The Prince That Got Away ( A Royal Romance Novel )

The Life of A Prince

Seven Years Ago...
Louis's POV:-

It's the 30th of March, the day when the royalist forces defeated the rebels and restored the monarchy in the aftermath of The Civil War. There's a festive spirit in the air and the crowd cheers as we step out onto the balcony. The entire day there will be all manner of festivities including a parade in which units from all our armed forces will participate. The crowd watches in awe as our air force performs a flypast. We on the other hand plaster fake smiles and wave at the crowd.

On the balcony, you can sense the feelings of tension and animosity. All of my near relatives including my cousin Rick and his mother Princess Selene are gathered here pretending to be one unified family. I have to force myself to wave at the crowd when all I want to do is wrap my hand around Rick's throat and end his miserable existence once and for all.

He's standing right next to my mother and I know it was the Queen's decision to place these sworn enemies next to each other. I know she's punishing them both. She may not say it but I believe she suspects that Rick had something to do with the fiasco that happened. On the other hand, my mother is the other target of Her Majesty's ire which is perfectly understandable considering that she cheated on her son.

It's been nearly a month since Mother's torrid affair with Norman became public knowledge. There was public outrage with many demanding that Mother and Norman were both tried in court. The Queen was forced to open an investigation into what happened, though she made sure to manipulate the judgment in our favor. Instead of outright denying or confirming Mother's adulterous affair it was pronounced that they became 'involved' only after my father's death.

Mother was portrayed as a grieving widow and Norman as the opportunist who took 'advantage' of her 'loneliness'. Mother would lose the respect and admiration she had from conservatives. But she wouldn't be called an adulteress and at least she wouldn't be suspected of birthing a bastard child. Most of all she wouldn't have to spend the rest of her life rotting away in prison for cheating on a member of the Royal family.

The Queen wanted to have the DNA test results forged or for a DNA test not to happen at all. The Prime Minister advised her against both options. The only way forward was to determine who my real father was and to be honest with the public who would never forgive her if they learned of any deception on our part. I agreed with his statement and even urged the Queen to listen to him. I wanted to know the truth. If I wasn't a Prince I was willing to give up everything I had. Besides I had excellent grades, intelligence, and connections. I always wanted to start my own business instead of just depending on the earnings from the duchy estates that I owned.

The over-efficient authorities first tried matching my DNA with Norman's. Then they used DNA samples from both the Queen and my father. They got the latter from my father's blood-stained clothes that he wore on the day he was shot. It was royal tradition to preserve the clothes that royal family members wore on their last day. I remember feigning calm the day the results were supposed to come in. Though I was having a literal panic attack.

It reminded me of user97275. That girl used to say she had anxiety and would have panic attacks now and then. I messaged her that day desperately needing a comforting message from her only to become more distressed at finding out that she had disabled her account.

I remembered how scared she had been when I told her I studied at Ethelred School. She seemed to be scared of posh rich kids and I was the epitome of one. She thought I was out of her league before she had even known I was a prince. Maybe my royal status scared her off. Maybe she thought I looked down upon her. She had openly admitted to having self-esteem issues during our conversations.

I was so engrossed in my musings about her that I didn't notice that the results had come in. When I saw the watery smile on my mother's face I knew it was good news. Turns out Norman wasn't my father. In the following days, I got proof that Prince Edward was my father and the previous couple of days felt like a nightmare I had woken up from.