Page 50 of Win Me, My Lord (All’s Fair in Love and Racing #5)

ENDCLIFFE GRANGE, TWO WEEKS LATER

B ran reached Artemis’s bedchamber door and had his hand wrapped around the handle before he stopped.

She was sleeping, and the sudden intrusion might startle her.

So, he knocked, a light tap-tap-tap , and waited, hoping it was enough to wake her.

“Yes?” came a faint voice full of questions and the fading vestiges of slumber.

He pushed the door open and slipped inside the still-dark room.

He didn’t need light to find his way to her bed.

She’d sat up and was pushing her hair back from her face, looking deliciously sleep-tossed.

A part of himself, growing larger by the second, wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with her and forget what had brought him here in the first place.

“Bran?” she said. “Is that you?”

“Aye.” He’d reached the side of the bed.

She inhaled a sharp gasp, then whispered urgently, “It’s bad luck for you to see me.”

This again.

Apparently, it was unlucky for the groom to see the bride on the day of the wedding before they married. It was why he’d had to sleep at the Roost last night—and why she was alone in her bed. “Don’t you think bad luck would know enough to avoid us altogether?”

“What do you mean?” It was a reasonable enough question, but he detected a withheld giggle within it.

“Bad luck has thrown everything it has at us, and yet here we are.” The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. “Bad luck doesn’t stand a chance against us.”

A beat of silence ticked past. “You may have a point.”

“Get dressed, my darling.”

Another beat of silence. “Not my wedding dress.”

“Something practical for a ride.”

She moved to the edge of the bed, reached out, and pulled him in for a kiss that went on a little too long—as their kisses tended to do.

He angled back, breaking it. “Artemis …”

“Yes?” she asked, all innocence.

“ Dress. ” The word hit the air firmly, but he understood how influenceable he could be if she put up the least amount of resistance to the idea.

She exhaled a playful sigh. “Oh, have it your way.”

She slid off the bed and around him. She was dressed in the matter of a minute.

Then her hand in his, they were slipping through the house on silent cat feet, so as not to disturb the guests who had made the journey north on such short notice for the wedding of Lady Artemis Keating and Lord Branwell Mallory.

Outside, he led her to the pair of hunters that were being held by a stable lad. He handed Bran the reins and nodded before he was off to his other duties.

Bran felt the warmth of Artemis’s gaze on the side of his face. “We could ride on one horse, together.”

He met dark eyes gone bright with concern. “Aye, we could,” he said. “But I would like to try it this way first.”

She nodded and allowed him to help her mount.

Then it was his turn.

He faced the side of the gray hunter and reached for the pommel, slipping his sturdy left foot into the stirrup.

His heart thundered in his chest, and his breath wanted to constrict in his lungs.

The thing was—the thing he had accepted—he would always feel this way when presented with the prospect of mounting and riding a horse.

But it was what he wanted to do, so he would do it, though it made his heart pound and his breath tighten.

He couldn’t say that he would no longer let fear get the better of him—he’d also accepted sometimes it would—but he could endeavor to live his life in such a way that if he wanted to do something, like ride a horse, he would.

With his bad leg, and with only a moment’s grumbling of ache, he pushed off the ground and mounted the horse with the near-smooth efficiency he’d known since youth.

Even as his heart predictably raced, he dragged in a steadying breath and let a smile find its way to his mouth.

He cut a glance toward Artemis and found her watching him with a smile perched on her lips, too.

It was a vulnerable moment.

Perhaps most men would feel unmanned by it.

He’d been one of them, in fact.

But the woman beside him, who later today would pledge the rest of her days to him, she gave him grace and understanding—so he would do that for himself, too.

“And where are we going, my future husband?”

“You’ll see.”

Two clicks of his tongue, and his horse began moving. Together, they rode at a measured trot across the lands of the Grange, east, as the sky lightened with coming day. This day was destined to be the best day of his life, and he meant to start it as he meant it to go on.

When they reached the sand dunes, they dismounted, and he dug two blankets out of the saddle pack.

Together, they sat with one blanket below them and the other wrapped around them against a cold breeze that heralded the approach of winter in the coming weeks, and stared out to sea, the sun not quite yet breaking the horizon line.

“Is the Roost ready for the wedding?” she asked.

He snorted. “You know Sir Abstrupus is taking full credit for everything.”

“He would,” she said on a chuckle. “But let’s not disabuse him of the notion. It’s too precious to him.”

“Though there is something you should know.” These last couple of weeks, Bran hadn’t been sure how to broach this subject, but as today was the wedding, it was time.

“What is that?”

“As the décor for the harvest ball was already in place?—”

“Oh, dear.”

“He left it so.”

A few moments passed while those simple four words gathered momentum in Artemis’s mind, and she comprehended their full impact. Wide brown eyes rounded on him. “You don’t mean …”

“Aye.”

“So, we shall marry beneath blood-red candles and palm trees and to the music of?—”

“The pipe organ.”

The potential for hysteria tipped into hilarity, and Artemis began giggling. Bran chuckled along, relieved.

“Will he come dressed as the Sun King, do you suppose?”

Bran winced. “Possibly.”

The dryness of his tone had Artemis giggling some more.

“And did the rest of your family arrive in the night?”

“Aye,” she said. “Rake and Gemma made it in just before midnight.”

The duke and duchess had taken the journey to Yorkshire slowly, due to the advanced nature of Gemma’s pregnancy.

“Alone?” he asked.

Artemis nodded. “Without Mother, yes.”

Blast the duchess.

“She did send a letter,” continued Artemis.

Jolly grand of her , he didn’t say. Instead, he said, “That likely took a lot.”

Artemis sighed, resigned, but showed no sign of disappointment. “She gave us her blessing.”

Bran felt his eyebrows lift to the sky. “Is that so?”

The hint of a rueful smile curved Artemis’s mouth. “She said that after much thought, she can accept our marriage because, of course, our future son will be an earl.”

Nearly robbed of speech, Bran was able to manage, “How did she arrive at that conclusion?”

“As only Mother could.” Artemis shrugged. “First, she doesn’t see how on earth Stoke will be able to secure a wife for himself, given his propensity toward dissolution.”

“Fair play.”

“But that wasn’t all.”

“It wouldn’t be.”

“She went on to say that if by some miracle Stoke did manage to procure a wife, she doubts his fortitude or wherewithal to be able to produce an heir.”

Bran could groan.

“Her exact words were—” Artemis cleared her throat and said in perfect imitation of the duchess, “ He looks the droopy sort. ”

Bran did groan. “Family.”

“Yes indeed, family .”

They shared a smile.

“We’re going to enjoy this life together, aren’t we?”

Sudden tears pooled in Artemis’s eyes. “Aye, we are.”

In that moment—some would characterize as magical—the sun broke across the horizon, golden and bright, and they went silent as the sky shifted from shades of gray into golden brilliance, dancing across low layers of clouds that looked no threat to the perfection of the day.

“And how would you describe this sky in relation to all the skies you’ve ever encountered?” asked Artemis, softly, her head resting on his shoulder.

“I would have to put it at the top as the very best sky in the world.”

“What sets this sky apart, then?”

“You beneath it, my darling.”

Over these last few weeks, he’d become prone to speaking such words— romantic words.

But they weren’t mere words.

They were his promise to himself, kept.

Just as Artemis was his sunshine, he would be hers—making her smile … making her laugh … making her happy—for the rest of his days.

“Now,” she said, her eyes sparking with joy, “I want you to kiss me.” As she reached for the front of his shirt and pulled him close so her mouth just touched his, another emotion flared within her eyes— desire . “Then I want you to ravish me.”

He chuckled, utterly besotted with this Artemis who gave voice to her wants without constraint. “I live to obey.”

“I want this forever.”

“And we shall have it.”

A promise made ten years ago.

A promise they’d believed abandoned.

But it hadn’t been.

It had only been lying in wait for the right moment.

For now .

For eternity .

The End