Dreaming (44 page)

The earl’s carriage rumbled down the road.
Letty
leaned her head on Richard’s shoulder and sighed.

“Tired?” he asked.

“A little.”

“I know,” he said, putting his arm around her. “You always fall asleep in the carriage.”

“It’s the motion. Rocks me to sleep every time.”

He reached beneath her chin and tilted her head up, then gave her a lazy look filled with promise. “Not every time.” Then he started to kiss her.

There was a shout. The carriage suddenly ground to a halt.
Letty
slipped from Richard’s grip and flew across the seat. He grabbed for her, but the door wrenched open.

“Get out!”

Letty
looked up into a pair of rheumy and hateful eyes glaring at her from behind a black mask.

A pistol was pointed at her head.

“Easy,
yer
lordship, or I’ll blow her head off.”

“When I say ‘now’ move behind me,” Richard whispered, then grabbed a small pistol as he slowly helped her up and then out of the carriage. He kept her in front of him as he slipped the gun inside his coat.

Two heavily armed bandits, one on horseback and the other on foot, faced them.

“Just give us
yer
money and jewels and ye can be on
yer
merry way. Move wrong and she’s dead.” One bandit waved a pistol at her.

“Take it out real
slowlike
.”

Richard took out a purse of guineas and tossed it on the road, then stepped a little away from her.

“Now
yer
stickpin and watch, rings. Hers too.”

Richard tossed everything on the road. “Give them your jewelry,” he said to
Letty
.

Letty
took off her rings, a bracelet, and earbobs and handed them to Richard.

“Don’t
ferget
the pearls,
yer
ladyship.”

“Not the pearls,” Richard said in a gritty voice.

Letty
looked at him. The look he gave the man was livid.

“Them pearls too.”

“I said . . . not the pearls.”

“Ye ain’t got a say in it. Take off the pearls.”

“Richard, I don’t mind—”

“I do.”

“Give over the necklace or—”

“Now!” Richard shouted.

Letty
shifted.

The guns went off.

She flinched. Something burned through her.

Richard called her name.

She reached for him. And the world went black.

Chapter 26

Richard stumbled down the road, his wife in his arms, his breath in hard shocks from running.

He slowed. He knew he couldn’t fall. Not with her like this.

He glanced down at her.

There was blood everywhere. He’d never seen so much blood.

Shifting her body slightly, he reached up, then twisted his cravat tighter, trying to bind the wound near her neck.

She gave a low moan.

“I’m here, sweet. Hold on, please.”

He walked on.

The carriage will be around the next turn. Yes. The carriage. The horses. Something . . . something.

The horses had taken off. His coachman was dead, as was one bandit. The other had ridden away.

“
Letty
.”

Silence.

“
Letty
, sweet hellion. Can you hear me?”

Nothing.

He pulled her even tighter against his chest, holding her as firmly as he could.

He began to run again.

His boots pounded down the dirt road. His heart beat in his throat. He could smell the steely odor of blood.

Her blood.

Each breath was a fight. Each stride desperation.

He kept running. His arms were numb. His legs ached. His throat burned. But he didn’t know if it was from exertion or emotion.

He looked at her face. It was gray.

Her lips were lax. Chalky.

He couldn’t feel her breathing. He wanted to feel her heart.

He couldn’t stop. He just ran.

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to run. It hurt to talk.

But he had to. He ran harder.

Had he said it today? Had he told her today that he loved her?

“I love you,” he said in a rasp of breath.

He held her tighter, leaned closer to her limp body, and almost stumbled.

“Can you hear me? I love you . . . I love you . . . I love you. Please,
Letty
. Don’t ever think I don’t mean those words. I mean them. I love you.”

Every step he took, he said it.

“I love you.”

Every breath he took, he said it.

“I love you.”

He looked down at her, seeing nothing with his eyes but seeing all with his memory: an imp of a girl staring down at him from a bridge.

A young woman with her heart in her eyes as she had danced around him during a country dance, smiling, and then going in the wrong direction.

He saw a hellion who looked at him with poignant remorse and said “I shot you.” The same hellion who said “I love you.”

He saw the woman who believed he had courage and knew he had a heart, no matter how hard he tried to show her otherwise.

He saw a woman who believed in fairy tales, and dreams that come true, and blind faith in someone you love.

He saw his wife. His life.

He looked up then, raw emotion turning the horizon into a misty blur of brown and green . . . and dying hope.

He begged.

Just save her.

He promised penance and faith.

I’ll do anything. God, don’t take her too.

He offered wealth.

Take my land, my title.

He promised anything.

Take everything.

Even himself.

I’ll be anything for her. I swear. Just don’t take her from me.

Living without her. A thought more terrifying than anything he could ever imagine.

The only reason I’ve lived was to find her.

He stared up at the sky and shouted, “God dammit! You hear me! Listen. You listen.” His voice tapered off. “Someone listen. Someone.” He looked down at her, paused and whispered, “You have to be all right. Don’t die on me now. Not now.”

He began to cry then. The harder he ran, the harder he cried.

“Richard.” It was barely a whisper.

But he felt it as well as heard it.

Her eyes were open.

“God . . . hellion. Can you hear me?”

Her face was wet from his tears. “Is it raining?”

He swallowed. “A little.”

Her eyes drifted closed. “Thought so.” She paused, then added, “You’re blustering again.”

“That’s only because I thought you weren’t listening.”

Her only answer was a ragged breath.

“I love you.”

Silence.

“I love you.”

She licked her pale lips. “I know.”

“You said I needed to see the future. I see our future, love. I see it clearly. It’s really there. I see those dreams of yours coming true. I see our children, our grandchildren, playing in our meadow. Did you know that? I see myself looking down at you when I’m old and gray and saying two million.”

She said nothing.

“Can you hear me?” There was panic to his tone.

She was looking at him again through eyes that carried little life, but what life was there showed her worry. But not for herself, he knew that. She was worried for him.

He took a breath and tried to speak calmly. “I see what I can be. I see it all.” He leaned down so his mouth was to her ear and she wouldn’t be able to see his wet eyes. “But I can’t have that, hellion, if I don’t have you.”

He raised his head and looked at her again through a blur of emotion. Her eyes had drifted closed.

He lay his head against hers, needing to feel the warmth that said she was still alive. He ran and ran, onward, down the never ending road, not knowing how far, not knowing how long, only knowing he had to.

He heard his boots crunch on gravel. He pulled his head away from hers. He had no idea how far he had run. Time had passed without him.

He looked at her pale face, and prayed for her. For him.

Again the gravel crunched beneath his boots. A drive, he thought. A house.

He looked up.

Through raw, burning eyes he saw gates.

Estate gates.

Then he saw it.

Lockett Manor.

“Can you imagine?” said the Reverend Mrs. Poppit to the Ladies League for Moral Stewardship. “That brave man ran all those miles with little Letty Hornsby in his arms.”

“She was not Letty Hornsby.” Matilda Kenner glared at Mrs. Poppit. “She was and
is
the Countess of Downe.”

“Well, that’s neither here nor there,” Mrs. Poppit snipped, then raised her pointy chin a notch too high and announced, “The point is the romance of the story. Even before he became an earl, I always knew that Richard Lennox was of the stuff heroes were made of. The finest moral character.”

The four other women choked on their tea.

After a moment of coughing, Nyda, one of the Pringle sisters, whispered, “I heard she lost so much blood they thought she would die.”