When Harry Met Molly

clasping her hands and speaking in that breathy way she did whenever she was excited. “I don’t remember the dedication in Emma at all,” she was saying. “I went straight to chapter one and began reading.”

“Not to worry,” said Harry. “Let’s head to the library and find the book. No doubt Prinny’s advisors have slipped it onto the shelves.”

They entered the house and searched the library for several pensive minutes.

“Do you think we’re in last place?” Molly asked in a small voice.

“I’ve no idea,” said Harry. “But we can’t worry about the others. We must focus if we want to win.”

Another tense minute passed, and then his jaw relaxed—Emma was squeezed between two books, an older one about farming and the other, a treatise on the rights of man, by Thomas Paine.

“I’ve found it,” he said, and braced himself.

Sure enough, Molly practically knocked him over when she rushed to his side. He turned over a page, and she looked over his shoulder. “It’s dedicated to His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent!”

Harry gave a short laugh. “No wonder Prinny’s advisors chose Emma as a clue.”

He returned the book to the shelf, and when he turned around, Molly had already dipped a quill in the inkpot on the desk and was poised over the long collection of letters that made no sense. “I shall slash through ‘The Prince Regent’ and see what comes up,” she said.

“Good idea.” Harry was now looking over her shoulder. He was quite enjoying all the proximity the treasure hunt afforded.

Molly hesitated. “Wait. There’s no C here, so the solution can’t be ‘The Prince Regent’—”

“Check ‘His Royal Highness,’” suggested Harry.

Molly uttered each letter aloud as she scratched through them in the crazy word. “H-I- S,” she began, and then she went on to scratch out R-O-Y-A-L and finally H-I-G-H-N-E-S-S. After she finished, she put her hand to her mouth and laughed. “Oh, Harry.” She turned her impish blue gaze to his. “So we’re to find our destiny at the village pub?”

Harry grinned. “This is Prinny’s treasure hunt. Are you surprised he might think a man can see his future in a pint of beer?”

“I suppose not,” Molly replied.

“We’ve a good walk ahead of us,” Harry said in the calmest voice he could muster. “Three miles at least, and the going isn’t terribly smooth.”

Molly was like a kettle on the boil. “Then let’s set out immediately,” she insisted.

“Very well,” he said, pulling her close. “And no stopping to—shall we say—enjoy the scenery.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Absolutely not,” she concurred, then drew back. “Wait. Do you mean—”

“Yes.” He nodded gravely. “No kissing. Not if you truly want to win.”

She pursed her lips. “Of course I do. We’ll walk single file. Starting now.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, and took up the rear position.

* * *

Molly was a bit leery but hopeful when they reached the thatch-roofed pub. It wasn’t particularly large or impressive, but there was the jolly sound of a fiddle playing from within. “How could we possibly know where to look?” she asked Harry.

“I’ve no idea,” he said. “The only hint we have is that we’ll find our destiny here.”

“A cryptic clue if there ever was one.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed. “So obscure that I believe we’re to take it literally.”

Molly’s face brightened. “I see what you mean. Perhaps it’s someone’s name.”

“Or a word written on the cover of a book,” Harry suggested. “Who knows?”

Inside, the pub was packed with people. Molly noticed she and Harry got a few looks of curiosity, but almost everyone was focused on a pretty girl and a young man dancing merrily at the front of the room.

“Who are they?” Molly asked a smiling woman standing nearby. She was clapping her hands in time to the music, so Molly joined in.

“A young couple moving to America,” the woman replied. “They sail next week.”

“Oh, how exciting!” Molly hesitated. “Um, would you know if anyone here goes by the name of ‘Destiny’?”

The woman drew in her chin and laughed. “Certainly not. What kind of name is that?” And she went back to her clapping.

Molly looked over her shoulder at Harry, and he shrugged. “So now we look for the word itself,” he said in a reassuring voice. “Written somewhere in this pub.”

But at that moment, the whole crowd, it seemed, began dancing the reel.

“It looks like so much fun!” Molly cried over the din to Harry.

“Then let’s try it ourselves. We can look as we go.” He grinned, led her by the waist, and they joined the two lines of dancers. Eventually, they made it to the top of the line, and together they skipped down the middle of the column and wound up breathless and laughing at the bottom.

And then they started up again.

The dancing went on for at least another ten minutes. Several times Harry hooked an arm about Molly’s waist, spun her around, and stepped back again. Each time he did, Molly wanted to kiss him and keep dancing.

But finally, the fiddle music stopped. Everyone clapped, whistled, and shouted for more.

Molly could hardly breathe, and she was sticky with sweat. But she couldn’t help it. She threw her arms about Harry’s neck. “I loved that!” she said. “The dancing, the music, and—”

You.

She inhaled a little breath.

The room receded, and all she saw was Harry’s golden brown eyes and the crinkle of a smile around them. She couldn’t look away if someone had set fire to her skirt.

He wrapped his arms around her, and they touched noses. “You’re…the most amusing companion a man could wish for,” he said, in a warm, scratchy voice that made her melt inside. “Not to mention delectable.”

“And you,” she whispered, her forehead pressed to his, “you’re—”

Amazing?

Wonderful?

Her one and only true love?

No. She couldn’t say that. But suddenly, she knew that’s what he was.

Her one and only true love.

Forever.

She bit her lip.

“What?” he whispered back, his mouth not half an inch from hers. “What am I?”

“A very good dancer?” she eked out.

And then she saw his mouth moving closer to hers. She felt his hands slide around her waist and pull her close. And he kissed her, right there in the crowd, a slow, luxurious kiss that made her heart beat hard against his chest.

No one seemed to notice—too much beer was flowing—but Molly knew when she drew away from Harry that he was her destiny.

And she wouldn’t be able to stop loving him, even though she knew that someday, very soon…

Loving him would break her heart.

Harry knew he shouldn’t have gotten distracted by the fiddle music. Because now, rather than look for hidden treasure, he wanted to stay here, in this pub, and dance all night with the girl who made him feel genuinely happy —for the first time in years.