Page 13 of Win Me, My Lord (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #5)

CHAPTER SEVEN

O ne moment, Artemis had a firm handle on the conversation.

And the next— now —she didn’t.

If she didn’t know any better, she would take Bran’s tone for one of righteousness, even the truth, for it had that ring to it. As did the clarity of his gold eyes.

The truth.

How could it be?

Ten years ago, he’d taken the ￡20,000 he’d demanded from Mother.

That was established fact.

Or was ￡20,000 nothing to him?

It was possible.

Sons of earls gambled away as much on a single throw of the dice every day of the week.

She gave herself a mental shake and forced her gaze to angle away from those unflinching golden eyes.

She knew who this man was.

She wouldn’t forget.

“Turn-about is fair play, you know.” His gaze remained fixed to the side of her face.

She didn’t turn. “Pardon?”

“A truth for a truth.”

Oh, that was bold. “Have any truths been spoken?” she scoffed. “I wasn’t aware.”

Silent seconds of time accumulated, one after another, before he spoke again. “Why are you observing Radish’s training?”

“It’s my practice track.” When in a conversational bind, one could always take refuge in facts. “Therefore, it’s my prerogative to observe.”

From the edge of her eye, she saw his head shake, and she braced herself for his next question. “Why do you need to observe Radish’s training?”

Her jaw flexed, and no words issued forth.

“How was Sir Abstrupus able to manipulate you so easily?”

Oh. He’d noticed that, had he?

“I had a horse—a Thoroughbred,” she said. “Her name was Dido.”

She could stop there. She didn’t owe this man an explanation. But after months of not being able to speak Dido’s name aloud without wet, sloppy tears punctuating each syllable, she now felt the opposite urging.

To speak Dido’s name—every utterance an honoring of her spirit.

“She was beautiful, sweet, and clever—the fastest three-year-old filly of this season.”

She risked a glance right, and what she detected in Bran’s eyes nearly undid her.

Sympathy.

“ Was? ” The question rumbled low and gravelly through his chest, strangely soothing, even as it cut straight to the point.

“Unknown to us all, she had a defect in her heart.” Artemis stated the facts plainly, almost coldly.

It was the only way she could get through them.

“She was leading the first race of the season—the Two Thousand Guineas—and was about to win it, when she suddenly collapsed on the turf.” She blinked sudden tears away.

“A few minutes later, she breathed her last breath.”

Artemis kept her gaze fixed straight ahead and took a moment to compose herself.

Bran’s eyes remained steady upon her. “I’m sorry for your loss. It must have been devastating.”

She could almost believe him.

Actually, she did.

Though she didn’t trust this man—and with good reason—she knew this one sacred truth: Bran loved horses.

Even if all else was lies.

He returned his attention to Radish and Lafferty, his eyes narrowed, assessing. “And … trot,” he called out, in that high-to-low sing-song voice trainers used when they wanted a horse to slow down. “How did that feel?”

“Better,” said the jockey, stroking Radish’s mane in appreciation.

“We’ll do a few turns at a canter,” said Bran. “I’ll give the command when you’re to take him into a run. We need to test his speed in the slop, and the Yorkshire weather provided. Will you be able to keep your seat without the stirrups?”

“Aye,” said Lafferty. “I’ve got the feel of it now.”

“Good man,” said Bran on a nod.

Artemis had never heard a general issuing commands, but she imagined that was how it went—succinct and without emotion. And though she was certain the jockey and the stable lads hadn’t been in the army, they responded like soldiers. Bran was a man who commanded respect.

Perhaps for another reason, too.

From beneath her lashes, she cut a glance toward his profile.

One could almost forget the scar on the other side of his face.

But she suspected that scar played a part in what commanded respect from these men.

It proclaimed to the world that Lord Branwell Mallory might have been born the indulged son of an earl, but he’d gone through something ferocious—something most would never go through.

Yet she sensed something more. One didn’t acquire scars and injuries on the outside without accumulating a few scars and injuries on the inside, too.

What further scars and injuries did Bran carry inside him?

He held his hand to his mouth in readiness to call out his next command—the one she’d known was coming. She braced herself as he said, “And … run.”

A slick of damp coated Artemis’s palms, and her heart became a hammer in her chest, as beneath the urging of Lafferty, Radish lengthened his stride and quickened the turnover of those long, muscular legs.

Radish was about to show them what he could do.

It was when a horse got up to speed, with all the tension and strain movement put on the body hard at work, that the defects would out.

There were all sorts of defects, too, not just of the heart.

Take the story of Bartlett’s Childers, for example.

He’d been the full-brother of Flying Childers, who had been the greatest racehorse of his era.

Bartlett’s Childers, however, never took to the turf in a race, for he was also known as Bleeding Childers.

He’d been possessed of a condition that caused blood vessels to break and bleed through his nose when he got up to speed.

Because his condition was visible, his life was saved.

But many, like Dido, weren’t so fortunate.

Yet Artemis understood that what happened to Dido, and even Bleeding Childers, was rare and wasn’t likely to happen to the glorious racehorse presently demonstrating his prowess on the turf.

The first thing she noticed about Radish, beyond his impeccable conformation, was he wasn’t a sweet horse like Dido.

Nor was he joyful like her, either.

He didn’t appear to run for the sheer love of it, but rather out of challenge to himself, to see how fast he could go in a determined, business-like manner. This horse wanted to run—and he wanted to win by some measure he’d set in his mind.

It was plain for all to see.

Radish possessed the heart of a champion.

Through her nerves, Artemis was able to relax an increment and experience the exhilaration one couldn’t help but feel at such a sight—the sheer glory of it. Besides, she must watch. Otherwise, how could she detect that one telltale sign? The one that signaled a mortal defect.

Her gaze slid over to take in Bran. He was watching carefully, too, his gaze fixed and steady as Lafferty pushed, pushed, pushed Radish to greater and greater speed.

Bran would notice if anything was amiss with Radish.

Strangely, the realization settled her as Radish’s stride extended and his turnover increased and he found his speed.

Radish was headstrong, but so was Bran. So, he trod a delicate line where it wasn’t a clash of personalities, but rather patience, will, and united purpose. He lifted his hand to his mouth. “Can-ter.”

Lafferty took the command, as did Radish, as they eased off the pace.

“He’s a contender.” The words were out of Artemis’s mouth before she could hold them back.

“Aye,” Bran grunted.

“Sir Abstrupus thinks he’s a lost Thoroughbred.”

“Might be,” said Bran without much interest. “Sir Abstrupus likes myths.”

Artemis snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. Do you know the story of the lost Thoroughbreds?”

Bran nodded. “I know it. The Darley Arabian covered every mare in Yorkshire, not just the ones with long pedigrees.”

“And the lost Thoroughbreds were sired.”

Bran shrugged. “Horse breeding is a dodgy business. Always has been.”

Though they hadn’t been looking to, their gazes caught. Of a sudden, an awkward, aware silence fell between them. They’d been conversing as what ?

Not friends, of course. But friendly ? Friendly acquaintances? Friendly rivals?

A frown pulled at her mouth. Any explanation that put their relationship on ground other than former acquaintances and possible enemies didn’t sit right inside her.

Bran’s scowl said he’d reached approximately the same conclusion. “We’ve gotten all we can out of this training session,” he said, gruff and final. “We’ll be on our way.”

Back to the Roost, of course.

It was only now she noticed that while she’d been watching the proceedings from her hunter, Bran had been standing on the platform the entire time. She glanced around. “Where is your mount?”

As if her question had the power to change the very composition of the air and him within it, he went as still as ancient stone. “I no longer ride.”

That same stillness took hold within her and froze the breath in her lungs. “Of course you ride.” She wasn’t sure why it mattered to her—but it did. Bran rode . It formed a large part of his identity in her mind. “You’re one of the best horsemen I’ve ever seen.”

His jaw clenched, and his gaze would have been inscrutable, except for the single emotion that blazed within— fury . “No longer,” he ground out.

Sudden heat flooded her. Of course . His leg injury … He’d been standing in one place this entire time, so she’d almost forgotten it. Again, she glanced around. “Have you a carriage to take you back to the Roost?”

He shook his head and directed an order to a lad. When he turned to her again, his brow lifted, as if to say, Are we still on this subject?

They were.

“It will take you several hours to walk back to the Roost.” It was a considerable walk for a person with two fully functioning legs—a fact she would keep to herself.

“ Two hours,” he corrected.

“But you can walk.”

He snorted derisively. “If you want to call it that.” No mistaking that corrosive note of bitterness.

She had a point to make—and he would hear it. “If you can walk, you can ride.”

There , simple.

“Artemis,” he said, fury unabated, “it is none of your concern.”

It wasn’t his fury or his general irritability that had her mouth snapping shut and her hands taking up the reins of her mount.

It was that he was correct.

It was none of her concern.

Nothing about Lord Branwell Mallory was.

Without another word, she turned her hunter and encouraged him into a canter without a backward glance, even as her mind tumbled with a confusion of emotion.

Artemis, it is none of your concern.

Again she found herself wondering about his injuries—the ones visible … and the ones not. Was it the leg injury—the injury she could see—that was preventing him from riding? Or was it an altogether different injury preventing him—an injury she couldn’t see?

She understood something of that sort of damage—in the animals she took in, and in herself, too, after Dido. She’d found those injuries took the longest to heal.

And going by the fury in Bran’s eyes, those wounds were yet festering.

An impulse lit through her.

An impulse to help him.

But, no.

He wasn’t her damaged creature to help.

Yet who would help him?

For that hadn’t been her only—or most unsettling—impulse moments ago.

There had been another impulse—one rooted in long-suppressed instinct …

To reach out and touch him.

The obvious interpretation of that touch would’ve been that she’d sought to bring comfort.

The obvious interpretation would have been wrong.

Just now, she’d wanted to touch him not out of selflessness, but selfishness.

Her palm yet tingled from the feel of him only hours ago when they’d shaken hands.

Once, she’d been so intoxicated by his touch, she’d needed it upon her at all times. She hadn’t been able to keep away from him. It had been addiction in its purest form—one touch like hot lightning through her veins.

And just now, it had been the very same pull.

One touch—one shake of the hand—was all it took to bring addiction prickling back to life.