Dreaming (45 page)

“The earl stayed by her side every minute.” Lady Harding sighed. “Such a devoted husband. They couldn’t get him to move.”

“ 'Tis said the Duke of Belmore brought in some special Scottish doctor.”

“One of the maids told our housekeeper that they came late one night, when all were in bed, none of them expecting the poor countess to last through the night. The duke had to knock the earl out with a Chinese vase to get him to leave the room so the doctor could save her. The earl didn’t want to leave her for a single minute,” said Nellie Pringle. “But in the end, this doctor worked a miracle.”

“Did the maid say who this doctor was?” Lady Harding leaned closer to Nellie Pringle.

“No one saw him, but someone heard the name.”

All of the ladies leaned closer. “What was it?”

“MacLean.”

Epilogue

As long as there are dreamers,
There will be dreams that come true.

Letty
sat in the meadow, hugging her knees and waiting for Richard. In the last hour she’d picked enough wildflowers to fill ten vases, thrown a stick for Gus until they were both bored, and kicked dandelions till there were none left. She looked toward the house but saw nothing.

With a sigh, she lay back in the grass and closed her eyes, losing herself in the magical moment of a daydream. Within seconds her mind’s eye showed a meadow filled with children—the children they would have someday.

Clear as the
Devon
sky was the image of a boy of fourteen with brown hair and dark green eyes. He stood as tall as his father while he baited a fishing hook for a blond lad of about eight.

Nearby was another boy with golden hair, about twelve years old, with a rascally smile, and he was sporting a black eye from his sister’s cricket ball. The cricket batter, a blond girl of ten, joined another girl of six who played with a litter of bloodhound pups. And a toddler rolled in the dandelions, her laughter catching in the wind and echoing in the crowns of a nearby elm tree. The daydream was so realistic and so heartwarming that she almost believed she would open her eyes and they’d be there.

A loud
clank
broke the peace of the meadow, then the sound of a horse’s hooves startled her and she sat up.

She blinked, then shook her head and blinked again.

Riding toward her was a knight on a white horse adorned with bright red and yellow pennants. He appeared to be having trouble staying in the saddle.

She stood up quickly, her mouth hung open in shock, as the knight reined in his charger a few yards away and lifted the visor on his helm.

He promptly fell from the saddle, and the crash rang clear through to her teeth.

Muttering, Richard creaked upright, shook his head slightly, then squeaked toward her.

Gus growled.

“Hush.” She gave him a reassuring pat on his head. “It’s Richard.”

Gus barked, then took off at a lumbering run. With a flying leap he hit Richard square in the chest and knocked him to the ground with a deafening crash.

“Bloody hell!”

Letty peeled her hands away from her eyes to see Gus sitting on Richard’s armored chest with his muzzle buried in the helm opening.

“Richard! Gus!” Letty ran over.

Gus was licking Richard’s face.

“Get this beast off me!” came the muffled sound of her husband’s voice.

She pulled Gus off and made him sit.

Still lying flat on his back, Richard looked up at her through the raised helm. “I told you this armor looked painful.”

She was laughing so hard she couldn’t speak.

“You are supposed to be overwhelmed by my heroic attempt to make your dreams come true, hellion. Not overcome with laughter.”

She knelt beside him and tried not to giggle. “I’m so sorry. It’s just so, so perfectly wonderful I feel like I’m dreaming.” She smiled. “I love you.”

“You’d better after this. I don’t know how in the devil they fought in this contraption. I could barely mount the horse. Took four grooms to seat me. Give me a hand, will you?”

She reached out and he pulled himself into a sitting position with an ear-ringing
squeak
. He turned and reached for her, lowering his head toward her mouth. Barely a breath away from her, the visor clamped shut He swore, then reached up to open it. It wouldn’t move.

“Letty, my hands are worthless with these gauntlets. See if you can open the visor.”

She tried to push it up. It wouldn’t budge. She tried again. Still nothing. She chewed her lip, then said, “Richard?”

“What?”

“I believe it’s stuck.”

There was a full minute of telling silence before he swore viciously. Three minutes later one gauntlet flew westward. Three minutes after that, another flew eastward.

And some two hours later, on a grassy hillside in
Devon
, amid a scattering of bent and buckled armor, the Earl of Downe smiled triumphantly at his countess.

“One million, two hundred and ninety-three.”