Free Chasing the Heiress by Rachael Miles Page B

world. But he is a bit mad, and he doesn’t see anything as it truly is. As long as he lives in his imagined chivalric world, he’s happy. He defeats a giant threatening the countryside because he doesn’t realize the giant is really a windmill. But when he is cured, he sees the world as it really is, making him sad and isolated. With no dreams to sustain him, he dies.”
    â€œPerhaps we’ll read Otranto instead. Quixote sounds a bit melancholy.”
    She tilted her head in memory. “Perhaps, but it’s also thoughtful and funny. Why would one want to live in a world devoid of hope or dreams? If all you have is a stark reality, would it not be better to live in a dream world, where at least you believe you are doing good?”
    â€œDoes my nurse tilt at windmills, then?”
    She looked up at the ceiling before answering. “Probably. If my only possible reality was stark and ugly, I’d rather cling to the beautiful dream. And you?”
    â€œLike Quixote after his cure, I see the stark ugliness and retreat from it.”
    Her face grew solemn with concern; then, shaking it off, she smiled brilliantly. “Enough of that, sir. I know you didn’t bring me from the kitchen for philosophical conversation.” She pulled Fox and Geese out of the pile on the bed. “I believe, instead, you wished to challenge my skill at herding geese.”
    â€œFletcher will tell you I’m an exceptionally wily fox, outwitting unsuspecting geese at every step.”
    â€œI’ve already seen that for myself.” She held up his list of activities. “Or I would still be in the kitchen . . . with my soap-suds.”
    He felt his expression move from surprise to shock, to amusement and a sort of triumph. But she made no comment, only set out marbles on the cross-shaped grid.
    The day passed so companionably that Colin could almost forget how he had come to be there, at a rural inn, gunshot and waiting for his elder brother’s help. The acuteness of his failure faded in Lucy’s laughter, and his pleasure in her company was as sweet as it was unexpected.
    During a particularly competitive game of backgammon, he told Lucy how his elder brother Benjamin had spent afternoon after afternoon teaching him strategy, until he’d grown skilled enough to beat his next oldest brother Aidan, who before then had never lost and afterward never won again. He had been eight and Aidan twelve. Lucy clapped with delight, praising his younger self with real enthusiasm—then just as enthusiastically trounced him without mercy.
    As they played their way through a dozen games, he observed with interest the trajectory of her mind, learning—as he had suspected already—that she was a sharp and formidable adversary.
    In only another day or two, he would have to take up his responsibilities, Aidan would arrive, and Colin would have to deliver the infant to his relations. But until then, he allowed himself the time to heal, and the babe the time to grow strong and hardy. Like the hours before a battle when soldiers would draw together all their strength, it was a waiting game. But this time, while he waited, he had the sustained companionship of the most interesting woman he’d ever known. For now, he was Quixote, holding on to a beautiful dream.
    When night finally fell, Nell’s boys brought up an extra lantern, and Lucy read Castle of Otranto to him. But after the third supernatural episode, she was too afraid to leave his room to return across the darkened courtyard to her own. She pulled in a second chair from the adjoining drawing room and, tucking her feet up, she fell asleep by his side, returning to her room before he awoke in the early light of day.
    * * *
    When Lucy returned the next morning before breakfast, she was horrified to find Colin dressed in his trousers, shirt, waistcoat, and cravat, on his way to find her.
    â€œWhere do you think you are going, sir?”