“We must go to Ashburton, where my tomb lies. Now that I know what I came to find, I needs must go there and pray.”
She wanted to say more, wanted to say something that would make him give up the idea of returning, but she knew there were no words that could change his mind. His family, his name, and his honor were very important to him. “We’ll leave today,” Dougless said softly. “I can’t see that you need to see any more of Arabella.”
“Have you no more calculators or televisions to distract me?” he asked, smiling.
“I was saving the stereo for tonight.”
He turned her around to face him, his hands on her shoulders. “I will pray alone,” he said. “If I return, I go alone. You understand me?”
She nodded. Borrowed time, she thought. We are now on borrowed time.
SIXTEEN
Dougless sat on the twin bed in the bed-and-breakfast and looked across at Nicholas in the other bed. The early morning light made his face above the light cover dim and indistinct, but it was enough for her to see him. They’d known the name of the traitor for three days now, and every minute of those three days Dougless was sure he was going to disappear. Every morning he went to the church and spent two hours on his knees praying before his tomb. He spent another two hours in the afternoon praying.
And each time he went inside the church, Dougless stayed outside and held her breath. She was sure that each time he stepped inside it would be the last time she ever saw him again. At ten A.M. and four P.M. she would tiptoe into the church, and when she saw that he was still there, sharp tears of relief and joy came to her eyes. She would run to him, and her heart went out to him when she saw the sweat on his face and body. He prayed so hard each day that afterward he was limp with exhaustion. Dougless would help him stand, as his knees would be painful and stiff from two hours of kneeling on the cold stone floor. The vicar, feeling pity for Nicholas, had put out a cushion for him, but Nicholas refused to use it, saying he needed the pain of his body to make him remember what must be done.
Dougless didn’t ask why he needed a reminder of his duty because she didn’t want to jinx the growing seed of hope that she was beginning to cherish. Every day when she went to him in the church and she saw that he was still with her, there seemed to be a light in his eyes. Maybe he wouldn’t return, Dougless was beginning to think. She knew she, too, should pray for his return. She knew that honor and a family name and the future of many people were more important than her selfish wants, but every time she saw him still kneeling in the church, sunlight on his big body, she whispered, “Thank You, God.”
Three days, she thought, three heavenly days. When Nicholas wasn’t in church, they spent every moment together. She rented bicycles, then had a hilarious time teaching him to ride. Whenever Nicholas fell, he pulled her with him, so that they went tumbling together across the sweet English grasses. Across sweet English grasses filled with cow manure.
Laughing at how awful they smelled, they ran back to the B and B to shower and shampoo. Dougless had rented a VCR machine and a tape, so they spent the rest of the afternoon in their room watching a movie.
As Nicholas was insatiable for knowledge, they purchased a lending card from the little local library and went through hundreds of books. Nicholas wanted to see everything that had happened since 1564, and he wanted to hear every piece of music. He wanted to smell, taste, touch everything.
“Were I to remain here,” he said one afternoon, “I would make houses.”
It took Dougless a moment to realize that he meant he would like to design them. The beauty of Thornwyck Castle showed he had talent. Before she could stop herself, a flood of words came from her mouth. “You could go to architecture school. You’d have to learn a lot about modern building materials, but I could help you. I could teach you how to read modern print better and my uncle J.T. could get you a passport. He’s the king of Lanconia, so we’d just say you’re a Lanconian; that way, I could take you back to the U.S. My father could help you get into a school to study architecture, and in the summer we could go to my hometown of Warbrooke on the coast of Maine—it’s beautiful there—and we could go sailing and—”
He turned away. “I must return.”
Yes, return, she thought. To go back to his wife, the woman he loved so much. How could Dougless care so much for him and he feel nothing for her? The other men in her life had wanted something from her. Robert had wanted her submission; do it my way or don’t do it, was his philosophy. A couple of men had dated her because of her family’s money. A couple of men had wanted her because she was so gullible, so easy to fool. But Nicholas was different. He wasn’t trying to take anything from her.
There were times when Dougless looked at him and such lust filled her that she wanted to leap on him in the library, or in the pub, or on the street. She kept having fantasies about tearing his clothes off and ravishing him.
But every time she got too close, he stepped away. It seemed that he was interested in tasting, smelling, touching everything in the world except her.
She tried to interest him. Heavens! but she tried. She paid—on her credit card—two hundred pounds for a red silk peignoir set that was guaranteed to drive a man wild. When she came out of the bathroom wearing it, Nicholas had barely glanced at her. She’d bought a tiny bottle of perfume called Tigress that set her back seventy-five pounds; then she’d leaned over Nicholas so that her shirt fell away from her br**sts and asked if he liked the smell. He’d barely mumbled a reply.
She put her jeans in scalding hot water in the bathtub to shrink them, and when they were dry, they were so tight she had to put a big safety pin on the zipper and lie on the floor to pull it up. She wore them with a thin silk blouse and no bra. Nicholas didn’t look.
She would have thought he was g*y if he hadn’t looked at every other female who passed them.
Dougless bought black hose, black high heels, and a teeny, tiny black skirt and wore it with the red silk blouse. She felt ridiculous riding a bicycle wearing high heels, but she did it anyway. She rode in front of Nicholas for four miles, but he never once looked. Two cars ran into ditches looking at her, but Nicholas paid no attention whatever.
The videotape she rented was Body Heat.
By the fourth day she was desperate, and with their landlady’s help, she devised an elaborate scheme to get Nicholas in bed with her. The landlady told Nicholas she needed their room, so Dougless made reservations at a nearby lovely country house hotel. She told Nicholas the only room she could get had one large four-poster bed, but that they’d have to make do. He’d given her an odd look that she couldn’t fathom, then walked away.
So now Dougless was in the bathroom of the hotel, where she’d been for thirty minutes. She felt as nervous as a virgin bride on her wedding night. With trembling hands, she doused herself in perfume and loosened the ties down the front of her peignoir.
Ready at last, she fluffed her hair and left the bathroom. The room was dark, but she could see the outline of the bed—the bed she was to share with Nicholas.
Slowly, she walked toward the bed. She could see the long shape of his body under the covers, and she reached out her hand to touch him. “Nicholas,” she whispered.
But her hand didn’t touch him. Instead, she touched . . . Pillows!
When she turned on the bedside lamp, she saw that Nicholas had made a barricade of all the pillows down the middle of the bed. They reached from the head to the foot of the bed. On the far side Nicholas lay with his back to her, and his broad back was like another barricade.
Biting her lip to keep tears from coming, she climbed into bed, staying on the edge, not touching the hated pillows. She didn’t turn out the light because suddenly all strength left her body. Tears, hot, hot tears began rolling down her cheeks.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why?”
“Dougless,” Nicholas said softly, turning toward her, but not reaching over the pillows to touch her.
“Why am I so undesirable to you?” she asked, and hated herself for doing so, but she had no pride left. “I see you look at other women who I know aren’t built as well as I am. And I know they aren’t . . . aren’t as pretty as I am, but you never look at me. Sometimes you kiss me but nothing more. You had your hands all over Arabella and you’ve made love to so many women, but you refuse me. Why? Am I too short? Too fat? You hate redheads?”
When Nicholas spoke, she could tell that the words were from deep inside him. “I have never desired a woman as much as I have you,” he said. “My body aches with the wanting of you, but I must leave. I cannot return and know I leave you grieving. When I first saw you, you were weeping so that I heard you across four hundred years. I cannot leave you to such grief again.”
“You won’t touch me because you don’t want me to grieve for you?”
“Aye,” he whispered.
Dougless’s tears began to be replaced by laughter. She got out of bed and, standing, she looked down at him. “You idiot,” she said. “Don’t you realize that when you leave, I’m going to grieve for you every day for the rest of my life? I’m going to cry so long and loud and hard that I will be heard to the beginning of time. Oh, Nicholas, you fool, don’t you know how much I love you? Whether you touch me or not, you won’t be able to stop my tears.”
Pausing, she smiled at him in a cocky way. “While I’m grieving, why don’t you let me have a memory that will knock Arabella off her table?”
As Dougless stood and watched, Nicholas just lay there, not moving, just looking at her across the pillows. One second he was in bed, the next he was on her and they were on the floor. Dougless never saw him move, she just felt his body against hers, felt his mouth on her skin, his hands holding her shoulders, then moving quickly and firmly out to her hands.
“Nicholas,” she whispered, “Nicholas.”
He was on her, his mouth and hands everywhere, as she kissed whatever part of him came near her mouth. His hands tore at her gown and Dougless heard it ripping away. When his hot, wet mouth fastened onto her breast, she moaned in ecstasy.
This was Nicholas, the man she’d wanted, desired, and craved for hundreds of hours. His big, hard hands moved down the side of her, his thumb toying with her navel as his lips and tongue played with her br**sts.
Her fingers buried into his hair. “Let me,” she whispered. She had always chosen men who needed her, men who thought no one could give them enough. Dougless’s experience with sex had been with men who expected her to give to them.
“Nicholas?” she said as his lips began moving down her belly. “Nicholas, I don’t think—” His hands caressed her thighs, his thumb kneading the soft white flesh there; then he moved downward, downward.
Dougless arched her body against the carpet. No man had ever done this to her before. Passion built in her as his tongue . . . Oh, God, his tongue.
“Nicholas,” she moaned, and began to pull his hair as her body moved under him. He nibbled at the inside of her thighs, caressing the back of her knees, until she didn’t think she could stand it any more.
Taking her left leg in his hand, he bent it up as he moved on top of her and entered her so hard and big she tried to push him away. But her body closed around him, her free leg wrapping about his leg, as he pounded into her with hard, deep thrusts that pushed her across the carpet. She put up her hands to brace herself against the wall.
When Nicholas released her bent leg, she clasped him about the waist, and her h*ps rose to meet his thrusts as his hands cupped her bu**ocks and lifted her to him. Higher, higher.
When at last she felt him arch into her for a final blinding thrust, Dougless felt her own body shuddering in answer.
It was a while before she came to herself to remember where she was, or even who she was. Her head was almost against the wall; the bedside table and lamp loomed over her.
“Nicholas,” she murmured, touching his sweaty hair. “No wonder Arabella risked all for you.”
Lifting himself on one elbow, he looked down at her. “Do you sleep?” he asked, chuckling.
“Nicholas, that was wonderful,” she whispered. “No man—”
He didn’t allow her to finish, but took her hand and lifted her to stand by him. Gently, sweetly, deeply, he kissed her, then took her hand and led her into the bathroom. He got the shower water hot, then pulled her in with him. Pinning her to the wall, he kissed her, his big, hard body pressing against hers.
“I have dreamed of this,” he murmured. “This water fountain was made for love.”
Dougless was too absorbed in the way he was moving down to her br**sts to be able to answer him. With the hot water beating on them, Nicholas began kissing her body, his mouth on her br**sts, on her stomach and her neck. Dougless had her head back, her hands on his shoulders, shoulders so broad they nearly reached from one side to the other of the shower stall.
He came up to face her. When Dougless opened her eyes, she saw he was smiling at her. “Perhaps some things in this modern world do not change,” he said. “I seem to be your teacher now.”
“Oh?” she said as she began kissing his neck, then across his shoulder and down his muscular chest, her hands kneading his back muscles. Fat, she thought. She’d said he was going to get fat, but all of him was muscle, thick, hard, sculptured muscle.
The hot water beat down on her head, and she went lower, her hands on his bu**ocks. When her mouth closed over him, it was his turn to gasp. His hands buried themselves in her wet hair as she heard his soft moans of pleasure.
He nearly pulled her up by her hair as he slammed her against the slick wall, pulled her legs about his waist, and rammed into her almost brutally. Dougless held on to his passion, fastening herself to him as his mouth took hers, his tongue thrusting just as his body did.
When the final moment came, Dougless would have screamed except that Nicholas covered her mouth with his.
She clung to him, trembling, her body limp. She was sure that if Nicholas hadn’t been holding her, she would have gone down the drain.
He kissed her neck. “Now I will wash you,” he said softly as he set her on her own feet, then caught her when she nearly fell.
As though he had an electric switch in his body, he seemed to turn his passion off as he turned her to face the showerhead and began to shampoo her hair. His big, strong hands and his big body made her feel small and fragile—and protected. When he was done with her hair, he lathered his hands and began soaping her body.
Dougless leaned back against the wall as Nicholas’s hands slid over her, up and down, around, in and out. Before she forgot herself, she took the soap and began to caress him with her soapy hands. He had the most beautiful body she’d ever seen on a human. Heavens! she thought, even his feet were beautiful.