A Knight in Shining Armor (Montgomery/Taggert 13)

“Oh, Nicholas,” she said, then threw her arms around his neck and began kissing him. “I knew you’d do the right thing. I knew you wouldn’t marry her. Now everything will come out right. You won’t be executed because Lettice won’t have any reason to try to kill you or Kit. And she won’t get hooked up with Robert Sydney because Arabella hasn’t had your baby. Oh, Nicholas, I knew you wouldn’t marry her.”

Nicholas pulled her arms from around him and held her hands, his eyes locked with hers. “I am pledged to marry Lettice, and I shall leave for the marriage in three days’ time.” When Dougless struggled for release, he held her hands firmly. “My way is not yours. My time is not the same as yours, and I have not the freedom you have. I cannot marry to suit myself only.”

He leaned closer to her and put his lips to her cheek. “You must understand me. My marriage was arranged years ago, and it is a good alliance. My wife will bring property and relatives into the Stafford family.”

“Will this property and these relatives help you when the axman removes your head?” she asked angrily. “Will you go to your death thinking how good this marriage was?”

“You must tell me all. What you tell me will help me prevent an accusation of treason.”

She jerked out of his grasp, then walked to the far side of the grassed area at the heart of the maze. “You’ll be able to prevent your execution as well as you could have prevented Kit’s drowning. If I hadn’t been here, your brother would be dead and your lovely Lettice would be marrying an earl.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Nicholas’s mouth. “Were I the earl, I would not marry Lettice. No doubt my mother would marry me to your fat Lucy.”

“You did marry Lettice after you became the earl. Maybe you owed her something and had to marry her.”

“Ah, yes, the sheep,” Nicholas said, smiling.

“You can laugh at me if you want, but I can assure you that when you came to me, you weren’t laughing. Facing an executioner’s ax doesn’t make a person feel jovial.”

Nicholas sobered. “Nay, it would not. You would tell me of Lettice? Tell me all that you know?”

Dougless sat down on the bench, at the far end from him, away from his touch. As she stared ahead at the green wall of trimmed hedge, she didn’t look at him.

She started slowly, at the very beginning, telling him of reading Lady Margaret’s papers that were found in a hole in a wall. She told how Nicholas had finagled an invitation into the Harewood’s home, where they’d met Lee and Arabella.

“We read the papers and asked questions all weekend, but we found out little. In the end you drew your sword on Lee and he told you that the traitor’s name was Robert Sydney. You and I both thought you’d return to this century after that, but you didn’t. You stayed.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “After that, we had a wonderful time together, but then we . . .” The pain of that morning in the church when Nicholas had disappeared was still fresh. “We made love and the next day you went back. Later I found out you’d been executed.”

She drew a deep breath and told him more. She told of afterward meeting Lee, and Lee’s telling her of finding Lady Margaret’s account of the truth of what had happened, the truth that became known only after Nicholas’s death.

She told how Lettice had planned to marry a Stafford, produce an heir, and put the child on the throne of England. She repeated Lady Margaret’s belief that Lettice had had Kit killed so she’d be marrying an earl instead of a younger son.

“After you married her, she tried to persuade you to raise yourself at court. She wanted to gain as many people to back her as possible, but you refused.”

“I do not like court,” Nicholas said. “Too many people conspire against one another.”

She turned to look at him. “You refused to stay at court with your wife, so she tried to kill you. When I met you, you had a long, deep scar on your calf where you had fallen from a horse about a year after your marriage. Your mother wrote that you had many ‘accidents’ after your marriage.”

When Nicholas didn’t speak, Dougless continued. She told him that Lettice had begun to look for someone to help rid her of Nicholas and she’d found Robert Sydney. “He hated you for being his wife’s lover and impregnating her. Lady Margaret thinks he killed both Arabella and the baby.”

“But this time I did not impregnate Arabella,” Nicholas said softly.

“True,” Dougless said, smiling, then continued. “When you started to raise an army to fight in Wales, it was easy for Lettice to get Robert to tell the queen it was treason. Queen Elizabeth was jittery about Mary of Scotland anyway, and maybe she’d heard rumors that the Staffords were considering joining with Mary.”

Dougless looked at him, at his beautiful face, at his blue eyes. She reached out her hand and put her palm on his soft, dark beard. “They cut off your head,” she whispered, blinking back tears.

Nicholas kissed her palm.

Dougless dropped her hand and looked away. “After your . . . death, Robert Sydney blackmailed Lettice into marrying him. He wanted to put his own child on the throne, only the beauteous Lettice, the woman a man had died for, was barren. She could have no children.”

Dougless grimaced. “Lee said it was all ironic. Lettice destroyed the Stafford family for a child she would never have.”

There was silence between them for a while.

“And what of my mother?”

She looked back at him. “The queen confiscated all that the Staffords owned, and Robert Sydney married her to Dickie Harewood.”

“Harewood?!” Nicholas said with disgust.