A Knight in Shining Armour by Jude Deveraux Page B

every inch of the quaint little English village. When they saw Nicholas, they advanced on him, cameras covering their faces.
    At the sight of the approaching tourists, Nicholas drew his sword and stepped forward. Watching from the sidelines, the American woman tourist yelled in fear, but the Japanese kept moving closer, their cameras clicking like cicadas on a hot summer night.
    To prevent the coming clash, Dougless did the only thing she knew worked: she flung herself against the armor-clad man and yelled, “No!” Unfortunately, when she hit him, the edge of his sword slashed the upper sleeve of her blouse and cut her arm. Startled by the pain, Dougless tripped and nearly fell, but the knight caught her, lifted her into his arms for the second time, and carried her back to the sidewalk. Behind them, the Japanese cameras were still clicking and the Americans applauded.
    “Gee, Daddy, this is better than Warwick Castle,” an American kid said.
    “It’s not in the guidebook, George,” the woman said. “I think they should put things like this in the guidebook, or otherwise a body could think it was real.”
    Nicholas set the woman down. Somehow, he did not know how, but he had made a fool of himself. Did this century allow a nobleman to be defamed? And what manner of weapon were the small black machines these people held before their faces? For that matter, what manner of little people were they who held the machines?
    He did not ask his questions, as questions seemed to annoy the witch-woman. “Madam, you are injured,” he said, and Dougless could tell by the way he stiffened that he was mortified that he’d injured her.
    Her arm was bleeding and the wound hurt, but she decided to let him off the hook. “It’s only a flesh wound,” she said, parodying the TV westerns. But the man didn’t smile at her joke. Instead, he continued to look embarrassed. “It’s not anything,” she said, looking at the bloody place on her arm. She took a tissue from her skirt pocket and pressed it over the cut. “The coin shop is down there. Let’s go.”
    When Dougless entered the little shop, the dealer smiled at her in welcome. “I hoped to see you again. I—” He broke off when he saw Nicholas. Slowly, without a word, the man came forward and began to walk around Nicholas, examining his clothing. After one circuit, he dropped the jeweler’s loupe down over his eye and looked at the armor, murmuring, “Mmm hmm,” over and over. While Nicholas stood stiffly erect, looking at the man in distaste, but also looking as though he didn’t want to commit another faux pas, the coin dealer examined the jewels on Nicholas’s sword hilt, the jewels of the ring on the hand that rested on the sword, and the jewels on the dagger in his belt—a weapon Dougless hadn’t noticed before. Flipping up his loupe, the man went to his knees and examined the embroidery on the garter about Nicholas’s knee, then looked at the knitting of his hose, and, last of all, at his soft slippers.
    Finally, the coin dealer straightened and peered at Nicholas’s face, examining his beard and hair.
    Throughout this, Nicholas had been enduring the tradesman’s scrutiny with ill-concealed distaste.
    At last the coin dealer stepped back. “Remarkable,” he said. “I have never seen anything like it. I must get the jeweler from next door to see this.”
    “You will do no such thing!” Nicholas snapped. “Do you think I wait all day here to be inspected like a hog at a fair? Will you do business, or do I go elsewhere?”
    “Yes, sir,” the coin dealer muttered, scurrying back behind his counter.
    Nicholas dropped a sackful of coins onto the counter. “What do you trade me for these, and remember, man, I take care of those who cheat me.”
    At Nicholas’s tone of voice, Dougless found herself cowering to one side. This armored man had a way of giving orders that could frighten one into doing his bidding. After he’d dropped the coins, Nicholas went