The Reluctant Princess - a Novella

Chapter 11 - The Hunt

***Warning - Explicit sexual content***

Elizabeth looked back over her shoulder at Henry, catching his cool gaze and pressed her lips together. They had agreed he would not act like a jealous oaf today, and let her work her charms on Monsieur St Clair, but she could not help but feel his eyes on her as she rode beside the minister, through the woods.

Henry was following quite a distance behind them, seemingly ignoring them but inside he was seething. Every time Elizabeth laughed at something the Belgian man said, his stomach clenched, and his fists tightened around the reins. He was starting to get too possessive of her, he decided. He needed to stop this nonsense immediately. She clearly disliked him when he acted as a jealous fiancée and he had to find a way to keep those feelings in check. Acting like the troglodyte he truly was would only push her away and he could not have that. Never before had he wanted to be in a woman's good graces as desperately as he did with her.

He was convinced she was just as smitten with him, and she had not mentioned wanting to break off the engagement for days now, but it was clear she still had reservations about him.

Against his will, he did the unthinkable and turned his horse around, and took a different path, his heart pounding in his chest at the thought of leaving, but he needed to trust that she knew how to handle herself with the Belgian and the King. He knew this would make her happy and his need to please her in every way possible grew every day.

When Elizabeth looked back a few minutes later, she was surprised to note that Henry had vanished. She was even more surprised to realize that this disappointed her a little. As much as his constant hovering was starting to get annoying, now that he had seemingly abandoned her, she actually missed him. Yes, it was official, something was wrong with her. Nothing made sense anymore. Henry had succeeded in scrambling her brain and she was not sure she would ever be the same level-headed person again, at least not when he was around.

She forced herself to turn her attention to the Belgian gentleman beside her on the trail, thankful that he and the king had begun to discuss the best location to hunt for ducks. Though the hunt had been her idea, based on what she knew the foreign minister enjoyed, hunting was not an activity she particularly enjoyed, or condoned, for that matter. She was not the squeamish sort of woman by any means, but the idea of snuffing out a living creature purely for sport did not sit well with her.

She began to wonder how Henry felt about the past-time, and suddenly realized she had never bothered to ask his opinion on the matter, and that thought led her to the realization he was supposed to be here. The king had specifically instructed his son to participate in the political discussions during the event. If he let his father down once again, there was no telling what the regent would do. She needed to find Henry and drag him back here to do his duty as soon as possible.

She took advantage of the fact the two men had now moved on to discussing actual politics, which was the point of the whole ordeal, to gradually fall back a few paces. She then nudged her mare toward a fork in the path, which she surmised led away from the pond, where, sadly, dozens of unassuming ducks awaited their demise.

She maneuvered her mount up a steep path, deciding she would have a better chance to spot Henry from a higher vantage point, but when she got to the top and began to peruse the forest below, she spotted several bright red hunting coats scattered here and there. She huffed, annoyed. How was she to find him? It was like looking for a very handsome needle in a haystack...

The thought of hay brought her back to the events of a few days ago in the stables, and her face went beet red. She nudged her horse forward and continued up the path, which now ran across a ridge. The sky was utterly cloudless, and a gentle spring breeze tousled the few strands of hair that had escaped her cap. She stopped her horse and, in an attempt to fix her wayward curls, she managed to poke herself with the pin Mildred had used to secure her hat atop her head. She let out a sharp cry and hurried to pull the pin free. She yanked her hat off and stabbed the pin through it nearly violently, and tried once again to adjust her hair, but it was no use. The wind picked up and the more she fussed with it, the worse it got. She groaned and dropped her arms, frustrated, then decided she may as well let it down and put the hat back on, and try to make herself look decent before rejoining the hunting party.