Page 43 of Win Me, My Lord (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #5)

More laughter from her gentle ribbing.

Rake shook his head. “There, dear sister, you are wrong. Winning the Race of the Century wasn’t the greatest prize to come of this season.” His gaze landed on Gemma. “My duchess is.”

Artemis experienced a flare of longing unlike any she’d ever felt. It took her breath away.

Immediately, she determined not to look at Bran.

Immediately, she failed.

Her gaze cut over and found his already upon her. Within his eyes flickered golden flame. Her stomach fluttered.

Rake continued. “And it seems I’m not the only one to have won such a prize this season.”

More laughter made its way through the room.

It was true.

At this table were no fewer than four newly-wed couples.

Still, Bran held her gaze.

Artemis felt herself wobble.

It was a good thing she was sitting down.

“Indeed,” said Mother. With that single word, it was as if she’d splashed ice-cold water over the gathering.

“Many of the ladies in this room have done exceptionally well for themselves—in one way or another.” She ran a disapproving eye over Beatrix, the only married lady in the room not to have snared a duke or marquess.

Beatrix lifted a napkin to her mouth to mask what sounded less like a cough than a stifled giggle.

Mother wasn’t finished. “But now we must cast our eye toward the future.”

Nerves skittered through Artemis. Truly, she had no desire to have the subject of her impending spinsterhood broached at the table.

And to think the evening had been going so well.

“Lady Gwyneth is not yet out,” continued Mother. “She will make her debut this spring.”

Bran’s eyebrows crashed together.

How Artemis wished she could reach over and place her hand over Mother’s mouth.

Anything to stop more words from issuing forth.

An impossible wish, of course.

Nothing would stand in the way of Mother and what she had to say. All Artemis could do was sit with her hands folded in her lap and hope the fingernails digging into her palms didn’t leave half-moon-shaped scars.

“What about Lady Gwyneth?” asked Bran.

Mother smiled in her cool, affected way. “To begin with,” she began, “she is the daughter of an earl, and that counts for something.”

“And the sister of an earl,” Stoke said around a spoonful of the blancmange that had just been served.

The smile froze on Mother’s face. “Yes, well.” That relation evidently counted for less.

Stoke didn’t appear the least bothered as he signaled a footman for a top-up of his wine.

“But all one need do is look at her,” said Mother.

All eyes swung toward Lady Gwyneth, who blushed furiously. Less from pleasure, Artemis suspected, than from supreme discomfort.

“With her blonde hair and fresh, light complexion, she is a diamond of the first water. It matters little that her eyes are common brown.”

“Her eyes are golden, Mother,” said Artemis. “There is nothing common about her eyes. They are very like her brother’s.”

Mother exhaled a delicate, but long-suffering sigh. “Be that as it may, the vital point is this. Some ladies have birth, and others have looks. Those with looks must make the most of them.”

Mother was being exceptionally Mother tonight.

“Celia,” continued Mother. She was now addressing the Duchess of Acaster. “You’re a woman of the world. You know exactly of what I’m speaking.”

The Duchess of Acaster set down her tiny dessert spoon and turned toward Mother.

The duchess’s first husband had been the notorious Sixth Duke of Acaster, a man fifty-six years her senior.

The duchess’s renowned beauty was one of the factors her father had used to secure his daughter’s marriage—along with a mountain of money, of course.

Money the old reprobate duke had disposed of in every gaming hell and vice den in London.

“How fortuitous,” said Celia, the smile on her face unquestionably a facade, “that Lady Gwyneth possesses both high birth and exquisite beauty.”

The left corner of Mother’s mouth twitched.

No one other than Artemis would have noticed.

“Simply, we cannot let Lady Gwyneth become a Lady Artemis.”

Artemis’s lungs refused to keep breathing. Though she’d heard as much through the years, the words stabbed her to the quick, like a sudden and unexpected blow. Unseeing eyes fell to the wiggly blancmange on her plate, mortification streaking hot through her.

“Mother …” came Rake’s voice from the opposite end of the table.

The warning did nothing to dispel Artemis’s humiliation.

“Why is that, Your Grace?” came a low masculine voice.

Bran.

Artemis lifted her eyes to find his intense golden gaze fixed firmly on Mother, who was returning it with her signature cool distance. “Isn’t it clear that my daughter missed her chance?”

“Chance at what?” he returned, his voice hard— simmering . Before Mother could answer, he continued, “An interesting term for defining a lady.”

“What term is that, Lord Branwell?”

Bran and Mother had become locked in a battle of wills. Here , at the supper table, before every person in the world who mattered most to Artemis.

“ Diamond of the first water. ” No mistaking the mockery in his voice.

“The thing about a diamond is it has two selves. There’s the perfection we perceive with our eyes, and there’s the perfection within.

It’s no insignificant paradox that inner perfection produces the perfection we see on its surface.

But what creates that perfection?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

“ Purity .” A beat. “So, we must ask ourselves what makes a diamond? Pressure, heat, and adversity. Diamonds experience the elements in the fiercest way, and they come through changed. They are made strong and beautiful. So, when the term diamond of the first water is used to describe a young debutante, it does beg a question.”

Now he waited.

The hushed expectancy of the room leaving her no choice, Mother asked, “And what question is that, Lord Branwell?”

“Can a lady truly be a diamond based solely on youthful beauty and inexperience? The answer to any person of logic must be no . For how can a lady become a diamond if she isn’t tested?”

His gaze cut left and met Artemis’s though he still spoke to Mother.

Artemis wasn’t sure, but her heart might’ve stopped beating.

“Lady Artemis, however, fits the term in every way. She has experienced pressure and adversity … love and loss. She’s been through the fire and come through to the other side.

She shines brighter than any diamond, in fact, as she leads with strength and beauty, laughter and kindness.

It’s my greatest hope that Gwyneth will, someday, become a diamond like her. ”

Artemis might never breathe again.

From beneath lowered eyelashes, she risked a glance at Mother, whose mouth had firmed into a straight, silent line.

Rake said something—she might’ve heard brandies —but she couldn’t say with any certainty.

The words Bran had just spoken …

They were a declaration, weren’t they?

Everyone at the table stood, and Artemis followed the motions as through a fog.

Bran leaned to the side to attend to something Lady Gwyneth was saying. As if from outside her body, she watched as he made Lady Gwyneth’s excuses—something about retiring to her bedchamber.

Then they were gone.

It wasn’t that Artemis was now alone—of course she wasn’t—but she felt so.

For all she wanted was to be with Bran.

Even as she now felt strangely shy of him.

Today, he kept speaking words to her that no one had ever spoken to her.

As everyone made their way to the drawing room for brandies, conversation, and whatever other evening pursuits that took their fancy, she felt an arm weave through hers from behind.

A step later, Rake was at her side. “Sister,” he said, his dark eyes brooking no opposition, “let’s have a chat, shall we? ”

She nodded and allowed herself to be led out onto the terrace. On this moonless night, the stars shone bright against the wide expanse of crisp, indigo sky.

Only when they’d reached the stone balustrade that signaled enough distance between themselves and any curious ears that might be turned their way, Rake faced her.

“Now, would you be so good as to inform me as to what in the blazes I just witnessed at the dining room table?” He’d pitched his voice low so it wouldn’t carry beyond them.

“For if I’m not very mistaken, I watched a proclamation of love.

” Dry humor entered his eyes. “I’ve become uniquely acquainted with such proclamations in recent months. ”

Sudden tears sprang to Artemis’s eyes. Blast. She swiped them away with the back of her hand. “Oh, Rake,” burst from her.

His brow furrowed, sudden tension radiating from him. “Artemis, are you in trouble?”

“Oh, Rake,” burst from her again. “That question comes about ten years too late.”

“Artemis,” he said in that firm way he could have. “Explain.”

She saw she had no choice.

But she also saw that telling Rake would be a massive relief.

“During my debut season,” she began, choosing her words carefully, “Lord Branwell and I met, and we formed an attachment.”

Rake lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “An attachment ?”

“We fell in love.”

That was about as concisely as she could tell it.

Rake’s brow darkened. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of it?” His brow thundered with gathering brotherly umbrage. “Why didn’t he offer for you?”

“Rake.” She reached out and placed a staying hand on his arm. “It isn’t what you’re thinking.”

Or , she wouldn’t tell him, it wasn’t precisely what he was thinking.

“Then what was it?”

“Mother became aware of our, erm , dalliance.”

Rake’s hands formed into fists at his sides.

Never a good sign.

“And?” he growled.

“She didn’t approve of the match.”

His eyes searched hers. “There’s more.”

“There is.”

The words hung unadorned in the air between them.

“And you’re not going to tell me.”

“I’m not.”

“What can I do to help?”

Oh, Rake.

Was there a more Rake question he could have asked?

“There’s nothing you can do, brother. This is between Bran and me.”

Reluctantly, Rake nodded. “In that case, I’ll offer you a piece of unsolicited advice.” Artemis braced herself.

“Don’t let Mother bully you.”

Her brow lifted. “ Bully me?”

But Rake wasn’t finished. “Your life is yours, Artemis. Everything Lord Branwell said about you tonight is true.” He hesitated, considering his next words. “Those things are not true of Mother.”

Artemis’s mouth wanted to gape open. She didn’t let it.

“Mother has her good qualities,” he continued. “She’s loyal, for example. But it’s all completely on her terms and—it must be said—ultimately in service to herself.”

Mother … a bully.

She’d never viewed Mother from that angle, but now that Rake suggested it …

No.

Mother had gone about matters imperfectly—and still did in many ways—and harbored an entrenched set of prejudices, but she always had her daughter’s welfare at heart.

“Whatever or whomever you choose, sister, I’ll support you,” said Rake. “You know that, correct?”

A lump formed in Artemis’s throat, and all she could do was nod, nearly undone as she was by a sudden flare of emotion.

Rake angled forward and gave her a parting kiss on the cheek, then was gone.

And she was left alone with her thoughts—and her past.

How different the last ten years would have been if only she’d told Rake instead of Mother of her relationship with Bran. Undoubtedly, Rake would have given Bran what-for, but in the end, Bran would have been hers.

Rake would have seen to it.

How different her life would be now if a different choice had been made.

But what was the point of regret?

The past couldn’t be changed.

And while those past feelings for each other meant something in the present, they didn’t mean everything.

In the ten years that had passed, they had become other people in some ways.

And those two people—who they were today—they liked each other … and more.

Much more.

They desired each other.

They … loved each other.

She didn’t merely want Bran.

She had to have him as hers— forever .

Which meant …

She would tell him about their lost Selena.

No longer could she hold her from him.

She’d been wrong to think she should.

She’d been wrong about something else, too—that Bran’s wounds meant he couldn’t bear up beneath the truth.

He was strong.

Stronger than her, in fact.

If what she felt for him—and what she believed he felt for her—was to have a future, she must tell him.

No more secrets would come between them.

Never again.