A Knight in Shining Armour Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
    No, it would be better if Dougless made some plans about how to get herself out of this mess. She’d have to call her father, collect, and have him send her money. And again she would have to tell him that his youngest daughter had failed at something. She’d have to tell him that his daughter couldn’t so much as go on a holiday without getting herself into trouble.
    Tears started in her eyes as she imagined hearing her oldest sister, Elizabeth, say, “What has our little scatterbrained Dougless done now?” Robert had been Dougless’s attempt at making her family proud of her. Robert wasn’t like the other stray-cat men Dougless had fallen for. Robert was so respectable, so very suitable, but she’d lost him. Maybe if she’d just held her temper with Gloria . . . Maybe . . .
    Tears blurred Dougless’s eyes as she looked around the church. Sun was streaming through the old windows high above her head, and sharp, clear rays lit the white marble tomb in the archway to the left. Dougless walked forward. Lying on top of the tomb was a full-length, white marble sculpture of a man wearing the top half of a suit of armor and an odd-looking pair of shorts, his ankles crossed, a helmet tucked under his arm. “ ‘Nicholas Stafford,’” she read aloud, “‘Earl of Thornwyck.’ ”
    Dougless was congratulating herself for holding up so well under her current circumstances when, suddenly,