Crowned follows a character named Mara Clare who is a waitress in Chicago. She has never felt connected to anyone. Even her parents never seemed to love her. Therefore, her escape came through the pages of books. On her 25th birthday, she gets a cal...
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Alice Cortieur has never been one for being silent. Ever since she was a small child words would come so naturally to her. Her love for speaking, for conversing with others, only came naturally with her duty, given to her from birth, to marry the Prince of Andorra. Her parents had primed her, giving her the best up bringing money could buy, knowing that her destiny would be a great one. When she was a girl she'd sit, stroking her cat, laying on her bed imagining meeting her future husband.
She wondered what he'd sound like, how he'd look, and most importantly what she'd say to him. How could one speak while their duty lingered over them like a ticking clock? Still, she found something romantic about the entire ordeal. When she caught wind that her future husband is as handsome as he is charming, she welcomed her fate even more.
No one could have described how lovely Prince Peter is. As they're sitting at lunch in the garden, the swans in the pond swimming about, she finds herself speechless. He's got a glass of lemonade in his hand, his dazzling dark blond hair tousled around his face, and his eyes glisten as the sun beams down onto the both of them. She's never been tongue-tied but something about him makes her words cease.
Her pale lips part as she hears him clear his throat and she knows he's about ready to say something. She pulls at the bottom of her long opaque skirt. Her brown belt tightly laced around her small waist seems to be oddly tight. Maybe it's because this man left her breathless.
"Thank you for meeting me for lunch today Miss. Cortieur. "
Alice smiles as the wind from the trees brushes through her hair she places some displaced strands of her ruffled ringlets behind her ears.
"Of course, but please call me Alice. We should be on a first name basis because we're getting married don't you think?"
Peter is silent and he seems so distant. Sure he's here, staring at her, but she can tell that other thoughts claim his mind. She's not used to feigning for attention because all her life affection had been granted to her. Both her parents showered her with devotion. While she was a child and as she grew into the lovely woman now, men deemed to stare as well. She bathed in affirmation and relished in the fact that men found her beautiful, mysterious and unattainable. She is promised to the prince thus making her the future of their homeland, no man would dare disrupt that marriage.
"Yes of course. I must ask you, how do you feel about all of this? This must be as odd to you as it is for me."
"Of course, yet this marriage is beyond you and I. It's for the good of our country, of our people, and we owe them this marriage. We also owe it to ourselves to get to know one another and be happy."
He sees the passion in her eyes, the pure love that she has for their country and that thought makes him reach out taking her hand over the table. She feels heat rise in the pit of her stomach from his embrace. He nods his head,
"You seem so wise and eager to do whatever you can for Andorra."
At least he could find one thing that they have in common. They both wanted what is best for their home, he could at least admire her for that.
