Chapter 17

In desperate need of keeping my mind off of the disaster that was my marriage, I randomly decided one morning to go riding. I hadn’t spent much time with any of the horses in some years, as my princely duties took up more and more of my leisure time.

I’d always enjoyed riding as a child. After the debacle when I’d ridden off and gotten lost for hours as a child, though, I’d stopped riding. It had soured the sport for me, and then life had taken hold and I’d stopped entirely.

My mare, Juliette, nickered softly as we started down the lane that led to a trail that meandered through a forested area five kilometers outside Saint Henri. It was a beautiful, late summer day. With the dappled sunshine following just me and my horse, I could almost imagine everything was fine.

I could almost imagine that my wife was speaking to me. That there weren’t dozens of stories, online and in print, about those titillating photos of her bare breasts. That there weren’t other stories about how my parent