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 wasdestined 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.”
