How could it possibly be?
He wouldn’t put it past himself to have turned the bend into madness.
After all, he’d been through nearly everything else in the ten years since he’d last heard that voice.
He must say something.
What did one say to a ghost materializing from one’s past?
Forgottenher?
He’d certainly tried—and sometimes even succeeded.
“Lady Artemis,” he said.
As greetings went, it sufficed—just.
A beat of time ticked past before a laugh cut through the quiet. More scoff than laugh, as it was entirely devoid of humor.
Utter silence followed.
Well, not actual silence.
For in the crook of her arm, she held a basket, which was the source of the disquietandfrom which overflowed a litter of mewling kittens.
He squinted.
One kitten was perched on her shoulder and another crawled up her arm. Further, a larger cat, presumably the mother, was standing on her hind legs and attempting to inspect the basket.
Lady Artemis Keating—kitten thief?
Then there was the dog, whose one good eye remained unflinchingly fixed on Bran.
This last quarter-hour, he’d been laboring to track the figure he’d thought a poacher. Given the limitations of his mobility, it wasn’t as if he’d been furtive about it. But Lady Artemis and her retinue of misfit animals hadn’t noticed.
Well, the dog had.
As manners went, it was Lady Artemis’s turn to say something.
Instead, she gave a low whistle and her dog snapped to attention. Without another word, she impelled her legs into motion.Striding, as was her way with those long legs of hers—even as she wrangled kittens and cat.
All Bran could do was stand in place, his brow digging deep trenches into his forehead, while he watched her disappear into the woods.
Doubts about his sanity returned.
Lady Artemis Keating …here… in Yorkshire?
Where he was—and she wasn’t supposed to be.
He’d been at the Roost for a week now and never had there been a single word about Lady Artemis Keating.
He would have noticed.
Further, if he had known, he wouldn’t have started this morning routine of rambling about the Roost’s lands in the hour preceding dawn. Only three days ago, he’d discovered its eastern boundary ended at the sea. Now, every day since, he’d added a pre-dawn swim to the ritual.
Rambling. He supposed it was another word for walking, if what he was doing could be characterized as such. For the walking, rambling, or whatever one wanted to call it was nothing more than limping, and he preferred to do it under cover of darkness rather than by light of day. He couldn’t bear the pity or disgust in people’s eyes.
Actually, that wasn’t true.
