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 breasts 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 gay if he hadn’t looked at every other female who passed t
hem.
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?”