“Is there a problem?” She responded.
“Don’t you feel ashamed?” He asked.
“Why should I feel ashamed?” She replied.
“You took off all my clothes.”
“Not even a boxer is left,” he said.
“Should I really feel ashamed of that?” She asked.
“You’re shameless, get out while I change.” The king ordered.
“Don’t you want me to help you?” Abril questioned.
“No, now leave!” He replied.
Abril left the house. Alessandro got up to change. When she came back and peeked her head through the door, seeing him completely naked, she didn’t flinch, nor feel any shame. It was as if the sight before her was nothing special.
She asked him,”Is Your Majesty certain that he doesn’t need any help to get dressed?”
Alessandro covered himself with his hands and shouted at her.
“No, go away and close the door.”
“As you wish.” Your Majesty, she replied.
Alessandro had never felt so much shame in his life. What kind of education had the princess received to see a fully naked man and not be bothered?
Abril patiently waited for Alessandro to change and wondered what she had done now to upset his majesty.
Alessandro left the house, it was a bit difficult for him to walk, he felt dizzy, and his head was spinning. Abril grabbed him as he was about to fall and said to him.
“I’ll help you get to the palace.”
Alessandro was in no position to reject her help, so he remained silent and leaned on her shoulder to avoid falling.
As they walked, Alessandro noticed that the princess was barefoot and asked her.
“Why don’t you wear shoes?”
“I only have one pair of shoes, and they’re too small.”
“They hurt my feet, so I prefer not to wear them.” She replied.
Alessandro felt miserable. As a husband, he had not provided his wife with what she needed, even though he hated her, he didn’t want to be seen as a stingy man who allowed his wife to live like a beggar.
Alessandro leaned on his little wife’s shoulder until they reached the palace and found some guards. When they saw the pale king with blood-stained clothes, they hurried to help him.
Abril stepped aside as she watched them take the king away. When Alessandro turned to look back, she was no longer there. She had disappeared like a ghost.
After the doctor attended to Alessandro, he called for the butler and asked him,
“Did you know that all this time my wife has been living on her own, forgotten in a small house in the farthest part of the castle?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
“May I remind you, Your Majesty, that was the punishment you chose for the princess when she attacked Miss Victoria,” the butler said.
“I said to take her to that place, not to leave her there forever?”
“They were only supposed to leave her there for a month at most so she could reflect on what she did.” The king replied.
“Your Majesty did not say anything about that, and also never asked about the princess again.”
The butler said.
“Order them to bring her back, and also to give her new dresses and comfortable shoes.” Alessandro said.
“As you wish, Your Majesty.” The butler bowed and excused himself.
Abril was working in her garden when the butler approached her, looking surprised.
“Princess! What are you doing?!” He exclaimed.
“Working in my garden,” Abril calmly replied.
“This is not the behavior befitting of a princess!” The butler said.
“So you want me to sit in my room and wait to starve to death?” She questioned.
“Of course not, which is why the princess is provided with food every day,” the butler explained.
Abril couldn’t help but laugh at the absurd words of the butler.
“Since I’ve been living here, they have only given me a food basket once, and that was three years ago.”
“Since then, I haven’t seen any of the maids, and I haven’t been given any food.”
“If I didn’t search for my own food, I would starve to death.”
“Does the butler want me to die of hunger?” She questioned.
The butler was dumbfounded. Although the princess had been sent to that remote part of the castle, he had ordered the maids to take care of providing her with food. It was unheard of that she had been living worse than one of the servants when she was a princess.
The butler looked at one of the maids who had accompanied him and asked.
“Is that true?”
“I don’t know, sir.” She replied.
“I will speak with the chief maiden later.”
“And I hope that what the princess is saying isn’t true, otherwise they will have serious problems.”
The butler said.
Abril felt annoyed. The butler didn’t believe her words, she continued to remove the weeds from her garden.
“Princess, please leave that and come with me.” He pleaded.
“Where to?” She asked.
“His majesty wants you to return to the palace,” he replied.
Abril remembered the first year she had lived in the palace, locked in her room, freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer, she continued to cut the weeds and said.
“I don’t want to.”
“Tell His majesty that I prefer to live here.”
“But princess, His majesty…” She interrupted him before he could complete his speech.
“I refuse to move from here.”
“Why don’t they forget that I am in this place as they have done until now and just leave me alone?”
Abril said to herself.
The butler spent a good while trying to convince the princess to return to the palace. However, there was no way to change her mind. At last, the butler had to return to the palace and report to his majesty that the princess had refused to return.
“Why did she refuse to come back?” The king asked.
“She said she preferred to live in that place rather than in the palace, Your majesty,” the butler responded.
“Very well, leave it.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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