A Night With The King

“Are you planning on spending the rest of the day here?”

Patrick asked, breaking the silence. So much for silence. Lance still ignored him.

“You know, you can’t ignore me forever, right? You will have to speak to me,”

Patrick pressed on.

“I still don’t understand why you think it is a good idea to call off your wedding and then ghost everyone, I know you don’t want me to bring it up again but I have to, Lancelot, You should have at least told her when she was still here, she doesn’t deserve to hear about it from someone else when she was with you throughout the week,”

Patrick said. This time, his words got to Lance and he stopped what he was doing to give him a look.

“Patrick, you are here, aren’t you? If you are so concerned about her, why don’t you go to her kingdom and break the news to her yourself, I mean, it isn’t out just yet, I only told the elders, go tell her, You have one day because by the end of tomorrow, I want the official news out, I don’t need a queen at least not right now,”

Lance responded.

“You should have thought of that; months ago, I am your friend, Lancelot, I won’t lie to you, if you let this happen, it is going to be one of your worst decisions ever and it is going to affect the kingdom’s reputation negatively, you think that you might not get anything from the union but the truth is, having her people become our people too might have been good for us, not might, it would be good for us, we have a great relationship with her people, now I am not so sure if that will continue if you push through with calling off the wedding when it is just weeks away,”

Patrick said. Lance already knew all these but that won’t make him change his mind, If he pushes through with the wedding and later wants to be separated, it would do more harm than the wedding not happening would cause.

“I am still not going to change my mind, Stop trying to talk me into doing what you think is right Patrick, I am my own person, and I get to make decisions that would affect my life by myself. if the people or whatever doesn’t like it, they can suck it up, I am not going to play along, I am not a puppet,”

Lance stated.

“Right, you are not a puppet, that is true but aren’t you seeing the problem here?”

“What problem?”

Lance asked.

“You initialed the union, it was you who agreed to marry, you who approved of the princess and you who picked the wedding date, Everything happened because you allowed it, you should have thought hard about it or even asked to meet the princess first before you made the decision, if you had done all that, we won’t have to deal with this now,”

Patrick blurted out. He spoke the truth.

“Yeah, so you are saying everything is my fault?”

Lance glared at him.

“Yes, everything is your fault, Lancelot, I am not going to sugarcoat it, you did everything, approved everything,”

Patrick responded.

“You are right, it is my fault, and I will take the blame, When you call the princess, tell her it is all my fault,”

Lance concluded.

“That’s it? You are really not going to reconsider? People are going to think you are doing all this for her, don’t say I didn’t warn you. She might not be the reason but that’s what they will assume, you already favor her so much,”

Patrick let out. Once again, he brought Sophie into the conversation when he made it clear plenty of time already that his decision had nothing to do with her.

“I am tired of this conversation; can you just give up?”

Lance let out.

“Yeah, I will, That’s not the only reason I came here, I have news concerning her, now I don’t know if I should share or if I should just shut up, but I want her go as I still think she has a hand in your decision somehow,”

Patrick ranted on; Lance didn’t even know what he was talking about and honestly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Aren’t you going to ask what I am talking about?”

Patrick asked when he saw that Lance didn’t say anything.

“Why do I need to ask before you talk? If it is that important, you would already be talking, I am already in a bad mood, Patrick, in case you haven’t noticed,”

Lance stated firmly.

“Right, it is important news for you Lance, The driver was lying, that maid is innocent,”

Patrick announced. Lance suddenly became interested in what he was saying, he remembered that Patrick had said he would investigate himself to find out if the driver made things up.

“Why are you not giving full details?”

Lance fired at Patrick when he didn’t say a word after the bomb he just dropped.

“And you want me to believe you don’t feel anything for that woman? Your whole mood just changed when I said she is innocent, just so you remember that you said you would send her away once she is found to be innocent,”

Patrick reminded him, not like Lance forgot what he said about sending Sophie away but at least, he was right about her innocence, thankfully, he didn’t let her stay long in that prison.

“Tell me how you know she is innocent,”

Lance pressed.

“Well, that man, whoever put him up to it must be some kind of amateur because the black box was still intact, of course, that didn’t give nothing away, but sometime last year, all the cars in the palace were taped, not all, yours aren’t taped but the others are, if the driver had as much as touched the black box, he would have seen the tape recorder, he didn’t and honestly, no one remembered that; the person that checked the car black box saw it because it was placed next to it and passed both to me, just one look and you would see, your woman is innocent,”

Patrick disclosed. Lance didn’t care if his car was taped too, that wasn’t important, he glared at Patrick, the man made it a point to address Sophie as his woman.

“She is not my woman, Patrick, why can’t you get that?”

Lance queried.

“Sorry, here,”

Patrick dipped his hands in his pocket brought out a small-looking thing and handed it to Lance who stared at it wondering how he was supposed to see what he was talking about with the small thing.

“What am I doing with this? How do I see what you are talking about with this?”

Lance asked when Patrick didn’t make any move to show him what to do.

“Bro, you act ancient, That’s a memory card, you are supposed to insert it in a laptop or phone to get the recording,”

Patrick informed.

“I don’t know a lot but I do know my phone doesn’t have a place where this can be played, Get me a laptop, why bring the disk if you don’t bring what I will view it with?”

Lance questioned; Patrick was already on his way out before he finished. Lance sat down and waited for him, he came back a few moments later bearing a laptop which he set on the table, and collected the card back from him, Lance waited in silence as Patrick fixed it for him.

“I was shocked when I checked, I was so sure she had a hand in it one way or the other,”

Patrick commented before the recording went up, Lance expected to see a clear video but it was kind of blurry but the voice was clear.

“I am just going to move it to the important part,”

Patrick said before he forwarded the tape: Lance heard Sophie’s voice, he could recognize her voice anywhere, she was asking the driver why they were still not there yet and there was silence before the car seemly come to a stop and the driver asked Sophie to give her the diamond, he couldn’t make out the video well but from what he could see, the driver had a gun, he threatened her with a gun and had the mind to come back and lie on her, he felt livid at the thought of how scared, Sophie might have been, he couldn’t watch anymore, he slammed the laptop shut and stood up.

“Take me back to the palace, straight to the cell, I want to speak with that Bastard.”

Lance let out in anger. He couldn’t keep his emotions in check, that bastard endangered her life, she could have died that day, and yet the bastard had the mind to tell him to his face that Sophie was the culprit.

“What are you going to do? Just let the officers do their job, Lance, there is no reason for you to meet him, now you know she is innocent, all you need to do now is send her away,”

Patrick said as he stood up too; Lance directed his angry gaze at him.

“The heck I will, don’t fucking tell me what to do, you will take me to him, I want to speak to him myself and that is final!”Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

He said the words with so much authority that he left no room for argument.