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The Wretched Prince

The Wretched Prince

Short Story · Romance
By:  The Gardener's RobinCompleted
Language: English
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10Chapters
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Synopsis

Face Slapping

Winning Back the Wife

Contract Marriage

Bias

Independence

Tragic Love

Plot Twists

Melodramatic

On the way to the Spring Garden Ball, I was seized by men with murder on their minds, and the undercover guard meant to protect me vanished without a trace. I clawed my way through three days that should have killed me and finally dragged myself back to the estate, only to find a whole line of men kneeling in front of my guard. "Your Highness, if you fancy Lady Melanie, you could simply ask for her hand. Why disguise yourself as a bodyguard and stay glued to her elder sister, Lady Elizabeth's side, going so far as to have men dump her out in the wilderness just so she wouldn't outshine your beloved?" Julius Fitzroy's expression didn't so much as flicker. He kept turning the sapphire ring on his finger. "Melanie is only a concubine's daughter. She's sensitive by nature, and I was afraid a hasty proposal would frighten her off. This was the only way." That was how I found out. The Prince Julius had been living at my side in disguise this whole time, and it had never been about me at all. It was always about getting close to my half-sister. My heart turned to ash. I shoved open my father's door. "I'll marry the Crown Prince, sickly or not."

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10 Chapters
Chapter 1
My father's hand shook, and tea sloshed out of his cup, soaking the painting laid out in front of him.He didn't spare it a glance. Instead, his eyes went wide. "Do you mean that?"I clenched my fists inside my sleeves. "I only have one request. On my wedding day, the eighty-eight chests of wedding gifts my mother left me will have to be returned to me as well."Arthur Knight nodded before I'd even finished, though he couldn't resist adding, "Men and women should keep their distance, of course. Once you're married, you and that guard of yours...""I don't want him anymore."I stepped over the threshold and repeated myself, as much for my own benefit as his."I never want to see him again."The setting sun bled red across the horizon, like a wound that wouldn't close. I stood beneath the eaves and looked back at my father.He was busy celebrating. He'd just solved the Crown Prince problem for his precious concubine's daughter, and it had put him in far too good a mood to ask whe
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Chapter 2
"Whose guard are you, really? Hers, or mine?"Julius let go of Melanie and slipped back into his usual detached, aloof manner."I serve the Knight household."His gaze landed on the blood staining my fur cloak, and his pupils contracted. "What happened to you? I thought you had more than one guard."He was right. Before my mother died, she'd left me several skilled guards. My father had dismissed every one of them, claiming they frightened Melanie. Now Julius was all I had left, and even he was a fraud.He lowered his head, and for one flicker of a moment, guilt crossed his face."My Lady, this was my failure to protect you. I've already gone to the punishment hall and taken my penalty."At that, Melanie grabbed his hand, looking heartbroken, tears welling in her eyes. "Julius, your back is bleeding..."He looked at her, and his eyes went soft. "Thank you for your concern, Melanie. It doesn't hurt."I couldn't stand watching them flirt in front of me. I snatched the porcelain
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Chapter 3
Everyone knew the Crown Prince was sickly. He'd been poisoned as a child, and doctors had given him until twenty-five at most.The Prince Caspian, meanwhile, was notorious for his indulgent ways. He spent his years drifting from one pleasure house to the next, and there wasn't a season that went by without a new mistress carried into his residence.I was about to turn and leave when Melanie grabbed my arm. Her eyes glittered with open malice."Don't you all know my sister already has a lover? Those days she went missing, she was off somewhere carrying on with him."Several of the noble ladies immediately pressed handkerchiefs to their noses, recoiling from me like I carried the plague."How shameless. How is a woman like that fit to be called the finest lady in Kingsmere?""If you ask me, that title should go to Melanie. Even His Majesty praised her poem."My face went rigid, and I opened my mouth to defend myself, but a shriek cut through the hall from the head table."My face
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Chapter 4
When I woke, a maid I didn't recognize was changing my bandages.I grabbed her hand. "Where's Rose?""Rose... Rose..."The girl's eyes darted away, and her whole body trembled."Tell me!"She dropped to her knees, tears splattering onto the floor, looking terrified out of her mind."Rose is dead! She hanged herself this morning. They found her and left her wrapped in a straw mat by the back gate!"I ran for the back gate like I'd lost my mind, falling and scraping myself raw and not stopping once. When I finally lifted the straw mat and saw Rose's body, I broke down sobbing.The maid beside me was crying too. "Rose was always so good to the rest of us. I don't even know who she crossed. Her hands had been cut off, and she'd been... violated by a group of beggars before they sent her back, barely dressed."She said she couldn't face you anymore, My Lady, so she found some rope and hanged herself..."I clutched Rose's body to my chest. I thought of the day she'd slapped Melanie
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Chapter 5
Inside the Crown Prince's residence, Sebastian Fitzroy and I had just finished the wedding rites and hadn't even had a chance to accept the guests' congratulations yet.A sudden clatter of hooves sounded outside the gates.Julius burst in on horseback, so wild with urgency he'd forgotten to cover his face and hide who he was. He made straight for the main hall."Melanie!"He was certain that Elizabeth, the legitimate daughter, would never be married off to a sickly invalid. So he'd been afraid, afraid that his precious Melanie was the one who'd end up as the Crown Princess.Right now, rage had all but swallowed him whole.No wonder Elizabeth wanted him sent out of the city. She'd wanted Melanie married off in his place!Once he got Melanie back, he'd make Elizabeth regret this.He spotted two flashes of white in the crowd and was about to shove his way through when someone caught his arm."Julius! What are you doing here?" Melanie bounced over and tugged him into a corner. "Wh
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Chapter 6
To this day, everyone still believed the Crown Prince was dying, and that the throne would change hands any day now, so the rest of the princes were all circling it like vultures.Chancellor Ackman had spent years living in shameless excess, and his treasonous ambitions were already an open secret to the King. Julius's return to the capital had simply been the spark to set things in motion.On our very first day as husband and wife, Sebastian had told me all of this in confidence. "You trust me that much?" I asked.Sebastian paused, then dipped his head to nip gently at my ear. "I've trusted you since we were children, Beth. That's never changed."Hearing him call me that pulled up a flood of memories from my childhood.My mother and the late Queen had been close friends, and when we were young, I used to slip into the palace all the time to play with Sebastian. After my mother passed away and my father brought a new wife into the house, he'd used any excuse to send me off to
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Chapter 7
Sure enough, before the banquet even started, word had already gone around that Prince Julius had a lover, and that he'd gone so far as to petition the King for a decree of marriage between them.None of it interested me. I sat off to the side nibbling on pastries while Sebastian poured my tea and peeled fruit for me.For some reason, I kept feeling a heavy stare fixed on my back, and it was starting to unsettle me."I'm going to step out for some air, Your Highness."I took a few attendants and went to admire the gardens, and it wasn't long before I noticed someone trailing me.I ducked behind a rockery and found it was Julius. He'd lost track of me and wandered toward a side hall, where he heard laughter ringing out like little bells.It was Melanie and a couple of her closest friends."Melanie, is that guard of yours actually in love with you? I heard he's made the trip to Ashwell Abbey and back, just to bring you a blessed charm."Melanie let out a scornful laugh. "He's not
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Chapter 8
No wonder every time he'd hurt Elizabeth, some quiet ache had settled in his chest afterward.He'd been blind. He'd mistaken one woman for another, and it had led to all of this.Watching him fall apart in front of me, I felt nothing but savage satisfaction. I laughed softly, biting off each word."Julius, you've cast me aside again and again, left me to walk straight into danger."You threw me out into the wilderness just to clear a path for Melanie. You stole the poems I wrote so she could win her fame at the flower banquet."You framed me at the palace banquet and let me take a flogging for it. You sent men to defile my maid until she had no choice but to hang herself..."Just thinking of what had been done to Rose sent a tide of rage crashing through my chest. My eyes went red, and I ground the words out through clenched teeth."Is this what you call repaying the person who saved your life? If I'd known, I never would have bothered saving you at all. You should have died in
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Chapter 9
"Oh, is that so?" Julius let out a cold laugh. "You're being far too modest, Lord Knight. Even my father praised your daughter's poem as remarkable. A talent like that comes along maybe once every few decades."Unless that poem wasn't actually hers to begin with? That would be a crime against the crown, Lord Knight. I'd think carefully before you say another word."Arthur went pale and broke out in a cold sweat. He didn't dare argue any further, only pulled Melanie down to bow with him, thanking the King for the marriage decree.For the rest of the banquet, Melanie was seated beside Prince Caspian. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn't dare resist, forced to endure his coarse hands roaming over her.Julius sat across from Sebastian and me, and his eyes never once left me the whole time.To needle him, I leaned into Sebastian, feeding him grapes and pouring his wine, playing the doting young wife to the hilt.Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Julius crushing his wine cu
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Chapter 10
Watching Julius play the devoted lover, I couldn't help a short laugh. "You've hurt me more deeply than anyone else alive, and you actually think we could go back to how things were?"Julius pulled me tight against him, as if he meant to fuse me into his very bones."We can go back. We can! My brother had Melanie beaten to death. Once I take the throne, I'll have your father executed too, and then no one will ever be able to hurt you again.""You're the one who's hurt me the most, you monster!" I sank my teeth into his arm, hard enough to draw blood, and refused to let go even with the taste of it in my mouth.Julius didn't so much as flinch. He only looked at me, his eyes full of a terrible tenderness.Suddenly, the carriage lurched, slamming into something and jolting to a stop so hard I was thrown to the floor."Elizabeth!" Julius caught me, then shouted out the window at the driver, "You useless fool, can't you even handle a carriage?"No one answered. Alarm flared in Julius
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