Despite

“Elias? What are you doing outside my window? Have you decided to go mad to avoid the throne?”

“I have not gone mad, I just could not sleep is all,”

“Did you walk? The castle is miles away from this home,” 

“I rode Challen through the forest, he is tied to a tree not far from here, I was hoping you’d be up,”

“Am I your only friend then?”

“Seems so,”

“I shall be down in a moment, I must make myself look presentable,”

“Do not on my account, I rather like the scarf,”

“It was my mothers. I figured it was warm enough that I wouldn’t need a coat of any sort, this robe was my fathers.”

“What were you doing this late? Though I am glad you were still awake.”

“I was reading a bit of my mother’s poetry, she has so many journals and poetry books, I feel like this is my only way to connect to her, reading her words. That is before rocks began attacking my windows, I did think you were an animal of some kind.”

“I didn’t wish to startle the house. Shall we walk and you tell me about the poetry?”

“She writes a lot about the man she loved. I never knew of him, my grandmother never mentioned him and I figured out from her first journal entries in her youth that she did not love my father.”

“What are you learning in your mother’s writings about him? The man she actually loved?

“According to the journal, they met when The Viscount purchased the other half of my fathers land. My mother went looking for it because she didn’t know we had it and they met. She describes how she felt when he first looked at her. It reads;

‘The Viscount. Surely for as long as I’ve lived here I would have had the pleasure of meeting such a man but lest I have not. His eyes bore into me as if I were fruit from a tree he’d never known existed. His lips grazed my hand as if he were tasting the true shock of electricity, as if it weren’t to burn if he touched it. A man of that caliber is surely married but he arranged to have us meet tomorrow to sit under the beautiful oak that separates the part of the land we now both own. He was also painting. I’ve never known someone of such high status to indulge in such creativity, if what he says is true and the work is his own then there may be more faces to him than meet the eye.’

“So that’s when they first meet but in a completely separate journal, she writes an entire page about his eyes. Then another about the way his hands feel against hers and it goes on forever with them just lightly touching until he finally presses his lips to her skin, killing off the anticipation she’s been craving and writing about for several pages. The furthest I’ve gotten was their first kiss after her birthday. It’s quite beautiful,”

“I think you’re beautiful.”

“So you’ve said.”

“It bears repeating.”

“I’ve not grown tired of hearing it.”

“You know something Arabella?”

“I know plenty,”

“I did not like you when we first met.”

“Such is an understatement if you were to ask me,”

“You were mouthy, crass, lacked basic decorum when addressing the royalty of the country you were not born into and still, do not address me as such. I am to be King one day and yet-”

“Yet to me, stripped of your crown, your titles, your bearings, your security. You stand outside my window in the middle of summer, a cherry red stain upon your cheeks and ocean waves in your eyes when you look at me. To me, you are just a man, and I will address you as such. You will be King and you will make a fine King but to me, you are simply Elias, someone I despise because he tossed a drink on me and saw it fit for me to apologize to him,”

“You despise me? Even after everything we know of each other?”

“I would throw you into a pit of lions to save a dying sheep.”

“I would die for you, are you aware of that? Are you aware that my all consuming hate has turned into an adoration that can no longer be ignored.”

“You are an immovable force, a beacon of light that I cannot obtain. I would not wish this on my worst enemy,”

“Am I not your worst enemy?”

“You are by far the best and worst parts of my heart. You are no more an enemy to me than you are my friend. And I do not like you, just as my mother did not like the Viscount,”

“It seems to me that your mother liked the Viscount very much.”

“I am no one Elias, which is why I address you as such, I should hold no weight in your heart or your mind,”

“Yet there you are. Every second that I do not have you in my arms is a second wasted being on this Earth, I can’t go on like this, Arabella.”

“Like what?”

“Pretending that I do not love you.”

“Take those words and keep them please. Love will not end well for us and I want us to end well,”

“I love you despite that, do you not see my affection for you holds no bounds, Arabella. I’d give all of this up to be able to hold you in my arms for a few more minutes as I have so desperately wanted to since the moment we met. My hate for you was a disguise for my admiration for you, please.”

“Elias, you are a Prince, the Crown Prince, the sole heir to your throne. You love me but who am I? You take me and show me to who? Who will care? Who will approve? This can only end badly.”

“I love you despite. Can’t you hear? I do not care who will approve, I do not care who will care, I love you despite.” 

“You are a prince, heir to a throne,”

“I love you despite.”

“The Viscount adored my mother. Every inch of him craved her in ways even I feel I will never understand. His home in England is filled with portraits of her that he painted by hand after knowing her for less than a year. He filled sketchbooks of drawings of her face and body, his love was limitless not even death could keep him from her. He loved her despite his status, despite hers. He loved her knowing that if my father hadn’t passed he would have never touched her and he still loved her. And where are they now? Where did that get them?”

“Listen to me Arabella. I’d go to your mothers grave, kneel before her and say these words to her. I love you. I love you despite your status in this world, your wealth, your name, your stubbornness, your irritability, your crassness, your wit, I love you all the same. I may be a Prince but I am also a man. A man who is on his knees, telling you that no matter what, no matter who doesn’t like it, no matter who won’t approve, my love for you is unchanging, unwavering and will not falter. You can hate me everyday for the rest of your life, you can deny what you feel when you see me but know that I will love you despite it all.”

“Your life will be long, you will love another.”

“I will not.”

“You will have a lineage, a generation.”

“Am I alone in my affection?” 

“I..cannot answer that.”

“Please, that is all I ask.”

“You are not…alone in your affection. You never have been, but I would rather have you as a friend. A friend who will someday become King and ruler of a great nation and I would rather keep you this way than not have you at all.”

“Please have me.”

“I cannot. Your people would never allow it.”

“I do not care, I will bend the rules, I will create new rules. I will be King one day and I want-I need you by my side Arabella, there will never be another, I did not know these feelings existed inside of me.”

“I will be leaving, with my brother, in a month's time and you will forget me. You will marry-”

“I will not-”

“You will Elias! You will, you must, I cannot…I will not be the person you destroy your country for, you must not let me carry that burden.”

“I love you-”

“Not despite your duty, you do not and I will not let you.”

“But-”

“Love me now while I am here and bury these feelings when I am gone, please. If you love me, you will love me now and forget me later.”

“I will never forget you.”