Page 21 of Win Me, My Lord (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #5)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T he feeling Bran had just confessed …

He’d never thought to speak it aloud in his life.

In some dark, faraway part of himself, he’d believed the shame would have surely crushed him.

But here he was—still standing, somehow.

A little worse for wear, truth told, but upright.

What he saw in Artemis’s earnest brown eyes was neither disgust nor judgment nor pity.

It was sympathy.

She might not ever fully understand all he’d lost in these last two years—and he hoped life never put her in a position where she had to—but he sensed a subtle, yet seismic shift occur between them.

These last several weeks, it had felt like ten-foot-thick granite walls stood between them, making it impossible for them to see or hear one another in any meaningful sense. An implacability imbued with the permanence of eternity.

But now, despite the ponderous weight of those walls, it felt like they’d cracked open.

Now, he and Artemis could hear one another.

They could see one another.

She was Artemis, and he was Bran.

They weren’t representatives of a past they couldn’t change.

They could simply be themselves—two people who once knew each other.

Two people who still did, in some ways.

He grabbed his travel satchel from beneath the driver’s bench. “Mind if I strap this to your mount?”

“By all means.”

Task complete, he wrapped Radish’s leather lead once around his palm and noticed Artemis did the same. “Are you ready to start walking?”

She nodded.

Silence expanded between them as the road crunched beneath their boots in slow, determined progress—the only progress he was capable of.

He tamped down the surge of bitterness that wanted to wash through and fill him with the old simmering rage.

Not today.

Surely he would allow it its head tomorrow or the next day, but not now.

He could have a different thought in its stead.

“Your dog,” he said. His skill with small talk decidedly lacked in charm.

“Bathsheba?” asked Artemis, with a mild lift of her brow. “What about her?”

“She isn’t accompanying you on the journey.”

“She would wear herself out trying to keep up, poor thing. It isn’t easy being an energetic one-eyed, three-legged sheepdog.”

Bran might have more than a little sympathy for the poor thing , but wasn’t this conversation about giving voice to different paths of thought, rather than running round and round in those familiar bitter circles?

“Although,” continued Artemis, “there is a farmer near the Grange who trained his dog to ride a horse. Fashioned a special saddle for him and everything.”

“I imagine that’s a sight on the high street when they ride into town.”

“Oh, it is,” said Artemis with a breezy laugh. “Bathsheba is a game girl, though. She might take to it.”

“She appears greatly attached to you.”

“Oh, that she is.” Artemis’s laughter transformed into a smile. “And I to her. Actually, she’s being transported to London as we speak. I’ll reunite with her there after we’ve seen Radish to Epsom Downs.”

Ten years ago, Bran hadn’t known or even thought about the sort of woman Artemis would blossom into—he’d been too in the moment—but he was coming to see her now.

And he liked her.

Or rather, he might like her.

It was still too soon to commit to a feeling.

Fifty or so yards ahead, a gate opened to the east side of the road, and a shaggy sheepdog raced through, followed by a sudden flood of sheep pouring out.

A farmer waved a friendly, but distracted greeting in their direction.

His voice had no chance of being heard over the din of baa ing and hooves clacking on the road.

“Well,” said Artemis, slowing to a stop beside Bran.

Another sheepdog charged through the gate, and he and Artemis watched together while the pair worked in unison to the farmer’s commands and whistles as they herded the sheep across the road and through an open gate on the west side.

“We could count sheep,” said Artemis.

Bran snorted. “I’m not sure it would be as entertaining without Mr. Scunt here to swindle us.”

Artemis rounded on him, aghast. “Mr. Scunt? A swindler?”

Bran’s mouth twitched, but he kept the smile that wanted out suppressed. “To his knotty old brazen soul.”

Artemis bristled, determined to defend the rogue. “He has an exceptional eye.”

“Of a raven, if I recall.”

“He’s great company on the road and possessed of a good heart, I’m sure of it.”

“Exceptional eyes … good heart … and the soul of a rascal.”

Their eyes held for the beat of silence that ticked past, then it became too much, and they broke into laughter at the same instant.

“Well,” said Artemis, swiping a tear from her eye, “no one is perfect.”

This laughter—this lightness —it felt good. Like a cooling spring on a hot day, refreshing and …

Relieving .

Relief was what he felt above all.

Incrementally relieved of a burden that had prevented him from experiencing a feeling that came anywhere close to good.

And this laughter, it felt good .

“You’re still like that,” he said without thinking.

A question entered her smiling eyes. “Like what?”

“You only see the good in people.”

“What’s the point in seeing the bad?” Her smile grew pensive. “I suppose in the past?—”

Their past, he heard, though she didn’t say.

“In the past,” she continued, “it has led me down some unforeseen bad paths.”

Bad paths.

She was speaking of him.

Some air yet needed to be cleared between them.

Now was as good a time as any.

“When I returned to England,” he began. “I’d expected to find you married.”

They were the words he needed to speak—the beginning of them, anyway—but when voiced aloud like this, they struck him like a blow to the solar plexus.

Artemis … married …

To someone else .

She flashed him an incredulous glance. “To your brother, correct?” Her disdain for the very notion was evident in every syllable.

Bran shook his head. “I knew you didn’t marry him, but …” How to phrase this delicately?

“But you’d thought to find me wed to some other wastrel lord?”

That was certainly a delicate way of putting it.

Wisely, he remained silent.

But his mind worked.

When this subject had been raised on the beach, he’d sensed a lie buried in the remnants of the past.

Now he knew it with absolute certainty.

It had been his brother himself who had first spoken the lie.

Oh, I’m going to marry the chit.

Stoke’s exact words when Bran had pressed him about his intentions toward Lady Artemis Keating.

Words spoken as established truth.

He’d believed the lie spilling from his mouth.

His brother might’ve been adept at squandering an earl’s entire fortune in a matter of a few years, but not duplicity.

“So, you weren’t out to marry a title?”

“I’m the daughter of one duke and the sister of another.” Her incredulity abated not whit. “ I have a title.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. But I don’t understand how you believed it of me.”

Of a sudden, all the air felt knocked out of him.

She was right, of course.

She’d never once given him cause to think thusly of her.

But someone else had.

And it didn’t take longer than one thought to run into another for Bran to know who.

A truth it wouldn’t do to voice now—or possibly ever.

Artemis only saw good in the people she liked and loved.

And, of course, her mother would be one of those people.

Still, a different unwise question found its way to his mouth. “Why haven’t you married?”

Opaque emotion passed behind her eyes. “I was asked once,” she said, softly. “But he ran off.”

His brow furrowed. “Who would jilt you?”

Who would jilt you ?

That telling emphasis on the you .

Truly, who would jilt Lady Artemis Keating?

“Indeed, who ?” she asked, her eyes sliding away from his.

Who.

Her emphasis.

And it hit Bran … “Am I the who ?”

Her cheeks flushed and an escaped tendril of hair blowing gently in the breeze, she looked so very lovely, even as she fixedly avoided his gaze. “It’s clear now,” she said, her voice hollowed of its laughter.

Nothing, in fact, was clear now.

But he supposed she was speaking of the road.

In silence, they began walking in a strange limbo state, as if too much had been spoken and yet not enough. The sun dipped low enough to meet the horizon to the west. The minutes of light they had left were numbered.

“We can only hope,” he said, “Mr. Scunt’s assessment of miles was closer to three than six.”

Artemis gave a grunt of acknowledgement, but nothing more.

So, on they walked.

His leg felt better than it had all day. It preferred motion to stasis.

“Here’s the thing,” said Artemis of a sudden. “You aren’t married either.”

“I’ve had other concerns,” he said, his tone carefully neutral. His other concerns were painfully apparent.

The two vertical lines between her eyebrows, however, were anything but neutral. She’d given it some thought, and she had a point to make. “You’re from a titled and illustrious family.”

“I believe the adjectives you’re looking for are notorious and penurious .”

His levity did nothing to diminish her intensity. “You could easily find an heiress to marry.”

“I would be all too willing to entertain your definition of easily .”

She wasn’t finished. “And your money problem would be solved.”

If they were to have this conversation—and apparently they were—then there were a few truths she needed to understand.

“My brother is the one holding the title. I’m a second son and a soldier.

” No, that wasn’t true—not anymore. “A former soldier,” he corrected.

And here was the toughest truth of all …

“I’m quite an unnecessary person in the eyes of the world. ”

Her head tipped to the side, and her eyes narrowed. “Are you feeling sorry for yourself?”

Was that what he was doing?

A thought for another time. Now, it was best he stuck to his point. “I’m not marrying anyone.”

How strange it felt to be speaking those words to this woman.

And in a stranger way, a relief.

And also a stab in his heart.

All those things knotted together.

“You don’t want a family?” Accusation dissolved from her voice with every word.

“I have family.” This was clear, at least.

She waited for him to say more.

“My sister is my family.”

“And the arrangement with Sir Abstrupus is about her, no?”

“Aye.”

“I don’t understand something about that, actually.”

“No?”

“Surely, you have earnings saved from your career in the army,” she said. “And then you have other monies, too.”

Other monies? What was she on about?

“Couldn’t that be used to fund her season and dowry?”

“While I was pursuing my career in the army, Stoke squandered all the monies I sent home, along with Gwyneth’s dowry. I returned to England to find my family without a penny that didn’t rightly belong to a creditor.”

In silence, Artemis mulled this over.

For some reason, he wasn’t finished. “Stoke is an utter waster, and I’m …”

He felt her gaze on the side of his face. “What are you, Bran?”

Perhaps it wasn’t for the best to complete that sentence. It might veer too close to self-pity to say he’d lost his appetite for living—that for years he hadn’t seen the point in being alive except for Gwyneth.

“The fact is,” he began, “Stoke and I do share a similarity.”

“And what is that?”

“We’re both bad at living.”

Artemis blinked. “How can a person be bad at living?”

“Don’t you see it all around you in the haut ton every day?”

They topped a subtle rise in the road and straight ahead appeared a solid square, two-story building constructed of local limestone, with a broad forecourt and stables to the side.

A lad was going about with a torch and lighting the exterior lanterns for looming nightfall.

The sign swinging from a tall post read The Rose & Crown.

“Our coaching inn,” said Artemis.

They didn’t speak again until they entered the stable yard.

“I’ll see to Radish and Pixie.” Bran reached out with his free hand for the mare’s reins.

As Artemis extended the reins, their hands brushed. Really, an insignificant encounter of one leather glove against another.

Then why did it take his lungs five seconds to remember how to breathe?

As if her lungs were experiencing the same difficulty, Artemis startled backward a step. “I, erm ,” she began, “I’ll see to securing the rooms.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Am I?”

“You owe Mr. Scunt his evening meal,” said Bran. “He will be waiting.”

Artemis groaned. When a chuckle escaped Bran, she joined in, too, and that other moment passed.

He watched her enter the inn, leaving him alone with two horses for company and a single thought in his mind.

What had transpired over the last hour?

Somehow, the numbness that had been part of him these last two years had faded. He had no doubt it would return, but now, in this moment, and for the last hour, he felt .

And these feelings …

They were better.

In fact, they were better than better.

They were good .

He felt … good .

And he knew why— Artemis .