A Knight in Shining Armour (4 page)

Robert gave her a look of horror as he put his arm around Gloria protectively, as though Dougless had tried to hit the kid. “I
meant
in half. Gloria is for you to enjoy, too. Money spent is nothing compared to the joy you’ll receive from her company.”

Dougless turned away. She wasn’t going to get into an argument now; they’d discuss this further later—when they were in private and Gloria wasn’t watching them with interest.

For the rest of the long flight, she read while Gloria and Robert played cards and ignored her. Twice Dougless took a tranquilizer to keep her stomach from eating itself.

Now, in the car, Dougless rubbed her aching stomach. In the four days they’d been in England she’d tried to enjoy herself. She’d tried not to complain when the first night in their beautiful hotel room, Gloria had moaned so much about the trundle bed the hotel had put in the room—after the owner had crossly lectured Dougless about not having expected Gloria—that Robert had asked Gloria to get into their four poster with them. After nearly being pushed out of bed twice, Dougless had ended up sleeping on the trundle bed. Nor had Dougless complained when Gloria ordered three entrees at the expensive restaurant. “I just want my baby to have a taste of everything,” Robert said. “And, Dougless, please stop being so stingy. I don’t know what’s come over you. I always thought you were a generous person,” Robert said, then handed Dougless the enormous bill that Dougless was to pay half of.

Dougless managed to keep her mouth shut by constantly reminding herself that she was the adult and Gloria was just a child. And Dougless consoled herself with the knowledge that somewhere in Robert’s baggage was a five-thousand-dollar engagement ring. The thought of that ring made her remember that he did love her. And she reminded herself that all the things he did for Gloria were done out of love, too.

But after last night, Dougless was finding it impossible to keep up her appearance of good humor. Last night at yet another hundred-and-fifty-dollar dinner, Robert had presented Gloria with a long blue velvet box. As Dougless watched Gloria open the box, she had a sinking feeling.

Gloria’s eyes lit up when she saw what was inside. “But it’s not my birthday, Daddy,” she’d whispered.

“I know, Muffin,” Robert said softly. “It’s just to say, ‘I love you.’”

Slowly, Gloria withdrew from the box a wide bracelet made of twisted wires of gold and silver, from which dripped diamonds and emeralds.

Dougless couldn’t prevent the gasp that escaped her, for she knew that her engagement ring was being fastened about Gloria’s chubby wrist.

Gloria held her arm up triumphantly. “See?”

“Yes, I see,” Dougless said coolly.

After dinner, in the hall outside their room, Robert had been furious with her. “You didn’t show much enthusiasm about the bracelet I gave my daughter. Gloria was trying to show it to you. She was
trying
to make overtures of friendship to you, but you snubbed her. You’ve hurt her deeply.”

“Is that what you paid five thousand dollars for? A diamond bracelet for a
child?”

“Gloria happens to be a young woman, a very beautiful young woman, and she deserves beautiful things. And besides, it’s my money. It’s not as though you and I were married and you had any legal rights to my money.”

It was the first time they’d been alone in days, and Dougless wanted to keep her pride, wanted to tell herself that it didn’t matter that Robert bought his young daughter diamonds but gave the woman he lived with half his bills. But Dougless had never been able to conceal her true feelings. With her eyes filling with unshed tears, Dougless put her hands on his arms.
“Are
we going to get married?” she whispered. “Is it ever going to happen?”

Angrily, he jerked away from her touch. “Not if you don’t start showing a little love and generosity to both my daughter and me.” He gave her a cold look. “You know, I thought you were different, but now I’m beginning to think that you’re as cold as my ex-wife. Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have to go comfort my daughter. She’s probably crying her little eyes out after the way you treated her.” After one last glare at Dougless, he turned and went into their room.

Dougless slumped against the wall. “Emerald earrings should dry her tears,” she whispered to no one.

So now, in the car, she sat with her body twisted around Gloria’s suitcases and knew that no marriage proposal, and certainly no engagement ring, was going to be given to her. Instead she knew that she was going to spend the month-long trip acting as a secretary and navigator for Robert, and being taunted by his daughter. At the moment Dougless wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but the thought of taking the first plane home appealed to her.

Even as she thought of leaving, she looked at the back of Robert’s head and her heart lurched. If she got on a plane in a rage, she knew she’d have to return to the U.S. and move out of Robert’s house. She’d have to find an apartment; then she’d— What? Start dating again? As a schoolteacher, she didn’t meet too many men. She could go to her family and— Admit that she’d had yet another relationship fail?

“Dougless,” Robert said. “I think maybe we’re lost. Where is this church? I thought you were going to watch the road maps. I can’t drive
and
navigate.” There was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there yesterday and Dougless knew he was still angry about her reaction to the bracelet.

Quickly, Dougless fumbled with the map, then looked around Gloria’s head to try to see the road signs. “Here!” she said. “Take a right.”

Robert turned down one of the narrow English lanes, bushes on either side nearly covering the road, and drove toward the remote village of Ashburton, a place that looked as though it hadn’t changed in hundreds of years.

“There’s a thirteenth-century church here containing the tomb of an Elizabethan earl.” Dougless checked her notebook. “Lord Nicholas Stafford, died 1564.”

“Do we have to see another church?” Gloria wailed. “I’m sick of churches. Couldn’t she find something better to look at?”

“I was told to search out historic sights,” Dougless snapped before she thought to modulate her tone.

Robert stopped the car in front of the church and looked back at Dougless. “Gloria’s statement was valid, and I see no call for your bad temper. Dougless, you are making me begin to regret bringing you with us,” he said, then got out of the car and walked away.

“Bringing
me?” Dougless said, but he was already halfway to the church, his arm around Gloria. “But I’m paying my own way,” she whispered.

Dougless didn’t go inside the church with Robert and Gloria. Instead she stayed outside, walking around the lumpy graveyard, absently looking at the ancient grave markers. She had some serious decisions to make and she wanted time to think. Should she stay and be miserable, or should she leave? If she left now, she knew Robert would never forgive her and all the time and effort she’d invested in him would have been for nothing.

“Hello.”

Dougless jumped at the voice, then turned to see Gloria just behind her. Maybe it was Dougless’s imagination, but the girl’s diamond bracelet seemed to flash in the sun.

“What do you want?” Dougless asked suspiciously.

Gloria stuck her lower lip out. “You hate me, don’t you?”

Dougless sighed. “No, I don’t hate you. I just . . . It’s a grown-up thing.” She took a deep breath. She wanted to be alone so she could think. “Why aren’t you inside looking at the church?”

“I got bored. That’s a pretty blouse,” Gloria said, her eyelids lowered in a sly way that Dougless had seen too many times before. “It looks expensive. Did your rich family buy it for you?”

Dougless wasn’t about to take the bait and let the girl get to her. Instead, she gave her a quelling look, then turned and walked away.

“Wait!” Gloria cried out, then yelled, “Ow!”

Dougless turned back to see Gloria crumpled in a heap beside a rough-surfaced tombstone. Dougless doubted if the girl was actually hurt because Gloria loved drama. Sighing, Dougless went back to help her up, but as soon as she was upright, Gloria burst into tears. Dougless couldn’t quite bring herself to hug Gloria, but she did manage to pat her shoulder. She even gave a little expression of sympathy because Gloria’s arm was raw where she’d hit the stone. Gloria looked at her arm and began to cry louder.

“It couldn’t hurt that much,” Dougless said, trying to soothe the girl. “I know. Why don’t you put your new bracelet on that arm? I’ll bet the pain’ll stop instantly.”

“It’s not that,” Gloria said, sniffing. “I’m upset because you hate me. Daddy said you thought my bracelet was going to be an engagement ring.”

Dougless dropped her hand from Gloria’s arm and stiffened. “What made him think such a ridiculous thing as that?” she asked, trying to sound convincing.

Gloria looked at Dougless out of the corner of her eye. “Oh, my daddy knows everything about you,” she said, her voice sly. “He knows you thought his surprise was going to be a marriage proposal, and he knows that you thought the check to the jeweler was for an engagement ring.” Gloria gave a little smile. “Daddy and I laugh all the time about you and how much you want to marry him. He says you’ll do anything he tells you to if he makes you think he’s going to ask you to marry him.”

Dougless was standing so rigid that her body began to tremble.

Gloria’s little smile turned malicious and her voice lowered. “Daddy says that if you weren’t going to inherit so much money, he’d get rid of you.”

At that remark, Dougless slapped Gloria’s smug, fat face.

Robert appeared from inside the church just in time to see the slap, and Gloria went screaming into her father’s arms.

“She hit me over and over,” Gloria screamed, “and she scratched my arm. Look at it, Daddy, it’s bleeding. She did this to me!”

“My God, Dougless,” Robert said, his eyes wide in horror. “I can’t believe this of you. To beat a child, to—”

“Child! I’ve had enough of that
child!
And I’ve had enough of the way you baby her. And I’ve had enough of the way you two treat
me!”

Robert glared at her coldly. “We have been nothing but kind and thoughtful to you this entire trip, while you have been jealous and spiteful. We have gone out of our way to please you.”

“You haven’t made any effort to please me. Everything has been for Gloria.” Tears came to Dougless’s eyes and filled her throat until she almost choked. She kept hearing Gloria’s words ringing in her head. “You two have laughed at me behind my back.”

“Now you’re fantasizing,” Robert said, still glaring at her, still holding Gloria protectively under his arm as though Dougless might attack the girl at any moment. “But since we are so displeasing to you, perhaps you’d rather do without our company.” Turning, Gloria huddled against his side, he started walking toward the car.

“I agree,” Dougless said. “I’m ready to go home.” Bending, she reached for her handbag where she’d set it down by a gravestone. But her bag wasn’t there. Quickly, she looked behind a few tombstones, but there was no sign of her bag. She looked up when she heard a car start.

At first she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Robert was driving away and leaving her!

Dougless ran toward the gate, but the car had already pulled onto the road. Then, to Dougless’s horror, she saw Gloria stick her arm out the window—and dangling from her fingertips was Dougless’s handbag.

In a futile attempt to reach them, Dougless ran after the car, but it was soon out of sight. Dazed, numb, disbelieving, she walked back to the church. She was in a foreign country with no money, no credit cards, no passport. But, worst of all, the man she loved had just walked out on her.

The heavy oak door of the church was standing open, so Dougless went inside. It was cool and damp and dim inside the church, and the tall stone walls made the place feel calm and reverent.

She had to think about her situation and make some plans about what she should do. But, then, surely, Robert would return for her. Maybe even now he was turning around and driving back to get her. Maybe any minute he’d come running into the church, pull Dougless into his arms, and tell her he was sorry and he hoped she could forgive him.

But, somehow, Dougless didn’t believe any of that was going to happen. No, Robert had been too angry—and Gloria was too much of a liar. Dougless was sure the girl would elaborate on how Dougless had injured her arm, and Robert’s anger would be refueled.