One #2
She was everything you’d imagine him with.
Raised to marry a prince, she was tall and trim with soft blonde hair and the classic features of a Disney princess.
The thought of him picking her to date or marry made me yawn.
She was like a caricature. It would be so predictable and boring.
But I was probably putting too much faith in men or the idea they’d want more than her poised and perfected responses.
That they could see through her shite. The demure compassionate girl reared to be a noble’s wife was nothing more than a ladder-climbing bitch.
I was disappointed that she couldn’t see how cliché she was.
This life was all about the surface. What it looked like to the world, not what it really was.
“I get it.” Mina smirked, following my eyes to the back. “As much as I hate him, he’s still hot as hell and a bloody prince. Hard to fight that.”
“I do not care about any of that.” I shook my head, turning back to my bag, grabbing a pen.
“No one can fight that. It’s like coded into the title to make us commoners fall to our knees.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Most hearing you would think you meant you drop to your knees in a bow, but I know you too well.”
“Only a select few do.” She grabbed her books, expression becoming the studious student as our professor strode in.
“All right. Everyone open to page 230, picking up where we left off on Monday. The reign of King Albert the first.”
“Who I liked to call Gramps.” Theo sighed, patting his chest like he was remembering him fondly. “I miss him so much.”
“Yes, Theodore. I’m sure your great-grandfather from the fifteenth century was a hoot at holiday parties.
” The school had a rule, no student was to be called by their title.
They liked to at least pretend they kept things fair.
Professor Martin tried to hold back his annoyance.
He was the one teacher who didn’t give in to the prince’s whims. He was the type of guy who didn’t give a shite who you were or what family tree you fell from.
He was here to educate, and you were only special if you showed more brilliance in your brain than being a smart-arse.
He was my favorite teacher. Probably because he didn’t bend over for His Highness and kiss his arse.
“Oh, Grandpa Al is hilarious. He and I are always together drinking in the corner.” A smile tugged at his lips as most of the class collectively snickered at his joke. “Doesn’t talk much, but I enjoy his company. Bit of a lush, though.”
The chuckles warped into full laughs.
“That’s quite enough.” Martin sat on the edge of his desk, folding his arms.
“You think I’m kidding? I hang out with him all the time. He’s the picture of merriment.”
I groaned, understanding his awful joke. I had no doubt the castle had many paintings of King Albert over their walls; Theo probably did hang out and drink next to him all the time.
“Since you and King Albert are so close, maybe you can tell us who he was first set to marry to create an alliance between our countries?”
“Easy,” Theo scoffed. “Gertrude, the French princess.”
“Wrong.” I felt the word roll off my tongue before my mind got involved.
The entire class jerked to me. I felt the prince’s eyes burning into me as if he finally noticed the seat was occupied instead of empty.
“Excuse me?” He tipped his head, not believing I called him out. I could relate; my mind was also still rejecting the fact that it was me who had said it.
Mina stared at me, her mouth open, just like most of the class, but professor Martin leaned back, a smirk under his thick beard.
“Go on.” Martin nodded my way, encouraging me to speak.
Heat burned my cheeks, my confidence wobbling. Theo was so used to being in the spotlight. I wasn’t. I was fine with being behind the curtain.
“Y-you’re wrong.” I took a deep breath, forcing myself to sit up.
He may be a prince, but I studied my arse off for my marks.
I wanted to become a veterinarian, and you had to have really high grades to do it.
To be a vet, you needed to be a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the RCVS, and to become a member, you had to complete a five-year degree course at a top uni.
Because of that, I worked hard. Plus, I enjoyed history.
“You think I don’t know my own family history? I was raised with the stories. The real history. Don’t bring your CliffsNotes version of my family and challenge me.” He leaned back arrogantly.
Oh. No. He. Didn’t.
Mina’s mouth dropped open, knowing he had just pissed off a sleeping lion.
“Then this is going to be even more embarrassing for you.” I swallowed, noticing the professor now hiding his big grin behind his hand.
“Who the hell are you? I think I’d know more about my family than you would.”
His lids narrowed on me, his gaze feeling like he could slice right through me. I never had the prince’s full attention, and I felt like I was drowning in it. Intense and heavy, he locked on to me, too confident to ever doubt himself.
“Well, I’m clearly a nobody to you, but someone might have to revisit their dear grandpa’s journals or something.” I tried to ignore the heat turning me the color of a tomato, my tongue resembling the Sahara Desert.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” His green eyes sparked with anger.
“Master Theodore, no need for that kind of language,” Martin scolded, nodding to me. “Let her continue.”
“Sure.” He shrugged, falling back in his seat like he couldn’t care less what I would say. “If she wants to humiliate herself, by all means.”
The professor arched an eyebrow, turning to me with a knowing smirk. “Go ahead, Spencer.”
“The first alliance was set on Spain. They had a bigger military, and Albert’s father wanted that.
He was determined to get Princess Isabelle for Albert, but I guess your Grandpa Al was such a twat, she wouldn’t do it.
Turned him down flat. Even her father, the king of Spain, thought it better she marry her cousin instead.
” I clicked my tongue. “That’s got to hurt. That level of rejection.”
Theo’s shoulders moved up to his ears.
“That’s why he married Gertrude and declared war on Spain.”
The class was silent, all eyes dancing back and forth between us, ready for our own war to be declared.
“Sorry, Theodore, but Spencer is right.” Martin stood from his desk, going around to the projector, putting up a timeline on the screen, his voice rambling on.
I heard none of it. I couldn’t fight the pride bursting at my chest, knowing I just schooled the Prince of Great Victoria on his own history.
But the evil glares coming from my peers shifting in their seats suggested I made a mistake.
How dare I correct the prince? He was right, even if he was wrong.
“Bollocks, girl,” Mina muttered. “If you weren’t on their radar before, you sure as hell are now.”
I swallowed, feeling the truth in her words.
Briefly, my attention went back to the prince, expecting him to be another one glowering at me.
He sat back, his fiery gaze heavy on me, but it wasn’t filled with malice.
If anything, it was curious and intrigued, like he enjoyed being challenged.
He didn’t break away when I caught him staring at me, unabashedly watching with a strange hitch on his lips.
I not only gained attention from people who never looked at me before, but I acquired the prince’s.
And somehow, I knew nothing would ever be the same after that.