Page 3 of Win Me, My Lord (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #5)

Mrs. Hopper nodded and got on with the business of what she did so well—keeping everyone fed and happy. As she chopped a bunch of parsley, she began explaining the coming week’s menu, meal by meal. Artemis let her mind wander, content to leave the food planning in Mrs. Hopper’s capable hands.

Mother would’ve been absolutely appalled.

Well, Mother was in London, and surely taking the late afternoon nap that would shore her up for whatever supper party, soirée, musicale, or ball she would be attending this evening.

Details such as cantankerous goats and tasty mushroom bean stew didn’t make it into her weekly letters to Mother.

After all, it was Artemis who was mistress of Endcliffe Grange—not Mother.

Which, sometimes, was easy to forget, what with old habits being so hard to break and all.

And Mother was such a force, wasn’t she?

It was only now that Artemis realized Mrs. Hopper had moved from the menu and on to neighborhood gossip that a specific word caught her ear. “Did you say kittens ?” She sat forward on her chair, a sudden smile curving her mouth. “Do we have kittens on the estate?”

She loved kittens.

Mrs. Hopper heaved an exasperated sigh. “That is not what I said, actually.” A pause. “Milady.” Another pause. “The kittens aren’t here. They are on Sir Abstrupus’s land.”

Sir Abstrupus Bottomley.

If Artemis had a nemesis, it was he—a ninety-something-year-old minor baronet who seemed to be continuing his existence on this mortal plane for no other reason than to oppose her at every turn.

“The poor wee ones aren’t long for this world, I’m afraid,” continued Mrs. Hopper.

Artemis’s brow dug into her forehead. “How do you mean?”

Though, she knew. The kittens would be drowned. Controlling the population, they called it.

Heartless— soulless —Artemis called it.

Mrs. Hopper’s gaze sharpened. “Ye cannot save every animal in Yorkshire, pet.”

Artemis didn’t like it when people spoke to her that way—as if she were too innocent or too good to understand how the world truly worked.

Well, she did.

And had for a long time.

An image from long ago whirled through her mind—of her being swept across a gleaming ballroom floor in the arms of the most handsome man she’d ever met, dizzy with motion and glittering light and that which dazzled even brighter— love .

Dizzy, dazzling, instant love.

The silly, reckless, foolish love of a young lady who didn’t know any better than to let her heart soar in any direction it wished.

Silly … reckless … foolish.

She understood the workings of the world better than anyone suspected.

Except for Mother.

Mother knew.

“Perhaps I can’t save them all.” Her voice quivered with fervency. “But I can try.” She stood. “Where are the kittens?”

Even as Mrs. Hopper sighed with resignation, Artemis detected respect in the cook’s eyes. “In the barn near the northern boundary—the one that’s half falling down.”

Artemis nodded. “I know the very one.” She smiled down at Bathsheba, who had returned to her side with intuitive allegiance. “What do you say, girl? Shall we embark upon a kitten rescue?”

Kitten rescues weren’t all playful sweetness and cuddly balls of fluff.

Tiny pointed teeth and razor-sharp claws were involved.

And one decidedly unhappy mama cat.

It hadn’t been difficult to locate the kittens in the old barn. Bathsheba had put her nose to the ground and made straight for the far corner where the mama cat had been sheltering her litter on a bed of hay beneath a landing that, indeed, looked ready to fall down any second now.

It had been a trifle more difficult to keep the hissing mama from scratching her and Bathsheba’s eyes out. The scratches and bites could be tended later.

Artemis had encountered the most difficulty, however, when she’d lifted the squirming kittens and began placing them into the basket she’d brought with her for the purpose of hauling them to the Grange.

It seemed she’d missed a crucial bit of information about their cargo.

These weren’t docile newborn kittens whose eyes hadn’t yet opened. These were weeks-old kittens and …

Active .

Very active.

And very skilled at escaping.

There were five of them.

Still, somehow she’d managed, and was now stomping through the woods, the return journey to the Grange a very different experience from the silent, careful steps that had carried her to the barn.

Now, her sole purpose was to cross over the boundary to her land as quickly as possible, discretion no longer a concern as the hissing mama cat dogged her every step with noisy yowls of discontent.

If only they would cooperate.

“I’m saving your wee lives,” muttered Artemis in a sing-songy voice. “Perhaps you could show a little gratitude?”

But one didn’t help animals for the gratitude.

She glanced down at four sets of bright eyes shining up at her.

The fifth kitten, a feisty orange, was using his razor-sharp claws to climb up her arm.

She’d already placed him back in the basket twice.

Knowing a losing effort when she saw one, she was inclined to let him have his way.

He would be perched atop her head, claws dug into her scalp, by the time they reached Mrs. Hopper’s waiting kitchen.

Loyal to the last, Bathsheba remained close by Artemis—the other side from both the basket of kittens and the mama cat, rightfully wary of their fierce, fluffy charges.

None of them were happy.

Still, determination drove Artemis’s every step.

Sometimes, the hard thing was also the right thing.

The kittens would be safe—that was the hard thing and the right thing.

She’d hoped to be home before the sun broke across the horizon, but the air was taking on the hazy slate-blue of impending dawn, and they still had a good ten minutes of quick-paced walking before they crossed onto her land.

Maybe she should’ve brought a groom to help.

But no, she didn’t want anyone else involved if she were caught.

If trouble was to come in the form of consequences, she would face them alone.

After all, what good was being a lady if one couldn’t use the title to extract oneself from the occasional scrape?

Not that the kittens or the mama cat or even Bathsheba gave a toss about her title.

In fact, that was one of her favorite things about animals.

How you treated them was who you were to them.

It was lovely.

“Not much longer,” she encouraged in a low, calming voice.

It was a lie, but a necessary one—to herself, especially.

Of a sudden, Bathsheba’s ears perked up, and her gaze went sharp with watchfulness.

A moment later, the quiet erupted with the force of her bark.

Artemis stopped cold in her tracks. The orange kitten had reached her shoulder and mewled directly into her ear.

These last few months, she had become attuned to the variety of Bathsheba’s barks.

She knew this one.

A single warning bark, the entirety of her focus fully trained upon a point in the distance.

Someone was in these woods with them.

Her mouth went dry and her palms moist. She inhaled a shaky breath. She knew everyone within a twenty-mile radius, and they knew her. There was nothing to fear.

Her breath steadied, and she opened her mouth. Before she could speak, however, a firm voice rang out, “If you put your takings down, you can leave with your freedom.”

In an instant, several realizations collapsed down onto Artemis.

First, the distant form was a man.

She could just make out his outline in the brightening light.

Second, he thought her a poacher.

But those two facts weren’t what had the breath caught in her lungs and her heart attempting to pound free of her ribcage.

That voice.

Deep … resonant … collected.

A voice she hadn’t heard in ten years.

A feeling lit to life inside her.

Not fear.

Not shame.

But … outrage .

That voice was not only proof of his continuation amongst the living, but of his audacity—his sheer audacity to be here , sharing the same air as her.

It was this outrage that had an audacity of her own stirring and sparking words into the air. “Don’t you remember me, Lord Branwell? Or mayhap you’ve forgotten?”

For all the heat bursting through her, her voice was cold as Arctic air.

She should stop there.

Of course, she continued. “Or did the time we spent together leave no lasting impression on you?”

Oh, but they were hot, audacious words she spoke through her frigidity.

She would likely come to regret them.

But that regret could wait for a future moment.

In this moment, they felt good— so good —and righteous and right .