As from the blue sky above, a feminine pair of smiling brown eyes appeared in his mind’s eye.
Instinctively, he shoved them back into the deepest, darkest corner of his mind where they belonged.
He’d become skilled at the maneuver these last eight years—nearly as skilled as he was at soldiering.
No, he wouldn’t be returning to England—or to that pair of smiling brown eyes.
And really, wasn’t he presently doing what he loved best? Riding a favorite horse beneath an open blue sky with a retinue of men, a light, peaceful breeze blowing through morning air yet crisp with the final fading remnants of night.
After Grahamstown, the worst was over.
All sides had settled into an acceptance.
He snorted. Perhaps notacceptance. There were the Dutch to contend with—and the Portuguese, too.
In his gut, he knew—there would never be acceptance or peace. Here was a place that would tremendously enrich whoever controlled it—and it wouldn’t be the people born to this land.
England wasn’t leaving and neither were the Dutch or the Portuguese.
Not without control definitively decided.
Not without bloodshed.
Some twenty yards ahead, Bran just caught the gray puff of gunpowder from the cragged horizon before he heard the crack of the shot. The next instant, his horse dropped out from under him with gravity gone suddenly awry. Time, too, took on an out-of-kilter cadence, both speeding up and slowing down as he hit the ground. It was difficult to discern what hit first—hip, shoulder, or cheekbone. Blood and dirt filled his mouth, the taste bitter and strangely dry, and a screaming pain lit through his body that would surely shatter him to pieces. His leg was trapped beneath the horse, who had breathed his last breath three or so seconds ago—or was it three minutes? Time had gone funny; he couldn’t know with any certainty.
He could only watch through dirt-crusted eyelashes as his men rallied to the fight with the efficiency he’d taught them and set off in pursuit of the enemy.
A hard-won breath shuddered through him.
It was his right leg—the leg that was smashed beneath the horse, trapping him in place, inspiring the unrelenting waves of blinding pain and the rivulets of hot sweat that carved channels across his body, even as a chill struck him to the bone.
From the sweat needling his skin, he picked up a sickly, sweet scent oozing through his pores. A musk that spoke of primordial elements. He knew this scent, for it had followed him these last eight years beneath every blue sky he’d encountered.
Death.
Here, at his side, it crouched in the dirt, patiently keeping him company.
This breath or the next could—would—be his last.
No bullet had penetrated him, but his leg was crushed, his skull possibly cracked. Death needed little more than that to claim its due.
Soon—or perhaps late—his men would return.
Perhaps he would still be alive—perhaps not.
He tried to keep his eyes affixed to the wide, crystalline-blue sky above, but with each interminable second that ticked past, the sky grew narrower, slimming down to slits, then into blackness. And in the place of blue, what did he see but a feminine pair of smiling brown eyes, pulling, pulling,pullinghim down into infinite oblivion.
It would beherwaiting for him at this inevitable end.
After all, it was she who started him down the path.
Artemis.
CHAPTER ONE
ENDCLIFFE GRANGE, YORKSHIRE, AUGUST 1822
Goats.
