“I love you, Artemis,” he said, as serious.
When his mouth took hers this time, the kiss was slow and imbued with all the promises they’d made each other long ago—and with the most important one of all now …
The promise offorever.
EPILOGUE
ENDCLIFFE GRANGE, TWO WEEKS LATER
Bran 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 lighttap-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 hadto 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.”
