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“Do you like Lord Lewinus? I noticed that you talked to him a lot,” Maria said as she and Anna stood and watched the men take up the hunt of the stag on the field below them.
“Lord Lewinus? He’s the vilest man I’ve ever met,” Anna said with disgust in her voice. She could not even bear the thought of having to walk to the dance floor with him tonight. The only reason she had agreed to it was that she had not been able to come up with a reason to say no.
She had desperately hoped that Wulfric would say something, but he had only been sitting sulking on his horse next to her. He did not seem to try hiding that he was angry with her at all. She should talk to him later. She did not want the whole court gossiping about why he was mad at her.
Anna had no idea what she was feeling now. She stuck to her decision that she should not marry if she was not in love, and she was not in love with Wulfric. But seeing him with Katarina Löwensbeck and now Louisa Albertin still made her feel... She did not know. Was she jealous? But that would mean that she was in love with him, or at least felt a claim to him, and she did not.
“Is he?” Maria said. “I’ve always known him to be charming and funny.”
“You wouldn’t if you knew what I know,” Anna said and took of her cloak and placed it on her horse. The heat and humidity were excruciating. A thunderstorm was imminent it seemed. Hopefully, they would have made it back to the castle before it began.
“What is it?” Maria said. “You know you have to tell me all the gossip you hear.”
Anna smiled and told her of how they had met Lord Lewinus and his friends in the harbor town, that he had said that Wulfric probably preferred boys, and how he had beaten up Wulfric when he had demanded an apology. Maria looked appalled.
“I can’t believe that he would do that,” Maria said.
For a moment they looked at the men involved in the hunt below them. The king and the noble men had help from Anna’s hunter, several men from the stables, and the hounds.
“Do you think that he’s right though? About Rosenkranz?” Maria whispered.
“What? God, no. I have no idea why he would say that,” Anna said.
“You seem very sure about that,” Maria said with a slight smile on her lips.
Anna frowned at her.
“What are you insinuating?” she said, making Maria say the words only so she could deny them. But Maria did not. She simply shrugged and looked secretive.
“Maria,” Anna said fiercely, but in a low voice, while looking about. The other ladies were standing in smaller groups around them, at least a couple of yards away, but she could not be certain that they could not hear her.
“Nothing is going on between me and Lord Rosenkranz,” she whispered with emphasis.
“Really?” Maria said with a smug smile on her face. She continued in a whisper: “And where did you run off to yesterday?”
She raised her eyebrows in question.
“Don’t tell me that something is not going on between the two of you. I’ve seen the way you look at each other...”
“It’s not my fault how he looks at me!” Anna whispered angrily.
Maria’s look was almost condescending when she said:
“Please, not just how he looks at you, how you look at him as well.”
Anna turned abruptly to look at the men below her. They had cornered the stag, any moment now one of them would be able to kill it. Her mind was not focused on what was going on in front of her, but what happened between her and Wulfric. She had not been aware that she was looking at him so much that other people noticed.
“He is in love with me,” she finally whispered.
She could see from the smile on Maria’s face, that she thought that it was a good thing.
“I’m not in love with him,” Anna explained.
“You’re not?” Maria sounded surprised.
“I do think I know my own mind and I’m not in love with him,” she paused for a moment, long enough for Maria to say “Oh,” but not long enough for her to say anything else. “He asked me to marry him, but I refused him,” Anna explained in a whisper.
From the confusion on Maria’s face, she could see that it was not explanation enough.
“I can’t be married to him when he is in love with me and I’m not in love with him. It would break his heart,” Anna whispered.
“Shouldn’t that be his decision?” Maria whispered back.
Anna frowned and looked back at the field below. The men were heading back up the hill now, the hunt clearly over. Wulfric had said the same thing, that it should be his decision whether they married or not, but no. Anna could not live with someone, breaking his heart every day because she did not love him back.
“How would you feel if you were in love with Jonathan and he was not in love with you?” she turned to Maria and whispered.
“Awful,” was Maria’s immediate answer. “But I’d probably rather be married to him and be in love with him, than loving him from a far.”
Anna did not know how to respond to that but could only sigh.
“You and Jonathan are incredibly lucky to have each other,” she said.
Maria took her hand and squeezed it.
“We are. I’m infinitely grateful that it turned out so. I know that it doesn’t for many people in an arranged marriage.”
Anna felt that she was going to say something more, but at that time the men joined them on the top of the hill. Anna and Maria had not been able to see the last part of it since it had taken place behind some trees.
“Who shot him?” Maria asked, as the hunter’s wagon with the dead stag on it rumbled up the hill.
“Lord Goodwin,” Jonathan said and the blonde man riding beside him smiled proudly.
Wulfric rode behind them with a face that seemed cut in stone. Anna could see that Louisa Albertin came up to him as he dismounted his horse. Anna turned away to avoid the sight of the two of them standing next to each other. It did not bother her, she had to remind herself, it was completely natural that it felt strange seeing the man that she slept with only yesterday trying to court someone new.
As they rode back through the forest, they could hear the rumbling of thunder. It soon came closer and when they were halfway through the forest, it felt like the thunder was right above them. Lightning flashed almost at the same time a loud roar of thunder boomed above their heads. Several ladies screamed and then cried out when heavy rain started pouring down.
“We should take cover,” Anna said and rode to the back of the line of riders, where her hunter was riding. She quickly discussed with him whether there was a place that they could seek shelter. The hunter told her of a couple of abandoned cabins, that they could try and find. Anna had him lead the way. She stayed right behind him along with the king and queen.
The party quickly divided between the three small cabins and the barn that seemed ready to fall down around them but still provided some shelter. Anna ended up in the barn with the Maria, Jonathan, Nicholas Lewinus, Wulfric, Lady Louisa, her hunter, and the men from the stables.
Even though the barn was big there was not that much space when all of the horses were also there. Since they naturally did not fit in the cabins. Anna stood next to her own horse looking out at the rain. She had put her cloak back on and put on the hood as well. Even though it rained through the roof, the drops hardly touched because of the thick cloak.
Anna could hear Maria and Jonathan talk quietly but could not hear what they were talking about over the rain. She looked around and saw that Wulfric was standing close by holding his horse as well, looking out at the rain like she was doing. Anna quickly moved to the other side of her horse to get closer to him.
“We need to talk,” she whispered.
At first, she thought that he had not heard her, since he did not turn to look at her.
“What about?” He finally asked.
“You have to stop letting it show that there is something between us... or was,” she quickly corrected herself.
He looked at her with a surprise on his face.
“I haven’t said anything...” he began.
“It’s not what you’ve said. It’s what you haven’t said and how you’re behaving. The queen has already noticed, and I don’t want there to be any gossip about us.”
Wulfric looked back at the rain outside.
“I’m not good at hiding my emotions, you’ve told me that yourself.”
Anna skewed at him but did not say anything.
“What do you mean that it’s what I haven’t said that would make other people think that something is going on?” Wulfric then said in a low voice that Anna had difficulty hearing over the pouring rain.
“When Lord Lewinus asked me to dance earlier, you should have asked as well. It would have been the polite thing to do,” Anna explained.
Wulfric looked at her briefly.
“I don’t want to dance with you,” he said fiercely.
Anna was dumbfounded for a moment and had no time to respond before he went on.
“I can’t see how us dancing together would make people less suspicious of us sleeping together...”
“Slept together, we’re not anymore,” Anna corrected him angrily.
“Fine, make them less suspicious that we slept together. I think that it would be obvious to everyone when I hold you in my arms.” Another man would probably have made that sound sleezy, but Wulfric simply stated it as if it was a matter of fact.
The thought of everyone being able to see from their body language been intimate sent cold shivers down Anna’s spine. When she had fallen in love with Valdemar, she had never had to hide her emotions. She did not like that everyone was able to determine that she was attracted to Wulfric and gossip about what they thought had happened between them.
“Lady Harold, you seem to be freezing,” Lady Louisa Albertin said behind her. Anna jumped with surprise and turned around to look at the lady standing behind them. She had sneaked up on them without Anna noticing.
“It was only a shiver,” Anna said as Lady Louisa stood between the two of them.
“I’m actually feeling rather cold as well,” Louisa said and rubbed her upper arms in an attempt to warm them. She looked at . He did not look at her, but looked out at the rain again. “Lord Rosenkranz, I said that I was rather cold,” she said in a higher tone of voice.
Wulfric looked briefly at her.
“I’m sure the rain will be over soon, my lady, and we’ll be able to proceed home,” Wulfric said.
Anna caught Louisa rolling her eyes and had to hold back a smirk. Louisa had probably expected Wulfric to give her his cloak.
“What were the two of you discussing?” Lady Louisa said to Anna.
Anna had to think for a minute.
“Chess,” she then said.
“You seemed very passionate on the subject,” Lady Louisa said.
“That’s because Lady Harold plays by her own rules,” Wulfric said with a sinister tone of voice.