Chapter 327 - Betting on someone

Chapter 327: Chapter 327 - Betting on someone

The fresh bowl of grapes improved Eric’s mood considerably.

Not enough to make embroidery interesting, of course. There were limits even Ryan’s carefully peeled grapes could not overcome.

He lounged beneath the canopy with his fan resting loosely against his shoulder, eating one grape after another while the women around him continued their conversation. By now, Eric had realized that several of them had been watching him for quite some time.

Not openly. Noblewomen apparently had an entire art dedicated to staring at someone without appearing to stare at them.

A glance over the rim of a teacup. A brief look while adjusting a sleeve. A whisper behind a fan followed by several pairs of eyes casually turning his way.

Eric pretended not to notice.

He understood their curiosity well enough. He was an enemy prince who had somehow ended up married to one of their empire’s most powerful generals. Worse, he was a man occupying the position normally reserved for a general’s wife. To them, he was probably the most interesting thing to happen since somebody wore the wrong brocade to a banquet.

Eventually, one of the older women smiled at him.

"Your Highness, do you embroider?"

Eric paused with a grape halfway to his mouth.

"No."

The woman blinked.

Another lady leaned forward. "Not even a little?"

"No."

"Surely you must have learned something before marriage?"

Eric slowly put the grape into his mouth.

"I learned many things before marriage."

The women waited.

Eric chewed.

None of those things were embroidery.

He had spent almost thirty years with Aaron in another world, lived through things these people could not even imagine, become a system, jumped between lives, lost memories, gained memories, and somehow ended up here being interrogated about his ability to stab thread through cloth. Life really did have a strange sense of humor.

A younger woman sitting nearby covered her smile with her fan. "Perhaps Your Highness simply hasn’t found the right teacher."

"That must be it."

"I could teach you."

Eric immediately regretted answering.

The woman brightened and reached for the embroidery basket beside her. "Actually, why don’t we have a small competition? Nothing serious. We can each embroider a simple flower and see who finishes first."

Several women suddenly became interested.

"Oh, that sounds lovely."

"We have plenty of time before the hunters return."

"It would be entertaining."

Eric stared at them. Then at the embroidery basket. Then at the tiny needle being offered to him.

He yawned.

Not a polite little yawn either. A full, lazy one that he barely bothered covering with the back of his hand.

"Forgive me," he said afterward. "The excitement nearly overwhelmed me."

Silence.

One woman coughed into her sleeve. Another very obviously turned away because she was trying not to laugh.

The woman holding the needle slowly lowered it.

Eric smiled sweetly. "Besides, it would be unfair."

Her brows rose. "Unfair?"

"Yes." Eric picked up another grape. "You have years of experience. I have none. If I somehow beat you, you would be embarrassed for the rest of your life."

The woman stared at him.

Eric ate the grape.

"And if I lose, I’ll be bored and humiliated. There’s nothing in this arrangement for me."

A laugh escaped from somewhere farther down the row.

That was apparently enough to break the careful atmosphere. A few of the younger women began laughing behind their fans, while the woman who had challenged him shook her head.

"You truly have no interest in embroidery?"

"Absolutely none."

"What does Your Highness enjoy, then?"

"Eating."

That earned another round of laughter.

Eric gestured toward his grapes. "As you can see, I’m extremely talented."

The atmosphere around him finally loosened. Some of the earlier scrutiny disappeared, and conversation moved away from embroidery before Eric could be challenged to sew another flower. He relaxed again.

Perhaps he could survive until noon after all.

Then he heard something much more interesting.

"Are we betting this year?"

Eric’s fan stopped.

His head turned.

The woman who had spoken was sitting two seats away. Another noblewoman immediately lowered her voice.

"Of course. We do every year."

"Last year Lady Sun nearly lost her entire allowance."

"She bet on her brother."

"Her brother fell off his horse."

"He still insists the saddle was loose."

Eric slowly sat straighter.

Now this was a conversation.

Embroidery vanished from his mind.

One of the women noticed his sudden interest and smiled. "Does Your Highness gamble?"

"No."

That was technically true.

"But I’m willing to learn."

A small wooden board was brought out, followed by paper and several brushes. Apparently the ladies had done this enough times to have an entire system prepared. Names were written down along with odds based on previous hunting competitions, and Eric leaned closer, his earlier boredom disappearing completely.

There were generals, princes, noble heirs, commanders and several names Eric had never heard before.

That was the problem.

He knew absolutely none of these people.

Eric stared at the list.

He wanted to bet on whoever was most likely to win, collect his money, and spend it on something delicious later. Unfortunately, everyone might as well have been named Man One, Man Two and Man Three.

He tapped his fan against his knee.

"Who won last year?"

"General Zhao."

Eric immediately searched the board.

"And the year before?"

"His Second Highness."

Eric frowned.

This required information.

He had none.

How was a man supposed to gamble responsibly under these conditions?

One of the ladies pointed toward a name. "General Ryan is also highly favored this year."

Eric’s eyes moved toward it.

Ryan.

Ah.

Finally, someone he knew.

Not that knowing Ryan meant Eric had any idea how good he was at hunting. He knew Ryan could fight. Obviously. The man was a general. He had the body of someone who could probably throw Eric over one shoulder and continue fighting with the other hand, which Eric had absolutely not spent an inappropriate amount of time imagining.

But hunting?

Eric looked toward the field.

Most of the participants had not yet disappeared into the forest. They were gathered farther away near the starting point, horses shifting restlessly beneath them while servants made final adjustments to saddles and equipment.

Eric found Ryan almost immediately.

That itself made him pause.

There were dozens of men out there. Brightly dressed nobles, armored guards, princes wearing expensive riding clothes, banners moving in the wind. Yet his eyes somehow went straight to one person.

Ryan sat atop a dark horse, dressed in fitted hunting clothes instead of his usual robes. The dark material hugged his shoulders and waist, leather guards wrapped around his forearms, and a bow rested against his back. His hair had been pulled high and secured tightly so nothing would interfere while riding.

Eric stared.

Oh.

His husband looked ridiculously good on a horse.

That was irritating.

Ryan was speaking with another rider beside him, a younger man dressed in clothing that looked far too expensive to belong to an ordinary noble. Gold embroidery traced the edges of his dark riding clothes, and the guards surrounding him were enough for Eric to guess that he was probably one of the imperial princes. The two men appeared to be discussing something serious. Ryan’s expression was calm and distant as usual, his posture straight in the saddle while the prince leaned slightly toward him.

Eric narrowed his eyes.

He couldn’t hear a word from this distance.

Not that it was any of his business.

Still...

He continued staring.

As though sensing it, Ryan suddenly turned his head.

Their eyes met across the field.

Eric blinked.

The change in Ryan’s face was small enough that someone unfamiliar with him might not have noticed it at all.

Eric did.

That cold, unreadable gaze softened.

Just slightly.

Then the corner of Ryan’s mouth lifted.

Not a proper smile. Ryan apparently considered those a limited resource and refused to waste them unnecessarily.

But it was there.

And annoyingly, Eric smiled back before he even realized he was doing it.

For a few seconds, the noise around him faded beneath the strange warmth spreading through his chest.

Ryan looked good.

Far too good.

And lately, Eric had begun noticing him far too often.

He noticed when Ryan entered a room. He noticed when the man sat closer than usual. He noticed those tiny changes in an otherwise expressionless face. He noticed what food Ryan brought him, how Ryan remembered what he liked, how his voice sounded different when speaking to Eric compared to everyone else.

And now apparently one tiny almost-smile from across a field was enough to make Eric grin like an idiot.

His own realization wiped the smile from his face.

Oh, shit.

Eric slowly looked away.

Was he becoming smitten with this man?

He lowered his fan enough to hide part of his face.

That was...

Well.

Inconvenient.

He had already known Ryan affected him. The man looked almost exactly like Aaron, after all. At first Eric had thought that was the entire reason he kept staring. Familiar face, familiar little habits, familiar softness hidden beneath an entirely different personality.

But somewhere along the way, Eric had stopped constantly comparing the two.

Ryan was simply Ryan.

The realization left him strangely unsettled.

Eric immediately shoved it aside.

Absolutely not.

This was a hunting competition. There was gambling happening. This was no time for emotional revelations.

Money first.

Existential crisis later.

He looked back toward Ryan.

The man had returned his attention to the prince beside him, but somehow that brief smile had already made Eric’s decision.

Fine.

If he was going to lose money, he might as well lose it because of his husband.

"I’ll bet on General Ryan."

Several heads turned.

The woman beside him smiled knowingly. "Naturally,"

Eric frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

That smile clearly meant something.