“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. “ButIam your daughter. Aren’t I deserving of respect, too? Or is it only those who look like you and embody your hollow, vacuous,soullessvalues that are worthy of your respect?”
“How dare you speak to me that way?”
“Youare 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.
