Evangeline

Chapter 8

"Do you think I can hit the center again?" Julian asked playfully, apparently expecting me to swoon over his archery skills.

Having no faith in my ability to sound sincere if I chose to say anything, I merely smiled and shrugged, acting as if I were shy or coy or whatever favorable emotion Julian wanted to believe.

Apparently satisfied that I was appropriately impressed, he grinned.

"Just watch." He winked and then turned his bow back to the target.

Once he wasn't looking, I rolled my eyes. What I wanted to do was tell him that my Aunt Keira could beat him on his best day. Probably with a sword too. But, of course, that wouldn't help me to appear agreeable. Suggesting that anyone at all might be more skilled than he was, would have been taken as a terrible insult. Forget if I suggested that a woman might actually be better at something than he was.

As I told my parents, I was trying, but it was turning out to be even more work than it had been to repel them. Appearing agreeable for these particular men involved a lot of forced smiles, acting pleased or impressed when I felt nothing of the sort, and outright lies. Honestly, it was just a different sort of performance. But I vowed to give them each some real consideration since, as Mother pointed out, choosing the most bearable of a few terrible options was still better than having the choice made for me.

Well, I was mostly giving them some real consideration. There was no way on Earth I was choosing Sebastian, so I could still continue my charade from the night of the ball a good deal. Papa had convinced him that I wasn't as stupid or as delicate as I had appeared before - apparently I'd been feeling ill that night - but I still managed to make him think that I was a little of both. I'm not sure if he believed it completely, but I certainly wasn't going to admit anything without him calling me on it. And he wasn't about to do that because it would involve calling me a liar. Which wouldn't help him in his quest to win the prize.

I had a difficult time believing that the princes actually wanted to proceed as planned after what I'd put them through at the ball. It was a testament to how much they stood to gain by marrying me. A thought that didn't endear them to me in the slightest. I'd respect them more if they left out of disgust.

Having hit his mark, Julian turned back to look at me, wearing a grin.

"Oh, that was wonderful," I enthused, hoping this particular interest was almost out of his system. Did he honestly believe it was enjoyable for me to stand and watch him doing things for hours at a time? Why is it that some men never thought women might like to actually participate in things they enjoyed doing?

I suppose I really shouldn't count that against him though. It wasn't exactly allowed for me. Or, at least, it wasn't considered proper. But I did actually know how to shoot. Aunt Keira taught me. Just never while I was at the castle. I wasn't too bad either, though I'm sure I'd have been much better if I were actually allowed to practice.

"How ever do you manage to make it hit the center so often? And after you've been doing it for such a long time!"

Okay, so maybe I was still continuing the charade with Julian a bit too. But I hadn't quite figured out how to separate catering to his need to impress me from sounding like a nit wit.

"Lots of practice," he said, his grin growing.

I had hoped that casually mentioning how long we'd been out here would make him realized that I was incredibly bored, but he only seemed to take my comment as a compliment of his stamina. He continued to bore me for, what felt like, hours.

Occasionally Aunt Keira acted as a guard for myself or one of the other members of the family. Usually it was a nice way to spend time with her while getting some space from the regular guards. Today, however, I'd barely been able to say two words to her. She had been standing a good distance away since I'd come out here with Julian, allowing us privacy to "get to know one another".

She didn't like this any more than I did, and every so often, she would send me a commiserating look when Julian's back was turned. I'm sure she was probably thinking the same thing I had about her putting Julian in his place with her archery skills.

I didn't really know what time it was or how long we'd been outside, but it must have been long enough to satisfy my requirements of spending enough time with Julian for today, because Aunt Keira made her way over to, mercifully, grant me an escape.

"I'm terribly sorry, Your Highness," she said to Julian. "But I'm afraid Princess Evangeline has a commitment to attend to in a few minutes."

I had no such thing, but I was very glad to substantiate the lie.

"Oh yes!" I acted surprised. "I must have lost track of the time. I'm very sorry," I said to Julian.

"Think nothing of it," he said, taking my hand to place a kiss on the back of it. "I very much enjoyed our time together. Would you do me the great honor of joining me tomorrow to go riding? I know you said that you haven't had much success in the past, but I thought perhaps I might show you some helpful tricks."

Unfortunately, thanks to Papa, Julian didn't think I was quite as big a disaster with everything the way I'd made him believe before. However, in an attempt to discourage too much attention, I had let him continue to believe that I was relatively incompetent. Apparently my plan had backfired and made him believe that he could improve my skills with more attention.

I suppose it was encouraging to think that I might actually get to do something though. Grudgingly I also had to admit that it was sort of sweet that he wanted to help me, even if it was a roundabout attempt to help himself.

Heaving a heavy internal sigh, I forced a genuine looking smile. "That would be very nice," I said. "Thank you."

Aunt Keira and I left a very pleased-looking prince and headed for my non-existent appointment.

"Since when do you have trouble riding horses?" she asked once we were far enough away from Julian.

"Since the ball when I was trying to convince my potential suitors what nightmare I was."

Aunt Keira laughed. "Oh, of course. I did hear something about that. Very clever."

I grinned at her for a moment before I sighed. "But it didn't really do any good. Thanks to Papa, they don't believe half of it any more. And I guess it is sort of necessary that they don't."

Aunt Keira sent me a sad smile and put her arm around my shoulders.

"I don't think I ever will understand why people continue to perpetrate these ridiculous ideas," she said. "Your family aside, the royals I've met are honestly nothing special. Usually they're terrible people, yet everyone believes they're somehow above the rest of us. As if royal blood held some sort of magical property or divinity. And so, rather than allow you to choose someone who could potentially be a decent human being and who you might actually like - or, God forbid, remain unmarried, you've got to choose between people whose only attribute is their title. And then there's the fact that, in my opinion, you're not remotely old enough to be thinking about marriage."

"Why couldn't you have been my mother?" I asked, only half-kidding. As much as I loved my parents, I would give almost anything to have them be allowed to believe as Aunt Keira did. I mean, I know they felt the same way, but they weren't allowed to let those feelings influence their decisions that much.

Aunt Keira sighed and we continued on to the castle where we would spend the rest of the day relaxing in my parlor, far away from any potential suitors.