“Our engagement is cancelled, Lenora.”
Prince Ronan’s voice was flat and dispassionate as he faced me.
I had to admit, he definitely had a flair for the dramatic. To meet me here, under this awning, surrounded by the downpour of rain, made this event seem all the more sad. His face was serious, his stance slightly defensive. From head to toe he was the perfect image of the tragic hero. I felt a strange desire to applaud.
Unfortunately, the outfit he was wearing was much less impressive. Who had made his clothing? It was expensive-looking, but to the discerning eye, one could easily tell that the fabric was cheap, thinly woven, and that the stitching was uneven. Knowing how much the royal palace spent on clothing, I felt a headache coming on. What an inferior product. So insulting.
The prince was still talking. Why? I felt his first sentence was more than enough.
“I know this is a terrible shock.”
“Is it?” I kept my expression blank, suppressing the urge to laugh. Fortunately he didn’t seem to notice my peculiar reaction, seeming intent on proceeding as dramatically as possible.
“I have fallen in love with another woman. My heart is completely swayed, I cannot have another.” He sighed tragically, staring off into the rain. “So, unfortunately, I must break off our engagement. I trust you understand.”
I nodded quietly, wondering if people were enjoying the food inside. My family had come here for the Prince’s birthday, but I hadn’t wanted to be here. Unfortunately as his fiancé, I didn’t really have a choice. The only thing that I had looked forward to was the food, which had looked delicious, but there wasn’t a chance to try that before he had pulled me away for an “important chat.”
“I know you’re heartbroken, but try not to cry.” Seriously, he was still talking? I shook my head. Did engagement breakups really have to take this long?
_______________________________
I stood on a balcony in the rain, facing the man who refused to marry me, crying as my heart broke.
“What will I do without you?! My entire life has been spent preparing to be your bride.”
The prince’s face was stony. “That’s not my concern.”
“BUT I LOVE YOU!”
_______________________________
I pushed away the memory of my previous lifetime with a sigh. This is much easier the second time around.
Ronan misinterpreted my expression and sigh. “Do you need to be alone?”
“No.”
I held out my hand.
“…” With a confused pause, he pulled out a handkerchief and placed it gently on my outstretched palm. Did he think I wanted something to dry my eyes? I wasn’t even crying! I dropped it on the ground, grinding it into the dirt with my shoe, and held my hand out again.
“…What do you want?”
“Compensation.”
He looked shocked. “Pardon?”
I smiled at him. “It’s simple. I am the daughter of a duke. My time is valuable. This marriage was an arrangement meant to mutually benefit my house and the royal family. By breaking this agreement, you have essentially wasted my time and good intentions.” I pulled out a piece of paper from my pocket and started making calculations.
“But…”
“Shush, I’m thinking.” I kept writing on the paper. “Let’s see. I have been forced to visit the palace twice a week for several hours at a time to ‘further our relationship.’ Add in the eight hours a week that I spent with your mother and your staff in ‘future queen training’ which is now essentially useless to me…” I started adding up the figures, nodding to myself.
His face was turning red with anger. “You dare…”
“Not to mention…” I interrupted, tapping my chin thoughtfully. “I had to purchase for you presents on each of the major holidays and your birthdays, which I would not have done otherwise as it wouldn’t have been proper if I was not your fiancé. Adding onto that the formal attire I’ve had to purchase for royal functions, and let’s not forget to add 15% for pain and suffering…” I looked at the final number with a happy whistle of appreciation. “Here’s what you owe me.” I handed him the paper.
Ronan crumpled it in his hand. “This is preposterous! Who ever heard of compensating someone for a broken engagement?”
“Let me remind you, your highness, that I am essentially ruined in the eyes of the nobility.” I shrugged, “Who will offer marriage to me, now that I am the cast-off of the prince? You are destroying MY life for YOUR selfishness, and you want to quibble about several hundred…”
“This says THREE THOUSAND!”
“…Several thousand crowns?” I chuckled. “Or we could bring the matter before your father the king? I’m sure he would love to hear about how you’re cutting ties with the influential Duke of Armeny’s daughter.”
With a groan, he searched his pockets, pulling out 3 gold tinted notes. “I only have 1500.”
“I saw the envelopes you received for your birthday, your highness. They’re in your pocket now. Check them.”
Reluctantly he did, finding increasing the total to 2800 crowns. I took it from his hand, double counting it to be sure.
“You can’t be serious.” He blustered, his face now turning pale.
I smiled gently. “You’re right, I should learn to be more lenient.” Enjoying how he relaxed at my words, I sighed, holding up two fingers.
“I’ll forgive the extra 200 crowns you owe me, for old times sake.”
With that, I turned and walked away.
“Lenora!” He called out my name. I paused, not amused.
“We are no longer acquainted, Your Highness. Do not call my name so familiarly.” The air between us almost seemed to freeze with the coldness of my tone.
Ronan was obviously shocked. “I thought you were in love with me?”
This from the man who is dumping me? I laughed.
“Love? What is that? Can I eat it? Will it keep a roof over my head?” I rolled my eyes.
“No, your highness. Compared to such flimsy emotions and feelings, I greatly prefer the solidity and dependability of money.” I shook the pouch in my hand with a grin and turned to walk away again.
This time, he didn’t stop me.
It was finally done. I felt relieved. After all, if he hadn’t broken it off, I would have had to do something about it. I was never going to marry him.
Especially since this was the second time he had broken off this engagement. He just didn’t remember the first.
“Now the real work begins.” I muttered, walking back into the party with my head held high.
______________________________________
3 years earlier…
I woke up in a familiar bedroom, staring up at a silk canopy, absolutely confused.
Didn’t I die?
I distinctly remembered starving to death out on the streets in the capital city.
I had not lived a happy life.
The majority of my childhood and adolescence had been spent preparing for one goal, and one goal only: to marry the crown prince Ronan and become the future queen. At the time I had seen this as my duty, and had been happy to work hard for my family’s sake.
It wasn’t until the rainy day that the prince broke our engagement that I realized how naïve I was.
My father, despite being a duke, had never been talented at managing money. As nobility, most of our income came from taxation of those who lived and worked in our lands. My father was overly trusting of our tax collectors and never double checked their numbers. They took too much from the people and none of it went into taking care of the estate. As a result of their thievery, we destroyed our relationships with those living on the lands, and barely saw half of the money collected.
This by itself might not have been too much, but my father had no concept of the word “restraint” when it came to spending money. He drove up large bills, buying expensive objects, gifts for my mother and myself, etc.
Poor income, high debt, it was a miracle we lasted as long as we did. That was of course through no merit of our own, but through my connection with the royal family. When we were well connected, merchants hesitated to be aggressive about calling in debts. Worst came to worst, they probably assumed that when I became queen I could pay all of my father’s outstanding accounts.
But then the rainy day came. The prince broke my heart and married another girl, and all of a sudden, we were no longer under the crown’s protection. With no money coming in, and everything we had being sold to pay off what was owed, our family lasted a little over a year.
My father and mother had never lived outside of the protected walls of their families. They could not survive the shock of being forced out into the streets into a struggle to survive. Unable to adapt, they gave into despair, not considering the daughter they left behind.
I was alone.
I tried. I did my best. I made trinkets to sell, worked as a maid, as a cook, as a store clerk. All of these positions were temporary, and none paid nearly enough to keep me well fed. I grew thinner, sicker and more desperate.
I begged for money, some days were better than other. I only ate food every few days. I drank water where I could find it, worried each time that I would only make my health worse.
I had only been out on the streets a year when I died, hungry, alone and very, very angry.
Why had I trusted others to protect me? What was love that I had my life ruined because of it?
No.
If I could do it again, I would do it differently.
Those were my last thoughts, as my eyes closed for the very last time.
Or so I thought.
I woke up in my old bed, in my old room, very much alive and completely confused.
How am I here?
This house was sold shortly after our broken engagement to pay our debts. It had been torn down and a new cottage had been built in its place as an engagement present to the prince’s new fiancé.
All this flashed through my head, but there was no denying that I was in my old room. This was my bed, my house, my clothes…. I looked down at myself, even more startled. my body was definitely a bit smaller than I remembered.
I ran over to the mirror by my wardrobe and looked at my appearance.
“Young…” The word slipped out unconsciously from my lips. I looked about fifteen years old. I touched the mirror with an outstretched hand; the glass was cool against my palm. It was not a dream or a mirage. It was real.
“I’ve gone back.” I had been twenty when I died. If I was right, I had woken up five years in the past.
Three years before the prince broke our engagement, ruining me and leaving my family to self-destruct.
Which meant…
I started to laugh, a startling sound in the otherwise silent and empty bedroom. I couldn’t help myself though.
I had a chance to change my future.
I sat back down on my bed, deep in thought. Obviously I needed to prevent the downfall of the Duchy of Armeny. The catalyst had been my broken engagement with Prince Ronan.
Should I try to prevent it? Make the Prince fall in love with me?
I only gave that idea a brief moment of consideration before discarding it.
Marriage, children? Would they guarantee that I wouldn’t die out on the streets?
Obviously a man’s devotion could waver. Children needed to be fed and clothed for years before they could contribute financially to a household.
No, I would pass on the love and marriage. Let Prince Ronan cast me aside again. Who needed the support of that fickle idiot?
This time I would be ready.
I was going to make the duchy not only financially stable, but a moneymaking powerhouse.
I had no time to waste. I stood up, eager to get dressed and get started on my day. I had a lot to do in a short amount of time. As I got ready, my stomach rumbled, signaling that I was hungry.
___________________________________
I was curled up in a ball on a street corner, an empty bowl in front of me.
Pain.
My stomach ached, the emptiness too terrible to bear. How long had it been since I had last been full? I clutched my empty belly, frustrated tears clouding my eyes.
Footsteps. Someone was walking by. Desperate, I tried to lift my head, only able to project a weak, tired voice.
“Please, spare a coin so I can eat?”
The person paused, conflicted, before walking quickly away in the opposite direction.
“Please.”
My hunger worsened.
____________________________________
I pressed a hand against my stomach, swaying with the force of the terrible memory. I looked back into the mirror in my room. My eyes looked coldly back at me. It was a determined face, with a tinge of anger.
I would not fail to protect my family and myself this time around. I definitely could not fail.
Starving to death was painful, so my aim was to never to trust in love again.
First things first. I needed to get the expenses of the house under control.I wanted to be thoughtful about how I dressed, trying to project an air of maturity and competence. It was important that I convince my father that I was capable of taking care of the duchy’s finances.Looking through my wardrobe, however, it was difficult to find anything worth wearing. I sighed loudly as I flipped through different gowns. Not only were many of them far too fancy for simple daily use, I knew the customization of the gowns must have been horrendously expensive. The construction of most of the them weren’t even very well done…_____________________________________“Is that really your best?” the older seamstress who had taken me in shook her head disapprovingly.I held up my work, examining it. “It looks fine!” My heart sank as she took it
As I walked towards my father’s study, I rehearsed what I needed to say in my head.Everything had to be perfect.My father, the Duke of Armeny, was not a complicated man. He took what was given to him, and assumed if he did the same as his father and grandfather before him did, that the world would stay the same. Trusting, naive, he thought everyone had their place… and that mine was on the throne next to Prince Ronan. I often wondered if he had ever considered me anything more than a commodity to the family. We had not been very friendly in my first life.Given what I was about to do, I doubted we would be very friendly in this one either.I arrived, standing outside the door to his study, taking a few deep breaths to steady myself.“You can do this, you can do this.” I muttered under my breath, trying to bolter my confidence.
“Your Highness.”I plastered a polite smile on my face, performing a perfect curtsy, but all the while my mind was racing, desperately trying to figure out how long he had been there, how much he had heard.Even if I was planning to let the engagement be broken up like last time, I needed the three years to get my family back on track financially before that happened. If we broke up too soon… the debtors would come calling and my life would end very much like the first.Fortunately, Ronan didn’t seem upset or angry, he looked more bored than anything.I let out a silent sigh of relief. He must not have heard the “temperamental child” comment I had made to my father. I wasn’t too concerned If he had heard my blatant lies about the Queen managing accounts. He didn’t know enough about how things worked in the palace to know if that was true or false.
Despite my wishes, the morning of etiquette training with the Queen arrived all too quickly. I departed in a carriage just shortly after sunrise, arriving at the palace without too much delay. As I followed a footman deeper into the building I had once known so well, I felt a cold wave of a memory swell over me._______________________________________“Just lift your feet, miss!” The dancing instructor clapped his hands, looking frustrated. “You act as if your shoes are weighted down!”I stumbled, tripping on my shoes, wincing as I felt the skin tear on my elbow as it hit the floor.The instructor chuckled, the Queen looked concerned, but my mother… she simply stared at me with a look of weary contempt.A look I knew all too well._______________________________________I gripped my elbow, almost feeling the
The next week was brutal.Each day I would get up before dawn, moving to my office to get started as soon as possible. Reading, studying, I was trying to learn a lifetime of knowledge at a breakneck pace. I still was piecing together bills and tax documents, working with Hallers to consolidate all the debt I could. Fortunately, as I was still in good standing with the Royal family, the interest and repayment plans were very generous.I stayed locked in that tiny room, only to pause whenever Hallers brought up a meal, an increasingly worried expression on his face with each passing day.“Miss, you must sleep!” He broke his professional silence on the fourth day, as he walked in late into the night, finding me reading a chapter on historical government forms while taking notes by candlelight. I glanced up, surprised to see him still dressed up in a proper butler uniform despite the late hour. 
The next day’s etiquette lessons were harsher, just as Mrs. Rendler promised. I was able to keep up, using my previous knowledge and skills, but this time I did my best to make it look difficult, hoping that she would relax the pace a little. Instead my efforts rewarded me with her satisfied expression, and a gleam in her eye that promised only more pain and suffering.“You will be the greatest young lady I have ever trained.” She pronounced, looking me over from head to toe critically. “But must you dress so… plainly? I will say it’s a great improvement over those frilly monstrosities you used to wear to lessons, but the last two outfits have been simply dull.”I smiled at her words, glancing down at my plain grey gown. Over the last week I had sold the majority of my more ridiculous gowns, leaving me with surprisingly few choices. Angela had pouted, saying that I was going to be out of style, but
The day of the meeting had arrived. I paced back and forth within my office, taking deep breaths, trying to force myself into the right mindset. This would be a delicate balance of a meeting. If it didn’t go the way I planned… it could be disastrous to everyone.It had to go according to plan.“Hallers,” I called out, waiting for the butler to arrive before asking my nervous question. “Where is Jim? I thought he agreed to come?”Hallers was frowning. “He did, Miss. He was never one to be tardy, despite his unprofessional attitude in many other areas. He should be here very shortly.”“I can’t be here alone. I need them to take me seriously, and for that I need scary looking support!” I resumed pacing. “The meeting is scheduled to start in a few minutes, we may have to delay it.”He wat
When I arrived at the next lesson with Jim in the Royal Treasury, he held up his hands in apology. “I know, I know, I’m sorry! I really couldn’t get away!”I sat down in front of him, placing my finished books in front of him with unnecessary force and glaring silentl“I sent you Nate, didn’t I?” He clasped his hands in front of him, getting on his knees and pretending to beg “Oh great future queen spare me!”I couldn’t help it. I laughed at that. “Fine. You are forgiven.“Whew!” He mimed wiping a nervous sweat from his forehead and got back to his desk. “Did you really fire every single corrupt official in the duchy“First of all, I didn’t ‘fire’ anyone. They excepted an ‘early retirement’ as a reward for their hard work.” I shook my head as Jim rolled wi