A/N: I'm envisioning this happening while Jasper is in Vegas. So this is a "meanwhile, in the palace" chapter. Disclaimer: characters not mine!
"Eleanor, open up!" Robert called, rapping on the princess' door. He'd hardly seen her since he announced the charity fight with Liam, something he initially passed off as part of "twin code" or whatever. But then that story on D-Throned dropped and she'd seemingly upped the silent treatment, which just about convinced the prince that his sister had figured out how the article had originated.
Robert leaned his ear against the door, but heard nothing. "Lenny? Please? I have a fun event for you to do. It's a fashion charity!"
The prince waited a beat, and when he didn't even hear so much as a groan, he forced his way through.
Eleanor was curled up in bed, makeup smeared across her face and a vodka bottle tucked under her elbow. She wasn't giving him the silent treatment; she was still passed out from the night before.
"Eleanor!" Robert yelped, using a high enough decibel that it broke through his sister's consciousness.
"Huh? Whaddyawaaaan," she mumbled, squinting up at him.
"I thought you'd moved on from the late night partying and passing out," Robert gently admonished. He ducked into her bathroom to grab a washcloth, which he proceeded to let drip on her head until she finally yanked it out of his hand.
"And I thought you'd moved on from monitoring my every move," she replied, rubbing the day-old makeup off her face.
"I'm not monitoring you," Robert said. "I'm just worried. The late nights and passing out seem to only happen when you're not happy."
"I'm fine," Eleanor said, perhaps a bit too quickly.
"Are you, really? You've seemed distant this past week," Robert said, moving to sit on the edge of her bed. "You don't seem yourself."
Maybe it was the pitying look he was giving her, maybe it was the pounding headache that was beginning to form, or maybe it was the fact that it had been one week and one day since Jasper had ended things and it felt like his absence was slowly eating her alive. Whatever it was, something in her snapped.
"Yeah, and how would YOU know how I am?" she said. "How would YOU know what makes me happy? You've been gone for the past year and you haven't really bothered to accept the things that changed while you were dead!"
Robert's eyes widened and his stomach dropped. Her reaction just about confirmed it: the silent treatment had been over the article, after all.
"Len, I'm sorry, I know I missed a lot, but you have to understand, the article wasn't that bad and now that it's out there we can discuss how to move forward," Robert explained, but trailed off when he saw Eleanor's face shift from rage to utter confusion.
"What in holy hell are you talking about? What does some article have to do with you not understanding what makes me happy?"
Robert swallowed. "Oh. This isn't about the article, then."
"WHAT bloody article?" Eleanor said.
Robert held up a finger, and began tapping away on phone. After about 30 seconds, he found what he was looking for. He handed the phone to his sister, and then took a step backwards. He knew he'd need to be beyond her arm's reach when she finished reading.
Eleanor looked down at the screen of the phone, which was filled with the following:
THE PRINCESS AND HER BODYGUARD
A real-life Cinderella story is unfolding at Blenheim Palace — only, this version of the classic fairytale might be more nightmare than happily ever after.
Highly-placed sources at the palace confirm that Princess Eleanor Hendstridge has been seeing her bodyguard, Jasper Frost. The pairing is notable because not only is Frost not titled, but he's not British or even particularly upstanding.
Frost, who has been employed by the palace security forces for the past year, came to the Princess' bed by way of Las Vegas, where he and his family ran a successful robbery ring. He came to the palace to steal the Koh-I-Noor, but aborted the con when he fell in love with our Princess Eleanor.
"Your sources have misled you," Frost told D-Throned in an interview last week. "I never have been and am not now in a relationship with the Princess." Frost declined to answer any other questions from D-Throned, but he signed an affidavit to prove the validity of his statement.
We think he dost protest too much: the highly placed palace source and Frost's own father deny his denial. As does this reporter. Frost, for all his biographical flaws, seems to be just Princess Eleanor's type.
"OKAY, ENOUGH!" Eleanor yelled at no one in particular, throwing the phone on her bed. Maybe the writer. There was more to the story but she had no interest in reading it.
Then she rounded on her brother.
"Are YOU the 'highly placed palace source,' Robbie?"
"Len, just hear me out," Robert began, but Eleanor did not want to hear it.
"YOU did this? You, the future KING OF ENGLAND, decided it was appropriate to go to the press and serve as a 'highly-placed palace source' on MY love life?" Eleanor's voice rose as she spoke, and pretty soon, she was full-on yelling. "HOW DARE YOU? What gives you the right to waltz back in here and upend our lives? You judge me and my relationship, you treat Liam like shit and you sell out my boyfriend — the man who FOUND OUR FATHER'S MURDERER — and sell him out to this gossip-shilling excuse for a journalist?"
"Len, please, take a breath, I can explain —"
"WHAT is going on in here?" Liam's startled voice cut through Robert's feeble attempt at placating his sister.
"Liam, this doesn't concern you," Robert scoffed at the same time as Eleanor said: "Robert sold out Jasper to the press!"
"He did WHAT?" Liam said. He used that moment to cross into Eleanor's room to quite literally take her side. He was sure to give Robert a shove as he did so.
"What, you didn't get enough the other night?" Robert sniffed.
Liam ignored his brother, and instead clasped Eleanor by her shoulders. "Seriously. What happened?"
Eleanor took a deep breath. Her mind was racing, replaying the article and the events from the past week. It was starting to add up. "It appears that ROBBIE decided the world needed to know that Jasper was not only my boyfriend, but a con artist from Las Vegas. So he leaked everything to a reporter, who must've contacted Jasper because HE had to lie to them about us NOT being together and then, to make it less of a lie, I guess, Jasper broke up with me."
"Wait, what?" Liam and Robert said at the same time.
"Oh, your reporter friend didn't tell you that, did she?" Eleanor spat, glaring at Robert. "On Christmas Eve, Jasper went from being his usual self to cold and distant. He said he couldn't be in a relationship with me." Tears stung her eyes; the memory was still too fresh and too painful.
"He was trying to protect you," Liam said.
"What kind of idiot breaks a girl's heart to protect her?" Robert asked.
"What kind of idiot tells the press about his sister's boyfriend?" Liam retorted, though secretly, he agreed that Jasper's methods were rather messed up, however noble the intention.
"Can you both just stop for one bloody minute?" Eleanor groaned, rubbing her temples. She was really, really starting to regret the prior night's bingeing. "Your pissing contest can wait. I need one of you to tell me where Jasper is. I need to see him."
Liam looked startled. "He didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?" Eleanor said, her heart sinking.
"He went to Vegas."
"Why? For what?"
"All he said was that he was fixing things. But he promised me he'd come back."
"He better come back. And in one piece. If I know him at all I'd bet he went to confront that wanker of a father of his, which means until he is back on this property, he is not safe," Eleanor said. The she turned to her long-lost brother.
"I don't care what your birthright suggests, and I don't care that you came back from the dead. If Jasper doesn't come back unharmed, I'm holding you responsible."