Page 67 of Loyally, Luke
What was he supposed to do about that?
The conversation shifted from Luke’s dilemma to cover all kinds of other things like Brodie and Izzy’s wedding plans and the work Luke was doing on the cabin, but as they walked out of the pub together, Brodie stopped and turned.
“I don’t know why I feel the need to tell you this, Luke, but I was reminded of something my father once told me about a situation in which he found himself wronged.”
Luke pushed his hands in his pockets and waited, hoping for guidance, comfort.
“The best stories are like a diamond. They have many sides, and the true reader is the one who attempts to understand more than one.”He offered a small smile. “I know you’re not used to living with royals as a regular part of your world, but I can tell you from a lifetime of watching and listening to the stories, there is always more than one side. I don’t know if you want to see any of the other sides of this one, since you’re only here for a short while, but it might provide more clarity on how to manage the next steps.”
***
The comments were brutal. Tearing Ellie apart. A few loyal royalists defended her, but most people ripped into her like rabid dogs.
Luke barely recognized her in the online photos when he first started the search because her beautiful hair was short and dyed a very dark brown. She looked pale and sickly. Too thin. And the clothes she wore in the photos were nothing like the style he’d grown accustomed to seeing on her. Gone were the pantsuits and simple button-downs. Gone were the jeans—his throat tightened at the mental appreciation of those on her—and the tasteful T-shirts. And in their place, she wore ill-fitting, gaudy, and rather revealing dresses. Some super short. Others leaving little for the imagination.
One photo showed her stumbling out of a pub with a man attempting, and failing, to catch her. Another showed her attempting to cover her bare upper body with a towel while sitting on a yacht, the man to her right grinning a little too broadly for Luke’s liking.
Another showed her being escorted from a car into a rehab facility. The photographer must have caught her at just the moment she looked back over her shoulder. Her face was gaunt and those large eyes of hers stared back as if at Luke, haunted and sad.
Everything about that picture screamed “broken” and “afraid.”
He’d caught small glimpses of that woman in the one he’d met.Looks. Snippets of conversations. The ghost of the shamed Princess Elliana hovered beneath the surface of Ellie St. Clare.
And ghosts could be powerful if they were left to haunt without being reminded that they were nothing more than memory.
His gaze skimmed back over the comments.
“Look what happens when people have everything but want more.”
“Or have too much and can’t control themselves.”
“She doesn’t deserve the crown.”
“How can she help us at all when she can’t even keep herself in check?”
“Move to America if you’re going to behave like this.”
“I can’t imagine how ashamed her parents must be.”
“I hope she got what she deserved.”
The photo of her being led into a facility was posted two and a half years ago.
Two and a half years.
And he’d not been able to find anything else about her in any more recent online searches, except for a sentence here or there. She’d kept away from it all.
Trying to heal? Trying to become strong?
Trying to figure out how to return to life in her fishbowl world?
Luke breathed out a sigh and relaxed back in his chair at the little table in the cabin. He glanced out of the window toward the mountains in the distance, grateful that Pete had gone out on a date so Luke wouldn’t have to talk... or listen.
No, Ellie hadn’t handled the situation well, but if he thought about it, he wasn’t even sure how else things could have happened for them to begin a friendship without the shadow of some crown falling over it all.
He’d have steered clear of her as much as possible because he knewhe’d never fit. And wouldn’t even have been sure how to talk to her, which would have made him even quieter than usual.
But he had gotten to know her a little more. Enough to start to really care.
