The Emerald Viscountess

~21~

"The men out enjoying the sunshine. Sign of a great hunt," Kate mused with a smirk, making Eleanora smile.

"I suppose you prefer the darkness, Miss Sharma?" Anthony said, earning a chuckle from his brother.

"What I would prefer, is to be allowed to follow my own instincts on this hunt instead of blindly following the guide," she retorted as she stopped walking, making the trio of men and Eleanora stop walking too.

"I'd also prefer to follow Miss Sharma's instincts," Eleanora chimed in, earning a glare from Anthony and a satisfied smile from Kate. "Clearly we're getting no where. Frankly, now that I think about it, a hunting party is very counterproductive. You're meant to be stealthy and quiet during a hunt, yet a bunch of people socializing and making no effort to be quiet is going to scare all the animals away."

"You are still convinced we have lost our prey?" Anthony asked. He walked up to the women, offering his hand to help them over a fallen tree trunk.

"I am convinced the deer prefer the edge of the forest," Kate retorted, making her way over the trunk, no thanks to Anthony.

Eleanora looked at Anthony's opened hand, before ignoring it and gathering her skirts to step over the tree herself, unintentionally showing some skin of her thigh above her stocking.

"Quite so, it's much too open out here," Eleanora agreed, smiling at Kate. "Miss Sharma was right, I am a witty learner - are you alright, Anthony?"

She furrowed her eyebrows at Anthony's expression, his clenched jaw and avoidance of eye contact with Eleanora. His eyes were glued to the area where Eleanora had stepped over the log.

"Yes, well," he said, flustering over his words. "Perhaps you are both right, but we should carry on. Certainly there will be other deer on other paths." With that, the viscount walked past the women, catching up to the party. "They do not always keep together, and if they are not, then . . ."

Anthony turned around to find Kate where she's been standing, but Eleanora had disappeared from her side. Kate only shrugged at Anthony's frustration of not finding the woman.

~~~

Eleanora beamed at the sight of a stag, keeping her excited squealing to a minimum. She bent down behind a log, propped her rifle against her shoulder, and closed one eye to get better precision.

"Nora!" Anthony called, storming over to her.

"Hush, get down!" Eleanora whispered, smiling into her rifle.

"Are you quite serious?" Anthony said, his voice quiet, as he knelt down beside Eleanora and set aside his rifle. "You cannot just go off like that with your gun! Miss Sharma I would have trusted more, but knowing you, with all the experience in the world you would still somehow shoot at your foot."

"Thank you for that," Eleanora snapped, shortly looking up at Anthony to narrow her eyes at him. "Now, would you be quiet?"

"I suppose it is rather like you to leave everyone behind," Anthony stated.

"Yes, vocalize what you think of me to the squirrels and bugs around us that give a damn what you think of me," Elaenora hissed.

"I do not need to think, I know. From the moment we met at the age of three and ten, it was obvious that rules were meaningless to you."

"At least I wasn't the one attempting to cheat during games and yet still managed to lose," Eleanora retorted, focusing her gaze back to the stag.

"Perhaps if you'd not been out the other morning, we might not have been put in such a difficult situation."