The Runaway Princess

Prologue

“Running away was easy; not knowing what to do next was the hard part.” Glenda Millard, A Small Free Kiss in the Dark.

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Prologue

Spain, 1841

Ten year old Elena winced as the cold, wine soaked rag was pressed onto her lash wound.

“I am sorry,” whispered her maid and companion, twelve year old Marisol.

Marisol continued to dress Elena’s bloody wounds. Elena cried silent sobs as the pain hit her over and over. She could not see the lashing wounds but she could imagine that they were large welts. They would leave nasty scars.

“Why did you do it, Elena?” Marisol asked after she had finished dressing her injury. “You know what your father is like.”

Elena had behaved very foolishly. She had embarrassed her father in front of his Royal Court and so she had been punished with five lashes.

Elena’s father was the most powerful man in Spain. He was the King. King Juan Del Fuego. His temperament was that of their surname – fire. He was a very angry man who expected complete and total obedience from his wife and five children. Elena’s mother was born to the Danish royal family, once known as Princess Louisa. Upon her marriage to Juan, she had adopted the Spanish name ‘Lupe’, and had born the Spanish royal family heirs. Elena’s mother was very beautiful and proper, the exact opposite of Elena, which was why the two did not get along.

Elena was the youngest, and least loved of the five Spanish royals. What little affection her parents had for her had most likely evaporated with the display that she had put on in the throne room that morning.

Elena, like all of her siblings, had been betrothed. Her husband to be was a Portuguese prince and was twenty years her senior. They were to be married on her eighteenth birthday but the man had come to Spain to view his future bride for the first time. Elena had refused to see him publically. She had declared before the Court that she had no intention to be wed to an “old man”. Elena could agree that her rudeness did indeed require punishing, but the five lashes she had received had hurt more than anything that she had ever experienced.

“My father desires my blind obedience,” murmured Elena, her voice still thick from weeping.

He received blind obedience from her four elder siblings. The first born of King Juan and Queen Lupe, eighteen year old Infanta Gabriela, was Elena’s older and only sister. Gabriela had inherited her mother’s Scandinavian appearance. Her pale skin, hair and eyes made her one of the most desired women in Europe. Gabriela was her mother’s favourite. Elena did not much like Gabriela. She had been very cruel to Elena in her infancy. Elena could remember being pinched and poked so that she would cry. She was glad that Gabriela would soon be married off.

Her eldest brother, Joaquín, was the Prince of Asturias, and was so the heir to the throne of Spain. Joaquín was her favourite sibling, the only one who was kind and protective over her. Her sixteen year old brother had offered to take the lashing for her, but King Juan had refused, insisting that Elena had to learn her place. Nevertheless, Elena loved her brother for his bravery and kindness.  

Like her sister, Elena did not much like her fourteen and twelve year old brothers, Javier and Jorge. There was barely a moment of her childhood when her hair was not being pulled or burned. She and her brother’s shared their father’s characteristics. Like her brothers, Elena’s eyes were dark brown and her hair was very thick and the colour of charcoal.