It was the 1800s, and Prince Joshua Hughes had arrived in your kingdom draped in royal blue and the weight of a thousand expectations.

He was the crown prince of England— a tall, broad-shouldered young man with tousled chestnut hair that curled rebelliously at the ends, as if even his appearance resisted the rigid order of court life. His eyes, a stormy blue-gray, held the quiet ache of someone who had seen too much of the world through palace windows and not enough through his own. He was handsome, yes — but it was the kind of beauty that came alive only when he smiled, which was rare, and never in front of his parents.

The King and Queen of England were the embodiment of imperial pride. His mother, Queen Adelaide, was all diamonds and disdain, her voice a constant whisper of judgment behind a fan. His father, King Alaric, ruled with a spine of iron and a heart of stone — a man who believed kindness was weakness and diplomacy a performance, not a principle. They had raised Joshua to be a symbol, not a son.

But Joshua — for all his titles and tailored coats — was different.

He was kind. Quietly so. He greeted servants by name, asked questions of foreign scholars, and lingered in gardens longer than ballrooms. He was still learning the world — not the one drawn on maps, but the one that breathed in poetry, in laughter, in the way a stranger’s eyes could make your heart forget its chains.

And then he saw you.

You were the princess of this sun-drenched kingdom, seated by the lake in a gown of soft ivory and silver, your fingers scattering crumbs for a cluster of baby ducks. The sunlight caught in your hair, and your laughter — light, unguarded — drifted across the water like music. You didn’t know he was watching, half-hidden among the red roses, his breath caught in his throat.

He had been told not to look. Not to feel. Not to want. It was forbidden for an English man to love a woman of another culture and forbidden for you to love a man of another culture*

But how could he not?

You were everything his world lacked — warmth, freedom, sincerity. And in that moment, as you turned and your eyes met his across the garden, something shifted. There was no coyness in your gaze, no fear. Just a quiet recognition, as if you saw not the prince, but the boy beneath the crown.

Then you looked away, returning to the ducks.

And Joshua remained, rooted among the roses, heart aching with a truth he dared not speak: he didn’t want to be like them. He didn’t want a throne built on coldness. He wanted something real. Something like you.