Page 1 of Win Me, My Lord (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #5)

W ith infinity beckoning in the vast blank deep, a wide crystalline-blue sky allowed for an expansive range of thought to march through a man’s mind.

Such was the sky the soldiers rode beneath as they performed their patrol.

As the men talked and joked amongst themselves, their observations and musings drifted toward Bran, who brought up the rear, his gaze ever scanning the craggy horizon.

Nothing untoward having caught his attention, his mind wandered while his horse kept to the trails and paths that had become worn with the routine of the daily patrol.

This sky in Africa was the sort one didn’t get in England, for it wasn’t only the terra firma that varied from place to place and continent to continent.

As different as this hard, spare land was from the lush verdancy of England, so was its sky.

Every land possessed its own sort of blue sky.

He could understand the English compulsion to claim this one for itself.

This thought, which had begun cycling through his mind with increasing frequency, brought about a churn in his gut—as was also increasingly frequent. A fair amount of blood and death had been spent in the claiming of this blue sky—and the lands below it.

Grahamstown.

The battle had taken place a year ago.

Surely enough time had passed that he should have been able to put the horror of that day from his mind. After all, their garrison had been greatly outnumbered—three-hundred-and-fifty English soldiers to Makhanda’s retinue of six thousand.

Yet it had been a slaughter, hadn’t it? For within the ranks of those six thousand Xhosa warriors, women and children had numbered, too. They’d been told the English bullets would turn to water.

The opposite proved true.

The bullets had held their form—and their intent.

Bran pushed the horrors of that day and the following months of conflict away.

It was what soldiers did—the only thing they could do if they were to keep soldiering and serving king and country.

Though sometimes, it was hard to remember how the defense and claiming of the south of Africa played a role in keeping faraway England safe and secure.

He gave himself a mental shake. Such meditations fell outside his duties—even if they’d taken to keeping him awake most nights. The main thing was they had successfully hunted Makhanda down and established a sort of peace these last four or so months.

Yet it was this one nagging thought that had recently pushed through and planted itself into the forefront of his mind, that wouldn’t let him out of its grip.

Makhanda wasn’t Napoleon, and Grahamstown wasn’t Waterloo, was it?

The defeat of Napoleon had been a necessary fight—a righteous fight. Some fights simply were. It was a fact of the world. Some battles needed to be fought and won.

Grahamstown … the ensuing hunt for Makhanda … the “peace” that had been established these last few months … This type of soldiering held a different flavor—and Bran wasn’t sure he had a taste for it.

Of course, soldiering couldn’t be all defending king and country against the threat of the bloodthirsty whims of a maniacal dictator.

But this mission in Africa didn’t feel like they were defending against anything—except enemies of their own making.

Further—and here was another thought that wanted to push, push, push —this mission felt like acquisition.

And not fairly done.

The fact was the Xhosa harbored the notion that they held righteous, birthright possession of their land.

Righteous.

The word wouldn’t leave him be.

But that wasn’t how the English or the Dutch or the Portuguese or any other European power viewed the matter.

They saw this place as a land of superior bounty and inferior weaponry that couldn’t be defended properly, which made it ripe for the plucking.

After all, wasn’t it true that might was right?

It wasn’t so much that England wanted Xhosaland for itself—though he suspected a fair bit of that, too—but they certainly didn’t want the Dutch or the Portuguese to have it. No European power could stomach the idea of another European power attaining greater wealth.

So, the race for the acquisition of the lands and this blue sky was on.

Over the next several decades, Bran only saw the competition becoming more cut-throat as more and more bounty found its way to home shores.

And what was another word for acquisition but greed?

The battles being waged in these vast African lands were little more than plain and simple avarice.

Increasingly, he wasn’t sure he was the right soldier for the job.

Except this was his career.

Eight years ago, he’d purchased his commission as a lieutenant in the Light Dragoons and had steadily risen through the ranks to become a lieutenant-colonel. Sure, he was the son of an earl, but only a second son. If he left the military, what purpose had he?

Return to England and become a wastrel lord? His older brother, the Earl of Stoke, had already claimed that career for himself.

As from the blue sky above, a feminine pair of smiling brown eyes appeared in his mind’s eye.

Instinctively, he shoved them back into the deepest, darkest corner of his mind where they belonged.

He’d become skilled at the maneuver these last eight years—nearly as skilled as he was at soldiering.

No, he wouldn’t be returning to England—or to that pair of smiling brown eyes.

And really, wasn’t he presently doing what he loved best? Riding a favorite horse beneath an open blue sky with a retinue of men, a light, peaceful breeze blowing through morning air yet crisp with the final fading remnants of night.

After Grahamstown, the worst was over.

All sides had settled into an acceptance.

He snorted. Perhaps not acceptance . There were the Dutch to contend with—and the Portuguese, too.

In his gut, he knew—there would never be acceptance or peace. Here was a place that would tremendously enrich whoever controlled it—and it wouldn’t be the people born to this land.

England wasn’t leaving and neither were the Dutch or the Portuguese.

Not without control definitively decided.

Not without bloodshed.

Some twenty yards ahead, Bran just caught the gray puff of gunpowder from the cragged horizon before he heard the crack of the shot.

The next instant, his horse dropped out from under him with gravity gone suddenly awry.

Time, too, took on an out-of-kilter cadence, both speeding up and slowing down as he hit the ground.

It was difficult to discern what hit first—hip, shoulder, or cheekbone.

Blood and dirt filled his mouth, the taste bitter and strangely dry, and a screaming pain lit through his body that would surely shatter him to pieces.

His leg was trapped beneath the horse, who had breathed his last breath three or so seconds ago—or was it three minutes?

Time had gone funny; he couldn’t know with any certainty.

He could only watch through dirt-crusted eyelashes as his men rallied to the fight with the efficiency he’d taught them and set off in pursuit of the enemy.

A hard-won breath shuddered through him.

It was his right leg—the leg that was smashed beneath the horse, trapping him in place, inspiring the unrelenting waves of blinding pain and the rivulets of hot sweat that carved channels across his body, even as a chill struck him to the bone.

From the sweat needling his skin, he picked up a sickly, sweet scent oozing through his pores. A musk that spoke of primordial elements. He knew this scent, for it had followed him these last eight years beneath every blue sky he’d encountered.

Death.

Here, at his side, it crouched in the dirt, patiently keeping him company.

This breath or the next could— would —be his last.

No bullet had penetrated him, but his leg was crushed, his skull possibly cracked. Death needed little more than that to claim its due.

Soon—or perhaps late—his men would return.

Perhaps he would still be alive—perhaps not.

He tried to keep his eyes affixed to the wide, crystalline-blue sky above, but with each interminable second that ticked past, the sky grew narrower, slimming down to slits, then into blackness.

And in the place of blue, what did he see but a feminine pair of smiling brown eyes, pulling, pulling, pulling him down into infinite oblivion.

It would be her waiting for him at this inevitable end.

After all, it was she who started him down the path.

Artemis.