Lenore.764Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1CsPySMOaE
A young woman with flaxen blonde hair down her back worked on history homework at the corner desk in her room. The assignment is due tomorrow. She hated history, much more preferred math, where she can know for sure the answer is right, no doubting, no guessing. Less than a year until her eighteenth birthday, and she would be done with high school. She stopped at one question.
“He was your grandfather,” said a familiar voice nonchalantly, interrupting the crisp night flow of air from her window.
She jotted down the answer. “Thanks.”
She stared at the figure sitting in her window, her heart racing in a way only he can cause it to. If Daddy knew he was here, she would be in so much trouble, and guards would surround her from now until the time she wed into the Havenford throne by marrying some duke named Jeremy, not even a prince that could afford her any say in the government. She wanted to stand for something, be more than a spoiled little princess. She already had two guards posted outside her room every night: Armott, the more talkative one, and Harry, the really sweet but quiet one.
“You look lovely, as usual,” he replied, slipping through the window.
His blue eyes were cerulean, and his golden blonde hair was gorgeous, unlike hers. She hated her hair; it was so thick and in the summer, it turned this straw-colored dirty blonde, the color of wilted hay .
“Thanks.” Her nightgown flowed around her feet, several layers of cream colored silk and sheer and lace.
He looked over her like a weary traveler in a distant land, his eyes wondering over every curve and length of her awkwardly tall body and naturally olive brown skin; she was cursed with the touch of a summer tan all year round, not the porcelain perfect skin of her sister.
“You want to sit out on the roof…or you want to play cards or something?”
She shook her head. “I meet his parents tomorrow…”
He moved from the window. “Then give me one more night.”
“I would give you a thousand.”
~~
Lenore wakes up with a start and stares around, her heart racing. She grips the blankets in her fists. They are soft and luxurious, and she is almost afraid that she is home, waking up three weeks after that night to race and barf in the toilet. It takes a minute to register the events that had ended with her taking refuge in a strange palace----a wanted runaway.
She stares up at the ceiling, pale green eyes studying the intricate designs under the lavender paint.
That night had been the night that changed her life. It had been filled with a brief hesitation, and then, they had decided, in the split second of a moment. And it had been fervent and thrilling all at once, but the very moment that had seemed the most amazing of her life had turned out to be the worst decision she had ever made.
She had always been the “wayward” princess while her sister was so traditional, dancing around in sparkling dresses with shimmering glossed lips. Lenore had been somewhat a tomboy comparatively, always hanging out with her brother Frankfort. She and Frankfort were incredibly close, always have been. After all, they were the youngest, and their mother used to tote them around traveling here and there on her queenly duties. They were the unimportant heir and heiress. Kelly and Stacy would inherit everything, and they were lost in what was left over or pawns to be married off to an unloving prince or an unfortunate military fate.
Lenore squints as she remembered when she’d first suspected. Her nanny/maid, Olga, had been the first to notice; she had even asked about the father, but it was just a formality, for Olga had also been the first to happen into the room the very next morning…Utterly embarrassed, mortified-----just waking up, Lenore had barely been able to make eye contact as the young man had slipped out of the bed, sheets pulled snugly around his sculpted body.
Olga had rushed to close the curtains, appalled, “You have five minutes. Get dressed, and get out now! Lenore, come, you have a meeting with your new future IN-LAWS.” She continued mumbling something in her native tongue. “Aye, aye, what am I going to do with you?!” She shoved through Lenore’s dresses in her closet, readying her outfit for the day.
Lenore knew her face had to be redder than the apple Olga had brought her with breakfast. She could only let the tears slowly drip into the quilt that covered her now cold, bare body. It was funny how one minute she had been hot burning with fierce desire for the one beside her and the next she was colder than ice, utterly lonely.
“You are in so much trouble.” Olga fixed her slip. “Looks like I will be adjusting your clothes soon.”
“One time. Are you kidding me, Olga?”
“Tis all it takes, Lenore, did I not teach you that when we had ‘the talk’.”
Lenore remained silent.
“Obviously, I did not emphasize it enough.” She selected a delicate tiara to match the silver gown.
Lenore blinked. “Are you positively sure?”
“Time will tell, Babygirl.”
And three weeks later, time screamed her greatest fears. Olga and she gorged down ice cream out on the balcony until she stopped crying.
“The guard said it was urgent?” He strolled into her sitting room , which occupied the space between her bedroom and the main hall.
“Yes, pick a seat?”
He plopped into a rocking chair while she settled into a recliner. Noticing her history homework on the end table, he answered a question.
“So, what’s up, Princess?”
“What’s with the formalities?”
He frowned. “You know whatever's between us is over, right? After my summer studies here in the palace are done, Father has found me an apprenticeship. I have to move on with my life and make sure I can take care of my family."
Lenore shook her head. “So that’s it?! You just toss me away like trash?! Nothing." She lowered her voice. "Not even a ‘let’s run away together’? At least the princes in fairytales had the honor to ask, you jerk!”
He frowned. “Lenore, really? Do you even think that is a reality for us? Newsflash, this isn’t a fairytale, Princess. You are no sleeping beauty. I am no Prince Charming.”
“I wish you had told me all of this before I gave you my virginity?!" She paused. "Is that all I'm good for to you?”
“No, of course not." He frowned offensively. "You know I didn’t plan that.”
“I don’t know anything anymore,” she whispered, desperate tears welling in her eyes. “Will you hold me?”
For a minute he looked like he might relent, but then he turned away. “Why did you bring me here, Lenore?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you want from me, hunh? Do you want me to say I will run away with you, and leave my sister and my family? If you get caught, you get a slap on the wrist. I get thrown in jail or executed. Do you understand that? I don’t have this luxurious life---”
“You don’t know anything.”
“You’re one to talk. You are silly enough to fall in love thinking this summer romance would last forever. When I said one more night, I meant it. You offered a thousand…I never asked.” He got up to leave, letting the chair slam to the ground.
"Everything okay, your highness?" Harry questioned, opening the door.
"Our fathers are old friends. We were practically raised together. Don't worry," she assured him. "It was only the chair."
"You said you had an urgent message that required privacy, and since it is so late, I agreed he could come in for five minutes. Do NOT make me regret my decision."
"I was just getting ready to leave."
"Give us just a minute more, Harry," she insisted, and he nodded.
As the door closed, he moved to reopen it. Her mouth felt dry, but it was now or never.
“I’m pregnant."
He stopped cold, hand on the doorknob. “You’re what?”
“You heard me. I didn’t ask for this. You know I didn’t.”
She heard his fist tighten around the metal knob. “Kill it.”
“What?” She stared up at him.
“Kill it.”
“What do you mean…I…”
“What do you want me to say? We can't be together. I admit when this started that I was in love with you, but I had a reality check. You told me that it was our last night before you are betrothed, and I had to come to terms. We aren’t living a fairytale, Lenore. Kill it and save it the misery of living in your father's kingdom.”
“You’re a monster,” she whispered, her breaths coming hard.
“Maybe so,” he muttered, still not making eye contact. “But you loved me once.”
He departed, leaving the door wide open. Finally, she stood to head to the balcony. Harry slipped into the sitting room. "Is everything okay, your highness?"
Getting rid of her child wasn't an option, but she could do something to make herself feel better. "Harry, I believe the O'Neil family is guilty of treason." Her own coldness surprised her.
Now, she regretted it with every breath she took. Everything had backfired. Now, she was on the run from the throne, and her child's future remained uncertain.
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