Prince Louis
Seven Years Ago...
Emilia's POV:
The Ethelred High School was every history buff fantasy, a stunning work of Gothic architecture perched upon a hill. It had huge grounds and patches of beautiful flower beds here and there, which made it look like something out of an old fairy tale. It even had pointed arches and lovely stained glass windows, that had been beautifully preserved in the older sections of the building.
The school was founded hundreds of years ago as a place where the sons of aristocrats or those wanting to join the clergy, could be trained for their future careers. Its alumni included fourteen prime ministers, many parliamentarians, and members of the nobility.
I guess I should be excited about getting a scholarship here, my mom certainly was. She couldn't help gushing about it to all of her friends and relatives, to the point where it was almost embarrassing.
" Emilia, tell me if you see any celebrities there or the prince. I have heard he studies there", Mom said for the thousandth time.
" OK, Mom," I signed. Somehow, her awe of the school and its elite students was heightening my already rising levels of anxiety. I had always found interacting with new people a challenge, and I knew my first day at school would be anything but easy.
From the moment I walked into the school building, I knew something was off about this place. It wasn't just the gloomy feel of old buildings. Besides, I love anything old and related to history. It was rather the people there, who gave me that strange feeling. Maybe I have suddenly gotten more antisocial. Perhaps I should see a shrink. After all, no one was doing anything to me. In fact, when the teacher introduced me to the class, they all got up and came to my table to say hi to me.
Maybe it has something to do with my own insecurities and nothing to do with them at all. I was the only scholarship student in my class and probably the only one with a middle-class background. The costs of studying at this school were so high, that your parents had to be pretty loaded to send you here, without any scholarship to ease their financial burden. Though there was a school uniform, it did little to hide the very obvious socioeconomic difference that existed between us.
For example, Tiffany, the loudest and seemingly the most popular girl in class had a gold bracelet on her wrist, her hair bleached blonde and straightened so perfectly, she must have gone to one of those 'luxury' beauty salons. Even my lab partner in chemistry class Tessa was wearing Chanel N°5 perfume. The only way I could tell was because my mom had thrown away months of her savings to buy it.
I remembered how livid my dad was when he learned what she had done. He had called her a parasite, and my mom had threatened to leave him. She couldn't bring herself to wear it in his presence for months afterward and now only uses it on special occasions like her birthday.
I kept telling myself that I was shallow and superficial to be so impressed and consequently intimidated by money. I told myself that I should interact with these guys like I would with my peers at my old school. But then we all sat down to chat during recess, and it became obvious that there was something wrong. The girls, for one, would make no effort to include me in the conversation.
They would gossip about people I had no idea about, and when I would ask them, they would only smile at me and change the topic. One group of girls talked nonstop about vacationing in Europe, and I, who had never really been anywhere outside the country, could only stare blankly at their faces.
The boys were just the same, and interacting with them for someone like me was impossible. I had a little secret, one which I was ashamed to even admit. I was extremely shy when it came to interacting with the opposite sex, especially those who were my own age. The more handsome and charming they were, the worse my shyness was around them. I knew that it would be more correct to say that I was frightened of anyone I could be attracted to, anyone who could make me fall for him was seen as a threat.
It wasn't always this way. It started a couple of years back, when all of my family members developed a sudden obsession with protecting me from the 'predatory boys' of my generation, as they liked to say. They took me out of my coeducational school and put me in an all-girls one. If Ethelred High School wasn't so prestigious and I hadn't gotten a scholarship, they probably wouldn't have let me come here.
I was given a long speech by my older sister about saving myself for marriage and not contemplating even dating anyone till I was in my mid-twenties. Their worry seemed extreme and suffocating, but I kept reminding myself that they had their reasons for it, especially my older sister.
Samantha had gotten knocked up while she was in high school. Her boyfriend at that time did marry her and promised to raise the baby together, but in a few years, he started to show his true colors. Apparently, he thought my parents were wealthy folks, who would support both my sister and him, while he lived his life as a freeloader. ' Freeloader Freddy ' as we liked to call him, even had my parents pay for his college tuition fee. He was an orphan with no one, besides he promised to take care of my sister, while she stayed home to raise their daughter, my cute niece Lola.
We all had our reservations about Samantha not going to college, but she told us she had no intention of slaving around at a job from 9 to 5. The stay-at-home wife was who she wanted to be. I guess it had something to do with all the 'trad wife' tiktok clips she loved watching. Meanwhile, Freddy was partying hard at college and 'accidentally' got a girl pregnant.
She was his classmate and the most important thing of all, was the daughter of an oil tycoon. Freddy promptly decided to do the right thing, which was abandoning his current wife and child, to now marry the pregnant other woman. Suffice it to say, this scarred everyone in my family for life and made them obsessed with making sure, that I didn't repeat what happened to Samantha.
This is why I am sitting silently, as the boys and girls chat with each other, since saying anything would mean conversing with the boys too. Just then a hush falls over the room, as everyone turns to stare at the door. I can't honestly blame them because I am staring too, as the most beautiful boy I have ever seen walks in.
I have seen his face a couple of times on TV, though that isn't often. In fact, his most recent appearance on TV was a couple of years ago. Since then he's mostly stayed off the radar. The royal family keeps a low profile especially when it comes to their children. I am surprised to see how much he has grown up since then. He had been a chubby preteen, now he looked more manly than any guy of seventeen had any business being.
Louis Beauchamp is one of the queen's many grandchildren and one of the ten Royal Dukes of the realm. The Crown Prince is his uncle, a man with many kids out of wedlock but none with his current wife. Since illegitimate children can't inherit the crown, this perfect specimen of male beauty might actually be our king someday.
He saunters into the room, one hand in his pocket, and everyone with guts flocks to him. Those who don't, stand there like I do, trying not to stare too hard at him. His face reminds me of those male characters in Manhuas, with features so refined, that they look almost feminine. I say 'almost' because there's nothing feminine about his jawline and the muscles visible even beneath his jacket.
Louis's hair is a jet-black color that I am sure he inherited from his mom, the dowager princess, who was half-Korean. His cold grey eyes survey the room silently, they are not the eyes of a teenage boy. They are the eyes of someone jaded, a person who's experienced so much in life that nothing surprises him. His full lips are set in a straight line, not a hint of a smile on them. In short, his face is nearly as blank and impassive as a statue.
" He's cute, isn't he?" Tessa winked at me.
After we sat together in chemistry class we had struck up a sort of friendship. Meaning I wasn't exactly her closest friend, but she took time out to talk to me and sit beside me in a few of our classes.
" Yeah, he's not bad looking. That's for sure." I stammered in that unbecoming way I usually do when I'm nervous. I am sure my cheeks had also turned red as a tomato.
" Aww, you are so adorable," Tessa pinched my cheeks like I was a toddler, not a grown-up seventeen-year-old. Though I was probably more innocent than I should have been at that age.
Louis turned out to be a model student. Even if he didn't say much to his classmates, he had no problem participating in class discussions. The teachers all seemed to adore him. The female teachers would be all flustered. The male ones either looked intimidated or strangely resentful of him, or a mixture of both. Our biology teacher Mr.Reed, for example, was always talkative and even a bit flirtatious.
However, with Louis, it was like he was targeting him for some reason. He would ask him the hardest questions and would pass remarks that were aimed indirectly at him. Like how much taxes we had to pay because the monarchy was so expensive to maintain. He said this side eying Louis, who completely ignored him like he was an annoying little insect, not worthy of his attention.
" This dude is looking to get fired." Roman, a tall blonde boy who was always pulling pranks on Tessa, muttered under his breath. Tessa who never seemed to mind his annoying attitude, turned to him curiously.
" What do you mean Roman? Louis is not going to get him fired just because of a few words, is he?"
" Tessa, that Reed guy is phony as hell. The school administration used to ignore his behavior because he's highly qualified, but one word from the Prince and he's gone for good." Roman stated with so much certainty, it was hard to doubt him. I wanted to ask him about what phony stuff the professor was involved in, but my 'boy phobia' didn't let me.
Next week we heard that Mr.Reed had resigned from his position. Rumors abounded, that he was fired due to behaving 'inappropriately' with his female students.
" That perv used to message me all the time on Whatsapp. Every time I uploaded a new picture as my status, he would be there telling me how hot I was." Tiffany had the whole class gathered around her, as she shared juicy tidbits about Mr.Reed.
" Why did you even give your number to him in the first place?", Tessa asked her.
" Duh, I was the class representative and he told me he wanted my number, in case he had to communicate something important to the class. I honestly would have complained about it sooner, but I felt sorry for him. He seemed so desperate with his failed hair transplant and pot belly, it's not like he was getting a lot of female attention. " Tiffany flipped her blonde mane haughtily. I had a feeling she never felt sorry for him, she was more interested in getting an ego boost, till she got bored of it.
"Anyways, what was I saying? Yeah, so I was getting really irritated at all of these creepy texts. Louis is so perceptive, he immediately knew something was wrong. I had to tell him everything and gosh, Louis was literally about to go murder the old creeper. It was kind of scary, how angry he was. But I told myself, it's just him being protective of me, he just can't stand it, if someone even looks at me the wrong way." She twirled one of her blonde hair strands around her finger, looking all solemn.
But I could see the gleam in her eyes. She was enjoying how the girls envied her, as she rubbed it in their faces that Louis was crazy about her. They used to hang around together, she mostly draped over his arm, while his lips twisted into something between a smile and a smirk. But I never saw them kiss or Louis being as affectionate as other boyfriends were. I certainly didn't feel like I was missing out on something, by being single. Hopefully.
