The Chance Encounter

part four

Chapter 4

With each passing day of this sham of a marriage I become more and more resentful of him. There have been moments where I see that he wants us to be more. He wants us to be a family. He shows kindness, buys me jewelry, plans outings for me, Snow and him to spend time together. But, I just can’t find myself to love him. I tried to be kind. I try to be a willing participant, but there’s always an ache in my chest. This ache just grows more and more, because I know I could never love him. I don’t feel a connection with him like I did with Daniel. Maybe, if I felt a slither of something I could try to make it work, but I can’t.

3 months have passed since I’ve been married to the King. 3 months of misery. Lately, he’s been sleeping in the same bed as me. With this happening, there’s no chance of Tink being able to come see me. I haven’t seen her since before the wedding. With all this time passing, I lose my hope in finding my True Love, if there’s one out there.

The King is becoming more aggressive now. He wants a son. He wants me to give him an heir for his Kingdom. I made it a mission to make sure I couldn’t get pregnant. After fighting with my mother the day after the wedding, I took a potion. This potion was to ensure I couldn’t have children. I couldn’t bare the idea of having a child with this man, especially not by being raped by him each and every night. So when Cora fought with me stating I needed to give him an heir, I took the potion and immediately broke down coming to realization of what I did to myself.

Now that so much time has passed and I haven’t given him a child, I’ve been subjected to physical abuse by this man. I don’t know how much longer I can take being beaten, raped and verbally abused for not being able to get pregnant.

Thankfully, the King is going on a mission to meet with King Midas. He’s hoping to make a trade with him. Midas needs an abundance of crops for his Kingdom. While they have the land, they don’t have farmers, and the land isn’t bearing vegetables as quickly as needed to keep his people fed. King Leopold is able to make a trade with him, but only if Midas is willing to give him the gold he wishes to have. I can’t imagine this being an issue since he’s cursed. Everything the man touches turns into gold, therefore, there will never be a shortage. The King will be gone for one week on this mission. This gives me enough time to concoct a plan to get myself out of this miserable life I’ve been subjected to.

One of the King’s Huntsman, Graham, has shown a liking to me. He’s never made a move to be disrespectful or try to hurt me. I think he just feels sorry for me. He’s been ordered to guard me at all times, so I’m never left alone since I moved into the Kingdom. With that, he hears the cries. He sees the abuse. He hears the King belittle me more and more as time passes. When the King leaves, Graham tries to tend to my wounds and makes sure I’m okay. He’s become a really good friend and protector. The only thing is, he can’t protect me from the King. Atleast, not yet.

I started writing in a diary. The details of my diary consists of some of my day to day life. How I feel being trapped. How the King has hurt me. The abuse that I’ve gone through for not being able to give him a son, let alone a child at all. I’ve also added in a few juicy details of a guard showing interest in me. Of course, I haven’t done anything, but I write about an explicit affair of how good this man is. I write about our secret walks, meeting with him when the King has gone to sleep, and finally making love.

For the week that the King is gone, I write more and more trying to make it seem as realistic as possible. With the King being gone, it makes it easy to write more about how much time I have and is able to spend with the King. Thankfully, Snow is busy with her day to day activities of walking around the castle, reading, and playing. She spends most of her time with the nanny. With that happening, it’s more believable that I’m able to spend time with another man.

When the King returns from his journey, I made sure that a glorious dinner is put together by his staff for our little family. I surprise him with a welcoming kiss and walk him to the dinner table. Most of the conversations are between him and Snow, deeming me uninterested with nothing to say. When he finally asks me how I’ve been I answer him shortly saying I’ve been good. When he asks how I’ve spent my time, I just say that I’ve been in the room reading, unless I needed to tend to Snow. That’s easily believable since it’s all I did while he was around with us.

He excuses himself to go take a shower and wash off his journey from himself. I told him I’ll remain downstairs to see that the place is cleaned up, and will join him in our room after. Snow leaves as well to go get ready for bed. The nanny goes up with her.

I left the diary on the bed, hoping that when he gets out of his shower he’ll see it. In the meantime, Graham and I walk around the castle watching the maids and chefs clean up the place.

It wasn’t long after until the King sent someone for me. I take a deep breath preparing myself for what comes next. I am anxious and scared to feel what I know is coming for me. However, I try to keep myself occupied thinking about the freedom that I’m hoping to gain. Graham seems to notice that I’m looking a little off. “Are you okay, Queen?” he asks softly. I smile slightly as I continue to walk, rubbing my sweaty palms down my dress. “I will be, thank you” I say politely.

When we get upstairs, the King looks livid. I can see the redness of anger in his face. He slaps me immediately, and I feel the burning sensation running up to my cheek. I immediately put my hand to my face, and I'm bleeding. “What the hell is this, Regina?” he yells, throwing my diary at me. I’m at a loss for words, and he slaps me again. This time I stumble backwards and fall to the floor. “How the hell could you?” he spits angrily. He pulls me up by my dress. “You damn whore” he seethes. He throws me against the wall and begins to choke me. I try to push him off me, feeling the panic. He’s just too strong. I couldn’t push him away. I beg and plead for him to release me.

“Your highness, there must be a misunderstanding”, Graham says. But the King is choking me harder. I can’t breathe anymore. I see Graham starting to panic. He’s conflicted on what he should do next. He tries to reason with the King, but the King won’t let up. My body starts to go limp as I can’t breathe and am unable to keep fighting. I hear the King spewing words at Graham. Suddenly, his grip on my throat loosens. I see the King’s eyes open widely, and his mouth opening as well. All of a sudden blood is coming through his mouth. It wasn’t until that moment I looked behind him and saw that Graham had plunged his sword into the King’s back.

“My Queen, are you okay? Say something” he says panicked. I grab onto him and hold him.

“Thank you” I sobbed into his neck. “You saved me”.

He holds me tightly to him, and I immediately feel safe for that moment, but then the fear flows through my bloodstream again and I pull away. “Graham, you need to run.” I say quietly and quickly.

“No, I can’t leave you. He was going to kill you!” He says, but I can see the fear in his eyes.

“I know Graham, but if they see you, they’ll hunt you down to kill you. You were trying to save me, but they’ll see you as a traitor! You have to go. You have to save yourself.” I see my words are resonating with him. He pulls me in for another hug and kisses my forehead.

“Be safe, My Queen.” With that, he runs off to escape.

I give him a 5 minute head start before I scream, making sure I throw the diary into the fireplace of my room to burn. The other guards come running up to our wing of the castle. I breakdown and cry hovering over the King. They all ask me what happened, and I couldn’t manage to get the words out. I told them that there was an intruder, dressed up like a guard who killed the King. To cover up for Graham, I told them that Graham was chasing the man. He saw the person as he was escorting me up the stairs to meet the King. No one asked why I was bleeding. Of course it didn’t matter. What mattered was, the King was dead. Now I’ve inherited his fortune and his Kingdom.