoolteacher she ever had, had had all of her sisters in her classes before Dougless. And, by comparison, Dougless was always a disappointment. Dougless daydreamed, but her sisters never did. Dougless wasn’t much good at sports, but her sisters had excelled. Her sisters had had millions of friends, but Dougless was always a bit shy and had always felt like an outsider.
Her parents had never compared her to her sisters. They never seemed to notice that the tennis trophies, equestrian trophies, baseball trophies, spelling bee medals, and science fair ribbons all belonged to their eldest daughters. Dougless had once won a third prize yellow ribbon at church for the best apple pie, and her father had proudly hung it up beside his other daughters’ blue ribbons and purple best-of-show ribbons. The yel
low had looked so strange and, to Dougless, so embarrassing, that she took the ribbon down.
All her life it seemed that Dougless had wanted to please people, but, somehow, she’d never been able to. Her father kept saying that whatever she did was okay with him, but Dougless merely had to look at her sisters’ accomplishments and she knew she needed to do something great. Robert had been an attempt to impress her family. Maybe Robert, a distinguished surgeon, was supposed to be the biggest trophy of all.
But Nicholas had saved her, she thought. Not in the way he meant. He hadn’t saved her because he’d pushed Robert out a door. No, he’d saved her by respecting her, and, because of him, Dougless had begun to see herself through his eyes. When she thought about it, Dougless doubted very much if her sisters could have handled what had happened as well as she had. All of them were so sensible and so levelheaded they would probably have called the police on a man in armor who said he was from the sixteenth century. Not one of them would have been softhearted enough to take pity on a poor crazy man.
“What makes you smile so?” Nicholas asked softly.
“I was thinking about my sisters. They’re perfect people. Not a flaw in them, but I just realized that perfect can sometimes be a little lonely. Maybe I do try to please people, but I guess there are worse things. Maybe I should just find the right person to please.”