Chapter 21:
Previously:
"Mr. James! Thank goodness you are here, please, Please let me in!"
"All right then, if you promise not to shout again" he said with a wink. He liked that girl, he approved of her and had a secret dream, a wish of happiness for he whom he thought of as a son almost.
"…I promise. Give me love to Georgiana…. You too mother." The Prince was on the phone. He didn't see them come in, but after a cough from Mr. James, he exclaimed
"Lizzy!"
"William! I am so glad I could still catch you, I thought you had already left!" she said, trying to catch her breath.
"Well, as you can see, I am still here" he answered with a cold tone that froze Lizzy. "What do you want?" he commanded. Elizabeth didn't know what to think, what to say. Doesn't he know why she is here? Hasn't he been the one to ask her… Though she didn't really know if she was going to go with him. She really would've loved to be decisive just this once I her life!! But, alas, she had still not made up her mind, though that really wasn't her biggest problem now.
"What do you mean… I-"
"You didn't seriously think the offer is still standing?" his voice, his eyes, his demeanor were becoming drier by the second. "After the stunt you pulled, it's incredible you have the face to even show up here!" had he not been red better, he would've shouted. And perhaps, Lizzy would've preferred that, than listening to venom dripping from his mouth at every word.
"What… stunt… Will?" she was confused, she could not fathom what had changed so suddenly!
"oh, don't play the innocent. Picture, in the papers?! You were the only one who knew where we would be! I honestly trusted you, Elizabeth… Fine way of repaying me, after all I have done for you!" this really got her mad.
"All you have done for me?! And what would that be, oh Mighty? You have done nothing but give me reason to cry, lie to my family and tempt me to make what, I now clearly see, would have been the biggest mistake of my life! You are nothing, just a self-centered, arrogant pig who is excessively full of himself!"
"I trusted you! I opened up fro you, I believed in you! Do you know how ha that is for someone in my position?! Oh, sorry, I forgot where you come from; a family not a single inch above the level of white trash!"
"Do. Not. Insult my family!!" she shouted. "How dare you! You say you trusted me, but aren't my beliefs and my opinions part of what you should trust then?! I know of the paper, William, the one you are dashing off to sign so keenly! The one that, you very well know, goes against everything I stand for! How can you say you trust me, when at the first possible occasion you throw away my views like it was some empty Inca-cola can! How come you to insult my family, the closest thing in the world to me, when days before now you said you loved me!"
"Well, it just shows how mistaken I was about you, that you can't even recognize the flaws of breeding in your family. Now I see what a disaster it would've been to take a wild mare into Buckingham!"
"It's all about you, isn't it? All about what you want, when and how! I'm sorry, I will not dance to your rhythm, bow to your feet, because you don't even deserve a civilized greeting! You talk about my flaws, and my family's defects, but look in the mirror! Had you behaved more like a gentleman, I might've pitied you; but as it is, you fail even to bring forth sadness in me!" she said, with a cool and crushed voice. To say she was disappointed would be like saying that the sun is a mere light bulb; she could not stand to be in the same room as him any more. He stood there, shock clear on his face, as if he had never been reproached in his life.
"I-" she looked at him once more, and him not showing any signs of remorse, with a broken heart she decided to just leave. She took a deep breath, and uttered her last words "I hope, I truly hope that someday you can find the path to happiness. Have a nice life, William. Goodbye." And with that she left a room full of dumbfounded people, and the love of her life. On the way out she met with an important-looking gentleman, running to tell the Prince he I already late, and though being the Prince has some advantages he really did need to try to make people wait as little as possible if he is to remain the little dignity he had left in the public eye.
For weeks afterwards there were stories in the paper, tabloids really, about them; the "Mystery girl and the Prince!" and their summer fling… No one knew who she was, of course. She had closed that chapter in her life, or so she thought. Bu the truth is, she never could forget about those heavenly days she spent with him. She became bitter, closed, solitary, and every decision in her life, though unconsciously, was made around William. Her family tried to help her, but with so many other girls her mother was busy trying to marry them off, and her dad assured himself this change in her attitude was "just a teenage thing". And when she did not see, to ever grow out of it, they all became so used to it they thought nothing of changing it. Not that anything would have helped; the last tiniest bit of hope she had left was eroded away by time and by the Prince himself.
Elizabeth's aunt as the cause of that erosion; indirectly anyway. Noticing her niece's depression-state and with a sharpened womanly instinct she decided to pay for Elizabeth's journey to England organized by her school. Though she insisted it was not necessary, she had no say in it, and she went anyway, having possibly the worst time she has ever spent with Charlotte. To top it all, due to the school's warm hospitality Her Royal Highness decided his son should greet the group of travelers, and assist them in any way possible. Unknown both to Elizabeth and William, the chance to right their previous mistakes came, and went by.
Arriving at the airport, Elizabeth was the last to receive her luggage and thus the last to enter the Arrival's lounge; the last to see their royal surprise. She froze down and cursed Fate for bringing her into these situations, wishing more than ever that a hole could be made into the grown by pure mind power and disappear until it was OK to come out.
He looked at her, and could barely hide his surprise.
"hi." He greeted her, as he did everyone else.
"uhm.. hey there" she said, smiling. Maybe this was her chance! And then Charlotte came to ruin it all.
"William, be careful with her; you wouldn't know from that sweet and innocent face, but she can really bite! Be careful, she is in a foul mood; she has been ever since that agreement global warming-thing was signed… You should hear her talk about it!"
"Is that so?" he asked, with ice-cones like daggers shooting from hi eyes.
"Yes, as a matter of fact it is. I do not lie about my passions… and I respect what I claim to care about, what surrounds me." The double meaning of that was not lost to the Prince, though he was about to answer back when the arrival of the limo was announced. The shared a drive from Heathrow airport, them the only ones completely silent sharing the ride with 15 other overly chatty girls. And that was the last tie they saw each other, until a fateful evening 8 years later.
OK, DONE with the flashbacks. Loved, hated? PLS answer back! - IloK