The prince
She spotted the prince by his horse. A proud creature and with a beauty that made it worthy of being the steed of a beautiful prince.
Evie smiled as their eyes met and she sped her pace as she walked across the courtyard, towards the rather intimate company preparing for the hunt. Most of all, towards the prince.
There were only a few meters left between them when someone stepped right in front of her. Evie looked up and found herself staring into the eyes of the king.
“I do not think we have met.” He said and looked her up and down. “What is your business here?”
“Your Majesty.” She curtsied, deeply, and ignored the way his eyes stock on her cleavage rather than her face. “My name is Evangeline Romano. I was invited to join by…”
“Romano, you say?” The king looked unamused as he interrupted her from speaking further. “Dear god. How many of you are there? Every time I turn a corner I seem to find a Romano.”
“Four, my father included, Your Grace.” Evie stood up again and smiled, pleasantly as ever.
“Yes.” The king frowned. “Very well. Who did you say invited you?”
She hadn’t. Yet Evie kept on smiling. “The prince.”
“My son?” He raised his eyebrows and then laughed. “My son knows how to pick the most intriguing guests.”
“Which I am sure he inherited from his royal father.”
The king chuckled. “It was lovely to meet you, Lady Evangeline.”
“Evie, Your Grace." She said sweetly. “People call me Evie.”
“I see.” His smile turned softer as he grabbed her hand and kissed it. “Lady Evie.”
With one last look journeying across her body, he then turned and made his way back to his horse and Andrea. Evie looked quickly to her sister but then turned to the prince and gave him a smile, this time uninterrupted.
If the queen preferred to live in false and idle bliss then he had no say in it, but personally, he would rather know the truth of all things, even if the truth was painful. Of course, he could now know what it was like to be married to someone who found such interest in others but he wanted to believe that had he been in her position, he would rather have known the truth than believed a lie. He would have despised being the unknowing victim.
“Some people want to be whispered about.” Luca simply said but chose not to mention any names. He knew for a fact that Andy loved the attention sprung from being mistress to the king, and the way they danced together and flirted, there was no mistaking what they were up to. Same could be said for the king. They had reached a point in time where he did not even bother to care whether his affairs were made public or not.
No wonder whispers were created, and no wonder that they weren’t particularly silent.
“People will always whisper, Your Majesty.” He then added softly. That was simply a part of life at court. Trusting anyone outside of the family was foolish and sometimes, even the family turned out to be untrustworthy. Had he been on fire, Andrea would have laughed rather than try to put the fire out, for example. And he would have done the same in return.
