Nicholas pushed her out to arm’s length to look into her eyes. “Lettice Culpin is the highest I can hope for. I am a younger son, a mere knight. I have naught but what Kit allows me. I am fortunate he is so generous as to allow me to live at his expense. The lands Lettice brings to this family will benefit us all. How can I not do this for a brother who has given me so much?”
“Lettice isn’t the best you can hope for. Lots of women like you. You can get someone else. If you have to marry someone for money, we’ll find her. Somebody rich but not ambitious like Lettice.”
Nicholas smiled down at her. “Having a woman in bed is not the same as a marriage alliance. You must trust me on this. Lettice is a good match for me. No, do not frown. I will be safe. Do you not see? The danger of her is in not knowing. Now that I know, I can save my family and myself.”
“If she finds out that you aren’t interested in overthrowing the queen or even in going to court, perhaps she will break the engagement.”
“For all that she is related to the Throne and has money, her family is not so old as mine. If what you say about her plans is true, she will not release me. What woman does not believe that she can bend a man to her will?”
“Then she’s going to kill you,” Dougless said. “Are you going to check every saddle cinch to see if it’s been cut? What about poison in your food? What about a wire stretched across the stairs? What if she hires thugs to beat you up? What about drowning? Burning?”
He chuckled in a patronizing way. “I am pleased you care. You shall help me keep watch.”
“Me?” She pulled away from him. “Me?”
“Aye. You shall stay in my household.” He gave her a look through his lashes. “You shall attend to my wife.”
It took Dougless a moment to react. “Attend to your wife?” she said evenly. “You mean like help her dress, check that her bathwater isn’t too hot? That sort of thing?”
Her calm tone didn’t fool him. “Dougless, my love, my one and only love, it will not be so bad. We will spend much time together.”
“Do we spend the time together with or without a permission slip from your wife?”
“Dougless,” he pleaded.
“You can ask this of me after the way you talked about my living with Robert? At least with Robert I was his only woman. But you . . . you’re asking me to wait on that . . . that killer! What am I supposed to do at night while you’re trying to produce an heir with her?”
Nicholas stiffened. “You cannot ask me to be celibate. You say you cannot share my bed for fear of returning.”
“Oh, I see, I can be celibate; that’s perfectly okay. But you, Mr. Macho Stud, you have to have a different woman every night. What do you do on the nights when Lettice tells you no? Chase the maids into the arbor?”
“You may not speak to me like this,” he said, his eyes darkening with anger.
“Oh, I can’t, can’t I? If someone travels four hundred years just to warn another person, and that person won’t listen for no reason except his own vanity, then the party of the first part can say any damn thing she pleases. Go ahead, marry Lettice, see if I care. Kill Kit. Kill your mother. Lose your estates you think are so bloody valuable. Lose your head!”
She shouted the last part, then pushed past him and ran through the maze, tears blinding her.
She was lost within three minutes and she just stood where she was crying. Maybe a person couldn’t change history. Maybe it was predestined that Kit was going to die and Nicholas was going to be executed. Maybe it was never meant that the Stafford family should continue to live. Maybe no one could change what was going to happen.
Nicholas came to her, but he didn’t speak, and Dougless was glad. She knew that mere words would not change what each felt must be done. Silently, she followed him out of the maze.
THIRTY - TWO
For Dougless the next three days were hell. Everyone in the Stafford household was very excited about Nicholas’s forthcoming marriage, and it was all anyone could talk of. The food, the clothes, who would be there, who from the Stafford household would get to go, and who would stay at home with Lady Margaret, were all topics of conversation. Huge carts were packed with the goods Nicholas and Kit would take with them to the Culpin estate, where the wedding would be held. With a feeling of doom, Dougless watched the preparations for the long visi
t. Nicholas and Kit were taking not only their clothes with them, but furniture and servants as well.
To Dougless it seemed that every item that was loaded onto the carts was a weight on her heart. She tried to talk to Nicholas. Tried and tried and tried. But he wouldn’t listen. Duty meant more to him than anything else in the world. He would not forsake his duty to his family for any reason on earth, not for love, not even to avoid the possibility of his own death.
On the night before the day Nicholas was to leave, Dougless felt the worst she ever had. Only the day Nicholas had returned to the sixteenth century and left her in the church was comparable.
At night, after the maid had helped her undress, she removed her thin, silky slip from her tote bag and put it on. With her borrowed robe about her, she went to Nicholas’s bedchamber.
Outside his room she put her hand to the door. She knew he was awake; she could feel it. Without knocking, she opened the door. He was sitting up in bed, the rough sheet covering his legs, leaving his chest and hard, flat stomach bare and exposed. He was drinking from a silver tankard, and he didn’t look up when she entered.
“We must talk,” she whispered. The room was silent except for the crackle of a fire and the sputter of candles.
“Nay, we have no more to say,” he answered. “We both must do what we must.”