She’d actively sought him out. For what precise reason, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure she did either. Perhaps it was the magnetic pull that drew them together when they came within range of each other.
There was no helping it.
Ten years ago, there had been many lies—but that wasn’t one of them.
Of those lies spoken ten years ago, he couldn’t help questioning one of them in the wake of theirencounter.
She hadn’t married Stoke.
Of course, he’d known that.
Why would I have married your brother?
Her brow had crinkled with utter bewilderment, and her eyes had remained clear. If he hadn’t known differently, he would venture she had no idea that she’d intended to marry his brother.
But that was what Bran had been told.
A lie.
Which put him at a crossroads—to pursue the truth, or let the lie stand and keep moving forward with his life.
A bitter snort escaped him.
Moving forward.
But wasn’t that bitterness a reflex?
Perhaps … perhaps at last, he was making some forward progress.
Really, it came down to today.
Today, he needed a win after a string of losses that seemed to know no end.
As the horses assembled at the starting line, he became a straight line of tensed muscle. Lafferty had his instructions and race plan. Now, all that remained was for him to execute it.
Even from this distance, the duo of horse and jockey were impossible to miss in their garishly colored silks. Bran could grudgingly admire how Sir Abstrupus made his presence felt in the absence of his physical person. It was a remarkable skill.
The starter lifted his gun, and an anticipatory hush descended on the crowd. The next distinct sound was the crack of the shot, and the horses were off. Bran’s breath held for the next two seconds, waiting for a second firing of the gun, but no shot sounded. There would be no false starts today.Good.Radish was untested in a racing environment, so it wasn’t known how he would handle a series of false starts if the man with the starting gun had been bribed to rattle the horses.
What was painfully obvious as Radish neared the first turn was that he was in a terrible position. Lafferty was taking an aggressive line and attempting to muscle through from the inside, when the field hadn’t yet strung out and were still all clumped together. The less risky strategy would’ve been to linger at the back and use Radish’s speed and grit to gain ground on the straights.
In the pocket of the turn, risk became inevitability and it happened—Radish became tangled with two other horses.
Bran’s stomach plummeted to his feet.
This was it.
Another inevitable loss happening before his eyes.
Except, improbably, Radish kept his footing.
Sure, about twenty yards stood between him and the rest of the pack, but he was on all four hooves and that had only been the first turn.
The St. Leger was a long race.
There was time.
It wasn’t belief that took hold within him—life had knocked him down one too many times for him to commit to such a far-fetched notion—but ratherwill. With every fiber of his being, he was willing Radish to be just that bit faster than the field and make up ground one powerful stride after another.
