Free A Knight in Shining Armour by Jude Deveraux Page A

will give me gold for paper?” he asked, incredulous.
    “Yes, there are gold dealers, and some banks sell gold.”
    “Then why do you not use gold to buy goods with?”
    “Too heavy, I guess.” She sighed. “You put your money in a bank. Money you aren’t using, that is, and use the paper as a substitute for the gold. Where do you put your money?” she asked.
    “In my houses,” he answered, frowning as he considered what she’d told him.
    “Oh, I see,” she said, smiling. “I guess you dig a hole and hide it. Well, today money is put in a bank where it earns interest.”
    “What is interest?”
    Dougless groaned. Enough was enough! “Here’s a tea shop. Are you hungry?”
    “Yes,” he answered as he opened the door for her.
    The English custom of afternoon tea was a tradition Dougless had taken to readily. It was heaven to sit down at four o’clock and sip delicious hot tea and eat a scone. Or five scones, as Gloria did, she thought with a grimace.
    At the thought of Gloria, her fists clenched. Did Robert know his daughter had taken Dougless’s handbag? Did he know he’d left Dougless completely stranded, alone at the mercy of crazy men? And how had Gloria known that Dougless had been expecting an engagement ring? For the life of her, Dougless couldn’t believe that Robert had told Gloria such a thing. Had Dougless said something and Gloria had guessed from that?
    Dougless couldn’t believe that Robert had done what Gloria said and “laughed” about her. Robert wasn’t a bad person. If he were, he wouldn’t love his daughter so much. He wasn’t one of those men who went off and left their children without a backward glance. No, Robert felt bad because he’d left his child when he’d divorced, and he desperately wanted to make it up to his daughter, so he took her with him when he went on vacation. And it was natural for Gloria to fight for her father’s love, wasn’t it? And wasn’t it natural for the child to be jealous of the woman her father loved?
    Dougless knew that if Robert walked into the tea shop at that moment, she would fall to her knees and beg his forgiveness.
    “May I help you?” the woman behind the counter asked.
    “Tea for two,” Dougless said. “And two scones, please.”
    “We have clotted cream and strawberries also,” the woman said.
    Absently, Dougless nodded, and in moments the woman passed a tray holding a pot of strong tea, cups, and plates of food across the counter to her. She paid, then picked up the tray and looked at Nicholas. “Shall we eat outside?”
    He followed her outside to a little garden that had vines growing over the old brick walls that enclosed it. Fat old-fashioned roses ran along the border and filled the area with their fragrance. Silently, Dougless set the tray down and began to pour the tea into two cups. On her previous trips to England, her mother had considered her too young to drink tea, but she’d tried the English custom of adding milk to tea the first day of this trip and had found it delicious. The milk made the tea the correct temperature and took the sharp tannin flavor out of the tea.
    Nicholas was walking about the little garden, studying the walls and the plants. She called him to the picnic table and handed him his cup of tea and a scone.
    He gave the tea a tentative look, then sipped cautiously. After two sips, he looked at Dougless with such naked joy on his face that she laughed as he drained the cup. She poured him another cup while he picked up the scone and looked at it. It was very much like a southern American biscuit, but it had sugar in the dough, and these were fruit scones, so they had raisins in them.
    She took the scone from him, broke it in half and slathered it with the thick clotted cream. He bit into it and as he chewed he looked like a man who had fallen in love.
    In minutes he had drunk all the tea and eaten all the scones. After a couple of remarks about his gluttony, Dougless went back into the shop