Page 46 of Win Me, My Lord (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #5)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

DAWN

B athsheba curled into a bun at her feet, Artemis stared unseeing through the library window.

He was gone.

Straight from his room, she’d come here, to the library’s overstuffed leather sofa positioned in front of the great window, for its unobstructed view of Somerton’s forecourt. At this early hour, no one else would be here when Bran made good on his promise and departed with Lady Gwyneth.

The carriage had disappeared around a bend in the gravel drive and out of view not a minute ago.

Or was it ten minutes ago … or thirty …

Time no longer held relevance.

The knot in her throat sat heavy and unresolved.

Without realizing it, she’d already begun counting on a future with Bran. It wasn’t a taking-for-granted, but as more than possibility— probability .

She’d missed her opportunity.

She saw that now.

She’d missed her opportunity to tell him what she truly wanted— him … forever .

All you ever have to do is tell me what you want, Artemis … And I’ll give it to you.

Wasn’t he obliged to give her that want if she expressed it?

A reckless determination seized her. What was stopping her from having a horse saddled?

She could catch the carriage within the hour and she could speak her want and he would have to be hers … forever .

It could be a terrible idea.

A gross manipulation.

Perhaps she should be ashamed for considering it.

Perhaps she would be ashamed for acting upon it.

She didn’t care right now.

She was halfway across the library—her heart thundering within her chest and her feet sure with intention—when a knock sounded at the door.

Her sure feet came to a sudden stop; her heart yet thundered in her chest. It would be a servant. No one else would knock. She cleared her throat of any telling wobbles. “You may enter.”

The door opened, and in entered a footman, looking impeccably polished for a dawn errand, save the telling detail that his cravat was askew, which told of slumber hastily interrupted. “The duchess requests your presence.”

Artemis felt her brow gather. “Which one?”

Three duchesses presently resided beneath Somerton’s slate roof.

“The Duchess of Rakesley.”

“Which one?” she repeated. Two of those three duchesses were Rakesley.

“The dowager duchess.”

Artemis’s brow dug into her forehead. Mother? “What is the time?”

“Half seven, my lady.”

Alarm sped through Artemis. Mother shouldn’t be rising from bed for another four hours, at the earliest. “Is she unwell?”

Illness was the only reasonable explanation for why Mother would be awake and sending for her.

“Not that one can observe, milady.”

This exchange only grew more curious as it went on, and Artemis saw she had no choice—she must go to Mother.

A few minutes later, her hand was lifting to knock on Mother’s bedchamber door when she realized she was clad in naught but the robe she’d worn to go to Bran in the night. All she had to do was angle her head down and inhale, and she would be able to catch his scent lingering on her skin.

A sob caught in her throat, and she resolved not to inhale deeply—not until she was alone.

Her hand closed into a fist and delivered two light knocks.

A faint, “Enter,” sounded through the door.

As she stepped into Mother’s the bedchamber, it was the aroma that hit her first— rosewater .

Though she hadn’t set foot inside this room in years, it was a scent that struck her square in the elemental place that resided within every person—the child who knew their parent’s scent in a way that existed beyond consciousness.

Such was the bond that persisted between a child and their parent. Nothing could break it.

And yet …

She didn’t know where that and yet led or what followed.

Yet she felt it—a shift—as she crossed the bedchamber and faced Mother across the length of her upright body as she sat propped against the silk damask headboard of her massive bed, surrounded by half a dozen pillows of varying sizes.

Mother had an entire sleeping method that involved a dark room, lambswool in her ears, a silk sleeping mask, and a battalion of pillows.

Under no circumstances would Mother have a bad or interrupted night’s sleep.

Yet here she was, awake before she should be.

A note of foreboding stirred within Artemis.

“Well done, daughter,” said Mother.

It was only then she noticed the smile on Mother’s face. “What have I done well?”

Her voice rang hollow to her own ears, even as the unresolved sob in her throat imbued it with a wretched quality.

Well, she was wretched and devastated and she’d never been any good at hiding what she was feeling at any given moment. So, here she stood at the foot of Mother’s bed— hollow … wretched … devastated .

“You’ve sent him away, of course.”

Artemis blinked.

A feeling, sudden and overwhelming, surged and crashed through her in the minute sliver of time it took one second to tick into the next— fury .

A fury so fierce and bright, so deep, burning, and pure, it terrified her.

A fury that had a single point of focus— Mother .

“ Him? ” Her voice quaked with emotion barely suppressed. “Can’t you even speak his name?”

Mother exhaled a delicate, long-suffering sigh. “Oh, Artemis, don’t be dramatic.”

It came to her in a flash.

Bran had been right.

She had been blind.

No, worse.

She had been willfully blind.

So here she stood—hollow, wretched, devastated, furious, and embarrassed .

She’d been a fool.

“All these years,” she said, “I defended you.”

Mother’s brow lifted with incredulity. “ Defended me? ” she scoffed. “Defended me from what? I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I’ve defended you from myself.”

“It’s too early in the day for you not to be making any sense, Artemis.”

She was in no mood to be influenced. “Whenever you said or did something that felt wrong, I gave you the benefit of a doubt. It was because you loved me and had my best interests at heart. That was what I told myself. It’s what I told others, too.”

Bran.

She’d spoken such words to him.

“Stop shouting, Artemis.”

Was she shouting?

She didn’t give a toss.

Now wasn’t the time for propriety.

Now was the time for long-repressed truths to have their moment.

“I wanted him, Mother,” she said. “I want him, and now he’s gone. Because of me and my utter stupidity and because of you .”

“ Me? ” Mother sniffed. “Then you should be thanking me, instead of this nonsense you’re raging on about now. Collect yourself, Artemis.”

“You think I should be thanking you?”

“I saved you from a desire that isn’t worthy of you.”

“Isn’t worthy of me?” Artemis sputtered, nearly robbed of words. “ Bran? In what world is Lord Branwell Mallory not worthy of me?”

“You are the daughter of a duke.”

“He is the son of an earl and a war hero.”

“I was correct about him, though. Surely, you saw as much at last night’s supper.”

“How so?”

“The man is going to become Rake’s horse trainer , Artemis.” Dismissiveness sharpened each word to a point. “Of course, he isn’t worthy of you.”

Artemis’s head tipped to the side. “And you think such a man isn’t worthy of me because you think so highly of me?”

“Pardon?”

“Or is it that he isn’t worthy of you ?”

“Nonsense.”

“What would society think, right?”

“I’m a duchess. I don’t give a toss what society thinks. I do as I like.”

“Is that what you think?” Artemis was only getting started. “You stole my future from me—as if you had the God-given right.”

“I protected you.”

“ You protected yourself .”

“Stuff and nonsense.”

“The actions you took ten years ago …” She held up her hand and began punctuating her points, finger by finger.

“Offering Bran money to abandon me. Lying to Bran that I would marry Stoke. Not telling Rake any of what was happening. It was all in service to you —to keep your world ticking along the way you had arranged it to the last detail.” A sudden question took her breath away.

“What would you have done if I hadn’t lost the baby? ”

There had been talk of her giving birth on the Continent. She hadn’t questioned it at the time, but now another question came—would she have been allowed to return to England with the child?

In her heart, she knew the answer.

And those lies—the heartbreak of losing Bran and the unrelenting grief she’d endured—perhaps those lies had led to the loss of the baby.

She would never know.

How unaffected and remorseless Mother appeared as she said, “Oh, Artemis, that’s all in the past.”

Love is many things and expressed in many ways, but not like that.

She had been too overwhelmed in the moment to give Bran’s words proper consideration. But they came to her now, and she understood them.

Mother hadn’t been motivated by love for her daughter.

She’d been motivated by appearances and her own interests. Those were the only values that mattered to Mother.

And Artemis only mattered to Mother as long as she was a mirror that reflected what Mother wanted to see of herself.

Slowly, Artemis nodded. “You are correct that it is all in the past,” she said. “But it doesn’t have to be the future.”

Mother’s brow gathered. “What are you on about? I acted in your best interests.”

Artemis shook her head. “My whole life, that was what I believed. But it isn’t the truth, is it? You used my belief as a shield and hid the true you behind my faith in the false you.”

“You need rest, daughter,” said Mother. “And several drops of laudanum.”

But a momentum was building inside Artemis. “You only ever acted in your best interests.”

Words and combinations thereof were forming in her mind.

Words that once spoken, she would never be able to retrieve.

Words that would form a new basis for the relationship between herself and Mother.

A wave of embarrassment crashed through her.

These were words she should have spoken years ago.

Bran saw it.

Even Rake saw it.

But she had been blind.

No longer.

And it wasn’t that these words needed to be spoken.

She wanted to speak them.

“Mother, you’re a bully.”

“I beg your pardon?” A flush of crimson crept up Mother’s neck. Artemis had never seen that before. “ I am the Duchess of Rakesley.”

“The Dowager Duchess of Rakesley,” countered Artemis. “Gemma is now the Duchess of Rakesley.”

Exquisite blue eyes wide and incredulous, Mother gasped.

Another first.

Artemis hadn’t said it to be mean-spirited, but rather to illustrate a point. Mother had a habit of diminishing and outright negating anything that didn’t adhere to her narrative of herself and her preferred view of the world—which included Artemis.

How many times had she been diminished and negated in service to Mother’s comfort?

“I am your mother and deserving of respect.”

“I’ve always given you your due respect, Mother, and whether you believe it or not, I’m doing so now.

” She’d lowered her voice. “But I am your daughter. Aren’t I deserving of respect, too?

Or is it only those who look like you and embody your hollow, vacuous, soulless values that are worthy of your respect? ”

“How dare you speak to me that way?”

“ You are the reason I lost Bran the first time.”

She opened her mouth to blame Mother for having lost him the second time, too, but she knew it wasn’t the entire truth. Her shoulders must carry a share of that blame. Sudden resolution solidified within her. “I’m leaving Somerton within the hour. I’m needed at the Grange.”

“For that silly nonsense?—”

“It’s neither silly nor nonsense what we do at the Grange.”

It was possible she’d begun shouting again.

Mother’s eyes narrowed into slits. “You’re going to follow that man like a common strumpet.”

Artemis scoffed, incredulous. “You truly cannot see beyond your own reflection, can you?”

With that, Artemis turned on her heel and marched straight out of Mother’s bedchamber.

In fact, she wasn’t going to follow Bran.

But Mother didn’t need to know that.

Let her sit with the uncertainty and stew.

Artemis was going to make good on her words and take her wretched, heartbroken, furious, despairing self to Yorkshire.

She hadn’t changed her view on Bran.

More than ever, she wanted a future with him.

Now— at last —she was free to have it.

But she needed time to understand this new reality she’d entered.

A reality free from Mother’s grip.

But even more, she needed to allow Bran the space he’d asked for. He needed time to mourn their lost child.

Perhaps he would decide he was better clear of her.

That was the risk she was taking.

But it was the risk she must take.

If they were to have a chance at a future together, then it must be as the people they were now—not as echoes of their past selves.

Oh, this hurt.

But he was the man she wanted.

There would never be another.

And she was the woman he wanted.

There would never be another.

They couldn’t lose each other again.

They couldn’t.

Now, they simply had to retrace their steps to each other— again .

Or … she’d ruined everything, and this time, had nowhere to look but at herself.